Reducing the friction of finding a lawn care company to maintain your lawn for the customer and for the lawn care company, reducing the friction of finding customers. 1-800-dentist is a good example in a non-technology driven scenario. They paired potential patients with dentists for a slice of the pie. There are whole industries that just connect customers with people selling things like real estate.
Lawn mowing tech company's competitor is really other adverting platforms and mediums that lawn care companies use to acquire customers. Thats the pie they are eating. 1-800 dentists biggest competitor was the yellow pages in the phonebook.
>Reducing the friction of finding a lawn care company to maintain your lawn for the customer and for the lawn care company
What's the ongoing value? You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly. Everyone wins (except your startup).
> You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly
and how do you know someone else is willing to walk/mow for cheaper once you start paying them directly? How do you solve disputes, like no-shows, and payment legislations (like GST/VAT etc)?
The platform reduces friction - that's not false. Whether the platform is worth it to reduce that friction is another matter. Esp. for low cost things like dog walking. The value generated by reducing friction must be big enough, relative to the cost of the thing.
What's the ongoing value of a site like Monster or Indeed? Or a cleaning service? There could be some amount of turn-over in these markets, or it could be something where almost all participants in the market only form long relationships. If there's high turnover, there's a decent market to be made being the matchmaker. Maybe not a >$300M market to be made, but there's probably some value in it.
Contracts... for dog walking? Here is the contract: "I give you a $20 bill and you walk the dog, deal? Let's shake on it."
That's how it worked for dog walking and lawn work when I was doing it as a teenager. No lawyers, no paperwork, no signatures, nothing needed to get notarized. No bullshit. KISS principle in action.
Lawn mowing tech company's competitor is really other adverting platforms and mediums that lawn care companies use to acquire customers. Thats the pie they are eating. 1-800 dentists biggest competitor was the yellow pages in the phonebook.