Loading...
Answers
MenuHow do I find more professionals to link on my webpage?
I have a lead generation site for chefs called needachef.com. Located in the Hamptons,NY. These chefs really make their money back by registering with the site. I was wondering how sites like, thumbtack, clarity and other pro sites have so many pros registered on their site
Answers
Disclaimer: I haven't checked out your site. Response is based off what you wrote.
To start thumbtack is a free service to customers providing gigs. Contractors must pay to place bids.
Clarity is free for consultants/experts and customers pay.
There are issues with both:
TT: Because is free for 'giggers' they often don't think through what they are asking for and how willing they are pay. This causes contractors to have high expenses here. They even mention that it takes 10bids to get one client.. That's about $100 spent first. They have users because is free for giggers and where there's a demand there will be a supply. I personally think that if they improved their contractor side to be cheaper or more flexible in what is expensed they would have more contractors bidding. They attracted the demand first- find contractors and have them bid or you helping you get better pricing, for free.
Clarity, I'm not sure how it stated getting traffic, I think it was through getting 'experts' first. I for example signed up early on and let my account kind of just sit there until i later became more engaged. The demand however is gained through paying customers but their funnel system is designed so that people come here for Q&A and leave it to us to sell ourself and thus get their revenue... A while back I helped curate an idea from Clarity that, although I never got follow up on my consultation, led to the now offering of videos on demand. These videos help in that transition from a call or answe to now paying for a video.
My personal opinion that is a bit of a problem for us as consultants- is that experts aren't really curated as much. This dilutes the possibility of some being able to make decent income continuously rather than as a weekend money resource or marketing for our actual businesses. If Clarity curated more I think the quality of answers would go up, paid calls would increase, and definitely some 'experts' would be vetted out, maybe even myself. I'm an MBA, serial entrepreneur, current business owner, previous small cap investor, marketer, web developer and sometimes i see answers that just surprise me! Some do state they provide opinions and some give hard advice but their advice is wrong, worst thing is that they have more calls than a lot of us. So whatever they do it works for them, and great for them, but again the vetting is an issue. For clarity users this in it self is not a problem beucause they may get their motivation up or get more guidance than what they currently have, even if is not the most accurate, because of this the level of 'expertise' is not an obvious problem.
(( If your an expert i don't intend this to be a rude assessment of your services or a blanket statement, I pointed that out just not to ignore that fact. ))
If you grow a consulting or crowd sourcing service you need to ensure quality quality from the ground up. Quality helps overcome the trust hurtle, make sure that your first chefs are amazingly friendly, qualified and available to your other market. For leads you might feel like your dealing with the chicken or the egg, right? But the truth is that you can build both sides through dedicated marketing. As you expose your general branded service people from both ends will see their own value (if they are in the current situation and thus recognize the market need or opportunity) and become your users.
Bootstrap it: visit chefs and introduce yourself and your business. Find chef bloggers in your market, find pull marketing partners- third party business that might benefit from their own chefs exposure through ok your site and thus they they do the pulling of chefs for you.
I hope this helps at least a bit! Be creative, have fun and get some users!
Humberto Valle
I don't know definitively, but I'm going to guess that the founders of these sites already had some healthy networks and connections upon starting their businesses. Given that both are venture backed, it's likely that helped as well. It only takes a few big names before the dominos start to fall because of the value of (a) those names asking other names in their networks and (b) name dropping one to another. Let's say you had a good connection to get Cuban on your platform as a favor. Once you told others that Cuban was on it they'd have to pay attention, so there's an elite network effect.
I'll tell you this: One of my podcasts set out to interview the biggest and baddest founders around and we... just called them. They saw the PR value and they did the interviews. They had no idea who we were and they just did it for us. You never know until you ask.
In the case of Clarity, I think it's also good that it solves a real problem of everyone wanting to have "coffee" or "ask one question" of these guys. It puts a market value behind that to control the demand and supply mismatch. It's a good value for a lot of us (not that I'm in that league) who have to constantly give free or cheap advice because it's hard to monetize the little snippets of value that get handed over in a basic networking conversation.
All that said, I think if you have a real business value to give then that should lead your messaging as you reach out to the big guys. Happy to help you hone that.
Related Questions
-
What is the best pricing (business model) to apply to a marketplace?
I like to separate your question into 2 sub-questions: #1 How do we determine which side to charge? #2 How much is the right amount to charge? On #1, my answer is that you can charge the side(s) for whom you add the most value. In your examples, Uber really solves a big problem for drivers, it's that they sit idle for a good part of the day, so are willing to pay a lot for new leads. (their alternative is no work) Consumers are charged more for the convenience of a private car but they are probably not so much willing to pay more for a taxi, even if they can hail one from their phones. For AirBnB, it's a mix, it's a way for landlords to monetize idle capacity which they are willing to pay for, but it's also a way for a renter to pay less than they would normally pay for a hotel. On #2 (how much), I like to triangulate a number of factors: - What's the maximum amount I can charge one side, while still being a good deal for them. - How much do I need to charge so that I can become profitable? (the economics are quite different if you charge 3% vs. 12%) - What are comparable services charging for substitutes/competitive offerings? I will just add that there is no formulaic way to determine pricing strategies (curated vs. open), and it's a lot more about what's the comparable and what the value delivered is. That's how I approached the question while deciding the business model at ProBueno.com (my startup)MR
-
When recording income for a marketplace startup, is it typical to use the gross transaction or just the fees collected per payment?
You usually only recognize the commissions as revenues and use the term "Gross Merchandise Value" (GMV) to describe the size of the marketplace (value of all transactions going through the site)BW
-
What support software do most marketplace startups use? Is it custom, or a SaaS product like Zendesk, Desk.com or Uservoice
Your support software should cater to your needs, depending on how your business operates. Fiver uses Vanilla forum and Zendesk. Thumbtack uses Zendesk. Not sure about AirBNB, their help center seems to be custom. Depending on how well funded your are, I would recommend starting with a free plan with one of the help desk SaaS products, or even using open source ticketing platform. Then, as your needs grow and you need integration with your marketplace, there's no reason you can't scale and migrate.VN
-
How important is it for a marketplace startup to drive enough demand (customers) for your supply (sellers) to make a full time living off of it?
It's very important. (first, read this article by Josh Breinlinger - http://acrowdedspace.com/post/47647912203/a-critical-but-ignored-metric-for-marketplaces) The way you achieve success in a marketplace is by driving liquidity for both your supply & demand. Demand-side Liquidity = When users come to your marketplace, they can achieve their goals. Supply-side Liquidity = When supply comes to your marketplace they can achieve their goals... which are almost always to make money. If you're making a large amount of your supply-side users a full-time income, then you're helping them achieve liquidity. Now it's not so black and white and it doesn't always have to be a "full-time income." It depends what their goals are. E.g., 1) At Airbnb, renters aren't looking to quit their day jobs and become landlords full-time... they're just look to earn a substantial amount of income to offset their rent, mortgage, etc. So in this case, I would probably goal on # of renters that earn >$500 / month... and (in the first 1-5 years) try to grow this number by 10-20% MoM... and maybe by just 5% once you're in the mid-high tens of millions in yearly revenue. 2) At Kickstarter, the goal of the supply-side is to get their project successfully funded. They don't care if the project creator is "full-time"... they just want to make sure they meet their funding goal. This is why they talk about their 44% project success rate all the time - http://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats 3) At Udemy, our instructors want a substantial amount of their income to be driven from their Udemy course earnings... so we look at how many instructors are earning >$2k / month.DT
-
What's the average CAC value or range for a Marketplace client?
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Your customer acquisition cost is not something you should benchmark against other businesses. Without knowing more, like your short and long-term goals, it's impossible to answer. Two companies with similar business models may have different answers to this question. A venture-backed startup trying to keep up with aggressive revenue goals may be able to stomach an astronomical CAC. A bootstrapped startup that is not seeking venture money may aim for slower growth and much lower CAC. I suggest setting up a call with a marketing or finance expert to determine what CAC is appropriate for your company and how to get there.TL
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.