How do we ( experts) get paid?

Check out https://www.balancedpayments.com/ They are made for marketplaces. Airbnb CEO among others invested in them and they have some of the best pricing/payout fees. Also some good info on http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/10/08/online-marketplaces-are-hard/ One of Balanced Payments co-founders is writing this blog series on marketplaces.

What you are seeing is a pattern for a business that is experiencing a cash flow issue and ultimately will go out of business as suppliers will move them to prepayment or COD. One solution to protect your business is to accept a credit card for payment of the invoice within 7 days and let them manage their cash flow challenges behind the scenes with their issuing bank. The other option is to offer prepayment and if they are not in position for that then I would no longer sell product/services. Sometimes it takes one supplier to force the inevetible, but you have to protect your business and resources as well.

I would recommend invoicing for the full year up front. If anyone asks, tell them that this is industry standard. Salesforce, HubSpot and many others do it this way. If that answer isn't sufficient, here are some others reasons that are beneficial for the customer: - It simplifies the accounting for the customers - one invoice instead of 6-12 - If you were to buy packaged software, you would pay a huge up front fee and then annual maintenance - we are just asking for the first year - If you pay monthly, there is no commitment, so there is less incentive to get buy-in from the team and users

There are several questions/pieces of information you would want to consider to know which avenue to go down (a few highlighted below): - which platform are you going to be on-boarding and connecting students/tutors thoughts? web, mobile, hybrid or brick & mortar (includes actual phone calls etc) - how often are disbursements of funds going to happen with a typical transaction period (say 1 month)? - what is your service fee/cut for the work completed? are you working on a %/commission basis or are you generating funds from clients in another way? - which party shoulders the service fee your charge? Is it just one party or both? - is the transaction always intending to be a 1 to 1 relationship (i.e. would a group of students be able to hire a tutor for an exam review session and split the costs etc?) those are just a few things that should be top of mind as you consider which ways and means you intend to collect/process payments for your service. I'd be happy to jump on a call and walk through these and other questions to help get you on the payment model/processor right for you. Just click below and request a call to get started. https://clarity.fm/jcgarrett

Depending on the market, a bank is going to look at a combination of low-cost customer acquisition (particularly in strategic growth segments), mass-market desposit mobilization, credit portfolio growth and fee-based income. The respective weight of these, in terms of relative importance, will depend on the bank and its strategic objectives. It will also vary based in whether you are talking to an acquiring or an issuing bank. The best way to approach a bank is therefore to identify which core business element your startup is best positioned to support, and which bank is likelier to find the value prop attractive. I would suggest talking to the head of retail banking, the head of credit business and the head of acquiring business.