A new concept for self employed professionals

[JobBidUK]

Hi all,

Just looking for a little advice or opinions..... After being self employed for the last 5 years within the construction industry I am trying to create an online platform which members of the public will post jobs they need completed by self employed professionals such as construction workers, therapists, consultants, graphic designers, web developers, sales agents, etc. Once 'Jobs' are posted, all professionals who are registered on the site will be able to 'Bid' or quote for the work.

UShip.com already employs a bidding system to acquire work but specifically for couriers and other related workers, whereas I am aiming to build a platform for professionals of all industries.

I understand that the finer details may help you decide whether this is a good idea or not but the main concept behind this is:

Professionals will be required to register with the website in order to showcase previous completed work and also to bid or quote jobs posted by the public.
The fee for self employed professionals to register on the site will be £9.99 per month, with the option to upgrade to a premium account which is £15.99 with advanced features included.
The professionals will effectively be given a mini website of their own showcasing all other feedback from previous jobs including a HD gallery and other links to social media profiles etc.

The general public who will be posting the jobs on our site will be charged a set £4.99 per ad or if they feel the need to post more than average users they can also register for a pay monthly subscription for a fee of £9.99

The whole concept of this is to deliver a definitive platform which is simple, cheap and effective.

I personally know how difficult it can be to become self employed and also know how difficult and costly it can be to become self employed and build your business from the ground up.

When it comes to similar services, I struggle to find anyone offering the same service. As mentioned earlier the closest thing to my concept is Uship which is aimed at couriers and delivery persons.

Other potential competitors who operate completely different and at a much more expensive fee is Checkatrade/RatedPeople/TrustedTraders etc.

I am looking for opinions and ideas of aspects that I may have missed. The reason for my post today is to gain an outsiders perspective.

I haven't constructed a business plan for this yet as I am currently engrossed in my studies at the moment with the view to launching this business mid summer next year (2015)

Thanks for reading about my idea and I genuinely look forward to your responses!

Many Thanks

 

[titanium]

So, you've invented Elance? ;0)

 

[Newchodge]

How is this different from Checkatrade and the others?

 

[JobBidUK]

First of all thanks for your replies!

So, you've invented Elance? ;0)

Second, no I haven't "invented Elance " as Elance is for online based jobs. Its not applicable to self employed professionals who have physical skills or services that can be offered i.e. construction workers, therapists, consultancy etc. Elance is more aimed at online participation, whereas I am looking to connect real physical professionals with real tasks. For example you cannot find a metal worker or wood worker on Elance.

How is this different from Checkatrade and the others?

Checkatrade doesn't allow you to bid on jobs. It is similar as it allows the tradesman to build an online presence but once again that is only aimed at the construction industry and you couldn't find a web designer, personal trainer, sales agent, etc. Checkatrade is more of an advertising platform aimed at profiting from their high search engines rankings.

So as I said I have researched rather vigorously and there is really no-one offering this service which ranges across all industries and definitely applies to all self employed professionals.

It is cheaper than niche market competitors such as checktrade and rated people who charge over £200 per annum compared to the £120 per year I plan to offer.

Any more questions feel free to reply.

Thanks

 

[Mailzas]

It's not elance. He targets local services, which market is bigger than elance in 10 times.

Here is few hints for you:
1. If you charge monthly, you will not have a reputation system. (As reputation system, can only work, if deals are going throught you).

2. Choose a small market segment/niche, as marketing this is very costly other way. Don't forget you need buyers and sellers, to get system running.

3. Plan a big marketing budget.

4.Think very well about the niche.

P.S. I have very user friendly engine for this. Legal agreements, and so on. I tried to run this
in auto industry, but lacked marketing funds, so halted this.

 

[Mailzas]

Another tip:
Amount on service, usually is not fixed in advance. Rather you should do a matchmaking, and after service done, then both parties must agree on price paid, and you take only your commisions.

 

[JobBidUK]

It's not elance. He targets local services, which market is bigger than elance in 10 times.

Here is few hints for you:
1. If you charge monthly, you will not have a reputation system. (As reputation system, can only work, if deals are going throught you).

2. Choose a small market segment/niche, as marketing this is very costly other way. Don't forget you need buyers and sellers, to get system running.

3. Plan a big marketing budget.

4.Think very well about the niche.

P.S. I have very user friendly engine for this. Legal agreements, and so on. I tried to run this
in auto industry, but lacked marketing funds, so halted this.

My main idea was that by not being involved in the handling of financial transactions between professional and client I SHOULD reduce costs relating to merchant services etc. The only real cost would be, exactly as you stated, marketing.

When it comes to niche market placement I am not keen on this as I want our USP to be the fact that we offer an equal service to persons of all industries. I understand this will be costly to market but without merchant overheads I could utilise funds that would be spent on transaction services to marketing activities.

I haven't constructed a business plan yet but I am currently floating the idea around a few focus groups and other quantitative research methods to see if I actually have an audience for a service like this.

Any more queries would be appreciated as I am trying my hardest to exhaust all aspects of critique in order to complete my pre plan notes.

With regards to the services you could offer I couldn't possibly try to configure any sort of arrangement until I am certain that this is a viable plan and is likely to succeed.

Thanks

 

[Mailzas]

> My main idea was that by not being involved in the handling of financial transactions between
professional and client I SHOULD reduce costs relating to merchant services etc.
In my model, these cost are almost zero. I done lot of thinking on this part.

Also is it much easier to sell your service, when you provide clients, rather than taking a fixed amount. Just add this question to your focus group.
Would you rather pay for the client, or you rather pay fixed monthly / yearly amount.

If you decide to go for this, write me, I can save you lot of work hours, and lot of cash, and also give some limited know how, from expierence.

 

[JobBidUK]

I've followed you so I'll keep you posted with results of addition questions. Thanks for your advice though its really appreciated.

 

[fisicx]

It's got to be free. People just won't pay in order to bid on something. I'm one of your target members and I find work through a whole range of online services. And do t forget the huge recruitment industry whose role is to find people for jobs.

Your idea may well work in a few niche areas but it's not going to become a mainstream platform without a lot of investment. Your marketing costs could well exceed your income for a couple of years.

 

[ethical PR]

I think your issue is you are trying to be all things to all people and trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

If I want a tradesperson I find them through word of mouth recommendation. If I want a therapist or hairdresser I do the same or look online.

If I wanted to use a website to hire a professional i could use one of the sites like PPH and not pay a charge.

 

[JobBidUK]

It's got to be free. People just won't pay in order to bid on something. I'm one of your target members and I find work through a whole range of online services. And do t forget the huge recruitment industry whose role is to find people for jobs.

Your idea may well work in a few niche areas but it's not going to become a mainstream platform without a lot of investment. Your marketing costs could well exceed your income for a couple of years.

Im not charging them to bid on the jobs available I'm charging them to advertise on our site and this is aimed at self employed persons who don't have the skills or time to build a personal website for their low level business. There seems to be no medium rate advertising platform which actually encourages interaction between professional and customer. I understand what your saying about it being free but this service should be an easy sale to most professionals as it is a completely new concept never done before and from the customers side of things, they believe they are saving money by having a choice of professionals bidding and therefore gives them options on who to work with. I am trying to cut operating costs as low as possible in order to cut monthly payments but free isn't always better and will deter non-serious persons from clogging the site or abusing it.

I think your issue is you are trying to be all things to all people and trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

If I want a tradesperson I find them through word of mouth recommendation. If I want a therapist or hairdresser I do the same or look online.

If I wanted to use a website to hire a professional i could use one of the sites like PPH and not pay a charge.

That is what I am trying to achieve. Nobody looked at tesco and asda when they started and said you need to stop being all things to all people. I obviously know that my operation would not be the same size as multi nationals like asda and tesco but just because I am trying to appeal to most professionals doesn't mean the business model isn't potentially successful. I understand what you're saying about word of mouth advertising and online searches but you never get a definite quote when enquiring online or making a phone call. They want to make an appointment, come round a few days later and the job drags on most likely undone. I know this because I've been there and experienced it (I used to be the guy who turned up the day later with a different price from the quote on the phone!). When it comes to marketing budgets I believe that below the line advertising is more likely to attract the sort of professionals to our service rather than expensive above the line campaigns.

I also forgot to mention that this website will have a maximum cost of £40 per month to run and therefore I am willing to take a loss while building a client base online. I plan to implement a physical and affiliate sales team to approach suited professionals who would benefit from our service and sooner or later that word of mouth you discussed above will be in full action.

Thanks for replying peeps!

 

[fisicx]

...but this service should be an easy sale to most professionals

Who are already on linkedin and many other websites?

I also forgot to mention that this website will have a maximum cost of £40 per month to run

And £1000/month marketing costs. You have seriously underestimated the cost of promoting your website. And if you are serious about providing a national service you will need managed dedicating hosting which is going to cost more than £40/month.

I appalude your idea but it's going to take a lot more effort and a lot more money than you think to set this up. Just the website alone is going to be a couple of grand as it's not something you can build on the cheap.

 

[JobBidUK]

Who are already on linkedin and many other websites?


And £1000/month marketing costs. You have seriously underestimated the cost of promoting your website. And if you are serious about providing a national service you will need managed dedicating hosting which is going to cost more than £40/month.

I appalude your idea but it's going to take a lot more effort and a lot more money than you think to set this up. Just the website alone is going to be a couple of grand as it's not something you can build on the cheap.

I have already received a quote for dedicated hosting for £42 per month from a close friend who is a local supplier (Glasgow) and I didn't take into account the marketing costs as I haven't received any solid quotes for services required. When it comes to the website I have received a quote of just £5000 to design and develop which is within my budget. My marketing budget would be ranging from 500-800 per month at first as I am currently employed and this is the maximum I can afford at the moment. Also that £800 will be split between online advertising and also hardcopy marketing such as leaflet drops. Also street sales teams could easily be implemented all across the UK on a commission basis which would not bring in clients but also spread the word.

I'm not expecting this to be an overnight success but I am willing to spend the money in order to make it a success. I completely understand what your saying about LinkedIn and other websites but besides LinkedIn nobody can offer the same service I can at the same price. Also after 5 years working within the construction industry I have never even heard the words LinkedIn being spoken lol its not really a subject for your typical "workie" hahaha.

I really am grateful for your input but you seem to be sure that £800 per month and a dedicated server cost of over £40 per month would be enough to put me off. Or perhaps you think this is outwit my budget when in fact it is not.

I am taking into account all your responses and will be hammering through them with my team tonight when we meet up for a social. Thanks for helping out and grilling my idea so I can say I have an opportunity to combat each threat or weakness.

Many thanks,

 

[fisicx]

Or perhaps you think this is outwit my budget when in fact it is not,

Not at all. It's just that you seemed to indicate your total monthly costs would be £40. I have a good friend who does something similar to you and they currently spend over £5000/month on PPC. The only way they survive is because of the huge number of clients. They did try charging job seekers to be put forwards for jobs but it failed (nobody was prepared to pay anything).

Don't bother with leaflet drops, their ROI is poor, especially as you are targeting out of work professionals - most of the leaflets will just go in the bin. PPC has the best ROI - but it is expensive.

 

[JobBidUK]

Yeah from what I've looked at PPC seems to be the best form of marketing and you are 100% correct it is very expensive but I may try to stay within hardcopy such as billboards and large outdoor advertisements, sponsorship of events and local/regional sporting teams etc. I am looking at hiring a marketing firm depending on pricing to help launch the site but once launched I plan on completing marketing duties myself.

I understand there is still a lot for me to cover and confirm but I have the budget to get it running at least and I am willing to take a loss for the first year or so in order to build up a brand and national service.

 

[MOIC]

Great idea, will need a lot of funding and time to get it going.

Perseverance and an investor (or 2) behind you will be required.

How long you will be able to persevere will be the ultimate question.

You seem to have done a lot of your homework so far.

 

[Philip Hoyle]

Don't underestimate how much it's going to cost you to market this idea. £1k per month sounds a lot, but isn't and will be a mere drop in the ocean for what you need to do.

A few years ago, I had a client doing pretty much what you're doing - an online platform putting customers in touch with trades and professionals - again like yours, it was for the full range from plumbers through to solicitors. Sounded really good in theory and everyone he talked to was enthusiastic.

Like yours, success or failure was down to building critical mass very quickly, plenty of trades and professionals in all areas of the country and plenty of customers in all areas of the country. He rightly identified people would quickly lose interest if they posted a job to be done but no-one local responded.

That's exactly what happened. He got quite a large database of customers and suppliers, running into the tens of thousands, but it was still pathetically inadequate. There'd be small pockets of the country where there'd be a few hundred people but even then there were very few matches. Something like 95% of jobs posted weren't even responded to. Once customers had posted a job and got no response, they never used the site again.

It's one thing doing a match-making service for online services such as elance where it doesn't matter where you're located. It's completely different when you're doing local "face to face" work as it will be a very slow burn to get service providers signed up. My client realised this and his plan was therefore to offer the service free for the first six months, and then charge something like a fiver per quote afterwards. Take up was very slow, so he didn't charge for the next six months either. Nor the six months after that.

In fact, he never charged a penny. It was up and running for about two years, burned his way through his life savings of £50k and ended up having to abandon it.

In hindsight, he decided that he should have launched it in one major city, not as a UK wide site. He could then have concentrated his efforts on signing up enough service providers in that city in advance of a public launch, so that when customers first logged on, there'd be plenty of businesses ready and able to service their needs - a critical mass. He could then have launched it in the next nearest city and so on until he covered the whole UK. He said he also grossly underestimated how difficult it was to get businesses to sign up, even when it was free - he ended up having to go out in person to meet them to explain face to fact how it would work and reassure them it wasn't a con. In fact, when he had customers who'd signed up and posted a job to be done, he even had trouble getting businesses to sign up and respond - he ended up cold-calling businesses himself trying to find businesses to respond.

The OP really needs to think carefully how to build a critical mass quickly. As someone else has said, I think some kind of niche is vital so that you can concentrate your efforts in either a relatively small geographical location or a particular business segment. Your time and limited funds will be spread too thinly otherwise. After all Amazon started selling books at first, they expanded into everything else once they'd proved successful and built a critical mass of customers and suppliers. Likewise Asda and Tesco started with a small store in a local area, they didn't start up with a chain of superstores throughout the UK.

 

[Peter Bowen]

Can I suggest a quick read through this article. I go through it again every time I'm tempted to get involved in a marketplace business.

http://blog.asmartbear.com/marketplace-business-model.html

 

[OakBridge]

First of all thanks for your replies!

Second, no I haven't "invented Elance " as Elance is for online based jobs. Its not applicable to self employed professionals who have physical skills or services that can be offered i.e. construction workers, therapists, consultancy etc. Elance is more aimed at online participation, whereas I am looking to connect real physical professionals with real tasks. For example you cannot find a metal worker or wood worker on Elance.

Checkatrade doesn't allow you to bid on jobs. It is similar as it allows the tradesman to build an online presence but once again that is only aimed at the construction industry and you couldn't find a web designer, personal trainer, sales agent, etc. Checkatrade is more of an advertising platform aimed at profiting from their high search engines rankings.

So as I said I have researched rather vigorously and there is really no-one offering this service which ranges across all industries and definitely applies to all self employed professionals.

It is cheaper than niche market competitors such as checktrade and rated people who charge over £200 per annum compared to the £120 per year I plan to offer.

Any more questions feel free to reply.

Thanks

I think your idea is very good. Good luck and let me know how you progress.

 

[tony84]

freeindex - you can post a job on there and professionals can come back with an estimate, complete price or request further information.

I dont think your concept is new and to say it is means you may not have done the research required. That does not mean it will not work, but before sinking money into it do your research properly and be confident you can compete with freeindex and any others.

 

[Open Book Procurement]

I think your biggest issues are:

1) The types of jobs that you are asking to be posted cannot really be explained in a few lines of free text. Quotations would only be accurate through contact with the prospective client, measuring up etc. Allowing any kind of job to be priced on an online marketplace opens you up to all kinds of issues.

2) Local is best- How will you determine what is "local"?

3) How can you limit the number of respondents to each add? This is the trouble with PPH, you get inundated with offers within seconds of posting, it is enough to put you off for life, and also from the perspective of the tradesperson, if there are 100's of other people bidding for a job then how can you possibly dedicate the time to responding when you don't win anything.

I run a VC backed marketplace for supplies and services (B2B) and we ran full tenders in each category to select providers of services/goods.

 

[SwindonSteve]

@Philip Hoyle Your reference to your man trying to be too big, too soon is an important point for anyone considering starting an online only business to take note of.

For most businesses of this type, success on a large scale will only come after your business model has been proven and that can only happen if you have concentrated your efforts on a narrow niche in a narrow geographical area.

Start small, work out the kinks, expand from there.

The fact is that the majority of people who come up with online business models like this don't have the financial resources to go national from day one. Just because the internet connects the world, doesn't mean your model will work.

Start local, make it work in the smaller market of your home town and then you may be able to grow it beyond.

 

[Talay]

freeindex - you can post a job on there and professionals can come back with an estimate, complete price or request further information.

I dont think your concept is new and to say it is means you may not have done the research required. That does not mean it will not work, but before sinking money into it do your research properly and be confident you can compete with freeindex and any others.

And Freeindex is a utter waste of time for many but you'll burn a few million pounds or more to get even halfway what they have with no guarantee of success.

 

[JobBidUK]

Wow, this thread has a great response. Thank you to every single one of you. After meeting with my team on Christmas Eve we have decided to localise the service and concentrate on each city specifically. We decided that we can be all things to all people but we have to direct it at one city at a time. Also with regards to free index and other similar services, none offer a live bidding system. So after deciding to concentrate on Glasgow (our hometown) we would purely offer it as a free service for 12 months in order to build popularity. Marketing for this is going to cost a fortune but we plan to have a physical sales generation team working in Glasgow so we plan to take a "Just-Eat" approach to building online presence, by visiting self employed professionals and physically signing these professionals up, which also helps overcome instant rejections.

I understand the Gent above comment about a previous client who wishes he had concentrated
his focus on each city and this is exactly what we plan to do.

Once again, thank you so much for your encouraging comments and those who are not as encouraging, you fuel our ambition!

Feeling very welcomed on this forum and look forward to speaking to you all sooner rather than later.

 

[liamx1234]

i guess this is like anyvan then!! waste of time!

 

[JobBidUK]

anyvan is for couriers and deliveries lol nowhere near the same concept........ lol

 

[Simply Business]

On the face of it, a very good idea

May prove difficult to fine-tune etc, but once you've got your idea refined, you could be on to a winner. Heard a very similar idea recently, offering the same sort of system and concept (i.e. local businesses bidding on a job) but it was for the automotive sector.

I.e. an individual takes a picture of their cracked windscreen, and local mechanics bid on the job.

Both great, interactive ideas that take into account the switch to tech-savvy mobile-focussed consumers.

Good luck with getting it up and running!

 

[munaworks]

Sounds like a fantastic idea, I really can't see any logical reason it wouldn't work. However I will strongly advise that you construct a very detailed marketing plan before you start. There is no use in having the software built and then not being able to get the users unto the site.
I definitely support the idea of starting small and lean and expanding as you gain traction, so yes it would be best to begin with a small but manageable local area to test your idea.