I’m exploring a new idea for a marketplace that will connect small businesses with consultants.
Businesses would search for consultants based on the specific problems they have. Instead of selecting a broad category like ‘marketing,’ users would choose a category like ‘I have a problem with acquiring leads via paid channels.’
The consultant’s profile would summarize the types of problems they can solve and their experience. For example, ‘I’m John, specializing in acquiring leads via SEO for Saas B2B companies due to my experience as a marketing specialist at X.’
The platform will be a semi-open marketplace. Users can browse consultants but must specify either a category or problem they are facing; they cannot browse all consultants at once.
Implementing AI matching based on problems is relatively straightforward now.
Once a business finds a consultant, they can book an introductory call, choosing the date and time. This is where the platform charges its fee. If they like the consultant and want to continue working together on a longer project, they can do so outside the platform.
Why I think this idea could work: It combines aspects of a freelance marketplace and a networking platform. Networking remains challenging for small businesses in 2024 without a significant budget. While LinkedIn exists, its search functionality isn’t ideal for companies seeking consultants.
When I mention ‘consultant,’ I’m referring to someone with expertise who can provide insights or guide towards a solution through conversation. This platform isn’t about matching projects with freelancers; it’s about facilitating introductions.
Kill this idea
Knowing the community a bit, I would appreciate your take on this. You can also try to kill this idea.
For example: "I worked as a marketer for X years - It will not work because acquisition costs will be so huge to get the platform going that you need a lot of funding’ or ‘I worked as a consultant, getting the first call is the easiest part of the job for me, it’s the follow up work that is the hard part’.
Anecdotally, budget businesses don’t hire consultants (and why would I? GPT-4 can generate a powerpoint with a generic solution just like a consultant would!)
Big budget businesses hire consultants and not off of marketplaces - they meet by networking elsewhere or industry knowledge.
Exactly this. Every 7-9 figure business I’ve consulted with either from my years of marketing experience or technical consulting it’s never as simple as just hiring a marketplace consultant to make a PowerPoint or solution.
Many times it’s digging into their CRM, database, processes, analytics, talking with team leaders, listening to sales calls, pulling industry data and analyzing it to find out if their business even has the right offer to convert their target audience, digging into their tech stack and reviewing both their sales, marketing, retention, and reactivation funnels. In business everything is a spiderweb effect and relies on the whole system working.
This isn’t a quick consult. These are multiple weeks or months of working together. 9/10 times these contracts start from referrals of other businesses I’ve helped.
What you’re referring to is more like an upwork model for one off generic solutions. Not saying it’s not a good idea, it would have its place but remember, marketplaces are one of the hardest models to start because you have to acquire both sides (seller and buyer) and it becomes an chicken or the egg game.
If you aren’t heavily funded or have a large network/following already I’d probably recommend avoiding this model.
So , you are talking about second step . For step 1 , for his model to work he only needs simplified version of step 2 , which means good portfolio system , good categorization and search . Guidance is only one part , actual solution is another . Companies will be willing to refer or offer additional insights for increased network later on . But of course solving the problem is hard , and I would forget about AI part initally.
Hey @bomo , I’d suggest narrowing down your target audience to something really tight where you know there is a real problem to be solved: all consultants and all businesses is going to be too wide as they’ll have widely differing needs.
If you look at how Paypal started, initially they just serviced ebay sellers (a very small market vs today). They knew this group had a problem: you had to send cheques to people in the post, which sucked. So they got really good at serving ebay sellers, and only then expanded.
For your idea above I’d start by identifying a narrow target audience and figure-out what their specific problem is that your idea will solve, and then start thinking about the solution. There is a high risk that if you define the solution, before you understand the problem, it won’t work.
I’d want to find a narrow group of people who have a specific and definite problem in finding a consultants. This could be something like “business owners who need a consultant to advise getting rid of rats in London”. I don’t even know if this is a thing! But as an example, it’s narrow enough to allow you to really understand your two user groups, how they solve their problems at the moment, where the gaps are, and how any potential solution could fill the gaps/be better than the status quo.
Once you’ve got some evidence there is a problem, you have a higher level of certainty that you’re onto something and it is worth investing time/money in building a product.
I really appreciate your feedback here! Will try to address how I things a couple of points that you raised.
I just put this idea into GPT-4 and ask it to give me feedback/ things to consider etc. Just general feedback / solutions as you mentioned. GPT does not offer any original insight. I know enough that things it listed (Quality Control, Marketplace Saturation, Disintermediation Risk, AI Matching Complexity, User Acquisition) are already things that I considered and obvious.
The answer depends on the prompt of course but that suggests that the person has at least some of understanding of the domain and a problem, most of the time this is not a case.
Where I don’t agree is that Consultant would list the same things. Imaging having a introduction to someone experienced in the domain that offers just 45-60 minutes worth of conversation. I would pay for that (consider my situation as two people trying to start a business. I’m just stress testing the idea with you).
That’s a thing I need to validate. If it’s true, why they are not hiring? My hypothesis is that small business do not have a network and are not aware that there are people who can address their small business problems through their knowledge.
For example I’m thinking of myself from 3 year ago, when I started a small business and the part I was missing was somebody to handle the marketing for me. I had nobody in my network that would have the right experience and would be willing to take it on on part time basis.
100% agree but this is not the promise of the platform. The platform value is in the introduction to a consultant that potentially can either offer an insight in your first call & and then maybe long term partner that will spend 200 hours (or 10) doing bigger project.
yes, I’m aware of this as this is the general consensus about how these things are hard to start yet people start it!
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Yup exactly, this is point of the platform.
I agree, just toying with AI idea to make it look sexy. Good advice.
Yes, we are heavily considering niching down to one of the categories of business in IT like marketing or sales or something like these as go to market strategy.
I’m kind of solving my own problem that face in my day to day services business, where it seems like the business is not even aware that they struggle because lack of business skills and as well in my side-hustles where I recognise that I’m for example not a skilled marketer yet I don’t any person within the domain I want to start a business in and willing to consult on the marketing efforts.
In general my hypothesis are:
Small businesses are started by people who just don’t have the experience in all business domains (How could they? It’s sales, marketing, management, finance, strategy - all of theses have at least 10-15 subcategories). That’s why most businesses struggle. Rarely the owner(s) are talented enough to have right intuition about all these things. Baking cookies is not the same as running a bakery.
Small businesses don’t have the network (or resources as time) to find the right consultants & don’t have the money to hire full-time employees.
GPT is not enough, you need context dependent insights that match your company situation and/or sometimes (or most of the times) you need somebody with authority to tell you what to do.
To my first point: I even think that most small businesses cannot even articulate the problems they have and potential reasons (‘something about my marketing is not right, I have hard time closing clients and I don’t know why’ etc)
Biggest thing I see is where you say the fees will come from, if the value is coming from the introduction, you have to make the money before the introduction is made. If I can go to your app and I see John why would I then pay you to contact him when I can probably easily find him outside of it?
You could do some user research with small business owners to validate some of these assumptions and get them to prioritise their top problems. This would allow you identify the ones worth solving.
And ask them how do they/have they attempted to solve these problems previously? What worked, what didn’t? What put them off? If they had a magic wand, how would they like this problem to be solved?
For example, if they tell you that their top problem is finding a tax accountant they trust, your end solution is going to look different than if they said they could find a tax account, but it was too expensive. In the former the business model is going to prioritise building trust, in the latter low-cost. So getting to the root cause of their problem is important.
We are in EU, in non-english speaking country. Marketing presence of these platform is non-existent, additionality you want to speak in your primary language. Also invoicing can be an issue - where the invoice might not be recognized by your accountant (need to verify though!).
But there are some freelancer platforms that of course exist in EU and target multiple markets. For example Malt.
But assuming we would start in US market - sure - you can go there and get a general marketing consultation. Profiles on Upwork are mostly descriptive about the service they provide, omitting the experience/problem they address imo. Check it out: Fivver, Upwork. You still have to go through pages and pages of consultants and pick one. That might change with Upwork Uma AI.
Yea but you could say the same thing about any other platformy, but I agree that risk with this idea is bigger. The rationalisation would be this: convenience of doing this form both perspectives - the consultant and the client - i.e. NDA, booking time directly, payment is there, get the invite, reschedule easily. More tools would come that would support the first conversation: give me context of the problem/ your business etc. ideally then consultant sends his leads to book the call through the platform as well. Many questions around what that functionality would have to be.
We would standardise the time and the price of the first call as well. Think 100$ (Giving US prices, EU that would be lower) for 30 min call. Think of it in terms of spending time on DMing the consultant, scheduling the meeting etc that’s my experience - unless he has his own website where you can do booking/payments and all of these above.
Also, a lot of consultants are willing to give the first consultation for free as lead acquisition strategy - this still have be addressed.
Yup, we are definitely planning to do this. WIP! Thanks for the questions suggestions.
Great point. You gotta be careful though with the sample though - it might skew your results. That that reminds that we need to really pick the representative businesses and categorize the feedback by company size or other way that stands out.
