Please Give Feedback on My Start-up Idea | Hacker News Reader

Please Give Feedback on My Start-up Idea

1 pointstomachfat7 comments

A 'Prices Search Engine' for Local Services and Products

I'm not sure why this doesn't exist.

I had to call nearly 50 car mechanics to get prices quotes for brake pads and rotor replacement for my 2006 Allure. (During all of this, I learned there was a huge variance in price to get the job done).

I think there's a need for 'Price Transparency' (this is now my mission). So I hacked this up as a ... super embarrassing MVP.

www.PlzThx.co

Please check it out and give your open, honest, thoughts. (I'd really appreciate that).

Please note: It doesn't even work yet. The hopes is I'll find others with the same desperate need for Price Transparency. I'm going to respond to every real search by helping them compile a PriceList of local services/products.

The hopes is that a community will form over this : )

Sincerely,

Jimmy T.

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I showed up at the site (the centered text-search thing is weird btw) and thought "Ok, a friend of mine needs to have dental surgery. How do I put that in a search box?"

The problem is, how much do you actually know about the local service you are trying to get?

Brake pads from a mechanic seems easy, but the person needs to know they only need brake pads. Most people would need to go to a mechanic to tell them they need break pads, maybe they just need their brakes bled, or they have caliper issues.

What's another 'local service' example? Physiotherapy? Is price really the factor you want to decide on?

I'm thinking about the businesses that are local to me which are service oriented (because just e-commerce already has this problem solved).

You'd think plumbing and such would fall into this well, but Angie's List seems to have solved that problem for most home goods.

What are the other goods we own that need local servicing? Computers repair, maybe, but people just go to GeekSquad or whatever else they can find.

I think there are some huge issues in properly defining the market and then understanding the customers your solution might fit, or figuring out how you can solve the issue for the customer, as that is probably the bigger challenge.

Great domain name btw!

haha I smiled cause I can tell you're super friendly; you even gave me 'critique-sandwhich' where you end off with a compliment after all the criticism (thank you for that!)

With regards to dental surgery, I wonder if I were to call up some dental offices and ask for a price quote on surgery type X or surgery type Y if they would give me a price quote. (Not that that's the only factor your friend would choose for surgery. It could be a starting point).

I agree, a lot of the problems arises from 'how much you know about local service you are trying to get'. My friend thought she needed new rear drums and shoes, but didn't after we got inspected by a friend.

Hmmm you're definitely right with Physiotherapy, I wouldn't go on just price myself either.

Maybe I've got a strong case just for my specific car problem, but this doesn't extend well to other local services.

But with like computer repairs, I think it would be nice to just see a comprehensive list of what's out there accompanied with their prices, GeekSquad and IT-hobbyist included.

Hmmm you're right that the bigger challenge is properly defining problem, market, solution-fit. I have to find good use cases like the car one I had.

Btw thank you for all of this! I really appreciate that it jogged my brain and gave me some new ideas on what to do next!

What do you think of the above?

> I'm not sure why this doesn't exist.

Impossible to get reliable data without the cooperation of local vendors. Local businesses are extremely difficult to sell to. From personal experience, I can tell you that the time-cost of acquiring each vendor is 20+ hours, and the value is nearly zero (since you need thousands of vendors to make the product work).

That's why successful directories of local data (Yelp, for example) use crowd-sourced data.

As far as your issues with your mechanic: check out YourMechanic and RepairPal. Also read about RedBeacon (which has now pivoted), TaskRabbit, and Thumbtack. Yelp is also now using their influence to bring business on-board to give quotes via Yelp as a platform.

I totally agree; getting local businesses to agree is very tough. But I was just going to put their prices without their permission. Like I had to call a bunch of places anyway. Might as well share that with my friends (and whomever would find it useful).

I was hoping this would become crowd-sourced data somehow. Because I need a community of people always updating prices for this to continue working.

I didn't know Yelp was bringing business on-board for quotes. That would mean if I could get this to work ... I'd be competing with a giant.

What are thoughts on the above : ).

Btw, thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate the warnings and resources and ideas you gave.

> But I was just going to put their prices without their permission.

For businesses with published price lists (like restaurants), that data has been painstakingly collected by companies like SinglePlatform and published online.

For businesses without published price lists, this method of data collection would just never work. How could you get prices of a hardware store, for example? What's worse is that small businesses often play with pricing, so the data would need to be refreshed frequently. It just doesn't scale.

> Might as well share that with my friends (and whomever would find it useful).

Yelp has some of these posts already. Most of us only get hidden, variable prices like this on an infrequent basis. The bulk of most people's purchases are at large chains, not local businesses.

> I was hoping this would become crowd-sourced data somehow.

What's the incentive? Why does it make me feel good to post this data? With Yelp, you get to be an amateur restaurant critic. You get to express your opinion like you're an important expert. That makes people happy. It also serves as a way to document and collect your experiences (look at all the cool restaurants I've been to!)

Collecting prices doesn't help me the same way. There has to be a hook. People won't do work without getting something in return.

There was once a company that would only diagnose what was wrong with your car so you could try to get mechanics to compete on price. I don't know what happened to them but I've never seen one in person so I think it's safe to say it hasn't taken the world by storm.

The problem with garage competition is that the average person doesn't know what they need most of the time, so without a way to get an independent diagnosis there really isn't a business model here. I don't think. And how are you going to make money? I missed that bit.

So you're very right about the 'independent diagnosis' part, I took it to my friend's friend to give me an independent diagnosis. It was the only way I learned which brakes (rear, front, both, or neither) needed to be replaced.

I am already trying to monetize by revenue-splitting.

So what happened was, when I went price shopping, I found 2 other friends who wanted their brakes fixed. So I got the idea of calling up shops and asking if they'd revenue split with me: if they'd give me 10% if I could refer them a customer on the spot. 3 of the 10 shops I called for that agreed and said they would. The others were hesitant but not fully against it. 2 were totally against it.

Then I also found a hobbyist mechanic with a home-shop who would do it better than market-price and profit split with me 50-50.

So all in all, I think if I compile comprehensive price list for my city, I could start directing customers for a cut.

What are your thoughts on this part?

Also, thank you so much for the response! I really appreciate it!

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