Re:Ask HN: What is my market size?
by brudgers on Sunday June 19, 2011 @11:39PM
(#2672744)
>"From where I see it, anyone who has a full-time job, and doesn't have time to run errands fits in our market"
All that shows is that you didn't do any research and pulled something out of your "back pocket." It's completely bullshit from a market analysis standpoint. You need to look at segmentation, and existing alternatives.
The relevant segments have disposable income - i.e. "good jobs" and they have to live in areas where it makes sense to provide the service, i.e. where there are people who can perform the errand reliably and are suitable to interact with the target demographic - "people who want to make a quick buck" often don't fit those requirements.
Mechanical Turk doesn't really scale to the meat world - in general it's not worth $3.00 to pick up someone's dry cleaning and deliver it to their door - never mind going through all kinds of rigamarole online to land the project and get paid.
Even if there is a meaningful target market segment which is not being served, the infrastructure to provide reliable services and maintain the concierge employees is a huge problem - the key to the success of Dabbawala is the people not the internet.
All that shows is that you didn't do any research and pulled something out of your "back pocket." It's completely bullshit from a market analysis standpoint. You need to look at segmentation, and existing alternatives.
The relevant segments have disposable income - i.e. "good jobs" and they have to live in areas where it makes sense to provide the service, i.e. where there are people who can perform the errand reliably and are suitable to interact with the target demographic - "people who want to make a quick buck" often don't fit those requirements.
Mechanical Turk doesn't really scale to the meat world - in general it's not worth $3.00 to pick up someone's dry cleaning and deliver it to their door - never mind going through all kinds of rigamarole online to land the project and get paid.
Even if there is a meaningful target market segment which is not being served, the infrastructure to provide reliable services and maintain the concierge employees is a huge problem - the key to the success of Dabbawala is the people not the internet.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala]