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Nice looking site and design - kudos. I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea but you do have to compete with easier alternatives (e.g. credit cards, gofundme, craigslist). You can't just be different than the alternatives to effectively compete, you have to be better - especially for the creator who in your scenario needs money to make ends meet. As others have mentioned your biggest challenge is the two-sided marketplace, it is unfortunately just about the hardest thing to pick for a startup. You won't get creators until there is a large enough volume of supporters for it to be worth it to them (why set up a campaign if no one responds). You won't get supporters until you have enough creators to match services they might want. Many marketplaces like this start with at least one of two things - they either already control one side of the market via relationships (they have access to a large amount of supply, for example), or they have a lot of capital they can use to fund the concept until it gains traction (by funding creators for example). Ideally you have both. My advice, given the time you have already invested, is to figure out how you can niche down very narrowly to start. Pick one geographic area, and perhaps one service type, and then grind it out manually to match supply to demand. Maybe you're matching creators who tutor on the side, to students in Seattle (or whatever). You want to be narrow because it's too hard to build supply and demand if you're broad, especially by yourself without funding. You'll have to try lots of hacks to see what works to get initial users - it will be manual, you will have to talk to a lot of people, it won't "scale" but that is ok to start. If it works you can grow into other markets later (example: Facebook started only for Harvard, Uber was only black limos in SF). Also consider looking for a charitable benefactor who will fund creators (even if they don't use the services) to get a bit of energy into the marketplace. If you can find someone, or a company that wants to do this for a bit of good will and press you'll have some capital to fund the initial creators. Good luck! |