Feedback on my idea
Hi guys, this is my first post here, just joined Indie Hackers.
I'm developing an idea(www.paddleshare.co) which is a community for paddle sports lovers(kayaking, paddleboarding, etc..). The main component is to allow peer to peer rentals of such watercrafts, I'm a kayak owner myself, and due to work, my equipment is underused while there are many people willing to go and practice such sports but they don't have a watercraft and renting them to companies can be a bit costly(From $40 to $60 an hour in the US). This will allow people willing to practice such sports to rent the watercrafts for a lower price and the owners can make some profit from them the time they are taking dust in a garage. The second stage of this will be a forum component and a map where people can discuss about fishing spots, places to catch a beautiful sunset, etc.. The map will consume APIs to show weather and tides information.
What do you guys think of this idea? Does anybody knows if something like this already exist? Would love to hear some feedback on it
Great idea. I know it would be great to start monetizing first with the P2P rental component, but I don't think the audience will be there at first. You might want to start out with building the community first by implementing the forum component. Once your community grows, then it would be a great time to introduce your monetization (P2P rentals, etc.)
Yes you are absolutely, right i might consider what you say
I actually think the opposite is true. At the beginning, anything you do which isn't focussed on making sales is just a distraction. You won't know whether you have product-market fit until you have paying customers on your site, so anything you do before finding that out is potentially just time wasted.
It's much easier to build up a product that a few people love into a product that lots of people love, than it is to turn a product a lot of people kind of like into a product that a lot of people love.
My focus at the beginning would be on doing the bare minimum as fast as possible to get paid bookings on your platform. Otherwise, you'll probably end up building stuff that people don't really want.
Good luck!
I agree with louisswiss. Look at how other two sided market places have grown.
They always start regionally. They focus on figuring out the mechanics of getting each side of the marketplace onto the platform in that local market. They work personally with the providers of the assets to make the assets look good and make them comfortable renting them out to people.
They create a playbook to launch a new city and then move from city to city launching the service.
Two sided market places are more challenging than traditional SaaS because you are basically building two businesses at once.
this is the perfect project idea, dive in a niche where there aren't many technical or design folks and build stuff that doesn't exist yet
love the idea, I definitely see some opportunity in this - your website is not working for though, you might want to check your hosting or DNS.
Thanks for the feedback. The domain is parked but the website is not up yet, finishing last touches and integrating with Stripe in the next 2 weeks.
Great idea. But AirBNB is doing this as this year's growth initiative. Trying to extend to 'experiences' for their renters. Could be a wall or an opportunity for you depending on how you play it.
Love the idea, as I like paddleboarding but would never buy one. And I'd rather give my rental money to an individual owner rather than a tourist trap beach rental company.
How do you envision the pickup/dropoff of the watercrafts? Will the owner need to be present?
Great, the pickup/dropoff is a thought topic I still need to figure out, for now, i might keep it simple and leave it up to the 2 individuals to decide where and how to do it. I'm also considering and working with an insurance agency to offer rental insurance for the watercrafts that can be really cheap
I can see this slowly catching traction. Great idea. Try using Ning to build the initial MVP. See if that'll do the trick. Good luck and I wish you nothing but success.