@AngBaldwin
1) what are some examples of marketplaces you built and how successful were they?
2) how much revenue would your expected customer generate per year?
Hi @frumpy. Happy to answer your questions.
We have over 20 marketplaces using the Near Me platform. We have RVwithMe.com (find unique, local airbnb-like experiences with RV spaces) and ClubsAnywhere.com (rent golf equipment and services) to name a few. We have also built a marketplace for Cisco Systems and are currently working with other enterprise companies who are looking to build community through p2p or a resell option for their user base. Each marketplace can set their own revenue model just like Airbnb and Uber. Our role is to power them. To provide the technology for a proper peer-to-peer transaction, listings, user profiles, customer reviews, micro-blogging, customer service chat and more. So, while startups out there are trying to be the "next" Airbnb or Uber, we are here to provide the technology for them to do so in less time. Since our launch in January, we doubled our revenue by the second quarter and tripled in the third quarter. People are looking for our one-stop solution for a marketplace "in a box". Do you have any other questions?
@AngBaldwin I didn't see any pricing on your site (that I recall). Can you give me a sense of cost? If you aren't comfortable stating publicly, something about your ideal customer would be helpful. I understand that there are infinite use cases, but assume you have some thoughts. If I want to rent tools out of my garage, is that a target customer, or is that to small?
Along these lines, is there a milestone when your customers will likely determine it's in their best interest to move to an internal solution?
@frumpy Hi Adam, Currently we are finalizing our pricing and it varies on a per-project basis, as such we do not plan to publicly disclose it yet.
Our ideal customer can be any of the following:
Serious entrepreneur looking to start a new business, but are not technical themselves and/or do not want to develop their own custom technology solution - due to time, cost and risk.
Existing businesses that would like to extend their current business activities to include P2P or Sharing Activities and engage with their existing community in a deeper, more insightful manner.
The Near Me platform is fully managed solution and easily scalable - as such it's a great solution for everyone from a startup with 5,000 users to large Enterprise Companies and Brands with 5,000,000+ users.
Near Me can certainly provide the technology platform for your garage tools and would accomplish it very well. That said, Near Me may be better utilized in projects with larger scopes - such as P2P Tool Rental Network across the United States.
Honestly, no we do not see a "Milestone" where customers are better suited to move to an proprietary solution. The reasons why are:
One of the biggest benefits of working with Near Me is that we are a partner in your business; not having to focus on the responsibilities of a CTO and IT Department allow a business to focus on the numerous other demand that are required for any enterprise to be successful - such as Operations, Marketing, Customer Support, etc. The lack of a distraction cost is one of the greatest advantages of working with Near Me.
Our platform is completely scalable to work with millions of users, across the globe. As such, there is not quantity or scale restrictions of our solution.
We are releasing a fully documented API in Q1 of 2015, which will allow businesses to develop additional functionality on top of our platform - in effect, this allows the technical scope of any Near Me implementation to be completely customized and extended to meet business needs as they grow.
