Industry: Mobile local commerce<p>Problem: The way businesses and people communicate is outdated and scattered (phone calls, clumsy email, numerous chat support interfaces). There are too many different on demand apps for many different things, and worse yet, every major brand already has their own app for interacting with their products/services (think Starbucks, Subway, Dominoes, Macy’s, McDonald's, etc).<p>From an average person point of view - buying things from businesses involves too many apps. People do not want to deal with 15 different apps with 15 different interfaces just to achieve a few simple tasks (contact the business, buy from the business, view products/services, etc)<p>Solution: What if we could have one app where you could find any business you want across any industry, and buy from them directly and seamlessly? What if your appointments and transactions were all in one easy place? What if we made this platform opened so that anyone could start their own ‘storefront’ (aka ‘app’) and sell their products/services? What would that mean for people’s livelihoods and careers? We’re building a platform that can do just this.<p>We’re not just improving the way people connect and buy from businesses, but we’re also making it so the average person can tap into this platform and monetize themselves. This is what we’re really passionate about – empowering the common folk! We see it as ‘opensourcing’ the economy and making it easy for anyone to input (sell) and output (buy) from it (in Hacker News talk of course).<p>Help us: We’re based in Canada, we’re a technical team of 3, we're on a mission, and almost ready to launch in beta. The YC Fellowship would help us greatly in keeping us afloat for a few more months (we’re currently ‘jobless’ and working on this fulltime :D).<p>Any feedback, reality checks, and experience is appreciated so let us know what you think.<p>- Osiris
Has anyone worked on anything similar in the past, or have any insights on growing something like this? We realize its an uphill battle since there's the chicken and egg problem, and at the same time we'll need to convince businesses to use this platform over others who currently have all the users but little features (think FB's Messenger). There is also a variety of different industries that require different approaches (restaurants, food chains, home handywork, professional services, hair salons, etc).