

HN Exercise: We're the Hipmunk for X - entrepreneurial

"We're the hipmunk for X"<p>Replace the X with what you think is the next industry that should have an aggregated price quote engine.
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ezl
Spas and salons

Andrew and I are working on <http://spaciety.com> (think "Spa + society" for
pronunciation) -- I've been calling it the "Expedia/OpenTable for Spas", but
same idea.

We're at the Brandery in Cincinnati Ohio now trying to blow this up and we've
ended up thinking a lot about different verticals that this might apply to.

One of the interesting things is that its actually difficult for us to decide
what our pitch for Spaciety is.

To me (and I think a lot of hackerish types), the core value proposition is 1.
"Information transparency and aggregation".

What I perceive to be the biggest pain point is the fact that to make a
decision about a massage, you need to determine (a) availability, (b) pricing.
That information is basically not available online. The SOP is "call 3 spas
and ask if they are available at time X".

This was the case for plane tickets 10 years ago as well. If I didn't have
[hipmunk/$OTHER_FLIGHT_AGGREGATOR] handy, it'd suck. This _IS_ the primary
value provided by flight aggregators and the model serves itself well.

However, we struggle with it because our customers and market research (read:
free online surveys) indicate that users what DISCOUNTS. So the core value
proposition perhaps should be: 2. The best prices, not UI or accessibility
(what I believe hipmunk and expedia/travelocity sell).

Unfortunately this is a metric we can't really compete on because of the
market structure.

Hipmunk doesn't have to answer to this because the flight market isn't as
fragmented as $OTHER_SMALL_BUSINESSES so they don't try to fight the PRICE
fight with Groupon, LivingSocial, even Amazon and Yelp offering at LEAST one
Spa service a day at 50% off. While we could negotiate for insane discounts,
spas we work with (over 100 now) basically HATE these coupon sites because
they get blown out with zero profit appointments for the next month and dont
get return customers. Repeat dealsite vendors in the spa industry are a rarity
for exactly this reason. However, there are over almost 2000 spas and salons
in Chicago, so group buying sites can just burn one at a time, continue to
offer a new cheap deal every week, and consumers whose primary decision
criteria is price will never need an aggregator.

So all the while, we've been thinking we're selling convenience and
information transparency and we're basically just making customers "almost
really happy" on this other hugely important value criteria.

This has made our niche really small: Since its clear that only a minority of
consumers care about UI, transparency, convenience and -- and we can't compete
on absolute price alone with dealsites, our value proposition is a qualified:
1\. We can give you the best price today (if you buy a LS deal today you
probably can't use it immediately) 2\. We can give you the best price near
your house (we offer discounts at all our spas and have wide coverage, but
dealsites offer 1 a day)

So we don't win entirely on price, but we can win on "Agony" (to borrow from
the hipmunk guys), which is basically the right combination of price and
time/position convenience.

Basically my long winded way of saying "I think you need to have an industry
with very little price competition in order for the aggregator component to be
a huge selling point."

~~~
entrepreneurial
Great post! To your point on the "little price competition" - Every industry
has that.

Why can't you niche the daily deals for spas? Allow one of your Spa customers
to do a daily deal on the home page along with having a listing of local
places.

I would put myself into my customer's shoes in this case. What would I want to
show if I was searching for a spa?

Again - great post.

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entrepreneurial
I think what this subject is really interesting because people are always
looking and needing to buy things. So, making a marketplace for businesses is
very interesting when the marketplace says "We're going to give you an
unlimited amount of leads for this monthly fee". Those leads could be worth $1
mill for the LTV (Life Time Value) of that customer you attained.

From the consumer's side - we're already seeing it through the group buying
sites (groupon, living social), but now we're looking for the "Niche" sites
that do the same thing. I believe there is a big market for this and its
already proven.

About a year ago, I thought there could be a site with these features using
the twitter/facebook api for leads. Something like SocialLeads.com - name your
price and have people fight for your business by outbidding each other. Like
google does, but for niche markets and in reverse - for social.

Contact me if you want to dialogue about this...

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maxdemarzi
We're the Hipmunk for Used Cars

We're the Hipmunk for Real Estate

We're the Hipmunk for Vacation/Tour Packages

We're the Hipmunk for Technical Books

We're the Hipmunk for Matchmaking/Dating

I think the Matchmaking/Dating one could be sorted by Agony. (Most likely to
respond to your witty message).

We're the Hipmunk for Drink Specials (weekly view)

You can see which bars have specials which day/time and optimize a schedule to
refrain from being sober all week.

Or you could optimize for Live Bands, themes, ladies night, etc.

~~~
entrepreneurial
The used cars one is www.carwoo.com

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kayhi
We're the Hipmunk of research chemicals (<http://store.p212121.com>).

As a side, at what point is a site popular enough to be 'the Y of X'. I
suspect Hipmunk conveys more here than the dental office. I've been going with
an amazon analogy - what amazon does to books, we do to research chemicals.

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travisfischer
"We're the Hipmunk for apartment rentals" sounds amazing to me but all of the
little hidden details that a property owner won't list might make this less
effective than Hipmunk where you know what you are getting with each airline.

~~~
entrepreneurial
Interesting you brought this up. Check out this mixergy post:
<http://mixergy.com/brendan-blumer-accounts-ne-interview/>

site is: okay.com

Serious money to be made...

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lachyg
We're the Hipmunk for Gift Cards (had a TC article written on us!)
<http://cardnap.com/> \-- Facing some technical difficulty at the moment,
hopefully will be fixed by tomorrow.

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ethank
We're the heuristic algorithms mixed with good user experience as applied to a
market filled with endemic, institutionalized and non-innovative players.

~~~
entrepreneurial
''

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yolesaber
College tuition + majors? CollegeBoard does this to a degree but I despise
their layout and sometimes the tuition prices are inaccurate.

~~~
entrepreneurial
You could do that and add book costs aggregations as well. Like Chegg.com vs
the other book renting/buying services.

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hoodoof
We're the Hipmunk for "Low orbit launch vehicles."

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cicatrix_manet
We're the Hipmunk for all the other Hipmunks.

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entrepreneurial
This is in a response to <http://www.leaky.com/> just launching

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bigohms
We're the hipmunk for hipmunk sites

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grep
The costs of advertising a service like "Hipmunk for X" are tremendous.

~~~
entrepreneurial
True. Sign up for yCombinator :)

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benologist
Group buying sites.

~~~
entrepreneurial
I asked that before - there are a couple of these.
<http://www.thedealmap.com/>

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whichdan
Hosting / Domains

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helwr
Bitcoins

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suking
Prostitutes!

