

Ask HN: B2B or B2C? - ceeK

A recent venture of mine involves aiding students finding a student property at my university. The project was originally going to offer two plans, a free simple version and a premium one with more information.<p>However, after emailing estate agents, whom liked the idea, they asked what sort of funding I would require to develop the service.<p>Should I decline the funding and go B2C? Or should I accept and build the service for the estate agents?
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dragonbonheur
Maybe you should get a buyer, sell the business and move on to other things.
Housing booms or busts don't last long and people often fail to realize the
transition from one to the other. Education and its financing is about to
change as well.

Unless you're really passionate about the sector in which case it would be
better if you used their marketing infrastructure, thus B2B.

With B2C you'll have to compete with Craigslist and lots of other alternatives
and competitors and you'll have to spend lots of money in marketing.

Of course I could be wrong so please take no offense.

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ceeK
A fair point. It's mainly just to help students and make money on the side
(it's also my CS project). It aims to streamline the whole process of finding
a student property rather than actually selling properties themselves (i.e. it
links back to the estate agent websites in the end). Think of it as a property
comparison service.

As such, I'm not particularly concerned about whether booms or busts are
happening. I just want to know what would be the right choice in this present
case for a student making some side money on a project.

Thanks for your input though =)

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dragonbonheur
Since it might be your first commercial project it is best to team up with
them and get the maximum you can out of the experience. You can build and
profit from other things later.

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byoung2
Go B2B. Businesses will pay, consumers will not. If you can build a base of a
few hundred real estate agents paying $50 a month, then you'd have money to
subsidize a free version for consumers, but I wouldn't bother with B2C until
you're making more money with B2B than you know what to do with.

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ceeK
That's what I thought. However, would it change things that the service I am
developing is aimed at consumers (i.e. the students) but beneficial to real
estate agents? The free subsidised version would have to be offered from the
start.

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byoung2
In general, I would avoid consumers, and in particular, students are a
terrible demographic to sell to because they are poor. They will pay rent,
because they have to, but they won't pay you for your service. I would go
after the realtors first because they can and will pay. If anything, if you
have a free product, you should sell leads to the realtors, or sell
advertising to realtors (I believe Zillow charges for realtors to list their
info). In that case, you're not actually giving away a free product, the
students are the product you sell to realtors. In that case, it is worth
exploring.

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ceeK
Thank you for your advice, you make a good point. I think I will definitely
strive to work with the estate agents. Zillow seems an interesting service. It
is similar to what I wish to create here in the UK. The difference is I can
tailor it more to students (I'm grouping it with estimated internet speeds,
crime statistics, proximity to the university bus stops, how far a walk are
you from the student bars etc). Cheers for mentioning it.

