Validating a women-only beauty service platform (React/Node/Next.js)

[ZiadEl]

Hey HN, I'm Ziad — currently building a prototype for a women-only beauty services platform, and I’d love your early thoughts before we ship an MVP.

The idea hit me unexpectedly. One day, my mom booked a beauty freelancer to come to our home. It was a disaster. The stylist had no online profile, no reviews, no credentials, and… no clue what she was doing. I asked, “Where did you find her?” My mom replied, “Someone just recommended her.” That’s when it clicked: why isn’t there a vetted, trust-based platform for this?

So I started mocking up a product:

Think Airbnb UX meets Glossier aesthetics with a Node.js + PostgreSQL backend, and a Next.js + Tailwind front.

We’re building an app where women can find verified, reviewed, and skilled beauty freelancers or salons just for women, filtered by price, location, ratings, and availability.

For freelancers/salons: they’ll get a dashboard, booking system, and verified profile (with KYC & portfolio upload).

Here’s the interesting part from a product-market-fit angle: We’re launching in Turkey, where many women (especially in Muslim/MENA communities) prefer to get beauty services at home for religious/cultural reasons. This isn’t about exclusivity—it’s about respecting privacy, safety, and lifestyle choices. The current salon industry doesn’t address that.

We're validating this in communities where:

Demand for at-home services is rising.

Trust & verification are huge pain points.

Digital presence for freelancers is almost nonexistent.

Tech-wise: I’m leading the product and strategy while my co-founder is handling the stack. We’re considering integrating Supabase for auth + real-time updates, and maybe Stripe Connect for multi-vendor payouts. We'll go PWA first, native if we get traction.

What I’m looking for:

Is this idea solving a real pain from your perspective?

How would you validate this quickly without burning budget?

Any tech tips, UX red flags, or go-to-market hacks?

Bonus: If you know anything similar in other markets, I'd love to study it.

Thanks for reading. Happy to share mockups or talk tech/product if anyone’s curious.

– Ziad

[laurent_du]

In Europe beauty freelancers are not really a thing, those who do it at home are typically immigrants who ask for lower prices and get paid under the table (meaning they don't declare it to taxes). On the other hand, beauty salon management app is a well-established market.

For inspiration you can look at something like timma which in the Nordics is basically a marketplace and an salon management tool. Clients find beauty salons on the marketplace, and professionals / salon owners advertise their services on the marketplace. The app solves the problems of finding clients, doing marketing, accounting, testimonials, payment, and so on.

I personally wouldn't include portfolio in the V1 of your app because most professionals already use instagram for this and you would be competing with an already established platform without clear benefit. Having a link to the freelancer's instagram in their profile is a no-brainer, of course.

Creating a marketplace from scratch is not easy and you will need a good strategy for that. What other players have done is typically offer the service to freelancers for free for a given time period and then start taking money when you have actual traffic and recognition on both side.

[ZiadEl → laurent_du]

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback!

You're totally right about Europe—our focus is actually on Turkey and MENA, where many women prefer at-home, women-only beauty services for cultural and religious reasons. That segment is still very under-served.

And yes, launching a marketplace is tough! We're planning to onboard freelancers for free at first and focus on trust, visibility, and basic tools before monetizing.

Appreciate the Timma mention—really helpful. Would love to keep the conversation going!

[PaulHoule]

From what you told me it sounds like a good idea. Turkey is a big market and I’d imagine you could expand to other Muslim countries.

[ZiadEl → PaulHoule]

Thanks so much — really appreciate the encouragement!

Yes, Turkey is just our starting point. Long-term, we’re aiming to expand into other Muslim-majority countries where cultural and religious norms make women-only, at-home beauty services highly relevant but still overlooked.

It’s exciting to see the potential, and feedback like yours really helps us refine the vision. If you have any advice or thoughts you'd like to share as we move forward, I’d love to hear it!