Recently I was thinking about starting a company that follows the model of Uber, Airbnb, Ebay and other similar companies that bring together providers of services (taxis, apartments, goods) and users of this services.
I see two significant obstacles in creating the business like this and I don't know how to overcome them.
1. Legal ramifications if a provider of a service provides a bad service, or even worth, commits an illegal act. An example would be a rude Uber driver or an Ebay seller that ships a cheap Chinese phone instead of an advertised iPhone 7. How do these companies like that protect their customers and themselves from unscrupulous providers?
2. How to bootstrap a business like this? Uber was useless without taxi drivers, but when there are no taxi drivers there not much sense for users do download an app, and if there are no users it does not make sense for taxi drivers to join which creates a Catch 22 problem. How do these companies break this vicious circle?
I see two significant obstacles in creating the business like this and I don't know how to overcome them.
1. Legal ramifications if a provider of a service provides a bad service, or even worth, commits an illegal act. An example would be a rude Uber driver or an Ebay seller that ships a cheap Chinese phone instead of an advertised iPhone 7. How do these companies like that protect their customers and themselves from unscrupulous providers?
2. How to bootstrap a business like this? Uber was useless without taxi drivers, but when there are no taxi drivers there not much sense for users do download an app, and if there are no users it does not make sense for taxi drivers to join which creates a Catch 22 problem. How do these companies break this vicious circle?
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