you can build your platform with joomla or drupal for basically nothing.
You can even pay someone to make your website off those plaforms very cheap. In your case i would not procrastinate, put something up even if its crappy just get it out there now.
As far as opinion i think it is a great idea, great business model. The only two things i can not comment on is the market (how many other people are doing this?) and how big is the market? Do not say oh there is 50,000 event planning companies, figure how many are you going to get.
Here is an idea to see if the model is working. Go to craigslist and put up some ads saying you need event planning done for your party.
Get their phone numbers, emails, and such. Print them all out and store them.
Now put up other ads saying you are an event planning company, see if you get responses.
If that does not work put up more ads saying "i have 25 event planning companies that are looking to bid on parties, you will get the cheapest price." Say simply email me your info and i will call you and recommend the best ones for free.
You can even make a fake blog that rates event planning companies and link that in your CL ad. Say we are doing this for 2 weeks for free in order to build our client base.
Now when you have leads.........match them.
Call back the planning companies and explain you are building a business of recommending people. Call up five of the companies that responded on craigslist and ask if they are interested. Give all of the leads away for free. Give each lead to 3-4 companies. Wait a few days or a week, call all the companies back. Write down questions before you call and ask them anything you need. They will all give honest answers. Then the last question will be. Are you willing to pay $X per lead for the next potential clients.
If any of them say yes, your next job is to find people looking to have an event and your off!
Also to give you perspective on this, i have done this entire process in 7 days.
Remember: many companies are old school, hard to reach the owner, or simply believe when buying leads it will be solely price based. By putting up ads on craigslist you will get mostly new companies in heat to get new business, they will buy leads no questions asked.
I have personally helped people do this for their startups and it works.
good luck.
You can even pay someone to make your website off those plaforms very cheap. In your case i would not procrastinate, put something up even if its crappy just get it out there now.
As far as opinion i think it is a great idea, great business model. The only two things i can not comment on is the market (how many other people are doing this?) and how big is the market? Do not say oh there is 50,000 event planning companies, figure how many are you going to get.
Here is an idea to see if the model is working. Go to craigslist and put up some ads saying you need event planning done for your party.
Get their phone numbers, emails, and such. Print them all out and store them.
Now put up other ads saying you are an event planning company, see if you get responses.
If that does not work put up more ads saying "i have 25 event planning companies that are looking to bid on parties, you will get the cheapest price." Say simply email me your info and i will call you and recommend the best ones for free.
You can even make a fake blog that rates event planning companies and link that in your CL ad. Say we are doing this for 2 weeks for free in order to build our client base.
Now when you have leads.........match them.
Call back the planning companies and explain you are building a business of recommending people. Call up five of the companies that responded on craigslist and ask if they are interested. Give all of the leads away for free. Give each lead to 3-4 companies. Wait a few days or a week, call all the companies back. Write down questions before you call and ask them anything you need. They will all give honest answers. Then the last question will be. Are you willing to pay $X per lead for the next potential clients.
If any of them say yes, your next job is to find people looking to have an event and your off!
Also to give you perspective on this, i have done this entire process in 7 days.
Remember: many companies are old school, hard to reach the owner, or simply believe when buying leads it will be solely price based. By putting up ads on craigslist you will get mostly new companies in heat to get new business, they will buy leads no questions asked.
I have personally helped people do this for their startups and it works.
good luck.