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Comment by nurik | Hacker News Reader

You can monetize with this: add the feature that the ones who do the favors also can explain other how they did it, if you want to know how to do it you have pay a very small fee (maybe 10 to 50 cents). I know there are already code review pages outthere, but I would definitely add the feature to review/add code snippets.

You would rather "tax" the user for digital services (a bit like itunes which "taxes" users for digital products). Depending on a lot of stuff this might actually be a very good idea. When you have your fvp send me a mail.

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Ah, interesting idea. My initial reaction is that once people had the request fulfilled, they wouldn't usually be willing to pull out their credit card to find out how it was done (no matter how cheap it is), but I'd love to be wrong. You think there'd be some interest in that feature?

Also, what are your thoughts on keeping it simple and just charging $1 (or some other very small amount) per favor, and I take some percentage of that (20% or so), and the person who fulfills it gets the rest? Seems like that might be a good way to get a steady stream of people fulfilling favors since it's a way to make easy money, but again I worry that the "requesters" won't be willing to pay for such small things.

Thanks again.

I agree with you that the one who will get the favor done wont be interested in buying the solution. It also depends of course on the favor...(i.e. reviewing code cant be done twice in a row since each problem is going to be different). However, the following people that have the same problem maybe will. Lets say the initial favor costs 1 USD and the solution 50 cent....then you might opt for the solution. Didnt Amazon have a small-task service? You might also check out mightybell.com for some inspiration on that...

I agree with the "tax" idea, but I think the small fee needs to be much higher, to get serious buyers and sellers. As a buyer, I would be more concerned about the job being done quickly and correctly, than trying to save some pennies. As a seller, I would be more inclined to participate in the system on a regular basis, if I could generate a reasonable income from it.

I see your point. However, jf you have a smart solution that's worth buying, people will buy it over and over again and even when it seems "cheap" it could generate significant revenue (just like the songs etc. on itunes)...

I totally agree with you on those favors where the deliverable can have multiple buyers. I tend to think of most favors as being one-offs, however.

I think you are right. If you look at Amazon's site for small digital tasks most "favors" are one-offs: http://www.mturk.com

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