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I'm not clear on why these services can't be organized by something low-tech and essentially free, like Craigslist. I can totally see the value in establishing a marketplace like this, but don't service providers get final say on which marketplace wins, and won't they pick the one that doesn't treat them like garbage and then charge 30% or whatever?

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I couldn't agree more. All we need is Craigslist style verticals (categories of work) and horizontals (cities) + identity verification + a reputation system. The overhead for that could be really low.

The $35k/year/worker support staff would seem to be the only capital-intensive aspect of the business.

There already are some services, likes angieslist. One problem is the review/reputation system. Without purchase proof anyone can review/rate providers and this in time will make the rating system unreliable.

Much like fraud prevention is the "hard" part in a payment processor, reputation systems are one half* of the "hard" part in this kind of marketplaces, and very especially for this kind of tradesman services (*the other is getting both sides to use it).

I've seen several people try to start services like "Handy" and fail due to this.

One big problem is that the best tradespeople already have work, and don't need lead generation services.

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