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iamshariq

Great service for a consumer. But as a business - how do you earn revenue?

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They're likely using one of the world's oldest business models: "Buy things for $1, sell them for $2."

The simplicity of your reply blew mine out of the water. :0

I think I stole the quote from the Wire.

Take quote from the Wire, use on HN. Still quite the arbitrage! :)

Yup, love that show.

"Shit is just business, String. Buy for a dollar, sell for two. That’s all it need be."

Proposition Joe

I know a guy who buys cheap cars, fixes them, and resells them. All through craigslist. But whenever he buys a car, even one he plans to keep for himself, he immediately lists it with a huge markup. Just today he got an offer for $3200 on a motorcycle he bought last week for $2000.

I often think that would be a great gig.

I like fixing things.

But I don't know how to work on cars. So there's that...

You'd be surprised how much you can learn from a classic Haynes manual. Start small (changing oil, tires) and you might surprise yourself!

Yeah, it's partially that I've (so far) had exceptional luck with my vehicles! In my 15 years of driving I've only had maybe 10 parts changed. I did the easiest myself--an alternator, a couple of serpentine belts, etc. I sometimes change my own oil.

Sometimes I don't know enough to diagnose a problem, though, and I take it to my buddy. He usually does the fix and I watch and help a little, but I don't know enough about the whole engine and how it all works together, at this point.

I want to buy a car to take apart and reassemble, but I don't currently have a space I can do that in. Though it just occurred to me I could get a storage unit, probably.

Presumably by taking a percentage for acting as a convenient middleman. (At least eventually, even if they aren't now)

  Cust: I want 100 bananas
  Magic, to Instacart: how much does 100 bananas cost?
  Instacart: $100
  Magic, to customer: Sure! Does $109.19 sound okay to you?
  Cust: sure

have we seriously gone so far down the rabbit hole that you're wondering how a service that takes your credit card and charges you for deliveries... makes money?

This business started out of a need that I had. I've hired numerous assistants for myself in the past to handle these types of tasks for me. I've always been OK with paying a premium to have thing handled for me like magic. I've had my assistants do work for other people too to simplify their lives, and often times it was for things just like this. Here, we realized that instead of having to pay a salary, or even a monthly fee, we could do it on a per-item basis. I didn't know how popular it would be, but it seems that other people in addition to me are interested in the idea of paying a premium on top of per-item prices in order to have them handled like magic. Maybe it's not for everyone, but there is definitely a market.

I love the idea. I currently pay minimum wage to a student friend of mine when they have time, but when they're busy paying the equivalent to a service would suit me fine.

I have no idea how viable this is, but if you could find an effective way to extend this to "we will deal with your suppliers who only work by phone, and charge you for the privilege of not having to make the stupid call yourself" I would be very interested ... but probably useless as a customer, since I'm in the UK. It's just I already pay for fulfillment work and wish I could easily pay for utility company wrangling, and if somebody can validate the model hopefully somebody will do it over here eventually :)

We've put up a similar service for the UK market. You can check us out at askjarvis.co.uk or just text START to 0115 824 4141 :)

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