Hi radarians, I’m currently working on this idea and I would like your honest criticism - it doesn’t matter if you’re gonna bite at it or side with it. All we need is your criticisms. Thank you.
MarketSquare is an online platform (web and mobile) that would help students sell off items they no longer need or buy the ones they couldn’t afford, find spaces for rent around their campuses and connect business owners with customers around a particular campus.
MarketSquare was born out of the need to proffer solutions to the untold difficulties that students face while trying to perform certain essential tasks for survival on campus. We are out to take care of these bugging, time-consuming and stressful tasks - ranging from finding spaces for rent, selling off used properties, going to the market, finding roommates, getting quality used stuffs at cheaper rates, placing and receiving orders from dealers nationwide and so much more.
Our mission at the end is to help the average Nigerian student reduce stress and focus more on achieving an excellent academic performance.
MarketSquare offers 3 workable solutions all in one. They include –
SQUARE ITEMS – a classifieds where users can either post ads of items they wish to sell off or search for items they wish to buy.
SQUARE SHOPS – a platform where business owners, service providers and student entrepreneurs can put and manage their businesses online.
SQUARE ACCOMMODATIONS – a platform that will make finding spaces for rent very easy for students and other tenants alike.
Err… you forgot to insert the link to your online platform(s) (web and mobile) sir.
However, the idea makes a lot of sense.
You just have to execute right.
Humming to the tune of Inyanya’s song: “Your criticisms, your criticisms, all we want is your criticisms…” @xolubi, where is that ya passing through gif sef?
Nice idea, but your SQUARE ITEMS is trying to enter (or entering if you have started already) a space/niche/yard/field that OLX, Jiji, Kaymu (?), etc are already playing in.
In my opinion, SQUARE ITEMS would be the hardest (read most challenging) to pull off, as you have to out-execute (&out-market Jiji especially) the aforementioned big boys to grab any meaningful market share.
Since it’s a 3-pronged idea (or not, depending on how many other square/quadilateral-shaped ideas you have in the pipeline), look at which quadilateral idea that would give you the best results for your efforts/resources in the shortest possible time.
All the best, @Chaigogo.
@ukay, thanks for your feedback! Concerning the crowded classifieds niche and the big boys in it - we only want a fair share of student-users in that niche (if not all) and then encourage them to trade in their own campuses. MarketSquare will let students trade within their own campuses, thereby reducing trust and safety issues by some margins.
You may need to change the name. There are a number of websites with ‘marketsquare’ . Even i have a website that has ‘market’ and ‘square’ as the name.
If you get it right…I think the accommodation part will be the best…I might even work with you on that because am planning something along that line in my campus.
The idea is legit. It’s execution that may be a problem.
I don’t know about square shops, but square items and square accommodations solves a legitimate problem. However, it may be difficult to float square items because of the chicken and egg problem. But that problem may not exist in floating square accommodations because you can simply walk round a particular campus, get all the available space to rent, put them on your website (preferably with pictures, prices and information students will be interested in like security, power stability, water stability e.t.c) and then promote like your life depends on it.
My advice, focus all your limited resources on square accommodations (since it’s the easiest to float) and use it to build a brand students trust. That way, when you decide to add other products it will be much easier.
I graduated in 2011 (before Naija’s dot com boom) but while I was in the university, I had challenges with finding a place on campus to rent. It was also very difficult to find graduating seniors who were willing to sell their stuff to junior ones (except he/she was your roommate and you were aware of his intentions to sell).
Frankly speaking, I think this is a great idea. @Chaigogo will have to do some research and know what campuses to start with.
He can also partner with relevant school authorities to make his services more visible to students.
“If you are just launching a classified ads website in 2016, you are already 10 years late”-@Engrtitus (could have quoted from original comment, unfortunately it has been withdrawn by owner)
Really? Is that a fact or did you made that up? If it’s a fact where’s the source? Because www.efritin.com launched last year and they’re kicking it.
Sir my advice to you is simply create a 1 solution idea and when that kicks off you can add branches.
Immediate student needs: Student Accomodation start with that and introduce a peer to peer sub letting system where students looking for roomies can move into a room together.
You can then promote to this database of a new platform to buy n sell on campus or add a new feature ( you see here you have a database and can then build growth)
but if you have millions of dollars hidden away somewhere please let me know let me help you but i advice start with the simplest one, Student Accomodation.
Get someone with top coding skills from elance.com, guru.com or even fiverr.com to help design the site with Strong UI/UX flow.