Gig Economy Business Ideas I: Build Your Own

Gig Economy Business Ideas I: Build Your Own

The first and most obvious idea for surviving the gig economy is becoming the gig economy.

I don’t mean “get a freelance profile” or “start driving Uber” because that’s the quickest way to volunteer yourself into servitude.

Instead, I mean bite the bullet, build the platform and become the gig economy platform owner.

As always, I’m a humble writer and billion-dollar start-ups are outside my expertise. So it’s a good job you don’t need to start a billion-dollar start-up to get involved with creating gig economy platforms.

What Is A Gig Economy Platform?

At its base, any gig economy platform is just a website that connects suppliers to customers. It’s a marketplace website, in essence. No billion-dollar venture capital needed for the technical side. In true “let’s see where this goes” spirit, I ran a Google search for “marketplace plugin” and it turns out there are WooCommerce plugins – both free and paid – that’ll allow multiple vendors on a site.

If you do your due diligence, you can start your own gig economy platform for the grand total of some hosting, a free WordPress install and a domain name, plus maybe $100 or so for some good plugins to handle all the technical stuff.

In any case, your simple gig economy website is hardly going to cost the Earth.

Shouldn’t It Be More Complex Than That?

Probably, but it isn’t. At its simplest, you can take the above and get started within a week in a niche industry. Obviously if you want to build the next Uber, you’ll have to do a lot more leg work. That said, in essence Uber’s minimal viable product was a website and a mobile app.

Now, assuming you’re not trying to compete in a multi-billion pound market, the above could really get you going as a minimum viable product.

Let’s say you wanted to create an app that put people in touch with local karate clubs for your city. (This might exist (not sure,) but you can think of something that doesn’t.)

Do you really think that’s a supreme technical endeavour? To start with, you wouldn’t even need to do the whole “marketplace” thing. You could just cold call karate clubs and say, “Hey… we’re the Uber of karate clubs in London… want to join?”

First ten clubs get in free and then you skim off the top for every booking.

You can use the same marketing, same advertising and same everything that bigger companies have used. For whatever you don’t know, nothing I’ve mentioned so far is impossible with a week of free Udemy courses or beyond an Upwork freelancer to put together.

Start with one service; expand. Start with one city; expand.

Your value add is that it’s easy to use your website and that you cover the marketing… which if you’re a regular reader of this site, you’ll know is easy. (Hint: Direct Mail, FB Ads and SEO.)

But What About Competition And Saturation?

This area isn’t even close to being saturated unless you only have boring ideas. Plenty of massive markets still exist without the gig economy/marketplace-type vibe. Stuff like food, sport, education… all of those things are still underserved.

If you wanted to niche down instead, there’s even less competition. How many competitors would you have for your billion-dollar start up if the niche was a cake-baking marketplace?

Of course, the easy money would be in seeing what some gig websites are doing wrong and fixing that.

For instance, everyone’s least-favourite freelance portals: Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer and the like.

They’re widely condemned by customers, clients and everyone else for being a bit rubbish.

Why?

Who cares… the point is that you could easily start a competitor that fixed some of those issues. Maybe you go for a more exclusive set of clients or you have an application system that weeds out third-world freelancers from applying to jobs requiring an Oxbridge level of English.

Possible Mistakes And Stuff I Haven’t Researched

This idea has come straight from my brain after yesterday’s topic went on a bit long. I haven’t researched this pretty heavily, so it’s up to you good readers to use your much more efficient brains to research good opportunities.

That said, a few points I’d be cautious about:

• Taking, storing money (acting as the middleman comes with dubious regulations in a lot of places)
• Resolving disputes between supplier and client
• Marketing costs will be your big expense unless you’niche authority
• As with dating sites and the like, getting legitimate, paying customers will be the big challenge
• Suppliers of pretty much anything are a dime a dozen. Everyone wants money.
• Probably concentrate on some niche skill that’s high expense. Makes all the burdens easier.
• Whatever you do, try and find a niche where people are not tech-savvy. Creating stuff like an “SEO marketplace” is a disaster waiting to happen because everyone decent doesn’t need your service. Whereas “old furniture restoration” is a smaller niche, but high priced and you just know that nobody in that niche is running their own marketing campaign to rival yours
• Remember, you’re going for total brand exposure in this. You want to become the go-to place for your niche such that your branding is more important than the companies that supply you. It’ evil, capitalist stuff and you’ll be wiping away your tears with new and crisp £50 notes.

Thus ends my part in this little tangent of an idea. This is obviously the most obvious of gig economy ideas, and I’ll probably write some more up in the coming days that are less obvious.

As always, comments etc. welcome and when you use this little guide to start your own billion-dollar start-up, remember who wrote it when you’ve made it.