Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding were two of the biggest trends to impact how companies - especially small businesses and sole traders - raise money, with sites like Kickstarter.com and in the circle of funding UK attract attention to be an excellent means of support for projects or business ideas around the world traditional and costly loans of the Bank in the process.
Now launching a website that gives this model a further twist: AskYourUsers.com is a simple service that helps you find people for projects microconsulting lasting not more than 15 minutes - and it uses your LinkedIn network to help you find them.
Demo that I saw, the service is basically simple, but it works very well and definitely solves a need - that Amelia Dunne and his co-founder, Chris Bumgardner, essentially trébuchés on involuntarily:
The two had worked together on the ideas of how to start for the past four years, and finally both left their day jobs to focus on the startups full time:
"But after a month of development, we always tried to validate the idea uncomfortable of our time and money, building the prototype of expenditure", she says. "The validation process has been lengthy, costly and we were not finding the right people to talk to, or receive objective feedback." AskYourUsers.com is the tool that we wanted to, we could use – but there was no. We have determined that the value that he has AskYourUsers.com worth developing even if only for our own use. Quickly, he clearly indicated on the economic plan. We were surprised to learn how inefficiently other startups were conducting their studies of market, held focus groups and learn from their customers, needs, and interests.
This included businesses to engage in the long and costly process for in-person focus groups; companies with messages from Craigslist to hire individuals who could provide feedback; using Surveymonkey to filter by the respondents and choose which interview. The time spent on the analysis of the results is another question. "We knew that the process could be easier that what we (and other start-ups) were living," she said.
The solution is a simple web interface that allows you to identify issues, determine tasks (user test, comments on an item and so on), how many people you want to target and even certain demographic information. Then, you pay $22 by "consultant". On the end of consultation, potential aid put an hourly of $20-40, with each job paying a minimum of $7.50. The site advises that if you charge $40 or more you can not obtain as much work.
Then AskYourUsers made the rest.
Dunne, said that it believes this could be the first to use LinkedIn to help find people. It is an interesting way to use the social network focused on the business not only for networking, but to actually make a little money. LinkedIn, however, is that the early, said. The plan is to integrate Facebook Connect soon, and other new services that it intends to deploy in the next quarter.
With regard to funding, the company supports the road less network for now: totally self-funded. "We have not yet explored additional funds or spoken to potential donors, but we intend to start to seek angel funding shortly after the launch of this beta, Dunne, said."
The plan is for the shot now with a closed beta for the next two months. Dunne, said the company already has some startups, awaiting its first customers at launch.
And for readers who would like to try at the beginning at their own request of microconsulting, we have a code. The first 1,000 users go to the site and enter 66214506-5229-48d6-be5f-6eff5a164b68 may do so free of charge. I am sure that they would love your comments.
OH and P.S. The start, they worked on? A mobile application for promotions in real time where merchants offer things for free (equipment, gifts, inexpensive products). One to look out because I assume that in the future.
