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Question
π€ How to attract "sellers" with no traffic?
I'm building a real estate platform for a specific market that has no English speaking platform yet. I want realtors to publish their listings (for a fee) on my website but how do I convince them on my platform if it has no traffic yet? It's kind of like a chicken and egg problem. If there's no content, no one wants to visit. If there's no traffic, why should anyone pay to list?
Solution attempt/thinking process: -Make it free for the first realtors. -Charge them anyway because they can let their customers pay for the listing.
Or is there something I'm missing out completely? How did you face this problem?
Cheers newyam
Solution attempt/thinking process: -Make it free for the first realtors. -Charge them anyway because they can let their customers pay for the listing.
Or is there something I'm missing out completely? How did you face this problem?
Cheers newyam
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The problem of marketplaces is a well known problem; there's definitely a lot of material you can find about it. I believe I remember that when I looked into it there was no single silver bullet strategy: it'll depend on the market which approach is right.
I'd go with:
* free for realtors
* you onboard them/you do all the work: make it as pain-free for them: only upside/no risk for them.
I'd also focus on a very very very small niche: probably a small neighborhood where there are really good chances of adoption on both sides of the market.
Good idea, I was thinking about doing an onboarding process for free where I do all the work for a limited amount of realtors/time. With that, they don't loose anything but only gain and I can build some reputation and traffic in the meantime.
Yes this, do it by hand for your first users. Just ask them if you can add the listenings, as soon as they see results they will start using the platform.
You could also try a "charge per click" strategy for realtors' posts.
If no one clicks, it's free. Realtors understand that your product is new with no risk if no one clicks AND sets the expectation that the realtors will eventually pay.
Problem I see with this is that, even if they don't pay, it's not free; if they have to do the work of creating an account, figuring out how to use it, upload their inventory, etc. that's a lot of work for something that they don't see an immediate value in using yet.
On the other hand, doing that work for them allows you to learn about their use case and create a relationship.
I agree with what you have above -- do the on boarding process for them so you can make the process painless and build rapport.
In addition to fully free, I'm suggesting another payment model to gauge the realtor's willingness to pay if the platform works with no downside if it does not. Perhaps a "During the platforms early stages, I waive the fee for posting if my platform doesn't gain you x amount of traffic."
I'm curious how others have solved this problem -- I'd benefit as well from the answers.
I appreciate your answer and honesty. I will probably stick with Pablo's strategy though of offering free on boarding. It makes a lot sense and I guess that would be something I'd want to have too, in their shoes as it is very transparent too, another goal/core value of mine in business.