[harshaw]

This isn't so much about the Author's story but the space. He is correct that marketplaces are hell, and especially auto repair market places. I was one of the several devs that went through trying to make Openbay work (a US based market place for auto repair). We actually did have service providers signed up and we did have a way to acquire customers who wanted auto repair. So you had the illusion of product market fit - but the problem is that it's really really hard to get people to actually click "buy this brake job" and then, more importantly, they have no reason to come back to your app because 1) you don't need brake jobs all that often and 2) they can just go back to the service provider. And many shops are happy to still take phone calls as their default way of booking work.

The reason the company existed is the rich founder was upset that a shop wanted to charge him a fortune to get his BMW M5 repaired. He wanted better quotes. So we built a marketplace to get better quotes. But that's not what real customers want (because most people have Toyotas not M5s). And also we didn't do the customer development / research to understand how repair shops work. You want to know how my repair shop manages their repair schedule? They have a paper calendar and write down your phone number and the job. sure there are better ways to manage the work - but this paper mechanism has worked for them for years and why change it? And you know what - I go back to the shop all the time because I trust them. Ultimately people tend to have a fairly personal relationship with their local mechanic. You can build a leadgen product but the ultimate relationship is between the customer and the repair provider.

TLDR - everyone should understand the lean startup. /working backwards model and relentlessly focus on the customer.

[bityard]

> Ultimately people tend to have a fairly personal relationship with their local mechanic.

This is the money line. And it goes for all skilled trade work. Mechanics, plumbers, building contractors, roofers. Most of the people doing this work are just surprisingly bad at it, especially for how much they charge for it. It takes a LOT of time and effort to find someone good. I'd even lump doctors and dentists into this.

I don't want a marketplace to tell me who's the cheapest, I want a marketplace to tell me who's the best. And unfortunately there's no way to build that. (Why is a long story, but the short version is: because there's no way to build the correct incentives into it.)

[cafard]

> Most of the people doing this work are just surprisingly bad at it, especially for how much they charge for it.

A friend quotes a sometime co-worker of his: This is C+ world, and if you can do a solid B- you won't starve.

[charlie0]

The law of averages. Most in any field are going to be mediocre. It's unavoidable.