This is my second post. I can’t agree more about what you have said about many-to-many business model. It’s interesting that you also mentioend eLance.

Not meant to be a shameless plug, but my company Yabbyland.com was started exactly because we see problems with eLance’s LACK of many-to-many business model. eLance charges a very high per-transaction fee, and requires a subscription to join to be a freelancer. We at Yabbyland.com aims to challenge that and become a truly many-to-many business. It should be cheap enough such that people can just “buy anything” using this model, instead of buying only professional services.

I am hoping that one day, you will be able to simply log onto Yabbyland.com, and request for people to help you post your posters. This way, you would be able to cover the entire USA relatively cheaply.

Yaro, if you don’t mind, I would love to communicate with you via email. You have my email on this comment.

If I could use your service one day to find reliable and cheap postering staff (the holy grail!) then I will be very happy!

I think the challenge you face, just as anyone who decided they want to compete with eBay, is that the established service(s) have the critical mass of users. Even if you offer a completely free service it may not work. A barrier to entry exists since no one wants to list a job on competitor’s site with no freelancers using it, and no freelancer is going to go to the site if there are no projects currently offered…they will just head back to Elance even with the higher prices.

If you can get a critical mass of users and get past the “deadsite” problem then you are off. You really need to focus on getting members and job posts. I’d be offering the service for free and trying to really niche your angle and pick a very tight demographic (small business owners, students, whatever).

I’m actually at this stage right now with my hobby site Yaz.com.au. I’m struggling to get new users and get a community going because the site is very “quiet”. Once we get a few regulars the momentum will take the site forward. But it takes persistence, patience and, promotion (my 3 P’s!)

Anyway I’d be happy to have a chat sometime about it and swap stories.

Cheers,

Yaro

I came across a site named BetterEdit.com yesterday. Funnily, it was pointed out to me by a competitor of the company. Man, he had some harsh words to say about it.

The founder of BetterEdit.com is a guy named Yaro. Yaro’s writing is great, which…