The actual process of this is based on the company policy. I deal with some companies that will not mix the two types of income at all, while other companies treat all of it as earnings. As far as the legality of it when you receive the funds, it is totally up to the applicable tax laws for you...
I have designed a few of these online marketplaces and I can tell you from experience that in this day and age, phone numbers are a deterrent on a signup form. I advise against it and agree more with the cons. However, that does not mean that you cannot get feedback from students. Form the past ...
You need to stock the shelves with products that your customers want to buy, but you don't need to create a Wal-mart size store right away. You are right to focus on one local market first. Figure out how many transactions you need to prove product/market fit and then work backwards. If you ne...
I am currently the CTO of a vibrant online marketplace. As prior responders said, we started with demand. Once we had people who wanted to pay for our services, it was easier to find suppliers to fulfill the demand. In addition, we started with a narrow focus, and then expanded. We are a lo...
Several ways come to mind. Formulate your idea into one (or better all) of the following + you'll know by interest level if you have a winner. 1) My favorite. Start a Meetup Group (set the zipcode of group) to match the zipcode of a US city where most people originate travel to your target dest...
Hmm .. Interesting that you say your sector isn't being addressed. Wonder why ... But if so, then that's an opportunity. I've spent the past 4 years specializing in probably THE hardest market for making accurate appraisals: the domain name industry. For me as an engineer, that has meant crunc...
Focus on the more difficult side of the marketplace. For instance, if you think it'll be easier to get suppliers, then focus first on getting buyers - always be working on your toughest problem (aka your biggest risk). You'll find some great blogging on Marketplace and Platform topics here ht...
Maybe hire a freelance market researcher to find out? ;) Generally, something like this is going to appeal to fortune 500 companies. Smaller companies and entrepreneurs are going to be doing market research themselves. From the question it is difficult to tell if you have come into possession ...
Here are my thoughts: "Offering stock options to the first 5". We tested this and it turns out this isn't viable. Not only will you administrative overhead managing your cap table, you're going to turn off investors that may not like the structure. My advice is: keep it simple. 1. Define your...
The best way to solve chicken and egg problems for marketplaces is to prove market need on each side independently first with a low-cost MVP-type test. Once you've proven the market on both sides with metrics it is much easier to leg in supply and demand with a strategic or enough funding to mat...