Our group is thinking of a college network for connecting student helpers/specialists/recommenders to other students who need services (like other students who cut hair, can fix something, etc). It can be something like Yelp but for college campuses, with students’ own ratings for services from their peers. Students can provide services for/look for services from other students on the network. Some examples of possible services:
– haircut
– fix something (computer, clothes, etc.)
– carpool
– walk dogs
– translate foreign languages / learn about foreign cultures
– make up
– photograph
Market size
- TAM
- The total number of US college students in Fall 2019 is about 19.63 million. This is prior to the pandemic, so we will assume that the vast majority of these students were on campus and that current numbers are close to this.
- SAM
- The number of college students who were on or near their college campuses in Fall 2019 is 16.81 million. The monetary value of the market would then be 16.81 million × the number of services requested per student × the profit per service.
- SOM
- We would scale down to the number of Stanford University students rather than the total population of US college students: 16,937. Perhaps we could also include UC Berkeley students, which total 45,057.
- Assessments of student service providers on campus
- Assessments of particular student needs on campus (e.g., hair services, tutoring, etc.)
- The cost of one student’s charge vs. the outside cost of a professional’s charge
Attitude
I interviewed two of my friends, a master’s student at Stanford and a master’s student at JHU in Washington D.C.
Questions:
- When you need service such as having a hair cut or fixing water tubes, how do you dead with that?
- Tell me about a time when you reach out to a peer for some service.
- If there is an app that students post and search for service from other students, will you use if? If so, what will you use it for?
The two interviewees were both very concerned about the safety on the platform. They can’t trust the people who post service, in terms of their intentions and their service quality. They would turn to the friends they know of or professionals if they need some service that is important to them. As a result, I believe that if we want to go into this route, we need to build the trust among users on the platform by having more safety protocols and peer reviews. Besides, the interviewee who lives in a walking-friendly city told me that she can reach service quite easily. So we might want to target the schools that are in the middle of nowhere.
Quotes:
“I will trust the posted services more if there are reviews from diverse users. In that way, it is less likely that the reviews were just the author’s friends trying to help them get more customers. You know, there were rape incidents on campus recently. I don’t feel safe on campus and I can’t trust someone just because they are a Stanford student.” – Stanford student
“I in general don’t trust people who post on SU Post or something like that. If I need some help, my friends and roommate can satisfy my needs.” – Stanford student
“We don’t have a campus…… So we don’t really have a community. When I want a hair cut, I will go to a salon. When I need to fix anything in my apartment, I call the apartment admin. I don’t think I need to go to my peers for service.” – JHU student
