Today’s business idea: Assembling Service Marketplace for a multitude of things. Basically everything that can be also shipped/transported after assembling.
The problem statement
I can imagine that there are people that do like Lego but don’t have the time to spend 12 hours to assemble a Lego Lamborghini Sian but still would like to have the assembled Lego as an piece of art or as an decoration. Or how many people technically know what computer parts they want but are too scared to assemble the components by themselves? Or maybe even small furniture or other decorative items like the fully working wooden clock I recently got as a gift.
The proposed solution / business idea
Keeping my thoughts around trying to establish business ideas as platforms this could also be a market place of assemblers each with their specializations. So the customer that wants a fully assembled Lego contacts one of the available assemblers in the region and then orders/ships the product they want to have assembled to the assembler. Those people assemble the pieces for a fixed hourly rate and then return (by shipping/pickup) the item to the original owner.
The potential upselling / side-effects
The following things could be added on-top of this idea:
- Customization: Maybe offer services like customizing Computer cases or fully setting up the computers. Or building some Lego MOCs with the delivered pieces.
- Furniture assembling: How about an on-site option where the assembler helps assembling furniture at your place?
- Marketplace of assembled stuff: Maybe take it a step further and directly sell fully assembled things for a little premium. E.g. a Lego Bugatti Chiron costs 349$ on Amazon so it could be sold for 449$ or so fully assembled on the marketplace.
- Monetization: The platform could take some small fee, maybe of the estimated assembling duration or like 1-2.5% of the product value.
The risks
There are some difficulties around the idea:
- Generally trust issues or insurance topics if assemblers break stuff or don’t return them. (Mitigatable with a rating system?)
- Maybe the market of lazy people is too small.
- The hourly rates might make the products too expensive.
- Building PaaS solutions always comes with the entry hurdle to get a critical mass of users on both sides.
Feedback
If you know a place, an app or company which already provides/implemented this business idea, please let me know in the comments. You like my idea and/or plan to start a company/app based on it and would like to make me participate, refine the idea, consult or own a stake? Please reach out to fondueblogger@gmail.com.