Idea: Creating a P2P rental apartment listing platform that is focused on connecting prospective roommates, and outgoing tenants.
Problem: It is almost impossible to find apartments on Facebook marketplace as it is entirely group-based, and lacks filter functions. PropertyGuru only has agents posting.
Insight: Facebook has a casualness that lends itself to the ‘roommate wanted’ posting that we are looking to solve.
Validation method: Create facebook ads that target the groups with the text: “Find a roommate and apartment for your budget in 30 seconds”. Then create a mobile-first landing page that is ‘roommate-focused’ with featured rooms, and ask them to put in their apartment preferences. Just finish from there, but that would give you demand validation, as well as data on profiles, and their preferences.
Notes: The housing market in Singapore is really unbalanced right now. We’re trying to solve a demand side problem, when the bigger problem is actually the short supply. Tenants are already willing to scroll through hours of Facebook to find the right apartment, but landlords and posters realise that they have the power, and would not be incentivised to put their apartment on the platform.
Why am I doing this? I’m an innovation consultant who helps businesses build new products, and ventures. And I want people to see how easy it is to build, and validate an initial business idea. Hopefully inspiring them to start their own business.
Am I worried that people will take the ideas? I hope they do. These ideas will hopefully make the world a better place. Just remember, “Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything”What’s most likely is that within a month of testing the idea, the idea would have completely pivoted, but this is a starting point.