Eventually, we found a hockey goalie service called rent-a-goalie and for about 2 years it served us well. Rent-a-goalie is a service that helps find you a goalie at any time for $40. The service provider would keep $20 and the goalie would get the other $20. Simple.
One night while I was driving home after a game, I had an idea... what if I could cut out the middle man and allow goalies to create a "profile" online and allow players to find them? The profile would include key information such as their age, gender, skill level, distance they'd be willing to travel and the times they would be able to play. On the other end, the players in need of a goalie, would place a "request" indicating the arena, skill level, age, gender and time. The site would match them up and then after the game allow them to rate each other... but who could help me build it?
I pitched the idea to my boss at the time (he owned and operated the software company where I worked) and he liked it. We partnered up and a few months later, meshminder.com was born. The site had some success (we were a top 5 finalist of the MSDN CODE AWARDS!) but overall, the market just wasn't big enough for the site to take off in a big way and given there was no "mobile friendly" interface (or device to do it justice), it was difficult to find goalies to respond when you needed them.
Fast forward 5 years; a strongly evolved "social ecosystem" on the web and huge growth in mobile device adoption...
The "itch" hadn't gone away. I would continuously see posts on Facebook, "Does anyone know a good painter?" or on Twitter, "Looking for a good plumber, contact me if you know someone". I still felt there was something to this model, except this time, there was a whole social ecosystem that had evolved on the web that would enable and strengthen the value proposition and now, everyone was accessible through their mobile device... This time, it couldn't be just for goalies. I broadened the scope to all personal and home services and I started to think about what could make the model even more compelling. Then it hit me: Referrals!
I knew that sites like Angie's List and HomeStars already existed but the service ratings on those sites are submitted by people I don't know (or trust for that matter) and the whole thing just seemed so complicated. I also knew that people are 70-75% more likely to purchase a product or service when it is referred to them by a friend. That's it!... Mobile + Ratings + Social Referrals = www.servicehorn.com
Give it a whirl and let me know what you think.
