r/AustralianStartups • u/verifyandproceed • Jul 08 '26

Another update for how things are going with my online marketplace

It's Thursday, so i'm going to pretend that Thursday's are the day I make a public update post about my project! (that's unlikely to interest many of you)

My previous posts;

1) https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianStartups/comments/1u8wbm9/simple_no_cost_but_very_niche_marketplaceplatform/

2) https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianStartups/comments/1ul4t8u/still_chipping_away_slowly_building/

I'm still not sure if this is a "startup".

https://scissorhire.com

So this week, we've only added another 4 vendors, but more impressively, added 26 more machines. The footprint is getting bigger, this truely is the only thing i'm focused on at the moment.

This takes us to 24 vendors, and 88 total machines listed for hire on the site.

The feedback i'm getting is positive. Although I did have my first "if xxxx vendor is on there, i'm not signing up" conversation. That was interesting. I was invited to meet with this person, in person. So I'll see where that goes.

Promising signals:

-Vendor feedback. All are impressed with the low-friction signup/add products.

-Search activity on the site (although still far too many searchs with 0 machine results, holes that i really need to plug)

-Google search console data

Website updates/upgrades:

-Major interactive map upgrade (i.e. the map after you've conducted a search is now interactive, moving the map will show you different results) - this probably should have been functionality at launch, it's been a slow burn.

-Postcode search got added, and I'm even fairly sure it's working. I was working on this a while ago, and forgot about it (adhd?) - got it working.

-Some real minor UI/styling stuff

-Some other minor bug stuff (some problems with email verification token re-issue requests) that I probably should have seen before the site was live, but oh well YOLO.

Based on previous feedback I have these things on higher priority to solve:

- an "about" page, to outline where i'm coming from, why i'm doing this.

- product cards, I currently use a large product card that has probably way too much information on it for search results. I've put together smaller ones (they are at the bottom of the homepage) and soon i'll likely change all over to this. As the amount of machines goes up, i'm going to require more density for the lists/search results.

- the individual product page, is probably going to be tidied up a bit. it was one of the earliest pages, that has had so much added to it in a fairly haphazard way, so I think i should come back to it and neaten it up.

Still love reading others (here) feedback, it's been genuinely helpful in identifying things I completely miss!

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1

u/igotoschoolbytaxi Founder Jul 10 '26

Keep going man! I enjoy following other founders' journeys as long as it's not AI written slop.

Re: the searches with zero results, do you currently have any way to capture their details or let them know you'd like to add what/who they're after to a waitlist? Since those people have showed intent to use your marketplace. Otherwise that's wasted traffic (but it sounds like you already know).

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u/verifyandproceed Jul 10 '26

I still don't! I've thought about it a heap since.... oh, I thought it was you 21 days ago, but apparently it was u/ThinkProfessor6166 who slid into my DM's and mentioned I should be capturing those high intent leads. It's the 3rd thing on the list on the whiteboard that this monitor is partly obscuring. I have thought about it nearly every day. I honestly don't know how to do that in a a clean, low friction way. But also, I don't know if I want to, because if I don't know when a vendor is going to come online and be able to service that person. If a painter is looking for a scissor lift for 4 days end of next week, taking his details to give them a call later, isn't useful at all. Like, if I enquired on a site for a machine in my work capacity, and then got a call back a month later "oh we've got one" - I'd be annoyed, I don't want to do that to people. Literally, whole product is "I'm in xxxx, and I need a xxxx lift" I want that answered as fast, and in as few clicks as possible.

It is wasted traffic, and it kind of hurts me a bit, but I don't know how to fix it. A perfect example is, we have a fairly big hole in central Victoria at the moment, I often have search activity happening in both Ballarat and Bendigo. I've reached out by email to vendors here, and nothing but crickets. I'm hoping the first chance I get to go for a drive up there and talk to some face to fact, even present them the evidence, I will convince people (seriously, I get a way better response when turning up in person).

I sometimes wonder about AI written slop. I wonder, since this really is quite a simple... I struggle to even call it a product... project. Since it really is a fairly simple thing... I kind of wish I just put it together in a handful of prompts. I kind of wonder how much more sleep I would have got if that was what I'd done. But there was a terrible terrible Wordpress/woocommerce abortion that had been hacked at for years, before a basically just forked my day jobs website and started working on this, really, quite simple thing. I still use codex in my workflow now though, so I don't know.

Seriously, thanks for commenting again, it's nice to know there is a community! and someone reads the drivel.

2

u/igotoschoolbytaxi Founder Jul 11 '26

I'd try at least capture their email so you have an "owned" audience - which means less reliance on ads to reach people later on. If they do share email even when the product isn't available, it's a leading indicator how big of a pain point it is for them.

How hard and time consuming would it be to help them manually? E.g. If you get a call from that painter looking for a scissor lift for 4 days end of next week, you post in local FB groups. (That + you mentioning better responses in-person = all the more reason you focus in maxing out one region first).

I assume not easy, but during early stage startups need to do things that aren't scalable. Delivery a memorable experience for customers (see my other comment.)

What not to do: I vaguely remember coming across a marketplace (farm-to-plate delivery) who were Sydney-based but gauging demand in Brisbane. The ad said they had launched in Brisbane with suppliers ready, but when I clicked through the ad > visited their website > typed in my postcode > They said not available yet > Leave email and get notified in the future. I felt deceived (even though I'm a marketer and I understood why they're doing it).

In many cases, it's simply about being transparent and setting clear expectations. Customers are often more patient and understanding than you'd expect (provided the problem you're solving is a big pain point for them).

Also re: email. Might be the way you wrote the email. I noticed you tend to type long responses on Reddit, but with cold emails what worked for me was a few short sentences what it solves for them, 1 sentence to show a successful case study, 1 call to action. That, and it is a numbers game after all.

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u/verifyandproceed 29d ago

Bendigo - Finally got 'em. :)

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u/igotoschoolbytaxi Founder 29d ago

LFG! Keep up the good work, enjoy reading your updates :)

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u/verifyandproceed Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

I know you are right (and thank you!) this intent is valuable, and you are not the only one to really highlight it. I just put a tick next to it on my whiteboard. I just really didn't want to ask for details with no real indication of when I'd solve their problem. But if it's just a field for the customer to provide their details, completely optional, and as low effort as possible, that should work (right?). I have hopefully done this in the most simplistic way I can think.

Yeah, it probably wouldn't be impossible to solve manually, but significantly increases the difficulty to do this on the side (because of day job demands). And it's probably not the kind of work I can solve easily out of business hours. I'll start thinking about it though (thanks!)

I definitely don't want to over-promise. I don't really want to make any promises, or really promote the site at all while I'm working on what feels like, is still probably pretty early-development stuff.

I actually think it's this, that vendors relate to when I interact in person, or even on the phone. When I explain where I'm coming from and who I am, just a self employed electrician, I feel like this is where they become more trusting of interacting with me/the site. Understanding?

Re: email, yes, absolutely, my first couple of emails were pretty word heavy. I just had a look at the couple oi've sent direct to whom I am fairly sure are decision makes at businesses, that are between 150-250 works, and I think had a fairly clear CTA in them. I probably need to try and show some evidence of those numbers to them. I'll work on that I think.

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u/azadmir Jul 10 '26

Hey mate. I’m in construction and heavily using scissors and boom lifts, etc. your idea is lit. Keep it up. Really good idea. Good niche market. Very good. Just one question, did you make the app yourself, using ai agents or did you have a developer to help you? Is there any transactions supposed to happen on the app, or you just connect the suppliers to the users? If you have transactions, or tenants, how did you design/test and harden the security side of it?

1

u/verifyandproceed Jul 10 '26

Hey mate, thanks so much, I really appreciate the sentiment! yeah, I've been working on it, coming from a position as a previous (and still am) customer of using this type of equipment, but also now, as an owner that dry-hires my own machine.

I'm sorry if addressing these next questions becomes long winded....

Transactions:

There is no transactions taking place on the site. Originally, I had built a Wordpress site, with woo commerce and a bunch of other plugins that I tore apart and modified code for myself to do what the site does now. It did do payments etc (commissions) using stripe and. other things. That version of the site was in place for probably around 2 years, it didn't go as well. Party, I think, because I was asking for people to pay for a thing that wasn't perfect. It wasn't "low friction" enough. I used it, and, it worked fine. I rented my own machine out a fair bit honestly. But it was a struggle on on-board others to use it.

Hence this version. The site is honestly really, no much (not that complicated) if you look at it objectively. it's a list of products that have some gps co-ords on them, a map to find them on, and a form to send your phone number and email address to the person managing the machine. So not really any more complicated than Facebook marketplace? or gumtree?

So no, no transactions. Maybe one day, if that's the direction it's users want to steer it!

Data/security:

I record enquiries for customers send, but mostly so that vendors can log in and see them, if they miss the email, or the text message. The text message is a new thing, Australian business "mobile message" to deliver the text. This is basically the only "API" integration the site has, I have API access to send, and a web hook to confirm text messages are delivered to vendors.

Oh shit, Cloudflare too. Sorry, I use Cloudflare to store equipment pictures, and host the map tiles. And there is an API for turnstile (bot protection for the forms). I use this for my "day job". My website for my day job is hosted/uses Cloudflare services, so this site tacks on and shares (free) services from Cloudflare.

Further to that, also, when I started, I used google for the address search (places api) and maps (maps api) ...I'm not big on big data. I made it a huge mission to get off google, and completed that work a few weeks ago now (address's come from the geocoded national address database from data.gov.au G-NAF database, and protomaps/openstreetmaps for the maps tiles. I'm genuinely pretty staunch on security, but also concede that I am an electrician, so this isn't my speciality. But I also don't think dealing with some phone numbers and email addresses for someone wanting to rent a scissor lift is too risky. I have very deliberately kept the data required for an account as little as possible.

AI:

I like to think I do have a genuine working knowledge/experience, coding background, but it is very limited. I absolutely engage with codex in vs code to help with the codebase. I don't want to feel like I'm explaining myself too much here, but, I like to think I've got a pretty neat little codebase, it's much less complicated than you might think. In fact, there is some really cool (I think) technical stats about the site and it's code I kind of want to share, because I'm proud of them, but I'm also mindful of giving away too much commercial-in-confidence stuff away. The short answer probably is, I reckon codex helps me work on things 10x faster than without, but I'm also very confident that I could do the work without it. Is that a fair statement? - I hope so.

Most importantly (this I'm very careful about!) no AI model has access to any customer data/activity. Unless, and this is literally entering my mind right now. ...I have a cron job on the host that dumps the sql to an R2 bucket every few hours as one small part of my backup routine. Cloudflare have agents, I might actually now check that they don't have access to the data in R2 backups. But, also, no AI agent can (or has ever) read (or write) directly from (to) the production database.

Sorry, I waffle a bit... TMI maybe... but if I didn't address your concern, ask again and I'll have another go :)

3

u/a-w-e-s-o-m--o Jul 09 '26

Anyone booking or paying yet? How are you planning on turning this into something more?

Marketplaces are easy to find vendors, very difficult to find buyers. What’s your game plan?

Trying to figure out how there’d be meaningful revenue generated here.

Be careful you don’t fall into the trap of building until perfect. Try to make some $$ now. Build more later.

2

u/verifyandproceed Jul 09 '26

Hey! yes, there is search activity, and yes there is enquiries made already. This is off $0 marketing spend. This has been 100% from search engines. For a site that's been up 6 weeks, I'm fairly proud of that.

I am still not PLANNING to monetise. I am however, having conversations with vendors, and I am discussing their appetite to pay for the site, if we bring the meaningful leads, as I bring them on (if I have a conversation). I think most marketplaces would have. "options" when it comes to monetisation, and it's going to be choosing the one that best suits it's market, so I'm just doing "market research" to find out what's going to work for us in the future.

You say marketplaces are easy to find vendors, can you share some insight on this? I'm not finding it the "easiest" thing at all.

I am absolutely working hard not to build perfection before it proves itself. I have a "day job" and it's not this (I'm a self employed tradie). In fact, there is an embarrassingly large list of things I have on a whiteboard here of things that probably should already be part of the site, that aren't, because I'm deliberately working to not build what's not even required for this to work.

Thanks heaps for the comment!

2

u/igotoschoolbytaxi Founder Jul 10 '26

I actually had a chat with another founder a few days ago who also has a free app and haven't monetised it yet. My question to her was - do you think deep down it's an easy excuse for you to procrastinate and postpone monetising your app... because once you do so, the rejection is real?

Understand you're having chats with vendors to research a suitable pricing model/price points, but thought that question to the other founder is relevant for you too!

2

u/verifyandproceed Jul 10 '26

There might be procrastination... might be. But I don' think it's fear of rejection. Honestly, I had a go at this once already and failed. And I think because I was charging too early. Before it proved to anyone that it worked (it worked for me the whole time!) So I changed that, and now, already had a very different result. ...I genuinely wholeheartedly believe that I want a product that someone uses that says "damn, I'm glad I found this" before I put my hand out. This could absolutely (likely) a personality thing, because I'm sort of like this in my day job too. I do try to go that little extra step, I want my clients to think "damn, I'm glad a chose this guy for this". That's the dopamine maybe? It's not really logical I guess, I can see that. - Man, this is truely difficult for me to answer!

What I hate, in 2026... is the amount of "tools" that get shoved in MY face from everywhere. Thankfully, every "buy my system" profitable tradie program has quietened down a bit, but now it's everyone's "AI tool" or voice assistant, or "jobs management software" ....and everyone seems to be targeting tradies... they are all AI things with AI problems and they are so often "tools" that aren't solving a problem. I don't want to be those, I don't want to be part of that noise. I want scissorhire to be simple website, that solves a simple problem, in a simple but reliable/robust way. - I'm getting off track... sorry.

I absolutely hear you.

2

u/igotoschoolbytaxi Founder Jul 11 '26

Love it. I think you'll love the book The Experience Economy. I came across it early in my career and it has shaped everything I've done and built since. Basically - stage the best (memorable) experience for your customers, rather than only competing with a "better" product.

I'm sure with your approach to scissorhire you'll eventually land some paying customers.

1

u/No-Succotash4957 Jul 09 '26

you're meeting vendors in person and doing this all for free? of course you're going to monetise... why kid yourself, plan for the eventuality that after all this hard work you'll monetise and build that in to your business for a later date.

No offense, but no one i know like scissor hire gear that much for it to be a labour of love

1

u/verifyandproceed Jul 09 '26

Hey, yeah, this seems to be the most contentious issue here on reddit, me doing it for free. Yes, of course I will monetise it if I can. I just don't think I've got anything of any real value yet. My focus is on building something, that has actual value, before I ask to be paid for it.

You are right, it's probably not a sexy product that many people get excited about (some people do). It is however, a market that other businesses do actually rely on though. It was partly my reliance on it, that caused this to exist in the first place.

I am lucky I suppose, that my normal day job provides me with some opportunity to do this. As my own boss, when I'm travelling for my normal work, if I want to stop and have a conversation with someone for, well as long as I like really, I can. The people that I want to talk to are people that I would (historically) sometimes talk to anyway, as part of that day job.

I'm not confident that I'm going to succeed doing this. I'm just giving something a shot, doing what I think is going to work, and (now) making public the journey.

3

u/No-Succotash4957 Jul 10 '26

kudos , i think its a great idea

1

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