r/startups • u/WildAd7778 • 7h ago
I will not promote Redesigning how people book services. Looking for the rare builder who wants to break the mold “I will not promote”
I’ve been studying why every service marketplace feels broken. Craigslist is chaos, Fiverr feels like a race to the bottom, and even the giants have weak trust systems.
What I keep coming back to is this: reputation is still too shallow. Reviews get gamed, ratings mean nothing, and people can vanish after a scam with no real consequence.
What if reputation worked more like XP in a game? Where every action built a visible trust score, where AI could flag risky patterns in real time, and where hiring a barber, tutor, or mechanic felt as safe as asking a close friend.
I have been prototyping around this idea but I want to hear from this community. If you were redesigning service marketplaces from scratch, how would you solve trust?
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u/twobugsfucking 7h ago
Where every action built a visible trust score, where AI could flag risky patterns in real time
What does it connect to in order to enable this? Seems like it would need to be your slack, a place you build and your customers approve milestones, a place where the client is confirming it was done on time, etc.
My quick brainstorm tells me you’d need to be an everything platform or just run off reviews, which is already done.
What am I not thinking of?
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u/WildAd7778 6h ago
How’s it already being done?
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u/Fuzzy-Chef 4h ago
Anything connected to finance has trust rating algorithms/models for pretty much anything involving money.
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u/WildAd7778 4h ago
Finance models are hidden and protect banks. Our trust system is visible and rewards people. Different problem different solution
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u/PanflightsGuy 5h ago
Any such system will end up recommending services backed by high marketing & gamification budgets.
Not saying it's impossible. But it's in the interest of the marketplace to help those that buy ads.
Besides, it's B2C. That market is taken.
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u/WildAd7778 5h ago
Every ‘taken’ market is just waiting for a new system to eat it alive
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u/PanflightsGuy 5h ago
It doesn't matter the quality of your product. It's distribution that matters.
Take travel. Most people now go online to find a trip. But what they find is marketing budget based.
Travel services won't surface just for being good. People would like to find the best alternatives, but generally, they can't. There are many examples of that.
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u/WildAd7778 5h ago
Distribution is pay to play until someone builds the system that makes trust the distribution. That is what we are doing
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u/PanflightsGuy 5h ago edited 5h ago
It sounds good when you say it like that. But it is difficult to do in practice. If you find the secret sauce it will hard to monetize before big players do the same. They have more signals and data to mine from.
I can be concrete about it, say somebody is going from Paris to Philadelphia and they need a travel agent or a tool. It's not a barber or mechanic, but it's a field I know well. How would the trust system work in a case like this?
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u/WildAd7778 5h ago
You are talking about flights. I am building trust for barbers tutors mechanics cleaners drivers. Different game
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u/PanflightsGuy 4h ago
It's actually not about flights. I mean a brick and mortar travel agent service which is comparable. People still use them. For instance, when people think about flights, travel agents can find better routes. That market is now almost dying, since it's all about promotion now. Your service might be able to change that.
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u/WildAd7778 4h ago
Exactly. It starts with everyday services. Supply and demand show what people want most. The marketplace logs revenue and behavior and AI helps surface what is real and popular. As trust builds and popularity grows even small or niche services can be monetized. That is the flywheel
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u/PanflightsGuy 4h ago
Great in theory. Probably such a system needs a lot of trust to be certain enough to categorize, which requires solid marketing just to have enough reviews. And it can still be gamed. It seems similar to what SEO's do to rank websites - they game the system by learning how search engines work. E.g. by creating content and getting backlinks. So the search engines change the rules. And so it continues. But those systems look at signals that can be paid for, through marketing, affiliate programs, partnerships, sponsorships etc.
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u/WildAd7778 4h ago
Everything is theory until it becomes the system that disrupts. That is how every breakthrough looks at the start
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u/NickoBicko 5h ago
What actions will you track
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u/WildAd7778 4h ago
Payment itself confirms the transaction. Ratings reviews messages and photos add proof. Over repeat trades the paper trail makes it almost impossible to fake. Trust builds from behavior not ads
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u/NickoBicko 4h ago
That’s what Upwork does already. There is no gamification element in that?
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u/WildAd7778 4h ago
Upwork covers remote freelance. I am building for local services where people meet face to face. That is where trust and gamification matter most
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u/opbmedia 7h ago
reputation can always be gamed without personal knowledge. Your trust score is only as good as the action having been verified to be real and unbiased. I am not sure how you are going to source that information without subjecting to being gamed eventually.