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A couple of months spent in home isolation changed our lives and habits. Some of us quickly got bored in the house and started looking for some useful things to do.
Let’s just be honest, it may be cool to lay in the bed all day binge watching your favorite shows or movies, but it is way cooler to do something productive. Almost every person has a list of to-dos that were waiting either for your free time or for your right mood. And now this moment finally came!
Quarantine itself implies minimization of social contacts. So whether you want it or not, you may face a situation when you need to make, repair, clean or cook something not knowing how exactly to do this. Chances are you will try either to google it or to look for a tip on YouTube. It is great to have such powerful sources of information at your disposal, but it is way better to rely on experience and advice of real professionals.
Wouldn’t it be great to become a part of online community of helpers and find all necessary tips in no time? Just imagine a convenient platform where you can find a profile of a professional and contact that person or watch some tutorials.
And this all can be done in a couple of clicks. Fast, convenient and useful – a type of solution we all need in our lives.
So in this article we would like to share with you one great startup idea – skill sharing platform that unites professional from different spheres of life and people who need support while learning.
Why develop your own website?
According to one of the recent researches, how-to videos turned out to be the most attention-grabbing. Around 86% of people all over the world search for videos demonstrating specific skill sets and then try using accumulated expertise in real life. So you should not have doubts whether building your own skill sharing platform is a good idea.
Just imagine how many users your new solution can attract. Taking into account small competition in the niche, you have all the possibilities to make your idea work and bring you a stable income.
Another advantage of such a platform over all other solutions and sources of information is that you can speak with a real person and discuss your particular task or challenge.
Skill-sharing platforms can contribute to creating a community of people with very sector-specific skills. So the users of your platform can, for example, ask for an advice anyone starting with interior designers, photographers and carpenters, and ending with musicians and farmers who crop some specific cultures.
Now when the people all over the world are put in quarantine and make the most of their devices, it is the best time for you to build, launch, and maintain your own app.
How to find the right developers team?
If you have serious intentions to build a skill sharing platform, the first thing you should do is to find a suitable team of professionals.
Software development is rather complex and it will include numerous stages starting from discovery phase (when your idea will be checked and shaped) and ending with the development, testing and release.
So it is crucial to find a team that will understand all your needs and requirements and will be able to release a functional solution in time.
We have created a short list of recommendations for you that can help you with the decision making.
Look for team members on trusted platforms
Check out Clutch or other reliable sources to take a look at the organizations they mention. Surf through various categories and read short descriptions. T
his will help you to understand what hourly rage the specialists have, where the company is located, what its main specialization. You will also discover their minimum project size and will be able to visit their own website to check out full rang of offered services.
You will also see that development companies from different countries tend to have different hourly rats. For instance, the American ones have the highest rates, the Asian ones – the owes, and European offer great price-quality ratio.
Check out the company website and portfolio
This will help you to understand whether the business works with the necessary technology stack and what projects they’ve already created.
Additionally, wide variety of technologies that developers skilled at using will allow to make a high quality web or mobile application.
Also don’t hesitate and write the companies that seem of your interest. You may ask them to provide you with some examples of their works, share their experience, etc. Thus, you will estimate their full potential.
This is a normal price since you need to select the company that you are comfortable to collaborate with.
Let’s take our company, Altamira, we have 9+ years of experience in delivering high quality apps. We work with a variety of technologies among which you will see the following
| Specialization | Tech stack |
|---|---|
|
Back-end |
PHP, Yii2, Laravel, Symphony, Python |
|
Front-end |
Angular2+, Vue.js, Ionic, JS, React.js, AngularJS |
|
Android app dev |
Java, Kotlin, Android SDK, Gradie, Maven, Wear OS |
|
iOS development |
Swift, iOS SDK, REALM, SQL, ocket IO, CocoaPods, watchOS, tvOS
|
|
Cross-platform app dev |
Flutter SDK, Firebase |
Read reviews from real clients
This is a real indicator of the company professionalism. If a team has a lot of good reviews, then you can choose it and start discussing your idea and deciding if you are going to choose this particular company. Where you can find all those reviews?
First of all explore the company website and look for testimonials. Then Google the company and check the platforms like GoodFirms, Clutch, and others. Clients tend to leave reviews there and rate a company honestly. They also describe all pros and cons of their cooperation.
Advanced features that will be appreciated by users
Even if you’ve already selected a team and have more or less clear expectations from your solution, you shuld definitely give a good thought to the options your platform needs.
If you include a set of the most efficient features, then your platform will always have its users. So here are some ideas for you. When developing your own solution keep in mind these options.
Easy registration
Let your users sign up using their social accounts and allow sharing to them. This will make the whole process way faster and easier. And shared information will allow to attract more users.
Profiles with pictures & videos
Both people who share their knowledge base and the ones looking for necessary info should be able to create and organize their profiles.
So it is better to think beforehand how those profiles should look like (if there would be implemented some specific layout or feed).
Search with filters
To make the process of looking for the right specialist easier you’d better implement advanced search section with key filters sorting users by profession, skills, age, popularity, etc.
Live streaming
Its popularity skyrocketed in the latest 2 month and even big companies use live streaming to promote their goods and services. So if you allow skill sharers broadcast their activities this will attract more new users and will keep them engaged.
Conferencing
To connect skill sharers with more people it would be reasonable to add online conferencing option. E.g. the users may connect their relatives or other people who need to understand some processes to apply those knowledge on practice later.
In such a way your skill sharers expand their audience and the platform can bring you more money.
Messaging
In case your users have some crucial questions they can ask skill shares directly. It is more fast and convenient than looking for the answers on the Internet. And it also adds more value to your platform.
Commentaries
The users should be able to express and exchange their opinions, leave some comments and expect a reply from skill sharers.
It is a good practice that also helps to identify whether a profile is popular. It also allows to set a trend for a certain profession or skill set.
Pro tip
If your skill haring platform will offer paid tutorials, then it is crucial to add reliable payment gateway so that the users of your solution can pay in one click. Check out our article related to the best payment methods to select the right one for your business modes.
What you should know about monetization options
Let’s say you’ve made a decision to create your own skill sharing platform. But what’s next? How are you going to make money and is there any way to make real use of your idea? We can assure you, that skill sharing platform can be a great money making solution but only if you think about your monetization strategy beforehand.
We have already covered this topic in detail in our article. So we’d recommend you to read it right away.
Taking into account how many info is related to monetization options and how easy it is to get confused choosing the right strategy, we decided to help you a little.
We have thought about several good ways to monetize your skill sharing platform and we think that the most suitable would be.
Advertising
You can consider placing paid ads on your platform. Usually a free space is left for such banners or you add some temporary pop-ups. But pay attention that such monetization method can be a bit annoying, so do not overload your solution with ads.
Subscription
You can make your platform subscription-based and charge your skill sharers and users monthly. It is also possible to create different plans depending on users purposes.
This monetization method has a great potential as you can add some interesting options for premium users and in such a way prompt other users to consider switching to that subscription plan.
Sponsored offers
You can promote some service providers or companies on your platform and charge them for this. Just make sure that you are promoting relevant goods or services and that your main audience may be interested in them.
FAQ
Yes, software development companies usually offer you to sign NDA with them so that you can be sure that your idea is protected and no one will disclose any information related to your project, or use it for personal purposes.
The final price will depend on the overall complexity of skill sharing platform and feature set that you want to add.
The price can start with $40,000 and increase. But if you decide to develop MVP first, it is going to be more affordable and will let you check the real potential of your solution.
The development may take 4-8 months and after that your solution can be released. However, if there will be a mobile version of it, then it may take a couple of weeks to submit it to mobile stores, since you will need to wait for a confirmation from them.
To conclude
The pandemic taught us all some essential things – to do everything by ourselves, to expand our knowledge and master new skills.
That is why skill sharing platform is going to be our go-to tool. If you’ve been thinking about your own startup, then building such a platform may be a good choice for you. This solution indeed has a huge growing potential.
