I am in Australia and am in the early stages of a Family related deal site so launching in a vertical. I know the market is super crowded but we know this demographic is not being served well by the general coupon sites.
With only 1 other smaller new competitor we are at the stage of building subscriptions (have around 500 members) and it looks like we will achieve our goals of getting to 20,000 subscribers in 12 weeks. Then to seek angel investment and scale. We need the money for a sales team nationally.
Anyway yesterday livingsocial launches here with livingsocial families....What a blow its been. These guys already have a list of 700k users in the general site. They are in the top 4 players and each player has a 700 - 900k list.
My concerns are a) we havent even started and dont have funds yet and they have existing teams and a list with maybe 30% mothers. b) One of the other top 4 players may go out soon on the same idea...Thats a possibility especially with 1 player that copies everything..c) retailers in the family space in Australia with only 5 big cities and 25 million people will be limited and may be hard to compete with large players...BTW livingsocial and others are now doing TV here too.
So question is should I continue with my goal and build my own list? The angle being we are all Australian etc? Should I pitch the idea hoping there is enough space for a second or third player here? Or just cut my losses now and move to another idea?
The only other USP or innovationI can think of is doing more a product based Family Site ie Kids Clothes, Shoes. I dont think that has as much of an appeal though.
I do think if we had funding, that building a list, a large one is doable and have all my marketing methods kicking now. I can see a definitive roadmap here to building the list which is half the battle. Its the other half of getting the sales staff and competing for deals etc on the Retail end that worries me.
Also Would we be a take over target? (thats our goal to flip) or not anymore as we are too late?
Please advise do we continue or cut and run?
Thanks!
