In a quick Twitter post I described RedBeacon as ServiceMagic meets LocalPrice meets Bookfresh or Booking Angel:
And you could substitute other company names for the ones above; there’s nothing truly novel here as far as I can tell. Admittedly I haven’t spoken to anyone at the company but the challenges of executing on this type of model — though it works in theory for both advertisers and consumers — are considerable and fairly well documented:
- Must build consumer awareness and traffic
- Sell to SMBs
When you’re bootstrapping both sides of the local equation it’s extremely difficult.