Interfacing for projects
Cool, this latest post of yours is basically what I was thinking reading the posts so far @Damiano . To leverage the fact that projects stand to win from it. I would focus on existing projects as first target group, as they have a good network usually, probably need money and will also put it to best use. In my opinion efforts are sometimes too much focussed on launching new things, instead of helping existing ones sustain themselves.
What you are then doing is interfacing for projects to monetize excess capacity in their network. Instead of having to invest heavily into logistics, marketing, sales, everything that comes with selling something, you can rely on a ‘service’ like yours. I think this ties in nicely with the discussion here on business models for The Reef. Diversity is hard to do early on, but interfaces make it a little easier.
Offering this service to a social project rather than a person (what Airbnb does) offers some more interesting possibilities, especially in the way you set this up. What if people can choose to ‘bind’ their room to a specific cause, donating most of the returns to that project? You could have, eg. for ReaGent where I am involved, a ReaGent branded accomodation service, hosted inside Fairbnb? Will projects then shift more and more towards mobilizing their community to help in non-material ways with excess capacity? Does this allow/force/nudge projects and their stakeholders to be stripped down to the very essence: a community with a certain mission, with a lesser focus on the means to an end?
Just some quick thoughts and a lot of questions, it’s a super interesting topic. Would love to hear more, but mainly see things prototyped.