Friend's business idea

[Noonelikesfruitcake]

Hi, a friend of mine has talked to me about a business idea they have, and I'm trying to gauge opinion. Essentially, it's an online referral site, putting women in contact with female-only tradespeople, mechanics etc for jobs required. Is it a good idea or not? And would it matter if this friend is male or female? They will take a commission.

I'd look at it, I'd like to use a female owned business where I could.

I suspect the money earned in female owned businesses tends to stay more within the locality too

I should say, this is dh's friend, and I have opinions. DH doesn't think I should say what they are or it would "sway opinion"
Does it matter if person profiting/taking a commission from this business model is a man or a woman?

I like the idea of having access to a large pool of female tradespeople but would be much more drawn to it if the owner of the company was also a woman

You mean like www.gethertrade.com?

Owner of company would need to be a woman for me to take it seriously, otherwise I would just think it was yet again a man trying to take advantage of women.

I think that’s a fantastic idea, i ideally would prefer that a women was running the company though. Otherwise it seems a bit gimmicky. Could be a good service for say elderly women, rape victims, single parents, anyone who would feel uncomfortable with random men in the house.

Also I think it would be great for challenging sexist stereotypes with children. Now you’ve mentioned it anything we can’t do ourselves it’s always ‘a man’ we get in to fix it.

@frenchfancy I think along the same lines as you.

I think a directory or something would be great, but the idea of a man realising that women face discrimination etc and so coming up with a way to profit from it, isn't right!

@eggcelent oooh yes, just like that site!
(Except that's a free site, and not being run by a man who is making a profit from the many reasons someone might want a tradeswoman instead of a tradesman. )

Thanks for the link eggcellent have you used them?

I think a directory or something would be great, but the idea of a man realising that women face discrimination etc and so coming up with a way to profit from it, isn't right!

And yes this Someone always mange’s to articulate what I’m trying to say better.

I think if you were a tradeswoman and good at your job and good at marketing, you would probably be busy enough and have no need to pay commission to some bloke to put you on his website. Is he in the industry already? What is his pitch to the tradeswomen going to be?

No idea Dickensian. Probably,
"Now listen here, little ladies..."

Interesting but I think you'd face problems under the Equality Act I'm afraid.