Harry and I came up with the idea for RemnantSwap when we were at a conference in Boston. Through a series of conversations with other software business owners, we started thinking about building a site for countertop fabricators to sell granite remnants to each other.
We knew this was not a completely original idea, because we’ve seen brokers at most of the trade shows we’ve been to over the past 7 years. But those businesses have a fundamental flaw because they either:
1) Connect fabricators that are far away
2) Connect fabricators close together
I haven’t heard any fabricators who like the idea of selling granite to far away buyers, because it’s expensive to ship and prone to breaking. So you’re unlikely to have a good experience.
If the fabricators are close together, you probably already know them and have done business with them before. So why do you need a middleman? Why not go directly to the fabricator?
The only way those brokers could make money is if they stand between the buyer & seller, and don’t let each other know who they are, or what material is available. That model is not sustainable. You can only make money if information is kept secret!
RemnantSwap makes the information free, where brokers try to keep it secret. I don’t know if RemnantSwap is going to be the site that takes over the market, but it seems inevitable that something like it will.
Is there some value these brokers provide that I’m missing? I’d love to hear what else they do to make it worth paying for.
