Democratizing Knowledge & Empowering Lifelong Learning

marketplace platform for pair problem solving and interactive learning

beta release on pairtime.nl

Problem

  • Knowledge workers often need expert help to get unstuck, but they currently rely on their own network for that.
  • People are denied access to certain knowledge because they don't have the right network.
  • When there is an urgent problem, there is no marketplace to bid for on-demand consulting time.
  • There is no platform that can get it done without leaving the site.

Solution

A marketplace platform for people who want to get unstuck or better understand something on the one hand, and knowledgeable people who want to help others and monetize their experiences and expertise on the other hand, where
  • Everything users need to get their work done is integrated in the platform, such as payment, chat, and video conferencing.
  • Users don't need to install anything. It just works in a browser.
  • Its matching algorithm provides relevant recommendations to users better than human search.

Why now?

  • Core tech becomes very cheap; our stack is 95% on open source. Utility APIs such as payments and video conferences have become affordable commodities.
  • Browsers have become so good nowadays, and almost no one uses IE anymore. Internet speed has gained so much that video streaming is a norm. It possible for us to deliver our product in a server-side rendered web app.
  • Machine learning in NLP has made huge progress in the last few years, and big companies have released pre-trained models that we can build our matching algorithm upon.
  • Most companies don't realize the market potential in lifelong learning and interactive learning.

Market potential

  • The global workplace training industry has a market size of 370.3 billion in 20191. While interactive learning is still not widely recognized, it has the potential to take 1% to 10% of that market, which gives us a 3.7 billion addressable market.
  • The global IT professional services market size was valued at USD 562.06 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach USD 1,070.28 billion by 20252, at least 10% of which is IT support and training services. By 2025, the on-demand support and training will take at least 10% of that, giving us a 10.7 billion addressable market.

Competition

LinkedIn

It is a tech company and already has the largest professional network. Our advantage is to enter the market first and to engage the communities better.

Clarity

It is a marketplace for on-demand consulting, but the collaboration is call-based. We are not worried because it is not a tech company.

List of freelance marketplace products, which don't have integrated interactive collaboration environment:

Fiverr Upwork Arc CanWork

Business model

Consumer market

We charge 15% on withdrawals.

SaaS market

We charge 5-10 USD per employee per month.

Team

Zhenhao Li

Founder

Financials

no revenue (pre-launch)

no external funding

plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-1

Fundraising plan

  • Our goal is to secure 1-2 years' runway for a core team of 3-5 people to reach product-market fit.

  • We want 500K for 15% of the company,

  • Or 750K for 20% of the company.

Vision

By 2026, we will have

  • enabled our users to take 30% of the total addressable market, meaning 4.2 billion revenue made by all users on PairTime. Our revenue will be more than 400 million, giving us 80 million per year net profit on a 20% margin.

  • made a household name for diversity and equality by engaging communities and running our social programs.

  • worked together with governments to help build a lifelong learning workforce.