HACKER Q&A
📣 hemmert

How would you build a marketplace for user content?


Hello! I‘m running a nicely growing Escape Room game, with printed components and an app that serves as the game master. One additional feature is that users can create their own missions, for which the app will then be the game master. It’s used in private, business and educational context, with 2-5 missions created per day. It’s nice to see it being used.

www.escape-team.com

One possible next step would be to allow users to sell their missions - so Escape Team could become a marketplace for that.

But how? If I’d be the seller, paying the creators a commission, that would put a lot of tax issues into my hands, which I do not want.

Is there a platform that you would use for that case? I’d like them to take care of payment (from the players to the platform, which would then split the money between me and the creator), for digital content (voucher codes and PDF links) that my API would post to them (the ‘products’).

Thank you!

  👤 gus_massa Accepted Answer ✓
My guess is that you need to handle all the mess of payment. People don't want to handle that. Try do find out what https://www.etsy.com/ or the hundred of similar sites where users can sell stuff are doing, and try to copy that.

Each of the hundred of similar sites have a different niche, so perhaps your idea may be good. But if you ask each seller to manage the credit cards and other payment problems, you will not get any seller.