Christophe and the rest of the co-founders did a special kind of masters degree, where they were grouped with people from other faculties. During this masters degree they were tasked with making a businessplan and one of their colleagues studied in the USA the year before. He had noticed a new concept there, an online platform for services instead of goods. The first company that was doing it was Taskrabbit and that’s what inspired them to start something similar in Europe.

In the first phase of their start-up they financed it by putting down 5000 euros each. That money was used for their first purchases and market research. For the first year they didn’t earn any money themselves but instead chose to invest every euro they made back in to their company. After a year or so they managed to attract 2 business angels and were able to grow exponentially.

Listminut can be best described as a platform that brings people together. People that are in need of services and people that are willing to offer their services.

Integrity, collaboration and respect.

Business Model

It is much more an innovative business concept then an innovative business model. The model probably already exists for over 100 years but the concept is definitely new in Europe.

Listminut works with a commission model. Someone offers their services on Listminut, and this can go from gardening to babysitting. There are a lot of different categories. Someone looking for that service selects that service provider. The service provider does the service and gets paid by ‘the customer’ online through the site. Listminut earns a commission on that payment, and that’s how they generate a profit. It’s a quite simple model, but also a complex concept.

At the moment they have about 15 000 service providers in Belgium and around a hundred categories. The commission they earn is between 10 % and 15%. So in order to be profitable they need to generate a lot of volumes, a lot of transactions.

At the beginning of their venture they did get some financial help from the Brussels region. With the money they got they were able to hire external consultants and employ their first employee. But the most help they got were from people in their network. And by expanding their network by meeting new people (CEO’s, people with their own start-ups,etc.) they were able the to open doors that couldn’t open by themselves. They also had some help of the organisation “Netwerkondernemen”.

After launching their website/platform they notice some disadvantages to their concept. Mainly the government that didn’t want to cooperate.  Another issue was the amount of coding that the site needed to be operational. 300 000 lines of code that need to be checked if there is a problem. Also, the online payment system can make things complicated.

They started their operation in Louvain-La-Neuve where they studied together. They then expanded to Waals-Brabant and eventually to the rest of Belgium. They aren’t that active in Flanders at the moment because they don’t have the resources yet. Instead of targeting that whole region, they are trying to target certain large cities.

They’ve just started with Brussels and are looking at Antwerp too. So at the moment they aren’t that known in Walloon and even less in Flanders, but they are growing each month and with it their popularity. They have been featured on several television channels like VRT, RTB,etc. And also in al the “important” newspapers like De Tijd and De Standaard.

Growth

At first Listminut grew very fast. But because they didn’t have enough cash flow they weren’t able to support that growth. So they decided to focus on companies and offer their platform as a solution for the employees of those companies. They stayed on this course for about a year but then changed back to the consumer market. During that year they didn’t grow that much but they did earn some money.

The last 6 months Listminut grew by a factor of 5. There objective for the end of the year is to be 5 times as big as today.

Customers

Listminut has 2 targets. Service providers and service demanders. Both are totally different type of persons. Service demanders are mostly women who are alone at home with their children or people who don’t have a lot of time. Service providers can be students, retired people, people who are still working, all kinds of people. They don’t have a specific segment that they are aiming at because of the wide variety of jobs that are available on their website.

There specific segments if they would target people for each job category. For example, a gardener will mostly be a male between the age of 20 and 60. While a babysitter will be a female between the age of 15 and 30 most of the time.

Competitors

There are several websites in neighbouring that resemble Listminut. Countries like France, The Netherlands, Germany,etc. But they are unique in Belgium and it al has to do with the multiple languages our country has to offer.

Another reason for them being unique in Belgium is the complicated juridical system. They do have competition for several categories. For example, there are websites like Listminut but only for the category babysitting or only for the category gardening.

Indirect competition can take several forms. For example, “de Gouden Gids” , a large phonebook where a lot of service providers are listed. Another traditional competitor is a service provider who offers his services by advertising himself instead of using Listminut.

Their direct competitors in France, Netherlands,etc. have taken an interest in Listminut and view their site regularly. Sometimes they even copy small features, but according to Christophe this is a two way street and Listminut also looks at their competitors. It is a necessity to keep your website up to date.

Conclusion

The main opportunities for Listminut are within the legislatures, at the moment there are still some obstacles that complicate the operations of the company. Another possible opportunity is partnerships with other companies.

The law could also possibly be a threat to the company. This threat can take on several forms. But a more obvious threat is Taskrabbit. Taskrabbit is de world leader in the sector, they are mainly located in de USA. But they did start up operations in the UK and they have the means to extend their reach to Belgium. But this is where Listminut has some kind of barrier. Because of the multiple languages and the relatively small market Belgium is not an attractive country for Taskrabbit. Another course Taskrabbit could take is buying the market leaders in each country and by doing that they could avoid the language issue.

Christophe Kalbfleisch did offer some tips for start-ups and young entrepreneurs. First of all, do not start developing your product before you did some market research. By asking people about you concept (in your family, friends, on the street) you get valuable knowledge that you can use during the development process. A second tip is finding a team that is complementary and is as motivated as you are. If you have 2 team members with the same skillset it is most likely that one of those 2 people will have to leave. A last tip is always try to meet new people who will challenge you and try to criticize your idea. By doing this you allow yourself and your company to grow and get better.

The main obstacle Listminut had during their start-up was the administrative work. It is much more complicated in Belgium then in most other countries. The starting capital was another obstacle, you need at least 15 000 euros to get started.

At Last we asked Christophe where he would like to be with Listminut in a couple of years. After they have established themselves in several countries they would consider selling the company and start something new. A new adventure.

Posted 30/03/2016