In 2018, Eli met Todd at a barbecue in Bali.

Todd, a longtime tradesman and serial entrepreneur, wanted to streamline the process of hiring home services such as electric and plumbing through an app.

The two began scoping the project and one day Nick remembered that their mutual friend Zack, a software engineer, spent almost an entire summer building 1800-Pros, the same concept as Todd had.

It’s fair to say that both Todd and Zack had come to a similar conclusion on sector-specific inefficiencies that could be solved through software.

Todd was jazzed up to build and launch a solution, having the relevant industry connections and experience to make it go.

Zack, on the other hand, was burnt out from being a one-man shop developing and marketing the platform from scratch.

From that point, Nick and Eli’s role on the project changed from being software consultants to facilitating the arrangement between Todd and Zack.

Todd was willing to pay $10,000 for the codebase (that may have otherwise sat in the metaverse of dead code) and have Zack on a consulting retainer. This, without a doubt, was the most effective way for Todd to bring a product to market.

There are many Zacks and Todds out there.

⚡️  Indie hackers and makers build useful products that never see the light of day.

⚡️  In 2017, Github held 67 million repositories, only 25.3 million were considered to be active.

Collective Intelligence is a marketplace for digital products, consisting of both the product build (asset) and the expertise of its creator (consultancy).

Non-technical entrepreneurs will find unparalleled time- and cost-savings, meaning faster failure or success.

For makers, nano-acquisitions provide a chance to bring value to the work that’s already been done - creating alternate avenues for success that don’t involve the need to market and operate a product.

❶  Sellers are given the space to create an organized project package ready for hand-off. *Materials can include essentials such as a codebase, design files, and user research.

❷  Sellers set an asset ask price and consultancy rate.

❸  Buyers sends request to Seller to access pre-recorded product demo.

❹  After viewing, Buyer can schedule a paid initial consultation with Seller.

❺  Buyer can then make an offer to Seller, which is either accepted or rejected.

Manually find some hackers that like this idea and have past projects to list. Then build a simple website where you again, manually, list the info for each project and seller. Then run some ads, spread the word and manually acquire users that represent the non-technical entrepreneur side of the equation and have an interest in the domain of the projects listed. Match them, oversee the transaction and voila!

•  Build: Ruby-on-Rails, WordPress, Webflow

•  Packaging: Dropbox API, Google Drive API

•  Transaction: Stripe

•  Scheduling: Calendly API