StuffHire | Peer-to-Peer Hire Marketplace PWA & Branding

JABA built a Progressive Web App for StuffHire, a start-up marketplace where people list their own items for hire, combining app functionality with a marketing website in one build.

 

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Project Snapshot

• Client: StuffHire
• Industry: Online Marketplace / Sharing Economy Start-Up
• Location: Australia
• Services Delivered: Branding, PWA / Website Development, Marketplace Platform
• Standout Feature: App experience and marketing website delivered as a single platform

 

The Problem

StuffHire is built on a simple idea: you do not need to own things to live the lifestyle you want, you just need somewhere to hire them. Turning that into a business meant solving two problems at once, which is the classic start-up trap. A marketplace needs app-like functionality so people can list items, browse categories and transact easily. But a brand new business also needs a public website that markets the concept and explains it to people who have never heard of it, because nobody downloads an app for a service they do not yet understand. Building both separately, and paying for native versions on multiple platforms on top, is more than most start-ups can fund before they have proven the idea works.

 

What JABA Built

JABA built a Progressive Web App that works like an app while also providing a website front end to market the new business. Users can post items for hire across just about any category, with listings sorted so people can find what they need. The branding uses retro style graphics that give StuffHire a distinctive personality, deliberately unlike the functional, utilitarian look of the established listing sites it competes alongside.

 

What Was Technically Interesting

A Progressive Web App is close to the ideal answer for a marketplace start-up, and this project shows why. There is no app store download standing between a curious visitor and their first listing, which removes the single biggest drop-off point for a business nobody has heard of yet, and users who like it can still install it to their home screen and use it like a native app. One codebase covers every device instead of separate iOS and Android builds, which matters enormously when the budget has to stretch to actually launching. And because the same platform serves both the marketing site and the application, everything the business spends on attracting attention lands on the product itself rather than on a brochure page that then asks people to go somewhere else. The retro visual identity does related work: in a category where the incumbents look purely functional, personality is a cheap and effective way for a new entrant to be remembered.

 

Business Outcome

StuffHire launched with a working marketplace and a marketing presence in one platform, at a fraction of the cost and complexity of building native apps alongside a separate website. New visitors can understand the concept, browse listings and post their own items without a download, and the distinctive branding gives a brand new business something recognisable to build on from day one.

 

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Like What You See?

This is the kind of platform JABA builds for start-ups: app functionality and a marketing website in one, without the cost of separate native builds. If you have an idea that needs to launch properly rather than eventually, we would love to help. Get a free quote for your project today.