#JerkTech: Is ReservationHop a Disruptor or Not?
A couple of terms here to explain I’d imagine before you even get the thrust of this post would be in order…. #JerkTech is a phrase that is fairly new, and refers to what TechCrunch labels as “…emblematic of a compassionless new wave of self-serving startups that exploit small businesses and public infrastructure to make a buck and aid the wealthy. Let’s call these parasites #JerkTech. It’s one thing to outcompete a big, stagnant company with new technology. It’s another to screw over the little guys just because you can sell what’s usually free…”
So….#JerkTech (also a real live Twitter handle!) is something not so good, right? Wrong in my world…because I’ve always been a “let the market decide” type of guy.
From the days that I first ran our own ThePhonies company back in the start of the 80′s where we offered up those brand new home telephone answering tapes so that you could buy John Wayne (or a great impersonation of same) answering your home line to just last year when we helped get a brand new biz card company off the ground using a transparent media that is eco-friendly….we know startups and disrupting is the bestest way to go! </chest pounding with pride>
That all said, what’s ReservationHop? Not the first (in fact not in the first ten either, see Table8 or Zurvu or KillerRezzy etc) to come up with the idea that the marketplace (you and I) might pay for a reservation to a great restaurant that’s always fully booked. A reservation that is normally free….but you go to their site, pick out a restaurant they have a valid reservation for, pay them (current prices range from $5 to $12) and after they debit your creditcard, you get the name under which that reservation was made by ReservationHop.
Simple, cheap and yes, if you’re travelling to a new city, what a great way to get “into” a restaurant that you should have called weeks ago to have dinner in!
That’s disruptive? Bulls**t I claim…that’s a whole in the marketplace that this founder, Brian Mayer came up with a week ago or so.
But that’s only my own thoughts on same, and yes…there’s a ton of the anti-JerkTech style writings on this already….
There will undoubtedly be more fallout on this…
I’ve already seen comments on many of the sites I just listed threatening boycotts, asking to merge with someone who runs the same scheme to sell ‘spots’ in women’s washroom lines at concerts to someone who wants to franchise same for Minnesota…
You? What do you think? Is this just another #JerkTech example or a valid way for a startup founder to fill a whole in the marketplace?