Have you ever wanted to learn a new skill? Going on vacation to south America and want to speak a decent word of Spanish? Started a new company and want to build a website but don’t know how? Want to become better at playing tennis? Or you possess a skill and want to teach others? There is now a platform called Konnektid, which is a social platform for connecting people in the neighborhood who either want to teach skills or learn them.
Konnektid.com is a Dutch, Amsterdam based, startup that was successfully crowdfunded for an amount of €105.734 in December of 2014. Based on the principles of the sharing economy, such as Peerby for lending and borrowing stuff/equipment, Konnektid connects people to teach/learn each other skills in the neighborhood. You search for specific skills, or explore your neighborhood using a map to see which skills people are willing to teach to each other. For example, In the city where I’m currently living: Utrecht, there are 269 skills offered and in Amsterdam the number is 623. Skills range from for instance specific cooking lessons to writing business plans to specific software programs. Thus, skills vary widely. In this way people in the neighborhood can come in contact and arrange prices themselves. There is also a review option to rate each other.
The website and service of Konnektid is free to use, based on their principle that “you should always be able to have access to knowledge (Sprang, 2014)”. Since the sharing economy in the Netherlands is very popular, they joint forces with other collaborative consumption platforms: Peerby (sharing stuff), Toogethr (carpooling), Snappcar (sharing your car), Thuisafgehaald (sharing cooked food) and Floow2 (business to business sharing of stuff and services). Together with the other collaborative consumption platforms they have founded a lobby organization SHARE NL to future promote collaborative consumption (Starting Now, 2014).
The main focus for Konnektid for now is to attract many people who are willing to use their platform and learn from each other to gain traction and grow the community. The startup started their platform in the Netherlands, but have ambitions to grow internationally. While the platform is already open for other countries as well, in the future they want to join forces with local investors and partners to enable quick-scaling.
The business model that Konnektid uses is to offer professional teachers a monthly subscription of €5, which will give them a premium status and a verified account through Konnektid. This premium account will enable professional teachers to come in contact with students more easily and market their classes. Moreover, since the Konnektid is free to use, they have also developed a version that can be used for companies, conferences and events. This version will help them boost the interaction before, during and after the event.
All in all, Konnektid is enabling people in their neighborhoods to come in contact with each other and share their skills. For the simple reason that everyone is good in something. It is a low-barrier approach for people, since they can come in contact with real people and in the same neighborhood without the website wanting to handle the payments. So the next time you are in need for learning a skill, look no further and find a teacher in your neighborhood.
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References & sources
Sprang, H. v. (2014, April 15). COLLABORATIVE PIONEER: INSIDE INTERVIEW WITH MICHEL VISSER, FOUNDER AT KONNEKTID. Retrieved from Collaborative consumption: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2014/04/15/collaborative-pioneer-inside-interview-with-michel-visser-founder-at-konnektid/
Starting Now. (2014, April 10). Konnektid. Retrieved from Starting Now: http://www.startingnow.nl/portfolio/konnektid-2/
Consumer Value Creation 