A R C H I C H A T - the New Business Model?

[rob2218]

I'm contemplating opening up a new company.

It'll be called "ArchiChat"
Premise: Forum dedicated to actual real-time (on-line) Q+A's about the pitfalls, do's and don'ts about Archicad.

Kinda like the forum which exists on GS now but...live...real-time. Not this blipping back and forth message stuff.

Don't misunderstand me. This forum is fantastic...but....sometimes we need "instant" answers to questions in Archicad and to be honest....we just can not wait till someone (very helpful I'm adding) gets around to seeing and eventually answering or commenting on the question.

Sometimes, users get "stuck" and simply cannot move forward on a certain task in Archicad. They muddle thru them, spending hours trying to make a door behave a certain way or make a pen print a certain way or whatever the case may be......hence the birth of ARCHICHAT.

[Laszlo Nagy]

You can do this with Skype. You can create an account for business. If anyone calls that account through Skype, they will charge the amount per minute you specify. They will take a certain commission (I think 30% or something), you keep the rest.

One can also use TeamViewer or some other desktop sharing application so the person giving the support can see the other person's screen.

I think it is a feasible business model.

[rob2218]

Thanks Laszlo....I'm sure there are plenty of users in the world (one advantage of working round the clock) who would want to be part of something, get paid for their expertise, while contributing to the promotion of the software they use.

I just need to sit down and come up with the details of how to make it work.

[Anonymous]

It sounds really promising.

I hope to be updated about future developments.

[rob2218]

The first step is research.
So..why dont we start here.

I know a few good Power-Bim-users already here on the forums so what I'd like to do is the follwoing:
1. send me your name (full) and contact information/ email etc...what version of Archicad you are on.
2. send me how many years you've worked with this software.
3. where are you working now and are you still working with Archicad?
4. What is your role where you are?
5. Location: important one. (if you work in a different time zone).
6. If you know how to make custom fully parametric objects.
7. Have you ever been the BIM manager at an office? how many years.
8. Have you had any experience with any BIM server setups-brief description.?
9. Have you had any experience with IFC translation issues - describe?
10. Did you "PERSONALLY" develop any construction documentation projects? describe your role if so.
11. What kind of 3d or rendering skills in BIM do you have - describe.

I think this is a good starting point for me to do my assessment of potential power-users.

If you'd like feel free to PM me or email on this if you don't want to divulge any information to the rest of the net.

my email is rob2218@gmail.com

thanks,
Rob

[Anonymous]

rob2218 wrote:
I'm contemplating opening up a new company.

It'll be called "ArchiChat"
Premise: Forum dedicated to actual real-time (on-line) Q+A's about the pitfalls, do's and don'ts about Archicad.

Kinda like the forum which exists on GS now but...live...real-time. Not this blipping back and forth message stuff.

Don't misunderstand me. This forum is fantastic...but....sometimes we need "instant" answers to questions in Archicad and to be honest....we just can not wait till someone (very helpful I'm adding) gets around to seeing and eventually answering or commenting on the question.

Sometimes, users get "stuck" and simply cannot move forward on a certain task in Archicad. They muddle thru them, spending hours trying to make a door behave a certain way or make a pen print a certain way or whatever the case may be......hence the birth of ARCHICHAT.

that's sort of like what we are aiming for with this: bimstop.com/forum
although we were aiming more at BIM as a whole, but the idea of keeping it more fast paced I like. A bit like a fast Q&A.

or were you looking at charging for it? so more like a real time, pay per minute service?

[rob2218]

My business idea is slow in coming to fruition but I expected this.
As my brother would say "Life gets in the way".....so with that in mind, the answer to your question is as follows:

I'm thinking more along the lines of a pay-as-you-go kinda support using software like "join.me" to show you immediate, on-screen, process on how to do something in Archicad.

Join.me is a FREE software screen sharing tool. Amazingly fast response times on the sharing...really slick and easy.

Now, just the legal implications of how to actually address my business is what's challenging at this point.

thanks for asking.

Rob

[Anonymous]

join.me looks great. I'd just do some research on who is willing to pay, in my experience most AC users like things for free, so would probably just ring their reseller (who should be providing support), but maybe if it is a problem really annoying them they would be happy to pay.