Hyperlocal

I've noticed a lot of tech businesses aiming for the "local" space, meaning they try to create a network or a marketplace on the scale of about a city. Sometimes this is because of something inherently local about the market (dating, classifieds), sometimes as a novelty (Ingress), and sometimes as a strategy to split up a big intractable market into lots of smaller markets (Facebook back when it was per-campus only). But I think it'd be interesting to go further and explore the hyperlocal: networks the size of small suburbs or city blocks.

An easy example is home cooks who can easily make extra food and sell it to people who can't be bothered to cook. It would be wildly inefficient to scale this beyond a very local region; as soon as you involve a delivery van it goes from being a slight extra cost to a huge hassle. But if all your customers are within a 5 minute walk, they could just come by when the food's ready without requiring too much logistical gymnastics.

Or imagine if you have a home coffee machine and you don't mind making an extra coffee for people once in a while. There's no way you could feasibly keep up with the demands of running a real coffee business, but servicing the needs of a few people in the local area isn't out of the question. It would also be super expensive to keep a regular coffee shop open for just a few customers, but not so if it's just running out of your house anyway.

I think there are two main things that make hyperlocal a pretty compelling idea: Firstly, it allows for businesses that operate on a super tiny scale. There are lots of tools available today for a business owner who wants to scale up, but not so many for one who wants to stay small. Secondly, it could add back a certain sense of local community that seems to have been inadvertently lost in the rush for bigger cities and better technology. Being in touch with lots of microbusinesses in your local area would be a way to engage with that community.

But maybe the most interesting bit would be that it's a way for more people to experience a taste of running a business, even if it's a very tiny one.