What If You Could Consult an Expert for $10?

01 /The Concept

Unikon is an app for connecting with experts – on any topic, at any time.

More specifically: users can find specialists to answer their questions or advise on a personal challenge, via in-app text chat, voice call, or video call. Experts, in turn, monetize their knowledge by setting their own rates for consultations.

The interface is a blend of TikTok and Tinder.

Experts create short videos – introducing themselves or answering sample questions. Users scroll through a feed of these clips, swipe right on someone interesting, see a fuller profile and pricing, and book a session if it's a fit. The AI engine automatically personalizes the feed based on user interests.

Alternatively, users can search for an expert by need – say, "psychologist with experience treating childhood trauma" – and get a curated feed of relevant profiles.

There's also a reverse flow: a user can record a video describing their situation and request. The AI routes those clips to relevant expert feeds. An expert who sees a question they can address swipes right, reviews the user's profile, and proposes a session.

Because any given person might be an expert in some areas and a learner in others, a typical user's feed is a mix of both types of content.

Payment is held at the time of booking. If a session doesn't start within 3 days, the request is cancelled and the funds are refunded.

A standard consultation gives the user 7 days of chat access to the expert after the session begins. Whether calls are included depends on the package purchased – or whether the expert prefers to resolve things quickly over video.

Experts can also schedule paid group sessions or events at a specific date and time. These appear in the feeds of interested users.

Unikon takes a 20% commission on paid sessions and events.

The app currently has around 7,000 registered experts. The startup aims to reach 250,000 experts and 1 million users within a year, with 2,000 consultations per day by year end.

Founded in India last year, Unikon has just raised its first round – $1.91M.

02 /Why It Matters

Expert-matching apps have existed in various forms for years, but none ever gained real traction because the market was dominated by the online course format.

That's starting to shift. Fatigue with courses has become visible:

- Courses are long. Attention spans have shortened, and completion rates for most online courses sit at 3–5%.

- What people actually need isn't lectures – it's quick answers and specific feedback on what they're trying to do. Many people sign up for courses not because they want to sit through a curriculum, but because they want access to the instructor.

If the consultation format starts displacing the course format, platforms built for expert-on-demand access could finally have their moment – not from scratch, but by capturing demand that was previously going to courses.

What's also interesting: with minor reframing, the same interface works for an entirely different market.

Look at the example search queries in the app: "I need someone to help me launch Facebook ads for my perfume brand." "I need someone to explain how to start selling shoes on Amazon."

But why "help" or "explain"? Why not just "do it"? "Help me launch" is still education. "Launch the campaign" is freelance work.

In other words: why not build a freelance marketplace with the same interaction model as Unikon?

The problem with traditional freelance platforms is that abundance creates paradox of choice. On any large marketplace, narrowing the field to someone you'd actually trust with your project involves multiple steps: shortlist candidates whose profiles look promising, schedule intro calls to get a feel for them, assign a small paid test task. Only then do you choose.

But steps one through three are already baked into Unikon's model. You get a video intro without a separate call. You can book a short consultation as the trial. The platform handles the whole qualification journey.

"Unikon for freelancers" would look nearly identical to the existing product – except the consultation becomes a pre-sale step rather than the end product. Once you route project payments through the same app, the business model shifts: the real revenue comes from project work, not consultations.

This also illustrates a broader trend: legacy marketplaces in many categories are adopting TikTok-style interfaces – algorithmically curated feeds, short video over static text-and-photo listings. Unravel ([related review](/review/ne-vylozhil-fotochki-schitaj-ne-otdohnul)), a travel marketplace, did this. Atmosfy ([related review](/review/giganty-pokazali-nam-sposob-zarabotat)), a local experiences marketplace, did too.

03 /Opportunities

Consultation and feedback platforms along the lines of Unikon are one natural direction here. The thesis is that the consultation format will eat into the course format's market share – and the way to test that is going head-to-head on the same subject matter where courses already sell well, measuring whether you can pull buyers away from structured curricula.

TikTok-style marketplaces in other categories are another. The target is always existing markets where traditional marketplaces already operate – because you're competing for their audience, not creating demand from scratch.

The make-or-break variable: content quality. Without compelling short videos from suppliers, the feed dies and the marketplace with it. This is the same lesson Airbnb learned early with photography. Their early traction came from personally visiting hosts, photographing properties, and upgrading the listing quality before the platform could stand on its own. Until suppliers see real incoming traffic, they won't invest in good content – so you have to bridge that gap yourself.

Which of these two directions do you believe in more?