Powllster: A gamified mobile crowdsourcing platform for guiding new business ventures

The selection of the right location is vital for the survival and growth of new business ventures, yet entrepreneurs often lack reliable and localized market insights to guide such decisions. To address this challenge, this study introduces Powllster, a gamified mobile crowdsourcing platform designed to help entrepreneurs and businesses evaluate potential locations and market opportunities. By combining crowdsourcing and gamification principles, the platform encourages users to provide location-based evaluations of businesses and neighbourhoods in an engaging manner. Usability and effectiveness were tested using the System Usability Scale (SUS) and Net Promoter Score (NPS). The results revealed an SUS score of 73.27 and an NPS score of 18.51, reflecting positive user sentiment and a moderate willingness to recommend. The participants highlighted ease of use, seamless functional integration, and confidence in interaction, whereas negative perceptions were minimal. These findings demonstrate that Powllster is intuitive, engaging, and valuable for collecting and accessing market intelligence. In practice, it lowers barriers to market research and provides entrepreneurs with actionable, crowdsourced insights for data-driven decisions. Unlike traditional decision-support systems, Powllster integrates participatory data collection with user engagement, offering a novel and scalable tool for guiding new business ventures.