Before you start selling experimental services on Otto, you’ll first need to create a user account and set up your payout preferences. This is a fairly quick process, just follow the instructions below.

Creating a User Account

1. Click “Sign up” in the upper-right corner of the marketplace home page.

2. Enter your email address, first name, last name, and create a secure password. Then review the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and check the “I accept the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy” checkbox.

3. Verify your email address

Congratulations! After these three easy steps you’ve created your own Otto account. We recommend that you further customize your profile by adding a location (for instance, this could be a city or institution), profile picture, and an about section. These details aren’t required but can help people find your products/services faster. 

Setting up Your Account to Receive Payouts

Next you need to set up the payout preferences for your user account, so you can receive payments from buyers.

1. Hover your mouse over your profile Icon at the top-right of the marketplace page (located next to the “+Post a New Listing” button). Then select the “Settings” tab that appears while hovering.

2. Click the “Payments” tab.

3. Provide the full name, birth date, address, phone number and last 4 digits of their SSN of the person who will be managing this Otto account (e.g. a company representative may manage an Otto account on behalf of an organization–such as a CRO–if given proper permissions by their organization). Then add the routing number and account number of the person or organization being paid for services rendered.

At this point, you should receive a message which states that your account details have been saved successfully and will be verified by Stripe, our PCI-compliant payment processor. This verification usually takes a few minutes.

And that’s it! You now have an Otto account that is set to receive payments from buyers.

• Otto’s marketplace allows sellers (this is you!) to list experimental services and post announcements.

• Experimental services are typically fee-for-service listings, ie. buyers request a vendor performs a specific set of experimental protocols.

• In some cases, this may be as simple as a characterization experiment (e.g., H1 NMR characterization of a chemical sample). In other cases, the experimental request may be more complex (e.g., assay development).

• Announcements – vendors like yourself can post announcements to let other users know if you’re either open to collaborations generally or are searching for a more specific collaboration.

Listing Products/Services

1. Click the “+Post a New Listing” button in the upper-right corner of the marketplace.

2. Select the “All Experiments” category. Then select the sub-category that best relates to the product/service you are listing. If you can’t find a relevant sub-category, select “other”.

3. Create a listing title that best describes the product/service concisely. 

4. Enter a price for the product or service. If price per sample, hour, day, night, week, or month don’t apply to your product/service then select price per unit and define the unit in the first sentence of the listing’s detailed description. If the product/service is listed at a starting price and will require a quote then select the price per unit option and use the detailed description to further clarify that the listing is a starting price and which factors may influence the final price or a product/service. Currently, the minimum price for a listing is $3.50.

5. Enter relevant keywords, a detailed description, and a location (can be a city or institution) for the listing. 

6. If you’d like, add a relevant image to the listing.

After you’ve created a listing, other users on the platform may reach out to you directly or post questions in the “Public Discussion” section of your listing. You can use the “Public Discussion” section of your listing like an FAQ section.

Posting an Announcement (Collaboration)

1. Click the “+Post a New Listing” button in the upper-right corner of the marketplace. 

2. Select the “Collaborations” category. Then selecting the “Open to Collaborations” sub-category.

3. Create a listing title that best describes the collaborative efforts that you’re willing to provide.

4. Enter a detailed description that describes what kind of collaboration you’re open to. Then add a location (can be a city or institution) for the listing as well.

5. If you’d like, add a relevant image to the listing.

“Active Requests for Collaboration” can be used to actively search for specific kinds of collaborators whereas “Open to Collaboration” announcements let others know that you’re open to collaborating on certain topics.