This week, we published the CFI Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. See the full index and analysis here, and visit a16z.com/marketplace-100 for more marketplace-related content.
How
to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business
This mega-essay by Lenny Rachitsky, former supply
growth lead at Airbnb, synthesizes insights from 17 marketplace businesses,
including Doordash and Etsy. Topics include how to drive supply and demand, growth
levers, and maintaining quality.
Tales
of a Marketplace Founder
Pared co-founder Dave Lu argues that not all
marketplaces are created equal—and outlines the dimensions that influence
marketplace success.
Platforms
vs. Verticals and the Next Great Unbundling
a16z’s Jeff Jordan (veteran marketplace operator and
investor; former CEO of OpenTable and GM of eBay North America) and D’Arcy
Coolican describe the opportunity to unbundle horizontal platforms into vertical
marketplaces.
What’s
Next for Marketplace Startups: Services
Li Jin and Andrew Chen of CFI trace the evolution of
marketplace platforms, from listings to verticalized Craigslist models, “Uber
for X” companies to managed marketplaces. The deck also explores the
opportunities for consumers to discover and purchase services online.
WTF
Is Marketplace Liquidity?
For all the emphasis placed on liquidity, there are few
resources that delve into how to measure it. Julia Morrongiello of Point Nine
Capital cuts to the chase.
An
Important Marketplace Metric: Search to Fill
A failed Uber request inspired Trusted CEO Anand
Iyer to write this deep dive into a critical (but oft overlooked) metric: search
to fill.
Eight
Things to Consider When Building Managed Marketplace Companies
From licensing requirements to one’s Net Promoter
Score, CFI partner Li Jin unspools eight factors to consider when building a
managed marketplace in a regulated category.
Making
Markets
Marketplaces have two major camps of analysts: the
business world and academia. In this paper, Harvard Business School professors
Thomas Eisenmann and Scott Kominers provide a wonky overview of the causes of
market failure. (Free PDF
available here until 2/29.)
Super
Pumped: The Battle for Uber
The cinematic tale of Uber’s origin and its founder,
Travis Kalanick, as reported by the New York Times technology reporter
Mike Isaac who covered Uber.
The Passion Economy and the
Future of Work
The next wave of work opportunities will be in
platforms that enable people to monetize their passions, predicts CFI ’s Li Jin.
Here’s how these marketplaces are treating individuality as a feature, not a
bug.
Marketplaces and Network
Effects
a16z’s Jeff Jordan shares what makes marketplace
business models so attractive, especially compared to classic ecommerce and
retail.
The
Anatomy of a Marketplace
As the founder and former CEO of TaskRabbit, Leah Solivan is intimately acquainted
with the complexities of marketplace businesses, which she calls “the ultimate
puzzle.” In this post, the entrepreneur-turned-VC (she’s now a general
partner at Fuel Capital), describes how automation has transformed the building and
scaling of marketplace businesses and streamlined the user experience.
Shopify
and the Power of Platforms
Tech and media analyst Ben Thompson is perhaps best
known for his digestible daily newsletter, the Stratechery. But he often goes
long when unpacking the dynamics of various marketplace companies, including
Airbnb
and Uber.
In this essay, he uses Amazon and Shopify to highlight the distinction between
platforms and aggregators.
Money
Out of Nowhere: How Internet Marketplaces Unlock Economic
Wealth
Bill Gurley, now an investor but former
longtimeAmazon analyst, explores how internet marketplaces enhance productivity
and efficiency, drawing on examples from Ebay, Uber, Upwork, Hipcamp, and
Instawork.
Managing Tensions
In Online Marketplaces
a16z’s Jeff Jordan taps into his experience as the
former SVP and general manager at eBay to explain why marketplaces need to
nurture and manage “perfect competition” to thrive.
The Oral History
of Travel’s Greatest Acquisition
How Booking.com went from a scrappy pet project to a
travel juggernaut, as told by the people that lived it.
A Guide to
Marketplaces
Angela Tran Kingyens and Boris Wertz of Version One Ventures updated their
all-encompassing guide to marketplaces with new sections on on decentralized
marketplaces and marketplace exits. The digestible ebook remains a valuable resource
for founders looking to seed, grow, and scale marketplace companies.
State of Marketplaces
Menlo Ventures partner Steve Sloane’s presentation
provides a great overview of investing trends, including IPO benchmarking for
marketplaces, retention metrics, and emerging trends in private
marketplaces.
Why
It’s Hard to Escape Amazon’s Long Reach
WIRED staff writers Louise Matsakis and Paris Martineau provide an exhaustive
accounting of Amazon’s many business pursuits, from fashion to home security
systems, cloud computing services to groceries. It’s an illuminating look at
how the once-modest online bookseller has morphed far beyond its marketplace roots.
The NFX
Marketplace Scorecard
James Currier of NFX shares the firm’s internal
scorecard for assessing a marketplace’s potential. The deck provides a useful
framework for founders to evaluate their strengths and risks.