Products that help power online marketplaces
As you’re building your marketplace, consider which tools and technology to leverage. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel as new infrastructure solutions are emerging to help facilitate transactions on your platform, including: payment software, background checks, shipping and fulfillment solutions, and data privacy. With help from the Marketplaces Facebook Group, we have curated a […]
On the future of healthcare
It has been a while since we’ve written about healthcare. Our last update was in June 2014 when we shared what we were excited about: patient-doctor networks and patient health data. This hasn’t changed but we’ve certainly learned more from the many founders and physicians who we have spoken to over the past year. We […]
Network Effects in Marketplace, Communities and Social Platforms
These days, we’re hyper-focused on marketplaces, communities and social platforms. We love these platforms for many reasons, but the primary one is the power of their network effects and how they create a high degree of defensibility for startups. What are network effects? “Network effects” is a frequently used term and it is sometimes confused […]
Marketplace KPI Dashboard
A few months ago, I wrote about the questions that we typically ask when evaluating a marketplace opportunity. Now, inspired by our friend Christoph Janz at Point Nine Capital who created a KPI dashboard for early-stage SaaS, we have put together a KPI template for marketplaces. We recognize that every marketplace is different, but each […]
Introducing an earlier investment: Volley, a friendly place for helping others
Last October, we made our first investment out of Fund II and are excited to announce this news today as the company launches publicly out of beta. Volley is a friendly place for helping others solve problems online. Volley members can post requests in response to the question, “What are you looking for?” You can sift through […]