How to seed your marketplace
The earliest days in a marketplace are a tricky time. As I’ve discussed before, there’s a chicken and egg problem when it comes to supply and demand: customers need supply, and suppliers need customers. But it’s nearly impossible to ramp up supply and demand in lock step. We’ve found that in most cases it’s best […]
How can a marketplace start-up disrupt the incumbent?
Last week, my post on “Marketplace dynamics: buyer mindshare is key to building a moat” generated good discussion about the best strategies to disrupt existing marketplaces and get past the incumbent’s moat. It’s certainly an important topic to any founder or entrepreneur looking to break into an existing market. The discussion was sparked by Jonas’ […]
Introducing one of Version One’s earlier investments: VarageSale
Online marketplaces have made it easier than ever for people to buy and sell things. But the human element has been missing with the anonymity of Craigslist and eBay. That’s why I’m happy to announce an investment we did two years ago when we participated in the seed round of VarageSale. At the time, they chose […]
Is the Freemium Model the Future of Marketplaces?
The Freemium Model, where a vendor offers both a free and paid version of the product, has become the de facto business model for many SaaS companies. Freemium makes general usage free, while monetizing the heaviest users through premium features. This model has proven to work well for consumer apps like Spotify as well as […]
Community building: How to give up control without losing control
A community can make or break a marketplace. I owe much of the success of my former company, AbeBooks, to the passionate community of book lovers that came to our site. Considering more than 1/3 of Version One’s portfolio are marketplaces, I appreciate just how much a strong community can be one of the most […]