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MenuI am building a marketplace. How can I make this attractive to other members while my presence grows online?
Planning to build MVP and leverage landing pages & explainer videos to drive adoption. However, once they come to the platform, won't it look disengaging since there aren't any members already on our platform?
Answers
Hi:
Sounds like you have a compelling idea, but I’m wondering about the validation work you’ve done?
Have you talked to people in the market segment you’re targeting and confirmed that there’s a gap that needs filling? Confirmed that current alternatives aren’t doing the job to their satisfaction?
Once you’ve done that, for your initial MVP, do a very basic one (I’ve talked to people who did one on PowerPoint) and take it out and show it to people in your community. Ask them what they think of it, what’s good, what’s bad and what’s needed. Then, ask them to be part of the founding member group — with some modest incentive.
Then, do the same with your beta — ask real people to check it out and give you feedback — and loop them in as founding members.
Then, once you release to the real world, you have a collection of founding members who can reflect interest and validation of your idea.
If you wish to discuss, send me a PM through Clarity for 15 free minutes.
Cheers,
Kerby
The right question you need to answer is "whether your explainer videos is solving any particular subject in details." The last phase of the video should talk about lessons learnt.
Trust yourself if your explainer videos is solving the purpose, audience will view and review as they will be intrigued with the data points you share.
I'd think about this from two angles...
1) Who are the people you can get to start using the platform IMMEDIATELY? Think your friends, network from college, or even LinkedIn connections. "Prime the pump" with people you know at first, to help get the network growing.
2) The point of a MVP is to quickly test a product idea, and iterate until you have a compelling product. I have a friend who runs multiple 7-figure businesses, and he says that he always looks for a "wow" reaction when he shows off a product — even a MVP, if it's just the concept of what it can accomplish. Remember you don't want to build more than you need to at first. A good product adapts to what gives the most results to your users.
Hope this helps! If you need any additional help, feel free to book a call. I recently grew a MVP to six-figures ARR, so can share the things we tried.
Solving the chicken and egg problem of a two-sided marketplace is among one of the hardest startup challenges. I have had the unfortunate experience of solving this multiple times. Here are my top tips:
1. Validate that your solution is needed. Talk to potential customers on both sides and get confirmation that this is a problem that both sides would pay to solve.
2. Figure out which side of the market needs you the most. Hopefully, your solution is a pain killer for both sides of your market but one side should be dying for it and easier to secure.
3. Get scrappy and do things that don't scale in order to secure these first initial customers. Find them first hand, email them cold, go to the home office in person, whatever you need to do to get a commitment from 1+ people that they will move forward if you come through on the demand or supply side they need.
4. Listen to what they tell you they need. Do not try to sell them something else. To the extent that it would not be a distraction, fulfill what people are asking for. Learn what they need instead of assuming you know.
5. Only secure the customers you feel confident you can deliver on. You don't want to spend $1k advertising to one side of the market, get a bunch of signups, and have nothing to offer them. Stay lean, get your first customer, meet their needs, then your second, meet their needs, then your third. Early on, you're trying to learn and establish a customer base and solid reputation.
6. Relentlessly work to deliver what you said you would. Go to the other side of the market with good demand or supply in hand and make things happen. Be a matchmaker. Do things that don't scale. Later you will figure out how to grow and streamline things.
7. As you start to achieve success but are probably limited in resources, switch your focus back and forth to keep the balance between supply and demand relatively in sync. You never want to grow one side of the marketplace significantly faster than the other or you just end up with both sides not getting any value.
There is more to building a two-sided marketplace than this but it is often very specific to the business. This truly is one of the harder startup problems to solve. If you need help, please feel free to reach out.
Related Questions
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When working on a double-sided marketplace how do you work out cost of customer acquisition?
I'm the CTO of https://3dagogo.com a marketplace of proven to print 3D designs. We look at the two sides differently. There's not a single customer. In our case you have designers and purchasers ( sometimes the same person can be both ). Cost and methods for acquiring designers are very different than those to attract purchasers. I would clearly separate the sides and come up with separate cost structures. In my opinion when you're looking at the marketplace from the purchaser perspective, the other side's acquisition costs can be seen as fixed marketing costs.DA
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What's the best way to build a MVP web app that handles order management, purchasing, invoicing, supplier management and inventory?
The best way to build an MVP for any SaaS product is to create a landing page that looks like a real product. Here's an example of one I built. http://www.happiily.com In this case, it advertises the primary features of the product and invites people to sign-up. When they do, they are asked for information which qualifies the person and then sends me an email. I built this quickly and very inexpensively and started getting inbound leads from it shortly thereafter. I got on the phone with each person who signed-up and explained the features I wanted to build and was able to do a lot of customer learning based on that. Happy to talk to you in a call if you'd like to talk more about customer development with SaaS products.TW
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When creating a marketplace, does it make more sense to focus on stimulating demand first or supply?
Focus on the more difficult side of the marketplace. For instance, if you think it'll be easier to get suppliers, then focus first on getting buyers - always be working on your toughest problem (aka your biggest risk). You'll find some great blogging on Marketplace and Platform topics here http://platformed.info (read the ebook too!)CM
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What is the best method for presenting minimum viable products to potential customers?
Whoa, start by reading the Lean book again; you're questions suggest you are making a classical mistake made by too many entrepreneurs who live and breath Lean Startup. An MVP is not the least you can show someone to evaluate whether or not building it is a good idea; an MVP is, by it's very definition, the Minimum Viable Product - not less than that. What is the minimum viable version of a professional collaboration network in which users create a professional profile visible to others? A website on which users can register, have a profile, and in some way collaborate with others: via QA, chat, content, etc. No? A minimum viable product is used not to validate if something is a good idea but that you can make it work; that you can acquire users through the means you think viable, you can monetize the business, and that you can learn from the users' experience and optimize that experience by improving the MVP. Now, that doesn't mean you just go build your MVP. I get the point of your question, but we should distinguish where you're at in the business and if you're ready for an MVP or you need to have more conversations with potential users. Worth noting, MOST entrepreneurs are ready to go right to an MVP. It's a bit of a misleading convention to think that entrepreneurs don't have a clue about the industry in which they work and what customers want; that is to say, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur trying to create this professional collaboration network if you don't know the market, have done some homework, talked to peers and friends, have some experience, etc. and already know that people DO want such a thing. Presuming you've done that, what would you present to potential users BEFORE actually building the MVP? For what do you need nothing more than some slides? It's not a trick question, you should show potential users slides and validate that what you intend to build is the best it can be. I call it "coffee shop testing" - build a slide of the homepage and the main screen used by registered users; sit in a coffee shop, and buy coffee for anyone who will give you 15 minutes. Show them the two slides and listen; don't explain, ONLY ask.... - For what is this a website? - Would you sign up for it? Why? - Would you tell your friends? Why? - What would you pay for it? Don't explain ANYTHING. If you have to explain something, verbally, you aren't ready to build your MVP - potential customers don't get it. Keep working with that slide alone until you get enough people who say they will sign up and know, roughly, what people will pay. THEN build your MVP and introduce it first to friends, family, peers, etc. to get your earliest adopters. At some point you're going to explore investors. There is no "ready" as the reaction from investors will entirely depend on who you're talking to, why, how much you need, etc. If you want to talk to investors with only the slides as you need capital to build the MVP, your investors are going to be banks, grants, crowdfunding, incubators, and MAYBE angels (banks are investors?! of course they are, don't think that startups only get money from people with cash to give you for equity). Know that it's VERY hard to raise money at this stage; why would I invest in your idea when all you've done is validate that people probably want it - you haven't built anything. A bank will give you a loan to do that, not many investors will take the risk. Still, know not that your MVP is "ready" but that at THAT stage, you have certain sources of capital with which you could have a conversation. When you build the MVP, those choices change. Now that you have something, don't talk to a bank, but a grant might still be viable. Certainly: angels, crowdfunding, accelerators, and maybe even VCs become interested. The extent to which they are depends on the traction you have relative to THEIR expectations - VCs are likely to want some significant adoption or revenue whereas Angels should be excited for your early adoption and validation and interested in helping you scale.PO
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What support software do most marketplace startups use? Is it custom, or a SaaS product like Zendesk, Desk.com or Uservoice
Your support software should cater to your needs, depending on how your business operates. Fiver uses Vanilla forum and Zendesk. Thumbtack uses Zendesk. Not sure about AirBNB, their help center seems to be custom. Depending on how well funded your are, I would recommend starting with a free plan with one of the help desk SaaS products, or even using open source ticketing platform. Then, as your needs grow and you need integration with your marketplace, there's no reason you can't scale and migrate.VN
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