Tips on starting your marketplace
Begin your journey as a marketplace entrepreneur! Here are our best picks to help you fine-tune your marketplace idea, validate your concept, and get your platform off the ground fast.
What makes a great marketplace idea
Everything starts with an idea. These articles get to the bottom of the anatomy of great marketplace ideas. You’ll learn how to look at the world through the eyes of a marketplace entrepreneur and spot opportunities everywhere. They’ll also give you the basics on how to monetize your marketplace idea.
Starting a marketplace
What you need to know before starting your marketplace business
An introduction to online marketplaces. What they are, why they are booming, and why you should build one.
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Starting a marketplace
How to find great online marketplace ideas
How to spot marketplace opportunities and transform them into great business ideas.
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Starting a marketplace
Business Model
How to choose the right marketplace business model
Compare marketplace revenue models and find the revenue strategy that can boost your growth.
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Preparing your business for take-off
You can start working on your marketplace before you have a single line of code written for your website. Take the time to prevalidate your idea, define your budget, and find the smartest way to spend your time and money. Validating your idea will give you lots of new insights that you can take with you to building your MVP.
Starting a marketplace
How much does it cost to build a marketplace business?
Example of a first year’s marketplace startup budget, and how to spend it wisely.
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Starting a marketplace
How to validate your marketplace idea before building the platform
Don’t build a desert platform. Here are the steps to take to prevalidate your marketplace idea.
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Find the fastest way to market
Don’t build a desert platform. A common mistake of early-stage marketplace founders is spending too much time and money building their first version. Instead, our advice is to define the minimum set of features you’ll need to wow your first users, and launch as fast as possible. These articles are all about helping you find the fastest and most affordable way to market.
Starting a marketplace
Platform technology
Marketplace software: How to compare and choose the best solution
There are dozens of online marketplace software alternatives to choose from. Learn how to make the right choice for your marketplace idea.
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Starting a marketplace
Platform technology
Your marketplace MVP – How to build a Minimum Viable Platform
What you should focus on when you’re creating the first version of your marketplace platform.
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Starting a marketplace
Why you should launch your marketplace early
‘Time is money’, and other teachings to inspire you to take the plunge and launch your marketplace as soon as you can.
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More on starting a marketplace
More inspiration for the beginning of your journey as a marketplace entrepreneur.
Starting a marketplace
The complete marketplace glossary
Your lexicon to the world of marketplaces.
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Starting a marketplace
How to bootstrap your online marketplace
Mike Williams shares three practical lessons on how to bootstrap online marketplaces. All taken from his experience building and scaling Studiotime – today the largest online marketplace for booking music studios.
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Starting a marketplace
Competing with marketplace giants — An interview with Connor Gillivan
How can a marketplace startup compete with platform giants? Connor Gillivan, co-founder and CMO of the freelance marketplace FreeeUp, shares their story.
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Starting a marketplace
Validate your marketplace as you go
Stasher co-founder and CCO Anthony Collias reveals how Stasher validated their business idea, built their tech, found partners and funders, and expanded the marketplace to three continents.
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Starting a marketplace
The Lean Marketplace - out now!
Sharetribe's new book, The Lean Marketplace, is now available for Kindle and as a paperback from Amazon.com. Learn more about this practical guide to building a successful online marketplace business.
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Starting a marketplace
How to find the perfect name for your marketplace
Grant Polachek shares his approach on how to determine the right name for your marketplace.
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Starting a marketplace
10 marketplace thought leaders you should follow
A list of 10 important marketplace thought leaders to follow in this rapidly changing industry.
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Starting a marketplace
Why did Thumbtack succeed?
Starting your marketplace with one city and one vertical is key. But for every rule, there's an exception.
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Starting a marketplace
Five must-read books for marketplace entrepreneurs
Our CEO Juho picked the five books he strongly recommends to all marketplace entrepreneurs.
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Starting a marketplace
Three lessons learned: What matters most in marketplaces
In this interview, Oliver Bremer discusses how and why his first marketplace business Tangareef failed and what he learned from it to start a new project.
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Starting a marketplace
Discover latent demand – An interview with Boris Wertz
Boris Wertz, the prolific marketplace investor and former COO of AbeBooks, believes there are still many untapped verticals that are ripe for disruption by new marketplace businesses.
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Starting a marketplace
From marketplace idea to profitability in a matter of months
An interview with the founders of Cycle.land, the Sharetribe-powered bike-sharing marketplace that raised more than £400,000 in equity crowdfunding.
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Starting a marketplace
10 marketplace founders you should follow
A list of ten marketplace founders, who remain CEOs of their successful marketplace companies. Follow them for inspiration and advice.
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Starting a marketplace
How to find the next big marketplace idea
From the stage at Cabaret Sauvage in Paris, Robin is telling the vivid story about how she likes to stay at friends’ houses when she travels.
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Starting a marketplace
Three reasons why marketplaces fail (and how not to)
Peer-to-peer marketplaces can be great businesses. They combine the convenience of online stores with scale that comes from the notion that every consumer can also be a provider.
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