Do you have a Marketplace startup? Discover here a reflection on which side enhance first: supply or demand. What do you think? Follow the article for building a marketplace startup.
The marketplaces have been growing exponentially since 2010, and the trend seems unstoppable. This implies that in the coming years. Many marketplace startups are going to have to be developed. Can open source solutions make life easier for collaborative entrepreneurs?
Until recently there were few options if you wanted to create your platform to the Airbnb, BlaBlaCar or Drivy. You developed expensive proprietary solutions like the big startups do with huge financing. You used SaaS solutions that were difficult to customize, resulting in a no scalable.
What happens if your startup cannot afford one of those scalable solutions or needs customizable features? We are going to look for “open source” alternatives that can open the space of economic and customizable solutions to collaborative entrepreneurs.
Building a marketplace startup
Although it is true that it is a fairly profitable model, it is usually faced with a serious crossroads that usually causes the failure of the vast majority of this type of projects: to have buyers; sellers are needed and vice versa. Where to start? Where should we focus at the beginning to try to boost growth?
So, looking at this point, I thought maybe you’d like to reflect with me about it. Let’s go? Come, coffee and smile!
The growth problem behind a Marketplace model
Before thinking and discussing what our growth approach could be. We have to understand well what this type of business model consists of and what is the problem they face.
What is the Marketplace model?
It is about portals, platforms, apps or businesses whose main function is to favor the agreement between two parties of a transaction. The one that demands and the one that offers), adding value to the transaction itself.
For example, Airbnb helps owners find people who want to stay and tenants looking for good accommodations. Do you follow me? Etsy helps “geek buyers” find products from “creative sellers.”
Udemy, on the other hand, offers millions of students access to thousands of courses created by trainers from around the world. In all of them, it is not enough to say “here you have B that offers what you are looking for.” You must add value to that transaction to generate a return for the platform.
Some examples of Marketplace models
Although that definition may be a little general, you will see that it is basically what millions of startups support. All are advertised on TV and generate lots of money. Is that almost any possible transaction is likely to be improved through this type of model.
E-commerce marketplaces
Lots of products, from different manufacturers or vendors, concentrated on a platform to be found by lots of interested customers. This type of marketplaces, among which we have Etsy, eBay or Chicky, offer a space for sellers to place their products and buyers find them.
Service marketplaces
On the other hand, we have models like Uber or freelancer in which professionals offer their services to interested clients. It is a model very similar to the previous one. There may not be a physical product to exchange. But basically, it’s the same. Or almost.
Listings
Although the two previous models could also be considered listings, I have decided to separate them and put this third point to refer to those in which the return on investment is obtained by access to information or generated traffic rather than by intervention in the transaction. Are you following me or is the paragraph strange? In the case of listings, the value is in appearing in the list itself. It is more than in the transaction itself, which may or may not occur within the platform.
Content portals
There are other types of models in which producers and consumers of content are put together. In these cases, the producer obtains relevance and the consumer information of interest. The online communities could be considered as either this type or the next, which are very similar.
Collaborative marketplaces
Then we have the collaboratives that are practically the same as the previous ones. In my opinion, they differ in that the previous ones are based on the content that the users generate and consume. These are based on the mutual collaboration of the users to solve specific problems.
I think that the classification, which has come out a bit quicker. It could be improved, but as my goal was to introduce you to the problem. I think it’s enough. You already completed the building a marketplace startup if you want, right?