Learnings & Tips For Founders Building Operationally Complex Marketplaces

Peerspace is a more operationally complex marketplace, the more we kind of dive into things here. So do you have any maybe learnings, you know, from running it as an operationally complex marketplace and, you know, tips for founders looking to build them that you could share with us?

I spent 11 years doing Peerspace, and what I will say is marketplaces are very hard. They're complicated, but they're super rewarding. There's a reason why some of the most transformative businesses over the last 20 years are marketplaces. They're asset light. They have, if you figure it out, they've got great network effects, which means their, you know, growth can compound. And it's also like just kind of rooted in this disruptive nature of like you can bring many different suppliers to solve a problem. You don't have to build something custom. you know, like a SaaS or something. You can, you can solve this by getting the right groups together and aligning the incentives. And so what I would say is, you know, it's important to map out your vision to understand what the possible opportunity or your TAM of your marketplace is, but stay hyperfocused as you create that initial wedge. And I mentioned that earlier. I think sustainable growth is important for marketplaces, especially right now. The hype train is fully on AI as it probably should at this point. But just think about what that means for marketplaces. You're either going to be an AI-enabled marketplace or you're gonna be more traditional tech-enabled marketplace. Either way, it's just sound business to make sure that you're building for sustainability and making sure that, you know, you're in a position where you can create the best outcome for yourself as a founder and for your employees and, you know, shareholders. And I think things swung really far in that direction in like 2022, you know, with a push towards profitability. And for businesses like Peerspace that understood that, I think a lot of marketplaces also were we kind of create these shadow markets when we start out because the nature of what you're trying to disrupt via a platform that is a marketplace is something that maybe not all investors really get and want to throw a lot of, you know, money against. So for marketplaces like ours, you know, we are ready to do that. And I think that's really important and it allows you to, you know, hold your own cards. So I think that's important, you know, sustainable growth, reinvesting growth back into the business. And, you know, as far as tips for other founders, I would say, ask yourself, is this your life's work or could this be your life's work? Could you commit 5 to 10 years to this mission when you're evaluating what your business is. You know, are you, are you able to build something without venture funding if you needed to? Like, could you, could you sustain it? And are you prepared to go through what would be kind of a, a slower slog? I would say, you know, if you have a lot of venture funding, you can burn through that really fast. It doesn't mean you're gonna be successful. So, you know, can you, can you go without it or can you go with just You know, taking what you need so that you can continue to, like I say, like both hold the cards here. As far as organization, I would say, do you have— think about like your operating system that you have and how much effort you need to spend here depends on, you know, your personal dynamic, your team dynamic, and just like what stage of company you are. But is it disciplined? Do you have you know, specific ways of decision-making that are like logically rooted and, you know, able to keep you moving in the right direction. And, you know, are you using like an OKR system or how are you prioritizing? I think it's good to be thinking about that early on so you don't waste time. And so you really stay focused on the, on the the areas that you're trying to move in, in the near term. I don't know, some other thoughts I had is like, does your co-founder or someone on your founding team have technical aptitude? I think that's really, it's a key difference maker. I don't, obviously, I'm not, I can't code and maybe with AI you can do some of that easier than before, but It's really hard if both co-founders or like the early team is having to outsource all the engineering and product work. You can move a lot faster if you find somebody who wants to be on this journey with you that is capable of building your vision if you are not technical yourself. As far as like, this kind of goes back to prioritization, I'd say think about your next 6 months and where you want to be and work that into weekly or biweekly sprints and just like really make sure that you're checking boxes for the most important things every time you go through it. So that you can say like, hey, I, this is what I got done this week. You know, this is what I set out to do and be really honest with yourself because I think being a founder is a lonely very lonely journey. It's very hard. And you need to kind of utilize your own organizational tools to, you know, keep yourself on the right track. And I, those are things where you might have to do it because you only have a certain amount of funding and you're worried about your, you know, what your runway is. Or you're just kind of not, in my case, you know, I had worked at a really big company that was too big to fail and suddenly you're fully betting on yourself, you know, and you just need to kind of build systems for yourself to stay, you know, on track and to make sure you're prioritizing. So, you know, those are the things that came to mind for me and what I would say that, you know, founders in the early stages are thinking about.