Consumer marketplaces like Uber and Airbnb are mature, but SMB hiring and logistics remain fragmented and ripe for disruption. Generative AI can supercharge older marketplace models by letting freelancers and service providers work faster and reach more customers.
Chapters
You know, are you seeing any specific kind of trends or maybe even kind of opportunities for marketplaces to be built?
That's a good question. I think there's, there's a few different areas. One, I think there's a lot of opportunity on the SMB side of things. I think to some extent, there's been some great innovation in consumer marketplaces when you think about Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Etsy, I made fun of Poshmark earlier, but that's also a great example. But on the SMB side of things, companies like Fair are still relatively new. And there actually still, I think, is a lot of opportunity on, let's say, hiring for SMBs or figuring out logistics in like a marketplace structure. There's just a lot of challenges that, that have inefficiencies and that need solving. And whenever there's inefficiencies like that, I think marketplace, the marketplace model can be a great model. So that's one area that I think is interesting. I can't believe I've gone almost 30 minutes without mentioning AI, but there's a lot of opportunity with new technology like AI to bring that in with a different business model. So one, one model I'm starting to see, or one area I'm starting to see, is sort of marketplaces enabling, uh, or enabled with generative AI. So for example, let's imagine a freelancer marketplace, but you're able to empower those freelancers to work a lot quicker because they have generative AI tools, or a, you know, workout marketplace connecting consumers and trainers, the way you're able to enable the trainer to engage with more clients using generative AI. So I think these technological waves open a new opportunity to look at old business models or business models that have worked before, but try them with a new spin.
