One of the requests I got after I published the Hierarchy of Marketplaces ( https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/the-hierarchy-of-marketplaces-introduction-and-level-1-983995aa218e) is to share the audio voiceover of the slides.

Here is the voiceover for Level 1 - lmk what you think about the format. If useful, I'll do Level 2 and 3.

Intro

I cover why I think Pinterest (and all UGC sites) are actually marketplaces, just with an interesting dynamic that 100% of the suppliers (the content creators) are also "buyers" (the viewers).

The core insight driving the hierarchy is that when building a marketplace, you need to start from the goal of dominating a market and work backwards from there in order to maximize your chances of getting there.

Let's dig in on Level 1... (No voice over.)

Links!
@onecaseman & @bmrothenberg: https://caseyaccidental.com/starting-and-scaling-marketplaces-podcast/
@lennysan: https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-kickstart-and-scale-a-marketplace
@jbreinlinger: https://pando.com/2012/11/20/liquidity-hacking-how-to-build-a-two-sided-marketplace/

Focusing on maximizing GMV will actually lead you in the wrong direction (big, competitive markets).

Focus instead on where and how you can create meaningfully more happiness than any substitute.

Happiness >> how many transactions you accumulate.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t grow. But if you think of growth as a means to increasing the average level of happiness per transaction (instead of the goal itself), it will focus you on quality growth over vanity growth.

If you pick the right thimble, you can win the ocean. But you’ll never win by going after the ocean first. Pick wisely.

(Part 2) Take away: Go after a space that is underestimated, but make sure that as you pull the thread of the buyer need, it opens up broader use cases (and therefore a bigger market).

(Part 2)Uber, and thinking holistically about the experience of buyers and sellers from the start of the transaction to post-purchase to maximize happiness.

How do you know when you're ready to focus on growing so that you can tip the market? You've achieved Minimum Viable Happiness.

Using Happy GMV as an operational metric as you wait for your cohorts to mature. https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/measuring-happy-gmv-and-why-im-over-net-promoter-score-47a5748611bc

(Continued bc of Twitter cut-off)

That's it for now. Let me know if you like format and you get something out of it beyond what you read, and I'll publish Level 2 and 3.