Why I’m Slow-Rolling the Vendor Side Of My Two-Sided Marketplace

Most 2SMs put the cart in front of the horse

If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many two-sided marketplace startups out there, the simple answer is that they’re easy to pull off — on paper.

If you’ve ever considered why so many of those 2SMs fail, it’s because they aren’t easy to pull off at all.

What makes a 2SM seem like a winner is the simplicity in digitally aggregating a bunch of existing vendors to provide services to waiting customers.

Why many 2SMs fail is because those customers never materialize.

Thus, the asset that’s really easy for a 2SM to acquire — a supply of waiting vendors— that asset isn’t worth anything. Until the 2SM figures out how to bring demand to the supply.

Let’s talk about that.

Revenue is the only metric that matters

There are a handful of tenets that I’m constantly hammering home when I answer questions at Teaching Startup — my project to democratize the way founders get help and advice by making it affordable and efficient. One of those tenets that keep me sounding like a broken record is: