Podcast
Marketplace Mechanics
Hosted by James McAulay · EN
Interviews and insights with people creating two-sided marketplace businesses.
Building a marketplace is often described as building two startups at once. Accurately matching supply and demand is painstakingly hard, but when you get it right, it's magical.
Marketplace Mechanics is hosted and created by James McAulay, the Co-Founder & CEO of Encore (encoremusicians.com) - a marketplace for booking outstanding live musicians.
3episodes
Episodes
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Marketplace Mechanics #3 - Andrew Needham, HeadBox
Apr 11, 201900:35:29Tap to summarizeWelcome to the third episode of Marketplace Mechanics, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of two-sided marketplaces and the people building them. In this episode, I speak with Andrew Needham, a serial entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO of venue marketplace, HeadBox. To subscribe to email updates for each episode, head to marketplacemechanics.com Follow the show on Twitter @marketplacepod and follow James on Twitter @thejamesmcaulay SHOW NOTES 1:55 Interview Begins - what is HeadBox? 2:49 What are the problems being solved by the HeadBox marketplace? How did people book venues before HeadBox? 4:25 HeadBox Origin Story - where did the idea come from? 5:32 What did the first few days and weeks of HeadBox look like? How did you get started? 9:25 Who were the first hires, and how did they acquire supply and demand? 11:10 After you had acquired your first 1000 venues - when did you switch on demand? How did you decide which channel was best for your marketplace? 15:15 The importance of learning lessons about your customers yourself (the hard way) vs. offloading marketing to an agency 16:25 The importance of learning in startups 18:40 Manual processes behind the scenes (things that don't scale) when growing HeadBox 21:08 SaaS-enabled marketplace - what the hell is a SaaS-enabled Marketplace? 22:05 HeadBox as the first SaaS-Enabled Marketplace in the Venue Industry 24:40 Spinning the 'flywheel' of growth by solving problems for customers and suppliers in tandem 26:20 Where will HeadBox be 3 years from now? What does the future of booking a venue look like? 30:25 Andrew's advice to people starting or building two-sided marketplaces 34:09 Outro
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Marketplace Mechanics #2 – Jean-Michel Chalayer, LeSalon
Oct 21, 201800:36:55Tap to summarizeEpisode overview. 2:02 Interview Begins 3:16 LeSalon's origin story and the problem being solved 4:50 Is LeSalon the Uber for therapists? 5:32 What did the first few months look like? How did you get started? 6:44 How did you know when you had found the right co-founder? Were there any real signs you were a good match when you met? 8:20 You've found your co-founder - what next? What does a typical day at early-stage LeSalon look like? 10:15 The legendary LeSalon spreadsheet 13:25 What are the criteria for therapists (suppliers) joining LeSalon? What makes a good therapist? 15:31 Do you reject a lot of therapists? 17:02 How do you approach trust? How do you help your customers get comfortable with a stranger entering their home to carry out beauty treatments? 18:11 How do foster a sense of community on your marketplace? 22:55 How is LeSalon better than the competition? 24:35 How did you arrive at the business model? Has it changed since you started? And is it a similar model to competitors, or have you done something unique? 25:55 Do you control the pricing on your platform? 29:20 Do your suppliers try to take customers off the platform? (Disintermediation) 32:37 What's your favourite part of building a two-sided marketplace? 34:30 Biggest piece of advice you'd give to someone thinking about starting their own marketplace?
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Marketplace Mechanics #1 – Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo
Aug 11, 201700:29:45Tap to summarizeEpisode overview. 2:08 Interview Begins 3:16 First Week at Lexoo 4:00 MVP of Lexoo 4:45 First booking 5:20 Customer acquisition 5:52 How did you meet your co-founder? 6:29 Supply and demand – which first? 7:37 Balancing the needs of supply and demand 9:35 Building the team 10:27 International expansion 13:13 Creating community (AirBnb, YunoJuno, Monzo) 15:19 Competition 16:40 Quoting Systems – Supplier Fatigue 16:15 Pricing 19:40 Business Model 20:54 Commission 22:02 Disintermediation 24:16 Favourite part of building a marketplace? 25:53 Why start a marketplace? Why not a legal firm? 27:08 Fundraising for marketplaces vs SaaS businesses 28:38 Tell me something about Lexoo that very few people know
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