Two-Sided - The Marketplace Podcast
Two-Sided is a podcast about building and scaling online marketplace businesses. Host Sjoerd Handgraaf speaks with marketplace entrepreneurs, investors, and operators about demand and supply, the easy and hard parts, and how marketplaces look from the outside versus what happens inside. Episodes cover starting, growing, and scaling two-sided platforms at every stage. The show aims to uncover practical insights for anyone interested in online marketplace businesses.
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![[Bonus Episode] Dribbble's controversial pivot to a lead-gen marketplace with Constantine Anastasakis (CEO @ Dribbble)](https://img.transistorcdn.com/XpPOhZSs9tZLbZh5aRSVNy8kzov7Nhj1QXtDt-Sey_E/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mZGU4/OGEzMTk0OWY5ZjM4/MjY2NmRlZmUxYjgw/ZDY5OS5wbmc.jpg)
[Bonus Episode] Dribbble's controversial pivot to a lead-gen marketplace with Constantine Anastasakis (CEO @ Dribbble)
Surprise! It’s a Two-Sided bonus episode! Sjoerd sat down with Constantine Anastasakis, CEO of Dribbble, to discuss their transition from an online design community to a lead-generation marketplace. The shift sparked a loud social-media backlash, but, as you’ll hear in the episode, the comments mostly missed what was actually happening on the platform.We discuss:The pivot timeline and rat
Introducing a new podcast: Sharetribe Founder Stories - Marcel Fairbairn of GearSource
**This is a one-off cross-promotional episode of our new podcast: Sharetribe Founder Stories.**This new podcast features interviews with founders building successful online marketplaces with Sharetribe. Discover how founders identified opportunities, overcame challenges, and scaled their platforms—from their first transaction to millions in GMV. Each episode dives into both the strategies
S3E09: Season 3 Recap: six key takeaways
In this solo episode, Sjoerd wraps up Season 3 of Two-Sided, summarizing key lessons from eight insightful conversations with leading marketplace investors. He highlights essential themes like leveraging network effects for defensibility, the power of starting small before scaling, succeeding in B2B marketplaces, and how AI is reshaping the future. A concise yet rich recap—don’t miss it!
S3E08 - Building defensible marketplaces: insights on network effects and AI - Pete Flint (NFX)
In this episode, we dive into the world of marketplaces with Pete Flint, co-founder of NFX, one of the leading venture firms specializing in network effects. Pete brings decades of marketplace experience, from the founding team at Lastminute.com to the creation of Trulia and its merger with Zillow. At NFX, Pete and his team have a unique perspective on how network effects drive defensibil
S3E07 - Disrupting Legacy Industries with B2B Marketplaces - Laurens Groenendijk & Bas Rieter (DFF)
In this episode, we dive into the world of B2B marketplace investments with Laurens Groenendrijk and Bas Rieter from DFF Ventures. With years of experience as founders and investors, Bas and Laurens (as co-founder of JustEat and Treatwell) share valuable insights into building and scaling marketplaces that disrupt traditional industries. Tune in for:The rise of re-commerce and the role of
S3E06 - From first revenue to breakout success - Colin Gardiner (Yonder.vc)
In this episode, we’re joined by Colin Gardiner, a seasoned operator and investor in the marketplace space. From his experience scaling Outdoorsy to leading early-stage investments, Colin dives into the critical elements that make marketplaces succeed and thrive.Highlights:Why unique supply is key: Colin explains how aggregating truly unique supply drives the success of a marketplace.The
S3E05 - Founders and speed: finding and funding scalable marketplaces - Jeroen Arts (Speedinvest)
In this episode of Two-Sided, we explore how early-stage marketplace investors like Jeroen Arts at Speedinvest evaluate and support marketplace founders. Jeroen brings years of experience in identifying scalable marketplace models, high-potential founders and shares his approach to spotting opportunities and avoiding common mistakes for early stage founders.Highlights include:The power of
S3E04 - Navigating marketplace growth: Lateral attacks and the power of the niche - Mira Mihaylova (Piton Capital)
In this episode, we are joined by Mira Mihaylova from Piton Capital. Since its inception in 2010, Piton Capital has focused solely on network effects businesses, having invested in over 100 businesses, all with network effects, and the vast majority of them are marketplaces.Some of the things we’ll talk about:Frontal vs lateral attack strategy: Mira highlights the challenges of launching
S3E03 - What turns a good marketplace into a great marketplace? - Andrew Blachman (Marketplace Capital)
In this episode, Andrew Blachman, co-founder of Marketplace Capital, shares his wealth of experience in building and investing in online marketplaces. As an operator turned investor, he reveals valuable insights for aspiring marketplace founders.Highlights:The importance of creating new market opportunities: Andrew explains how successful marketplaces unlock new supply or demand that didn
S3E02 - Four steps to evaluate a network effects business - Sameer Singh (SpeedInvest / Breadcrumb.vc)
In this episode, we'll talk to Sameer Singh, an angel investor known for his excellent blog on network effects, Breadcrumb.vc, former Atomico Angel, and current venture partner at SpeedInvest.We’ll discuss how Sameer evaluates marketplace businesses:Evaluating Network Effects: Sameer walks through his four-step evaluation process for marketplace investments, focusing on unique multiplayer
S3E01 - Lessons from investing in 1,100+ network businesses with Jose Marin of FJ Labs.
After a brief hiatus, Two-sided—the marketplace podcast is back! I’m super excited to kick off season three of the podcast with a chat with Jose Marin of FJ Labs. FJ Labs is considered the world’s most prolific angel investor: they have over 1,100 startups in their portfolio, including heavy hitters like Airbnb, Alibaba, and AngelList (and that’s just the ones beginning with the letter A)
Two-Sided Season 3 coming out next week! - Trailer
Season three of Two-Sided is here, and we’re switching focus. After exploring the experiences of entrepreneurs and founders in previous seasons, we now dive into the minds of the investors shaping the future of online marketplaces. I chat with top marketplace VCs like Jose Marin from FJ Labs, Pete Flint from NFX, and Andrew Blachman from Marketplace Capital to uncover what they look for i
Sharetribe launched on Product Hunt!
In this special, one-off mini-episode of Two-sided, Sjoerd asks for your help and reflects back on the past ten years of building marketplace software at Sharetribe.On January 30th, 2024, Sharetribe launched its best marketplace builder today on Product Hunt. We were featured as #2 Product of the Day! Thank you so much for your support! With the new Sharetribe, you can launch a marketplac
S2E12 - Season 2 Recap: six essentials insights from this season
In this final episode, Sjoerd looks back at season 2. He highlights the top takeaways that any early-stage marketplace entrepreneur can use, and backs them up with outtakes from the interviews.Besides a recap, you can use this episode as a quick guide to discover the episodes you have yet to listen to or rediscover your favorites.We hope you enjoyed this season! If you have any feedback a
S2E11 - How a comic book community turned into a marketplace - Gene Miguel (Shortboxed)
A community can be a strong foundation for a marketplace. In the early days, it helps with onboarding initial supply and demand and creates trust. Later, it can form a powerful moat that defends the marketplace from competitors.But building a community takes time and work and, most importantly, engaging in it yourself.In this episode, Sjoerd interviews Gene Miguel, CEO and co-founder of S
S2E10 - Growing a marketplace through perseverance - Trisha Bantigue (Queenly)
Sometimes, the story of the founder can be just as interesting as the story of the marketplace.In the case of Trisha Bantigue, this is certainly the case. Trisha was born in the Philippines, raised by her grandparents, immigrated to the US at age 10, and paid her way through college by competing in pageants. Today, she is the CEO and co-founder of Queenly, a marketplace for formal dresses
S2E09 - How Drive lah balances speed vs. quality - Gaurav Singhal (Drive lah)
First-time marketplace founders often struggle to balance speed to market and marketplace quality. On the one hand, launching an MVP as fast as possible is often the best strategy.On the other hand, high quality and trustworthiness are essential, especially for peer-to-peer marketplaces.Despite being first-time founders, Gaurav Singhal and Dirk-Jan ter Horst cracked this trade-off from th
S2E08 - How Curtsy drove $25M annual GMV with a team of 6 - David Oates (Curtsy)
Marketplaces have conquered some industries earlier and faster than others. Besides home-sharing and ride-haling, one such industry is fashion. The European second-hand clothing giant Vinted was founded in 2008. The US-based Poshmark started in 2011 and is now a listed company.One might think there are no opportunities left for new marketplaces in these pioneer industries. One would be wr
S2E07 - Why you shouldn’t underestimate the power of sales for your marketplace - Jason Bergman (MarketPryce)
Jason Bergman thinks most marketplace founders underestimate the power of sales.Jason is a big sports fan and has always loved working in sales. Before founding MarketPryce, he ran his own sports agency where he tried acquiring customers by sending Instagram messages to almost three thousand professional athletes.The success rate of the Instagram tactic was pretty terrible. But the experi
S2E06 - Having fun building your business is a competitive advantage - Andrew Gazdecki (MicroAcquire)
Andrew Gazdecki loves building businesses. He was the weird kid in high school with an eBay store. He built and sold a job board in college. He used the proceeds to start another company, still in college, which he sold before he turned 30. Andrew’s latest venture is MicroAcquire, a marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. The platform boasts a community of more than 150,000
S2E05 - How a passion turned into a marketplace - Dirk Fehse (PaulCamper)
I'm talking to Dirk Fehse, founder and CEO of PaulCamper, Europe's leading marketplace for RV rentals.Many of us have probably daydreamed about spending a few weeks on the road in an RV. Just get in the van, and park it wherever you want, and that's your home for the night. Dirk loved this too, and so much that he founded a company around it. It's a wonderful story, driven by passion, and
S2E04 - How to start a marketplace in an industry you know nothing about - Emmanuel Nataf (Reedsy)
In business school, Emmanuel Nataf and his friends were bored. They were more interested in startups and tech than studying, and so they decided to start a company: a marketplace around services for self-publishing books. Had any of them ever published a book? No! Did that prevent them from becoming successful? Also, no!We talk a bit about that journey, how they found content & SEO to
S2E03 - Focus on a problem that you have experienced yourself - James Younger (TempStars)
Knowing is half the battle, said the wise man G.I. Joe at the end of each episode. This rings doubly true for James Younger of TempStars, a marketplace for temporary dental hygienists and assistants. Not only is James working on a problem that he knows really well, but he also made a point of getting to know as much as he could about design, web development, and digital marketing after th
S2E02 - Transforming from a network to a marketplace - James McAulay (Encore)
For this episode, I spoke to James McAulay, CEO & co-founder of Encore, a marketplace for booking musicians. We speak about how James combined his love for music and computer science into Encore. How they got started initially as a “LinkedIn for musicians”, then moved to a “managed reverse marketplace” model to ultimately transform into the online marketplace it is today. Many great s
S2E01 - Lessons from two decades in two-sided platforms - Casey Winters (Eventbrite)
We kick off the season with a deep-dive by Casey Winters, one of the most knowledgable and experienced two-sided platform people out there. Casey started at Apartments.com, helped Grubhub to IPO-ready, grew Pinterest to an enormous scale, and is now Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite. In between, he has advised a gazillion marketplace startups: Hipcamp, Faire, Airbnb, Uber, GoFundMe... I
Two-Sided Season 2 - Trailer
It is coming. Finally. Two-Sided Season 2. I know many of you have been waiting a long time. A big thanks to everyone who has reached out me since the first season, and let me or Sharetribe know how much they liked it. It has been a big motivator for us to continue. It’s later than expected, but good things come to those who wait.And boy, are good things coming! I have already recorded so
S1E12 - Season 1 Recap: Five takeaways from this season
In this episode we look back at season 1. I distill five interesting takeaways that any early-stage marketplace entrepreneur can use, and I have picked out the most relevant outtakes from this season’s interviews.
S1E11 - From mowing lawns to tech entrepreneur - Bryan Clayton (Greenpal)
Bryan Clayton, co-founder and CEO of Greenpal, tells the story behind Greenpal, the marketplace for lawn care, and how he transformed himself from a blue-collar entrepreneur into a tech entrepreneur.
S1E10 - Lessons learned from building Kickstarter - Charles Adler (co-founder Kickstarter)
Charles Adler, co-founder of Kickstarter, shares how Kickstarter began and how they grew organically while maintaining the quality and the vibe.
S1E9 - Dealing with trust and Covid-19 in a travel industry marketplace - Jacob Wedderburn-Day (Stasher)
Jacob Wedderburn-Day tells Sjoerd about building Stasher fresh out of university and dealing with the pandemic in a travel industry marketplace.
S1E8 - Free marketplaces will disappear - Ryan Gill (Communo)
Ryan Gills shares how Communo got started, why he thinks Fiverr & UpWork are in a race to the bottom, why they built a community that is about giving before receiving and how Communo is building for the future generations.
S1E7 - Building an enterprise gateway marketplace - Kevin Lustig (Scientist.com)
Kevin Lustig: [00:00:00] So we literally have a press release [laughs] from September 15th, 2008, you know, saying they were launching this platform, and we hoped it would be as consequential as, you know, Darwin stepping out 165 years ago this day onto the Galapagos. [laughs] Because what ended up happening was crickets.Announcer: [00:00:24] Welcome to Two-Sided, the marketplace podcast.
S1E6 - Talent marketplaces and the future of work - Sophie Adelman (WhiteHat/ex-Hired)
Sophie Adelman: [00:00:00] But I think people forget that all of these companies started off with humans going out into the streets and making that business work.Speaker 2: [00:00:12] [music playing] Welcome to Two-Sided, the marketplace podcast, brought to you by Sharetribe.Sjoerd: [00:00:24] Hi, I'm Sjoerd, CMO at Sharetribe, and I am your host. In today's episode, I speak to Sophie Ade
S1E5 - Embrace, don't replace the middleman - Michael DeGiorgio (Crexi)
TS_Michael_MasterMichael DeGiorgio: [00:00:00] And I kind of, in the back of my mind, thought, "If nothing else, you know, this'll be a platform that we can transact on ourselves if people didn't want to use it."Speaker 2: [00:00:13] Welcome to Two-Sided, the marketplace podcast, brought to you by Sharetribe.Sjoerd: [00:00:24] Hi. I'm Sjoerd, CMO at Sharetribe, and I am your host. For thi
S1E4 - Talk to your users before building anything - Charles Armitage (Florence)
Sjoerd Handgraaf: [00:00:15] Welcome to two-sided, the marketplace podcast brought to you by Sharetribe.Sjoerd Handgraaf: [00:00:23] Hi, I'm Sjoerd CMO with Sharetribe and I'm your host. I'm actually very excited today because this is the first time that I can say to at least some of you welcome back because we dropped the first few episodes last week and the response has been absolutely
S1E3 - Building a marketplace for a fragmented market with complex workflows - Ruthie Amaru (Freightos)
We talk to Ruthie Amaru, CEO of Freightos, the world's biggest marketplace for freight.
We’ll talk about how to serve fragmented markets, with complex workflows and middleman. We talk about how to get supply onboard before having demand, about building for trust and loads of other great things, especially for B2B marketplaces.
S1E2 - Optimize for quality and productivity in your marketplace - Josh Breinlinger (Jackson Square Ventures)
We sat down with Josh Breinlinger to dive into his long history with online marketplaces. Josh was early at oDesk and Rev.com and has invested in several marketplaces while working in Venture Capital at Jackson Square ventures. We talked productivity tools, being anti-hype, and quality in the marketplace.
S1E1 - Build something people want - Lenny Rachitsky (ex-Airbnb)
Sjoerd Handgraaf: [00:00:23] Hello and welcome to two-sided. I am Sjoerd CMO at Sharetribe, and I'm your host. And this episode I talked to Lenny Rachitsky. He first founded his own marketplace company, then sold it to Airbnb, worked there for seven years until last year. Since then he has been writing fantastic content about marketplaces, which you can find at lennysnewsletter.com.I talk
Two-Sided - The Marketplace Podcast - An Introduction
Hi and welcome to Two-Sided, the podcast about building an online marketplace business. My name is Sjoerd, I am your host and also the CMO at Sharetribe, which is the company that brings you this podcast. We decided to call it Two-sided, because of course we’ll discuss Demand & Supply, but also the good sides and the bad sides, the easy and the hard parts, how it looks from the outsid
