<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23590" data-quote="Andy Black" data-source="post: 479816"
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Market places are tricky as there's the buyers and sellers to acquire, and satisfy.<br />
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Start with their wants and see if you can fulfil them, before you "build" too much.<br />
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If it was services rather than products, I'd start by generating the leads and using them to acquire the service providers.<br />
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Can you do similar? Can you capture interest in a product first and then go to vendors with all these pre-orders? That's what the vendors want after all, - people expressing an interest in their product with the intention of buying.<br />
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Some worries and random thoughts:<br />
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If the vendors are poor at marketing, maybe they have built a cool product that nobody wants?<br />
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Maybe you can't get anyone interested in buying it no matter how much work you do.<br />
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There's a risk you do a lot of<br />
marketing work for nothing.<br />
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Would being a straight affiliate for products be simpler to start with?<br />
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It's easiest to sell to people already looking to buy.<br />
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You've picked a target *demographic* of buyers (young men). That's very broad. Can you narrow it down to "people who spend money on XYZ" instead of a demographic?<br />
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And then attach yourself to that "demonstrated cash flow"?<br />
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Start very niche and focus. Drilling deeper is how you're going to get traction, not being everything to everyone.<br />
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Check out how other market places got started. You mention etsy. Check the founding stories for the usual suspects (Amazon, Craigslist, Groupon, etc). Niche ones will be interesting too.<br />
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Don't call them buyers and sellers/vendors. Give them better names to describe them. Calling them cyclists and cycle manufacturers would help you.<br />
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This isn't a technical "build" challenge, it's a big marketing challenge, made harder because you're trying to serve two sides of a market.<br />
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It's essential you focus and simplify as much as you can. There's a real danger you get lost building stuff.<br />
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Keep asking yourself "Do I *really* need XYZ? Can I achieve the end-result without XYZ?"<br />
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My worry is that this is a potentially big project with a lot of moving parts.<br />
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What's the LEAST you can do to get started, and to get profitable?<br />
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Podcasts that might help are<br />
• <a href="http://www.tropicalmba.com/consulting" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">www.tropicalmba.com/consulting</a><br />
• <a href="http://www.tropicalmba.com/services" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">www.tropicalmba.com/services</a><br />
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I don't know your background, skills and experience. Just be aware of "product - founder" fit too, as Dan Norris mentions in his short and easy to read book "The 7 Day Startup".<br />
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Hope that helps.
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Thanks for your input Andy, you have always been one of my favorite posters.<br />
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Just to clear things up a little bit the marketplace has its own industry, with its own subcategories. Its a niche marketplace similar to etsy but instead of crafts its xyz. I know the demographic, and where they hang out, and I may have some industry connections as well. The industry makes billions annually, so its not so niche it will be hard to find customers. Sorry for being so vague, but ive been around to see biophase's soap business cloned, and competition that popped up from members getting into the same business as other people.<br />
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I love that bit about giving the buyers and sellers better names as well.<br />
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Im really trying to make it as simple as possible. In the industry people already buy the products. The problem is that some of the people making the products dont know how to properly market them. Its the equivalent of someone selling lemonade to thirsty people, but the lemonade stand is in the backyard where nobody can see it.<br />
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<blockquote data-attributes="member: 30453" data-quote="Bellini" data-source="post: 479850"
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Not to be a killjoy, but how is this any different than Ebay?
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ebay is very broad. It focuses on tons of different products from automobiles to xylophones. It was originally an auction house.<br />
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<blockquote data-attributes="member: 8023" data-quote="AllenCrawley" data-source="post: 479862"
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<a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/23590/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="23590" data-username="@Andy Black">@Andy Black</a> brings up some great points.<br />
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It boils down to what is it that will make people use your marketplace in addition to the others out there.<br />
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New marketplaces pop up all the time. A few gain traction and most fail.<br />
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I don't get from your post that you've really researched this fully.<br />
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Take a look at alibaba's 11main, opensky, grommet, wanelo, fitmoo, fancy, maker's row, storenvy, wish.com and the other dozen or so that are making noise.
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There is not currently a marketplace that I know of that offers anything like this. Its not a marketplace like wanelo where people come to look for cool products that fit into any category under the sun. It has its own niche. Etsy is a good comparison.<br />
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Thanks for the other responses as well</div>
