Article · 20 min read

The Marketplace Glossary

Li Jin · Andreessen Horowitz Free Beginner

Before you can pick a side you need the vocabulary: liquidity, constrained side, multi-tenanting, matching architecture. This is the reference that makes the rest of the marketplace literature readable.

  • Marketplace take rates run from low single digits to the mid-30s, driven by fragmentation, substitutes, and operational value added.
  • Liquidity is measured concretely: fill rate (match rate), market depth, and time to find a match.
  • Double commit marketplaces need both sides to opt in for a match, which is why Craigslist-style back and forth leaks transactions.
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The question it answers

  1. We are a marketplace with buyers on one side and sellers on the other. Which side is the ICP?

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