Podcast · ~1 hr

How marketplaces win: Liquidity, growth levers, quality, and more

Benjamin Lauzier · Lenny's Podcast Freemium Advanced

Lauzier has run marketplace growth at Lyft, Thumbtack and Reforge, and this conversation gets into how a precise definition on one side changes your matching, pricing and quality decisions later. Listen once you have a first cut of both ICPs, it shows you what breaks if either definition is too broad. It is a good gut check before you scale past your first city or category.

  • A vague ICP on either side shows up later as bad matches and weak liquidity
  • Liquidity problems are usually a symptom of an unclear or overly broad customer definition
  • Quality and growth levers depend on knowing exactly who you are matching
Open on lennysnewsletter.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. How do I define an ideal customer for a two-sided marketplace where I have to pick two of them?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. Market size is meaningless until you know exactly who you're for, and Lenny turns that into a concrete, repeatable ICP exercise... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to identify your ideal customer profile (ICP) Lenny Rachitsky
  4. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky
  5. For a two-sided marketplace, the first real decision is which side to define and win first, and this essay makes the case... NFX Essay · Long read (about 25 minutes) 19 Tactics to Solve the Chicken-or-Egg Problem and Grow Your Marketplace James Currier
  6. This is the most concrete answer to which of your two customers to define first, built from interviews with 17 major... Lenny's Newsletter Article · Long read (about 20 minutes) How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business, Part 2: Cracking the Chicken-and-Egg Problem (Supply vs. Demand) Lenny Rachitsky
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