Podcast · ~1 hr

How to build and scale winning marketplaces (Casey Winters)

Casey Winters · First Round Review Free Intermediate

Winters scaled Grubhub, Pinterest, and Eventbrite, and here he talks plainly about liquidity, local versus global network effects, and why you constrain by geography or category early. It is a practitioner walking through exactly the tradeoffs you face as you start. Good listening on a commute.

  • Measure product-market fit through liquidity, not raw signups.
  • Constrain to one neighborhood or category to make matches likely.
  • Supply can drive its own demand, so use it as a channel.
Open on review.firstround.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. I'm a solo technical founder. How do I MVP a two-sided marketplace when I need both buyers and sellers before it works at all?

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