1. New Experience vs. the Status Quo. The best marketplaces don't just aggregate markets; they enhance them. OpenTable lets you search reservations across hundreds of restaurants in seconds. GrubHub lets you watch your food as it comes to your house.


2. Economic Advantages vs. the Status Quo. Some marketplaces give companies a lot of economic advantages.

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On Ecommerce and Marketplaces: Look for 1. Positive unit economics on the product, positive contribution margins on products sold. 2. Logistics: how long does it take to get to you? Will people pay for convenience. 3. Ability to browse as a human and connect, products that delight the customer, 4. Hooks the customer going forward, 5. The future is... See more

One threat was we get hollowed out vertical by vertical by specialized marketplaces, because one of the benefits of the horizontal marketplace is the consumer can go to anywhere they want and find what they're looking for. One of the negatives is it's really hard to tailor the experience to the unique attributes of that vertical

So far, curated consumer marketplaces are tied to a brand like Zippy Pantry, Bubble or Amazon. It's a huge engineering challenge to create a central ecommerce API similar to what Carted, Fast and a few others are building out. Additionally, there needs to be an easy solution to creating a self branded marketplace. So whilst a lot of people have... See more