YakShaving

It’s the little things. I love this: when you forget your Apple password, you go to “iforgot.apple.com”

I just saw this on Grooveshark today. Interesting. I wonder if more platforms are going to be a places where an experience is delivered (like music), and the original content creator will get direct authentic feedback from the content consumer.

I’m sure this is just a clever platform feature, but I like what they did with the copy — make it seem like Derrich John literally asked me what I thought of this song. It has a small textbox and two buttons, one for “I like this” and one for “Not for me” It’s in the bottom right hand portion of the screen, and so is evocative of a “chat” message directly from the user.

Lately I’ve been trying to understand strategically the creation of 2 sided networks/marketplaces and turning them into {web} businesses. I’ve come across some interesting articles and thought I’d brain dump them and share them here with other people who are trying to pursue similar end goals.

Two sided networks are interesting: They’re characterized by extremely high entry costs, which means, they’re HARD to start, but once you’ve built them, they’re really hard to disrupt. That sounds like a fun challenge, doesn’t it?

Various awesome links

Six strategies for solving the Chicken or the Egg Problem
The Ladies Night strategy, by Chris Dixon.
2 Sided Markets on Wikipedia. academic/informative, it’s wikipedia, whaddya want? The best advice here is: “..subsidized the more price sensitive side, and charged the side whose demand increased more strongly in response to growth on the other side.”
Strategies for 2 sided Markets
Competition in 2 sided markets This one has pricing model implications, but still very academic.
Quora answer on 2 sided marketplaces and conflict resolution

Chicken and egg problem on HN
Strategy Letter on Chicken & Egg Problems
Inventing Demand. “It’s a bit like asking two people who don’t know each other to fall in love. To solve this problem I decided to ‘Invent Demand’. This is how I did it.”
Market building dilemma. Focus or Buy your way in. Incentivize one side of the market to kick things off.
OnStartups answer to Chicken/Egg problem Low Risk Buyin for Sell side, Partnering with existing business, Scaffold. Great advice: ACTIVELY PICK A SIDE, don’t waffle. Actively “Simulate” one side of the transaction.

At some level, any 2 sided marketplace is competing with that ultimate – garage sale of the internet site — Craigslist. there was a hilarious hackernews thread that discussed businesses that geeks try to start. a Craigslist disruptor with an awesome user experience “on top of the Craigslist” data was on the top 5 list. My general hypothesis going in is that 2 sided marketplace businesses need to provide lots of “thick” value. In these cases, thick value could be defined as customer service, amazingly simple interface (where interface literally means the interface between the sell side and the buy side) — which has to be facilitative, simple, and a magnitude better than plain old “email” — or even what CL offers.

My other informed guess (ok, it’s kinda obvious) is that you have to start with the supply side first and then move to the buyer side.

I’m curious to learn more from other people who have gone about doing the same thing. In particular, I’m interested in: marketing strategy, pricing (lumpsum vs recurring vs transactional), and “order” of operations.

startup, strategy, design, marketplace, business