Two-Sided, the podcast about building an online marketplace business. Two-sided of course, because we’ll discuss Demand & Supply, but also the good side and the bad side, the easy stuff and the hard stuff, and how it looks from the outside versus what is really going on on the inside of an online marketplace.
In this series, we sit down with marketplace entrepreneurs, investors and other brilliant minds who work with online marketplaces and two-sided platforms every single day.
We will talk about starting, building, growing and scaling, and every stage in between. In each episode, we will do our best to uncover insights and wisdom you won’t find anywhere else.
If you are into online marketplace businesses, you will be into this podcast.
I think there's a lot of head fakes in b two b marketplaces, honestly. Like, maybe this is a hot take, but they're not always my favorite category for the very reason that you can get, like, a founder that is maybe the best salesperson in a category Mhmm. That is like, hey. I'm gonna do a marketplace. And realistically, what they're doing is, like, their force of personality makes them great broker, and they just run it through the marketplace.
Colin Gardiner:And really, what you're getting are these tech enabled brokerages. You're not really getting a marketplace model. They look like a marketplace, but they're not actually a marketplace. And so you can get to the series a and b level revenue. Yeah.
Colin Gardiner:And then they actually can't cross the chasm into real self-service marketplaces.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Welcome to TwoSided, the marketplace podcast, brought to you by Sharetribe. Hello, and welcome. I am Stuart, CMO at Sharetribe, and I am your host. This is episode number six of this season. And today, we're talking to Colin Gardiner, a former marketplace operator turned investor who shares his insight on what it takes to build a successful marketplace.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Having worked at several marketplaces or two side platforms, so you'll hear the ones that we discussed. Probably the most famous one of that is Outdoorsy, the RV rental marketplace, where Colin first worked as chief product officer and eventually as the chief revenue officer. We all know how well Outdoorsy is doing nowadays, so it's pretty interesting experience. But generally, Colin has a vast experience on which we can draw. And in recent ERC also has added investing to that experience.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:So so we use all that to basically discuss strategies that that Colin thinks could lead to growth for market. He also opens up about what he looks for in early stage marketplace businesses as an investor and how founders can set them self up for success from day one. Key highlights from this episode, in my opinion, we discussed the critical importance of having unique supply and demand aggregation for successful marketplaces. We also talked a little bit of histories, the shift from, you know, marketplace one point o to verticalized platforms and how these tailored solutions are taking over the horizontal models. And finally, why having a sharp go to market strategy and distribution plan is just as vital to success as having the right product.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:A terrific episode, a really enjoyable conversation. And if you're aspiring marketplace founder, I think this episode, again, offers valuable insights on how to stand out, how to attract the right users, and also how to scale effectively. Please enjoy my conversation with Colin Gardner. Hi, Colin. Welcome to the show.
Colin Gardiner:Hi, Stuart. Thanks for having me.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. Fantastic. You could make the time. I know you're a student of Marketplace, so I'm really excited that you you agreed to, come on. Before we dive in, you know, before we start unlocking the key to building a successful marketplace, I think always good to put a little bit of context.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:So could you tell the listeners a bit about, what you did before you became a marketplace investor?
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. I'd love to. The days before being an investor. I actually was, an operator. I did real work.
Colin Gardiner:I mean, I think investors do some real work. At least sending a lot of emails. I I've done a lot of that since becoming an investor. But, before that, I was a long time operator. The past fifteen years, been getting, the pleasure of building marketplaces.
Colin Gardiner:Most immediately, about almost three years ago now, I was, left outdoorsy where I was a chief product officer, and and ultimately chief revenue officer from there. I was there for about five years, and, we took that, and now it's done. I think they just reported 3,000,000,000 in GMV. So, you know, done a lot of RV rentals, put a lot of RVs on the road throughout the world. So really proud of my time there and everything we got to build.
Colin Gardiner:But before that, worked at a number of different marketplaces, including Tripping.com, Ancestry Com, Just Answer, and, really fell in love with the whole idea of marketplaces and bringing, you know, commerce online. And I think that's what I what I love about it and, try to spend as much time focusing on those things as I possibly can.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. What is it that you what just question because, like, you know, you said just answer at ancestry.com, and those are not, like, on the look a bit. Like, oh, they're a marketplace, but but, of course, they are. Did you realize, like, already soon, maybe after the first one? Because I think this is something that I see with, like, two sided platform operators, to name it as broadly as possible that people start seeing those everywhere, and they're like, oh, this is my jam.
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. I think it was inadvertent. Well and if I go back further, like, when I graduated from college
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Mhmm.
Colin Gardiner:I had a major in economics and, minor in math. I got my first job working at the Federal Reserve working for Janet Yellen in San Francisco Oh. Who now runs the, you know, the treasury and originally the Federal Reserve. And my job was reporting on The US labor market. And so what is one of the largest marketplace in the world?
Colin Gardiner:The US labor market. And so that was what I cut my teeth doing was doing analysis of The US labor market. And, ultimately, I was focused on a really good segment, recent college graduates right at the what? In 02/2008, right at the bottom of the great recession.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Oh my god.
Colin Gardiner:So I was studying why my friends couldn't get a job. Yeah. But that was where I cut my teeth in marketplaces. And then my first role, I decided not to go get my PhD in economics, from Cal. I just deferred that and went to work at JustAnswer, which was a horizontal marketplace where you could ask a doctor, a lawyer of that.
Colin Gardiner:You can do confession. You can do all of it. Yeah. Yeah. I had everything.
Colin Gardiner:And I really loved that. Like, I love the idea that, like, you could match supply and demand across any query on the Internet, basically. That was, like, a really cool concept for me. So from there, I went to ancestry. I had a number of friends that worked there and were, like, you should come over here and run some product teams, and so that's what I did.
Colin Gardiner:And I learned you know, at first, I thought it was just a family tree. Yeah. But, ultimately, it is a marketplace connecting people and data, and it's you know, the underlying piece of all of it is, like, census data, you know, on all kinds of, you know, like, different records and connecting people. And the family tree is just the matching service. Right?
Colin Gardiner:That's the output. I started to really appreciate and understand and look for these marketplace slash network effect businesses and ultimately started leaning really heavily into them because I had a lot of experience in them and just kept doing them.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. That's cool. And it's it's funny because, like, when I think about when you talk about now, like, justanswer.com, like, you know, that idea, people are still pitching that idea. Right? Like like like, in in some foreign or not, like, necessarily that, but just that, like, ask anyone a question.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:I mean, like, you know, I'm thinking, like, what what was
Colin Gardiner:Still exists.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and there was recently another, like, an a new one where you could book a call with, like, pretty high profile people. And I was like, okay.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Isn't this, like didn't we try this a couple of times already? Like, Clarity, like, with Dan Martel back in the day? And I was like, so, like yeah. But, you know, it is still apparently an unsolved problem because there isn't I mean, I wouldn't know the number one go to. I think Quora helped it for a little bit maybe.
Colin Gardiner:I think one of the interesting parables that I learned that's really relevant to marketplace founders and and really the evolution of marketplace in general is that, you know, I think JustAnswer was closer to the cusp of, like, the marketplace one point o era where it was sufficient to just bring things online. So basically, you know, you think eBay, Amazon know, kind of world, it was just sufficient to bring, in Amazon's case, commerce, you know, like, buying CPG products online. Yeah. And then for eBay, it was, like, just resale items. Right?
Colin Gardiner:And that just the answer, I think, was the same thing. It was a horizontal marketplace for just services. And what happens always in this, like, two point o era within these is that, basically, you know, marketplaces come in and verticalize. Like, you're really good at a specific vertical. And so I think, you know, people are pitching you on the same idea, but they're what they're really doing is they're pitching you on specific verticals.
Colin Gardiner:So, like, you know, the legal space, you know, you have legal Zoom, Avvo, a bunch of different ones come in. You have it like Zocdoc. Yeah. Bunch of different ones in the medical space. So, you know, intro, you know, really what they do is they allow you to talk to executives, You know, business executives.
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. So I think what you're seeing is just this verticalization of these horizontal marketplaces Yeah. With better products that are more tailored. Yeah. So that's kind of my take on it.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:No. I I can see that. It's like, you know, in my mind, I'm projecting this, like, famous, you know, Craigslist unbundling kind of theory where it's like, okay. This is what exists, and now we're all going to see these categories develop as individuals. So so that makes a lot of sense.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:That's a good that's a really good context for that. Thanks. You seem to have many side hustles and projects, fingers in many, what is it? Is that an expression? Like, fingers in in Dutch, it is finger in many porches.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:But anyway, you have tentacles all around. I'm going to save it in English. Yeah. That's not that did not work. Nevertheless, you do many things, but of course, what you're here to talk about mostly are what why the role in which I would love to talk to you about is a little bit about Yondr, our current, fund.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Could you tell us a little bit about, like, you know, if you pitch Yondr to to a marketplace founder who who is looking also at other, it's like, what is the thing that sets Yondr apart? And also maybe what is the thesis that that you've sold through your partners?
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. Of course. I I'm happy to we'll talk about it from the founder perspective and the LP perspective. Yeah. Yonder is a early stage venture fund focused on, like, really first check and precede investments in marketplaces.
Colin Gardiner:I really like to target first revenue companies. And the insight there is that marketplaces reach product market fit when they match supply and demand. And so that's really where I like to target, you know, investing in companies and coming in really early is right when you started the process of matching supply and demand and getting it repeatable. Yeah. I think that's a really interesting time to be underwriting and investing in marketplaces, and it's something I specialize in.
Colin Gardiner:And I think my pitch to founders in a lot of ways is, you know, I've done this a bunch. I've done zero to one in marketplaces a bunch of times. Yeah. I love it. I try to be fairly altruistic with my time of helping people and putting content out there.
Colin Gardiner:And, really, what I love is just helping people build them. And so that's I think what you get from me is someone that comes in, and it's gonna really help you build your marketplace, But, also, it's gonna really help you get those investors for the next round because my network, I think, is really strong when it comes to marketplace investors. See, I know most of them could make intros. And so I think that's what I really try to focus on is investing really early in these companies to help them build and create, like, a really, you know, investable marketplace and then help them go to market whether it was a free seed or seed for fundraising. And then from an LP perspective, you know, really what I'm giving people and, you know, trying to go after is, like, look, I have, I think, a an edge in investing early in marketplaces, which are this asset class that have just unreal returns when they hit.
Colin Gardiner:You know, I look at, like, Airbnb's, Ubers of the world, and it's like, wow. If we could index on just that business model and hit those, those returns are incredible. And so that's really what I'm after with people is these truly generationally defining venture outcomes. And I think a lot of them, and I know a lot of them are, you know, network effect slash marketplace businesses. And so that's what I'm investing in, and that's where I'm going after.
Colin Gardiner:I'm trying to get as much like, as early of exposure in those as possible to get as much, you know, ownership as possible.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. No. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:It is. I mean, this is also something it's really strange because I've been I'm focusing mostly, you know, with Sharetribe, we focus a lot, like, early stage. So I'm like, you know, just getting well, basically, what what what I mean, it's same same lane that you're in, like, getting people from zero to one. Right? Like, getting an idea out there and and getting it somewhere.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:And then you sort of forget that, like I was talking in an earlier episode that, like, some of the biggest IPOs the last ten years are marketplaces. They're actually, like, an outsized amount of them are marketplaces and not much less than SaaS businesses or what what most people often talk about as big hitters. So yeah. That is incredible. You mentioned that you like to come in when the first supply and demand gets matched.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Do you have any, like, preference for a particular type of marketplace, particular market, you know, b to b, p to p, at any and anything?
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. I don't try to presuppose what's gonna be great. I think for me, I'm industry agnostic. I'm really more business model specific. You know, really what I'm looking for, and I try to be really honest with founders when it comes to the fund.
Colin Gardiner:I think angel investing is a totally different answer here. But with for the fund, like, I have to chase things that are going to be massive outcomes. Like, that's the only way the portfolio model will work. Right? And so when people ask me, what do I focus on?
Colin Gardiner:I focus on things that can be create entirely new economies. Like when you look at Airbnb and Uber, like, they have created entirely new business models and economy. And I think that for me is, like, if you don't have that with your business, it's hard to pick that as something to invest in. And so that's really what I'm, like, after with the fund is, like, what are these kind of game changing shifts and identifying them as early as possible?
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. If we draw in your your angel investing experience also, then I have a sort of similar question that, like, if we keep this sort of potential future scale out of the picture, but you assess an idea, like and how do you determine, like, okay. This could be something. Right? Like, whether it's a hundred million business or a billion business, I think let's let's leave that out.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:But more okay. There how do you evaluate something and how do you sort of determine that, okay, they're onto something?
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. I think the really basics in marketplaces that tend to do well is that if you can aggregate some set of very unique supply that other people otherwise couldn't, and there's already demand out there seeking it, those are usually the recipe for success. Marketplaces don't do super well where there isn't already a demand pull for what you're offering. Like, you're usually better off identifying, hey. There's a like, there's a lot of demand for x, y, or z thing.
Colin Gardiner:How do we fit the supply to it? And getting unique supply that's defensible. And so I think that's what I look for in a lot of this is, like, do you have something that people really want and can't get today in some shape or form, or they're doing something to get it approximately that isn't very satisfactory? Because I see a lot of marketplaces come on and they're like, hey. We aggregated x, y, or z thing.
Colin Gardiner:Mhmm. That's, like, almost, like, for, like, commodity or it's already aggregated. Mhmm. It's kinda homogeneous. And those are just don't have super strong, like, pulls from the market if they're already somewhat available.
Colin Gardiner:Okay. Right? And so maybe you can make a good business out of those. I don't think it'll reach huge scale. I know you didn't ask me to opine scale.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:School. Yeah.
Colin Gardiner:But those are the things that I kinda look for, and I think you would probably agree if you reflected on the businesses you're saying are being successful. They've been able to aggregate somewhat unique supply into a demand space that's, like, pretty big. Take outdoorsy for example. There's, like, millions of searches a month for RV rentals. Right?
Colin Gardiner:And we could just see that from the data. It was there. Right?
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Like, as soon as
Colin Gardiner:you went on Google and looked at, like, keyword for RV rental, you're like, oh, there's a lot of people that wanna rent RVs.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Mhmm.
Colin Gardiner:Turns out before outdoorsy, you could just go to Cruise America, which is, like, not the greatest RV rental experience. No. Right? And so it was like, wow. Basically, if we bring RV rentals online, peer to peer RV rental, like, people are gonna do this.
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. That was the you know, like, it was that easy in a lot of ways. You didn't have to convince people that this was something they wanted to do. They just wanted the rental. Right?
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. I understand. Yeah. When you say, like, if it's there already, like, I see a lot of other investors, for example, very excited about, like, b to b, where basically you have the transaction often already happening, and the marketplace is just providing a sort of better version of the interface, you know, like a better version of the connection. What would you say if I say that?
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Like, I don't know if I have a full question, but I'm just like, oh, I see some friction there. Yeah.
Colin Gardiner:I think the same thing still applies. Right? Like, if you're not aggregating really unique supply for the demand, then, like, you're just competing with everybody else, brokers and agents and whatever. I think there's a lot of head fakes in b two b marketplaces, honestly. Like, maybe this is a hot take, but they're not always my favorite category for the very reason that you can get, like, a founder that is maybe the best salesperson in a category
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Mhmm.
Colin Gardiner:That is like, hey. I'm gonna do a marketplace. And realistically, what they're doing is, like, their force of personality makes them a great broker, and they just run it through the marketplace. And, really, what you're getting are these tech enabled brokerages. You're not really getting a marketplace model.
Colin Gardiner:And I think that to me is a bit of a head fake in terms of, like, what they actually are. They look like a marketplace, but they're not actually a marketplace. And so you can get to the series a and b level revenue. Yeah. And then they actually can't cross the chasm into real self-service marketplaces.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah.
Colin Gardiner:Because and if you think about the value problem marketplace, it is I've reduced coordination costs such that it is easier for me to transact.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Mhmm.
Colin Gardiner:If your marketplace is not necessary that's not the value prop of it other than, you know, like, you know, unique supply as well, You kind of aren't taking advantage or leveraging what the beauty of, like, technology has done. Right? And Yeah. Having things online. And so I know I b to b marketplaces I love.
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. And there's plenty of them I invested in that I think are great. Yeah. But I still view it through the same lens of, like, are you bringing something online that people couldn't otherwise access?
Sjoerd Handgraaf:No. I I yeah. I see that. Maybe that's maybe I was taking it a little bit too extreme version of what you were saying. But, like, I I see what you mean.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Like, there are b to b marketplaces that take, you know, fully fragmented, mostly offline supply side and, you know, nicely cut and organized in a way that suddenly you can browse them all at the same time. You don't need to send out, like, five different faxes or something, like, to get a reply a week later. Have you invested in any, like, pre revenue? I mean, I know that you said you like to come in at revenue, but, like, sometimes you see an idea. It's like, okay.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:I'm, you know, I'm in. Like, if that's the case, like, what is something that would, like, flip the light green for you?
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. I wanna admit it, but, yes, I really try. Like, I'm 99% of the time, you know, as post revenue. In cases where pre revenue makes sense is usually in a b to b context where maybe the supply side, the suppliers are really big companies or really you know, where they move slower or something like that where there's, like, some hurdle time frame that has to be cleared. That's a unique case.
Colin Gardiner:I think the other use case that I've had is a repeat founder that I've invested in before, and I'm willing to bet on the horse. Or maybe I haven't invested before, but that's the case I'm talking about. Those are the two cases. But, realistically, even in those cases, I would push the founder of, like, hey. Could you just show me that you're able to connect supply and demand?
Colin Gardiner:Whether it's through, like, text message or Excel spreadsheet or Airtable. Like, you should just be able to do this in a very low cost way. Like, the beauty of your product, Sharetribe, right, is that it's made it so accessible to do these things and so low cost. Like, you should just be able to do this, like, off of most people's budget. And that's my, like, thing is, like, marketplaces, you don't take product risk on.
Colin Gardiner:Like, it's largely commoditized, like, the product experience for marketplaces. And so you don't need to raise a million dollars to build a product. Right? In fact, like, most of the time, when I recommend people's a product like yours, like, hey. Just go put it up and and fast do it and see if you can get traction.
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. Because if you can't, then what's the point? Right? Like, I just you're not you having a million dollars on a product isn't probably gonna make the experience on most, you know, most of the time.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. That makes sense. And then, indeed, like, if the other conditions you you you set out are met, then then then whether ShareDrop or, you know, you're faking it with an Excel sheet, like, those connections should happen, like, pretty much. Like, it doesn't need any super unique, user experience. No.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:That makes sense. Yeah. I like the, there was recently some really cool comparative, like, article about the jockey. What is it like? The the horse or the rider?
Sjoerd Handgraaf:And that, the answer was yes because it's, like, equally important. Like, that turned out that that, you know, like, some funds have really strong thesis on, like, we're founder first and we believe in founder and others in the and that that generally, I think, like, some really long time period analysis showed that they perform equally well. So you mentioned, you know, your business model specific, but I feel that, like, the business model, you already referred to it a little bit, like, you know, marketplace one point zero, I think you said, the first generation. It's not a static business model, I feel, like, where there's at least sort of, like, variations. Like, have you seen any cool ones, like, recently that you're like, oh, this is, I yeah.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:You already mentioned some sort of, like, progression, of this, but, where you think we're currently at and or what what's coming next in that in that tense?
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. I just wrote a post on this, that we can put in the show notes on AI marketplaces. And for me, like, I think the next, like, really interesting kind of innovation is gonna be what I call agent led marketplaces. Ultimately, like, one of the the best parts about AI is it's really good at aggregating and synthesizing lots of information and making recommendations, which seems to fit in my mind really well with matching in marketplaces. You know?
Colin Gardiner:What and also was it great at? It's really good at making and, like, taking lots of data and refining and make it better. And so, like, what's that great for? Supply enrichment profiles, you know, like, all that kind of stuff. And I imagine for you guys, you know, there's ultimately some cool product innovations that can come from that.
Colin Gardiner:I just think that there's this world in which agent, you know, led marketplaces are kind of the next phase, and you're already starting to see it. Most of them are in the labor marketplace space because I think that's actually the lowest friction area to start. It's, I've seen a lot of them pop up with matching supply and demand and labor markets because the data there is, like, pretty, like, legible in terms of, like, what's their profile, what's their experience, where are they located. You know, like, a lot of, like it's basically a lot of criteria matching that's, like, easier, but I see that less in physical products for sure. But I think that's the next big area that I'm watching for and investing in.
Colin Gardiner:And I'm also really intrigued by the idea that agents become the supply in certain markets. Take me for example. You know, like, you want to interact with me and pay for my time, like, say on intro. Yeah. You're like, oh, great.
Colin Gardiner:I wanna book Colin for half an hour. It costs x amount of dollars. Dollars. Yeah. Well, the problem is is that I have to be available on some time frame that's reasonable for you still want to do this and on a time frame that you are available.
Colin Gardiner:Like, you know, even us getting this podcast, you're in a different time zone. You know, it takes coordination cost to get that. Realistically, what you're gonna do is you're gonna ask me a series of questions.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Call them.
Colin Gardiner:Tell me about, like, how to build a marketplace. Tell me what's important for me. Well, all of these things, I'll probably get the same answer to every person, you know, roughly. Well, what if I just trained a bot or an agent to have all my answers for me, and you could interact with that at any time? Right?
Colin Gardiner:And, like, yeah, I get that the perceived value may be lower. Like, I'm not talking to a human, but I'd also probably appreciate being able to do it at 3AM when I have a question and not waiting three days to talk to Colin when he's available and paying a lot of money because you're paying for my time because it's discreet. And so I think there's this world in which knowledge is actually really well dispensed from AI and that we may be able to see a rise of labor marketplaces that are really just, the agents, you know, and getting access in real time to people's mind and information, and they get better over time as you feed them more and more questions or responses.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. Okay. So and then sort of at the seed because I'm just trying to think, you know, like, this sounds like that there's a risk of commoditization, but, of course, like, at the seed of each sort of these agents is a unique supply point, like, whether that is a mind like yourselves, for example.
Colin Gardiner:No. It's just that your data, like, is the unique supply, like, my like, or not. Like, the information that I hold within my brain and that I choose to articulate in a certain way is unique to me and isn't necessarily commodity. Right? I mean, people argue maybe once you put information out, it becomes commodity, but I think the nuance, the context is the hard part.
Colin Gardiner:And so, like, if you could train something to be really, you know, very similar to me, use my voice even, which is totally doable, eleven Labs, the script, like, they both do this already. You can start to see, like, where, oh, man. We could have digital calling giving you answers.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. No. That's actually really cool because as I read about agents and, like, it sounded just like a, you know, like, a new word for chatbot, to be honest, in some cases. I was like, oh, it's just but actually now when you mentioned this, like, my mind goes back to, the marketplace conference where I was in September in Berlin. And there was a company there, called Exactly dot ai.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:I'm just gonna drop them here. I don't even know do they still exist. But they were an AI for artists. So they actually said like, hey, you know, like, there's so much, you know, what's it called? Plagiarism going on or people ripping off your art or you won't have time to do your art or people want your art but they don't wanna pay the full price for it.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:How about, like, they have some platform where artists can train their a like, an AI on their art, and then customers can just ask, hey. Like, you know, they they choose a style or they choose an artist and say, hey, draw me this. Like, and just use the, you know, like, the same sort of interface as many of the AI image, creators have that, like, hey, draw me an image in the style of this. And it was it was really cool. I I tried it out.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:It was like, you know, some of the drawings make absolutely no sense, like, you know, because AI, you know, the the weird thing. But Yeah. Nevertheless, they get the style, like, very right, like, for certain for certain use, not for unique artworks, but for certain use for, you know, if whatever corporation wants to generate some background in the style of this particular unique artist, then then, like, this is the way. That's cool. I'd now I know how to classify it because I wasn't sure, like, what to do with that.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:But yeah. Okay. That's very cool. Thanks.
Colin Gardiner:My pleasure.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Where did you wanna add something still?
Colin Gardiner:Or Yeah. I think just building on that nugget that you had there that, like, there's some preference or taste or, you know, intangible quality that can almost flavor the AI to give it something unique.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Mhmm. But I
Colin Gardiner:think it's important. But you can also start to see how that might really bleed over away from labor into actually, like, product design Mhmm. Or, you know, the building of any given thing based on knowledge or preference of a certain person. Yeah. Right?
Colin Gardiner:So, like, I I think that's, like or a set of people or anything. Right? And then so I think that's where, like, you can start to get these really interesting applications of, like, I'm paying for access to an agent that is specifically trained for this use case that's really valuable. Yeah. Right?
Colin Gardiner:And it only gets better and better over time the more it gets used. Yeah. And I think that's the surface area that I'm really interested in. Like, you know, overall, I think marketplaces, you know, people keep asking me what's next. Next.
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. I think what we don't know is that AI and just the evolution of the world in general and technology is gonna open new surface areas for marketplaces that we just haven't thought of. Yeah. And that's why, like, you know, people are like, oh, marketplaces are dead or what whatever. Yeah.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. Yeah.
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. They say and it's like, well, of course, they're not dead. Like, how do you think capitalism works? People, like, supply and demand get matched over time repeatedly, and that's all, like, that's how capitalism works. So Yeah.
Colin Gardiner:It's just and where value gets captured is different over time. And so I'm really intrigued by trying to think more about what's the new surface area for marketplaces rather than trying, you know, trying to think about, like, specific applications. Like, where you know, I'm trying to think where are, like, their new needs, like, new demand sets popping up. Let me give you a really quick example. And then going into new questions is so, CloudFlare just launched or not just, but it was, like, a couple months ago.
Colin Gardiner:Launched a marketplace where, basically, bots can pay to get access to websites. Right? And the whole point is, like, bots want data. Right? Websites have the data.
Colin Gardiner:Of course, this makes sense. Like, you know, like like, we now have a world in which, yes, you can charge for people to access your unique data on your website. And, you know, you can already see this with the robots.txt. Right? Like, the whole idea of it was like, hey.
Colin Gardiner:I can block certain bots and things and pages from getting crawled from Google. They're benevolent in theory, until they'll listen to what your yourrobots.txt says. But CloudFlare basically says, hey. We don't need that. We can just be trustless here and just block everything.
Colin Gardiner:And then the things that do want access, you know, you can either tell us what they are or you can require that people pay to be get access. And I think that's, like, a new paradigm that I just really haven't thought of, you know, like, even me, like, I'm like, that that's a brilliant conceptual surface area that has many different applications, and now I'm excited to think about that. Is these prediction markets? These are the whole new type of marketplaces like Kalshi. Basically, all these prediction markets, you know, that they were big in The United States during the election was, like, is Trump or Harris gonna win?
Colin Gardiner:Those are, like, a totally new type of marketplace, right, where you can bet essentially on outcomes. There's, you know, a bunch of, like, demand for essentially people wanting to know the probability Yeah. Of an outcome. And so they supply a market to figure out that probability.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Okay. Okay. That that that is interesting. Yeah. I do always like that when, for example, you know, that in many of these cases that, like, the bookies are always right because, like, some wisdom or the masses, it's still, like, still seems to overrule, some of the most advanced data analytics.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:But yeah. I hadn't thought about that. That's great because I had this question lined up, of course, like, at the end, like, what's the future of marketplace? But but you nicely answered already a little bit into that. Then I actually have one more question, which I don't usually do at the end.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Because of your experience, you know, you you've built marketplace or you build marketplaces to to scale. You talk to so many founders. Like, the key of this podcast is to sort of advise and inspire, you know, aspiring or or maybe people super early stage into their journey and help them build a successful marketplace. Like, what are some tips that you would have for them? Like, what what do you see that people, for example, do really well?
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Like, hey. People should really still figure or do maybe not so well? Like, do do you have a few that you can always give away to founders?
Colin Gardiner:I think I hit on a few of them earlier, but I think two big hallmarks of very successful marketplaces is one, they do aggregate some very like unique supply, right? Like this, like I think thinking hard about whether what you have is really desirable and isn't can't be found anywhere else is really important. That's something I talked about a lot is, like, it's really what you have. Like, if you're in your heart of hearts, is it truly unique and valuable? And if answer is no, it's it doesn't mean you can't be successful.
Colin Gardiner:It just means, like, it's gonna make it harder for you to, like, be breakout, right, and to have, like, real kind of cornering of a resource, if that makes sense. Next thing that I think is equally important and honestly can override even kind of supply uniqueness is that demand aggregation at scale and some distribution strategy from day one that is well thought out and intelligent. I think you just don't wanna stumble into your strategy. Right? Like, you wanna be, like, really considerate about and understand the demand side of your market of, like, how you're gonna go get it.
Colin Gardiner:And then I'll give you a quick example. Like, for outdoorsy, we knew that people were searching in Google for RV rentals. We just built the whole business around search. This is pretty obvious. Right?
Colin Gardiner:But to be an expert at search is not a given. Right? Like, being good at SEO is not a given. And so, you know, I gave them to the founders. They did a great job of, like, going out and hiring people that were experts in those things because that was gonna be their strategy.
Colin Gardiner:That was gonna be their go to market. I think that's really important, and I see a lot of founders that don't have a good line of sight on their go to market. And so I think that's where I would like to I I usually ask people to try and sharpen a knife a little bit more before, you know, they, like, they'll raise money is, like, have you figured out, like, what your almost your competitive advantage is when it comes to go to market? Like, what is it? Can you articulate it such that people will go, oh, that's smart.
Colin Gardiner:They're experts or they are way ahead of everybody. Like, they're doing it differently. Like, you gotta make it underwritable, right, for investors. In the same token, like, underwritable investors also means can you yourself want to put more money into this or other people such that, you know, it has because it has a good flywheel. Those are the two things that I I think about a lot as, like, hallmarks for success for marketplaces even outside of, like, the context of raising venture capital or not.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. That makes sense. Like, they say I I don't know who's that, but, like, I once saw this. Maybe it was a tweet or something that, like, someone said, like, okay. First time founders about the product, like, second time founders about the distribution.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Because that's, like, coming up with the idea is, like, it as hard as it is and executing it is really great. But then if you don't have a great avenue of actually getting this out there, it's, like, that could absolutely, like, kill a really great business still. Alright. Cool. Yeah.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:It's one more thing about distribution actually got me thinking. You also have another business called longtailgrowth.com, which is about basically SEO for marketplace, programmatic SEO for marketplaces. And like I said in the beginning, you have, you know, you have several things going on. So so maybe a nice way to close is to, tell us how can people reach out to you? How how can they find, more about Yondr, Long Tail, or Collin?
Colin Gardiner:Yeah. No. Yeah. And long yeah. You said Long Tail is a programmatic SEO stack for marketplaces and platforms.
Colin Gardiner:Like, I took what I learned through the last fifteen years of, building marketplaces based on search and just got super frustrated that there wasn't something out there and, wanted to provide it to founders. So if you wanna learn more about that, and that's at long tail growth dot com. But for majority of everything else I do for writing and on my Substack, it's, gairdnercollin.com. I'm sure if you just search my name, you'll it'll pop up. And then for the fund, if you're interested, in, you know, applying to the fund for fundraising, it's just, Yonder.BC, Colin @ Yonder BC.
Colin Gardiner:Feel free to come in and, share what you're building. I love to hear. And then, I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter, and love to hear from you. So those are all the spots.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Yeah. Yeah. I can attest to you that Colin is very generous with his time and knowledge. So so do reach out. Dan, Colin, thanks a lot for your time, and, we'll be in touch.
Colin Gardiner:Alright.
Sjoerd Handgraaf:Thank you for listening to Two Sided, the marketplace podcast. If If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you really liked it, please give us a rating or review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever find podcasts are downloaded. If you got inspired to build your own marketplace, go visit www.sharetribe.com. It's the fastest way to build a successful online Marketplace business.