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After months of work, dozens of interviews, and countless hours – I'm very excited to release part one of a truly epic research project I've been quietly working on: "How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business"

More context below (1/8) 👇
lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-kicks…
1/ Having worked at Airbnb for many years, I’m frequently asked about what Airbnb did right to grow into what it is today. While I’ve been sharing my learnings about Airbnb, I’ve become increasingly wary of teams relying too heavily on a single company’s experience.
2/ There are so many factors that go into an eventual success story, and what’s effective once may not be again. Thus, I’ve been yearning to get a wider perspective on what has (and hasn’t) worked for other marketplace companies.
3/ Thus, over the past few months I’ve had the good fortune to interview dozens of incredible people with direct experience building some of the most successful marketplaces in the world. I’ve consolidated their learnings into a sort-of-playbook for building a marketplace.
4/ This project turned into far too much content than I anticipated (over 50 pages), so I’ve decided to split this across a series of posts over the coming weeks – with Part 1 coming out today, subsequent parts coming about twice a week.
5/ I learned SO MUCH from this research, and many insights surprised me. I'm excited to finally make it public.

This work would not have been possible without the enormous generosity of countless people, who were all willing to share their time, stories, and insights with me.
6/ 🙏🙏🙏 THANK YOU 🙏🙏🙏 @andrewchen @nivi @bnjii @bmrothenberg @onecaseman @danhockenmaier @mcfunley @djrosent @georgbauser @gokulr @gustaf @hunterwalk @jimbovig @julien @kaliforniakati @Max @micahmoreau @mduboe @nickeyskarstad @natemoch @sanderdaniels @talraviv @tmendelsohn
7/ I'll be releasing the remaining steps (~10 posts) over the next few weeks, so watch my newsletter for the next editions. Also, if you have any feedback, questions, or new insights – please DM me.

lennyrachitsky.com
Bonus! Just went live! A 2 hour deep dive into this research with @jamesbeshara, covering the full series of steps from start to finish. Perfect for anyone that can’t wait for more posts.

(Podcasts are new for me, trying to get used to hearing myself 😬)

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bel…
@jamesbeshara Nothing like finding your post on the front page of HN and not being the one that submitted it. Thanks, wp381640. 🤜🤛
Geez it’s still there 😬
My favorite comment btw
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Lenny Rachitsky 👋
@lennysan
Part 2 in my series on Marketplace Growth is now live: How do you decide whether to concentrate on supply vs. demand early on? 🧐

Learnings:
1. 80% focused on supply
2. Only Rover, TaskRabbit, and Zillow were demand constrained
3. Patreon 🤯

More 👇
lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-kicks…
1/ Learning #1: The vast majority of successful marketplaces focused most of their resources on creating supply early-on (80% of the companies I interviewed, 14 out of 17)
2/ “To scale, we always went supply side first”
- @onecaseman, GrubHub

"In the early days, we were only focused on driving supply. We found that supply drove demand."
- @tmendelsohn, Eventbrite

"No question, supply growth was the unlock for demand growth at Lyft"
- @Bnjii
Read 10 tweets
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Lenny Rachitsky 👋
@lennysan
Five ways to level up as a PM outside of the office:

1. Read, with a goal
2. Read, without a goal
3. Write
4. Meditate
5. Learn new skills that you are pulled towards

Thread 👇
1/ Read, with a goal: Determine 2-3 skills you most want to develop (strategy? execution? leadership?), pick a set of books and articles that speak to these skills, and work through them. Here’s a curated set of reads I've previously put together.
lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-get-i…
2/ Read, without a goal: Not all things need to be goal-oriented. Make time to read stuff you’re super excited about even if it’s only tangentially related. Here’s a story about how @bchesky's reading of Walt Disney’s biography changed Airbnb's strategy.
fastcompany.com/3002813/how-sn…
Read 7 tweets
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Lenny Rachitsky 👋
@lennysan
Q: In the next year, more and more my engineers and designers will be remote. What advice do you have for cultivating a good relationship with remote engineers and designers?

@hnshah generously shared his insights in this week's newsletter, summarized below 🙏👇
1/ Remote work leads to an increase in miscommunication. On a distributed team, you are not in the same physical space, so you don’t get to see each other in-person. You don’t get to just walk up to someone’s desk and show them something, or ask them a quick question.
2/ Instead, all of the forms of communication with your team are digital: text, voice, and video. For engineers and designers, the number one impact of miscommunication is being forced to redo work. All because of something that got lost in translation.
Read 15 tweets

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NortherlyRose
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Thread: Careering through life as an #UndercoverAutistic

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Aoife O'Higgins
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David Roberts
@drvox
1. Barcelona is holding municipal elections on Sunday! In anticipation, I'm going to tell you, one last time, about my research project on Barcelona's "superblocks." If you care at all about urban planning -- or just living in cities -- you will find this story fascinating.
2. Barcelona (BCN) dates back to 1 BC (!). The story of its evolution - esp. the transformation engineered by architect Ildefons Cerdà in the 19th century - ended up being so interesting I wrote a separate piece on it, a kind of prelude to the series. vox.com/energy-and-env…
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Godwin Tom
@GodwinTom
I want to tell you guys a story about how it all started #10YearsALearner #10YALpodcast
In 2008, I worked as a PR and marketing executive at an event and image consulting company in VI and I was treated well. But I wanted more. I wanted a bigger challenge so I told Kely dear friend and inspiration @iamtheOsagie #10YearsALearner #10YAL
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me: Who?
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me: ok… send music

#10YearsALearner
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David Roberts
@drvox
The thing is, conservatives like the distortions & anti-democratic features of the US system because they benefit conservatives. If they didn't, "respect for the Founders" would evaporate in a heartbeat.
Just one more area where cons are reasoning backward from outcomes & libs are wasting countless hours & brain cycles taking it seriously.
No one but historians truly, genuinely gives a shit what the Founders intended - certainly not in a way that overrides more proximate political preferences. It's just a convenient rhetorical tool.
Read 6 tweets
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Ed Greenwood
@TheEdVerse
1)
 “Look at the trees!” the thief said suddenly, pointing up. They’d been leapfrogging their slow way through the deep, damp, eerily listening-to-them forest for much of the day, and the light was beginning to lessen.
#epic fantasy
2)
 “What?” the dwarf growled, peering in vain. “I see trees, in a ring…faery ring? We go around it, not through?”
“I see,” the ranger said quietly. “The thickenings, up high, where the trunks bulge, and many limbs branch off. Elven tombs.”
#epic fantasy
3)
 “WHAT?” the dwarf said. “The long-ears bury each other in TREES?”
“These do, so tread with respect. They return themselves to the forest. Split a living trunk, stand the dead within, bind it up, and let it go on growing.”
#epic fantasy
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