Exploring Marketplaces: Transition, Evaluation, and Opportunities

This chapter delves into the academic and entrepreneurial fascination with marketplaces, discussing the unique economic properties like network effects and low cost, and exploring the concept of transitioning from regular products or services to marketplaces through examples like OpenTable and Amazon. It also emphasizes the importance of evaluating the potential of marketplaces using six crucial questions, illustrating the significance of understanding network effects using examples like Swimply. The chapter further discusses global and local network effects in marketplaces, the challenge of user retention, the integration of AI, and the vast opportunities present in marketplace industries across various sectors and emerging technologies.