How to build and scale winning marketplaces | Casey Winters (Eventbrite, Pinterest, Grubhub)

Casey Winters is a legendary advisor on scaling, product and growth. He’s worked with companies like Airbnb, Faire, Canva, Whatnot, Thumbtack, Tinder, and Reddit. Until recently, Casey was the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite, and has also led growth and product teams at Pinterest and Grubhub.

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In today’s episode, we discuss:

• What every marketplace founder should think about
• Why marketplaces are different
• Finding product market fit
• Key ingredients to scaling a marketplace
• Strategies for acquiring demand and supply

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Referenced:

• Airbnb: https://airbnb.com/
• Bill Gurley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billgurley/
• Blue Apron: https://www.blueapron.com/
• Booking.com: https://www.booking.com/
• DoorDash: https://www.doordash.com/
• eBay: https://ebay.com/
• Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/
• Expedia: https://www.expedia.com/
• Faire: https://www.faire.com/
• Fermat Commerce: https://www.fermatcommerce.com/
• Grubhub: https://www.grubhub.com/
• Lyft: https://www.lyft.com/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/
• Postmates: https://postmates.com/
• Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/
• Simon Rothman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonrothman/
• Square: https://squareup.com/
• Tony Xu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xutony/
• Turo: https://turo.com/
• Uber: https://www.uber.com/
• Zillow: https://www.zillow.com/

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Where to find Casey Winters

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywinters/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/onecaseman
• Website: https://caseyaccidental.com/

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Where to find Brett Berson:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

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Where to find First Round Capital:

• Website: https://firstround.com/
• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
• This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:30) Ingredients for a successful marketplace

(05:34) Creating scalable growth loops

(08:42) Emerging marketplaces in 2024

(10:56) 2 ways to acquire supply and demand

(15:39) What’s unique about building a marketplace

(18:27) When to focus on the demand side

(23:10) Who to hire

(26:22) Finding sticky customers

(26:27) What Grubhub should’ve done

(30:19) Uber versus Lyft

(34:23) One thing all marketplace founders should know

(34:45) Finding product market fit

(40:45) Single versus multi-category marketplaces

(43:02) When to expand

(44:22) The best low-frequency marketplace

(46:00) The product is supply, not software

(50:48) No value in car-sharing

(56:11) Improving supply and demand over time

(61:04) The “setup, aha, and habit” framework

(66:27) Avoid these marketplace mistakes

(71:16) 2 people who influenced Casey’s thinking