Marketplace Memo #4
Silk Road Founder pardoned, OpenAI releases Operator featuring marketplaces, Uber CEO says drivers safe from AVs for now, Bumble CEO is out; Founder is back and more.
Hi, it’s Colin! Welcome to the 104 new subscribers who joined Take Rate since the last Marketplace Memo. I am excited to have you join the 2,670+ marketplace founders, operators, and investors who subscribe. Join the fun! 👇
👋 Welcome to the 4th edition of the Marketplace Memo. My goal is to share curated news, content, and stories I am seeing related to marketplaces with a splash of color from me. Please enjoy and share with others!
The tool of the week is…
goConfirm - Build trust in your marketplace with no code for free.
goConfirm is a portable identity app that empowers individuals to build online trust as needed. Thousands use it on Facebook, subreddits, and WhatsApp to establish trust when buying tickets, offering services, selling electronics, or renting.
They support emerging marketplaces aiming to build trust and reduce risk and churn when onboarding individuals. It's like a free blue checkmark for users, with no code required.
Vibe Check
I heard a name I hadn’t heard in a long time, and it was the name of a marketplace founder. Probably the most infamous one…
The headline I saw was “Trump pardons Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht for online drug scheme,” and it brought me way back to the early 2010s. In 2011, Ross, under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," founded the dark web marketplace Silk Road. It was a place where you could buy and sell illegal drugs and other illicit goods/services anonymously using Bitcoin and delivered through the mail. With supply, you couldn’t get anywhere else; it was an instant hit with classic market pull and organic growth.
In its 2.5 years in business, the marketplace produced $213.8 million in GMV and $13M in net revenue (~6.1% take rate), making it probably one of the fastest-growing marketplaces outside of Temu. It also didn’t take any VC money.
It has been over a decade since the Silk Road started, and the world looks slightly different. Crypto is becoming mainstream; cannabis is legal for recreational use in 24 states (and many countries), and there are now functioning online marketplaces for cannabis.
What can we learn?
Being too early is the same as being wrong (in this case, illegal).
Aggregating a supply type that you can’t readily get irl and bringing it online is a powerful combination.
Lowering coordination costs through logistics solutions (mail) improves liquidity (didn’t have to meet up with sketchy dealers).
Fast and frictionless payments increase transactions (bitcoin).
Trust is the cornerstone of all commerce at scale.
Now, on to the news!
If you haven’t read it, the two-part piece on Silk Road from Wired is riveting: Part 1 and Part 2.
The Highlight of the Week
Agent-led marketplaces are coming! This week, OpenAI launched a big update that is particularly exciting for marketplaces: Operator. The product aims to “transform AI from a passive tool to an active participant in the digital ecosystem. It will streamline tasks for users and bring the benefits of agents to companies that want innovative customer experiences and higher conversion rates”.
It is an AI agent that can use browsers to interact with websites. What is exciting is that OpenAI with marketplaces like Tripadvisor, Booking.com, eBay, Etsy, DoorDash, Instacart, OpenTable, Priceline, StubHub, Thumbtack, Uber, Hipcamp, CNaught and others.
News
"Uber CEO Says Drivers Are Safe From AI Displacement" does a great job unpacking this topic. Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, thinks it will take a long time for the technology to be ready and fully commercialized.
"IAC Approves Spinoff of Home Improvement Marketplace Angi" - The parent company is separating its home services marketplace business to spin it off. IAC has done this before and typically acts as a quasi-incubator, which has spun out a few marketplaces. CNBC
"Bumble’s new CEO is already leaving the company as shares fell 54% since killing the signature feature and letting men message first." - Whitney is back! The stock did not do well during the last year under the new CEO. Both Brian Chesky and Sam Altman are excited about Whitney coming back. Hopefully, she will make dating great again! Yahoo Finance
"Poshmark's Journey Under Naver Shows Promise and Challenges" - Analysis of the resale platform's performance one year after the acquisition. New York Times (Paywall)
"Temu Pilots Amazon-like Search Ad Business, Plans App Store" - Temu is growing fast and expanding new revenue streams. The Information (Paywall)
"Tint announces record growth in 2024, expanding core markets and launching new embedded insurance product." - Tint is one of the leading embedded insurance providers for marketplaces and grew 7x in 2024 from insurance expansions with home-sharing, off-platform auto with Turo and Dynamic Flex Cargo Insurance. I try to tell everyone who will listen that marketplaces are about insurance! Tint
Fundraising
Ruck raises a $5M Seed round led by SNAK Venture Partners and Animo Ventures with participation from Vitalize, VSC, Gold House Ventures, Hustle Fund, and Convoi Ventures. Ruck is a B2B marketplace for the delivery and purchase of construction materials. Disclosure: Yonder is an investor in Ruck. LinkedIn
MX Locker raises $700K Seed Round from BAM Ventures and LEAD. MX Locker is an online power sports marketplace. Disclosure: I am a shareholder in MX Locker. Sports Business Journal
Guidesly secures $9.5M Series A from Aspen Capital Group, with participation from YETI Capital, HalfCourt Ventures, and Derive Ventures. Guidesly is an outdoor recreation marketplace. Guidesly
Baton raises $10M Series A from Obvious Ventures with participation from Burst Capital, FJ Labs, Fluent Ventures, and 75 & Sunny. Baton is a marketplace where you can buy and sell SMBs. Baton Market
Did I miss one? Email colin@yonder.vc with the subject line “Fundraising Announcement” to be included.
Reads
"The Next Wave of Marketplaces Will Be Smarter Than Ever" - This is an excellent post by the Headline team on how AI will impact the next wave of marketplaces. Headline
"Why Did DoorDash Win?" - A deep dive by
into the success factors (strategy, execution, luck) behind DoorDash's market dominance. Dan Hock
"Consumer is Back – And Why It’s Been So Hard Since 2014" - Insightful analysis from James Currier at NFX on why the creation of consumer unicorns has been tailing off but might restart again. tl;dr: The technology window on mobile is closed, but it is now opening for AI. NFX
"What metrics do Marketplace companies report on?" - Comprehensive guide to key performance indicators reported by publically traded marketplaces. Mostly Metrics
"The Difficulty Ratio" - Great post from
on sales difficulty by AOV and deal speed. You don’t want to be in the business of low AOV and slow deal speeds. The framework also applies to marketplace supply acquisition, which can be very similar to B2B sales. Bottom Up by David Sacks
“B2B Advertising Solutions in the Modern Age: The Case for Marketplaces” - Caroline Elliott at Interplay makes the case that B2B marketplaces have the opportunity and the tailwind to introduce advertising because they aggregate specific B2B audiences online. This model is not new and would be a natural evolution following the well-worn path of Amazon, Instacart, etc. The main issue is whether suppliers are willing to advertise in that way. Interplay
“Using Gen AI to Enhance Trust and Safety at Thumbtack: Applying a fine-tuned LLM model to review messages” - A thorough post from the Thumbtack Engineering team on how they are using the latest LLMs to combat messaging spam and disintermediation. Trust and safety are complex, and AI will make it much more scalable to combat fraud, crime, etc. However, on the flip side, AI will also make it easier to do those things. Thumbtack
"My top essays from 2024" -
’s top essays from 2024.“Avalara tax changes 2025” - Open the PDF, control+ f, enter '“marketplaces,” and make sure you have a cup of coffee. This report is dense but essential for anyone getting scale in a marketplace in 2025. Avalara
Watch or Listen
"Peer-to-Peer #1: Uber, AI, and Marketplaces " was a fun discussion about Uber's early days and the future of AI and marketplaces with
.
“The Lightcone 2025 Forecast” from YC discusses stablecoin adoption and, ultimately, how marketplaces will benefit (skip to 1:15 ). They also discuss how marketplaces are everywhere. Hence, the definition likely needs to be broader than it has traditionally been.
"20VC: Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving" - An older interview with Bolt founder on building a global marketplace that is so much fun to listen to.
"Marketplace Learnings From Scaling Goldbelly & Now Investing With Neel Murthy" with Mike Williams from Everything Marketplaces.
"Lessons from investing in 1,100+ network businesses with Jose Marin of FJ Labs." with Sjoerd Handgraaf of Sharetribe. Sharetribe
Marketplace Jobs
Growth — Launcher - Leland
Product Manager (Mid-Senior Level) - Neighbor
Senior Product Manager, Ads Marketplace - Reddit
Growth Product Manager - Solace
VP of Finance - ResortPass
Growth Product Manager - Collabstr (Tell them Colin sent you)
Lead Product Manager, Exchange Growth - Gemini
Product Manager, Retail Growth - Roofstock
Sr. Product Manager, SEO - Upwork
Product Engineering Lead - Bezel
Want to see your job listed here? Email colin@yonder.vc with the subject line “Job Posting” to be included or get your job featured!
Thanks for reading!
That is a wrap for the week! As always, please email me at colin@yonder.vc with any missed feedback or news. Hot tips are always welcome. Please don’t forget to subscribe and follow me on X and LinkedIn for other great marketplace content. If you want to book a call, you can find me on Intro.
The tool of the week is…
goConfirm - Build trust in your marketplace with no code for free.
goConfirm is a portable identity app that empowers individuals to build online trust as needed. Thousands use it on Facebook, subreddits, and WhatsApp to establish trust when buying tickets, offering services, selling electronics, or renting.
They support emerging marketplaces aiming to build trust and reduce risk and churn when onboarding individuals. It's like a free blue checkmark for users, with no code required.
About Me:
Colin is a marketplace geek and the General Partner of Yonder, a pre-seed marketplace fund that invests in marketplaces that create new economies. He has also been a long-time advisor to marketplaces, helping them with product growth, monetization, liquidity optimization, and strategy. Previously, he was the CPO/CRO at Outdoorsy and worked at Tripping.com, Ancestry.com, Justanswer, and the Federal Reserve.
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