What are the most creative ways that a startup addressing a two-sided marketplace has enticed people to try its product/service?

Offer added value to bootstrap supply Talk to your community to understand what they are looking for. Photo Credit Four main factors enabled us to quickly grow the supply side of the marketplace: Community — before we even had a marketplace, we were focused on building out the community of designers, one by one, who would later become the creative talent that would find work through our marketplace. Portfolio — we started the site by enabling designers to upload to their Visually profiles all their infographic and data visualization projects, creating easily accessible online portfolios of their work. Tools — when we first launched our initial product back in 2011, we were focused on building tools aimed at designers. This built up excitement and interest around what we were offering. Distribution — in the early days, before we could offer much in the way of paying projects to designers, we could offer them eyeballs in the form of views, as well as recognition from posting their work to our site.Fake it till you make it Don’t be afraid to hack one-side of the market in the early days. Photo credit Initially, when we had projects coming in the door of our marketplace that we knew our supply at the time would not be able to fulfill, we would often call upon our agency partners to pick up the slack and step in to take on the project. These days, agencies that don’t have the in-house talent to fulfill a client’s project actually come to us. They leverage our talent pool, getting ‘on-demand’ access to our designer network and, as a result, can take on projects that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to handle in-house. In the early days of testing a new vertical, like interactive infographics for example, we managed new projects in-house, as a testing ground for developing a more streamlined and automated process within the marketplace. Doing things that don’t scale initially can really help you build up a scalable model to achieve future growth.Pick your side Identify which side the marketplace can absolutely not function without and then focus on that. Photo credit At Visually, we started by serving a niche vertical (infographics), so it made a lot of sense to initially focus on harvesting the supply side of the market (designers), rather than focus on stoking demand. Your experience may differ. Say, for example, that you are in an existing market with a high barrier to customer acquisition. It would certainly make sense to focus on bringing in the demand side to your marketplace platform first, before focusing heavily on supply. We did things like created a Visually Data Visualization Meetup, reached out to designers through portfolio sites likedribbble and behance and invited selected members of our community to our weekly creative brainstorming sessions. Visually Creative Director, Jess Bachman presenting at one of our Visually meetupsFocus on a vertical Don’t Overreach: Move Toward Your Goals One Step at a Time. Photo credit Starting off, we decided to focus just on infographics, which were at the core of what our design community came to us for and how customers identified us. This allowed us to build out a scalable process, which now serves as a blueprint for every vertical we decide to enter. To do that, we often had to weigh the temptation to fulfill new types of demand from customers — and the need to grow the business — against our current supply and operational capacity.

Let's first accept the following premise as true: spam is only spam if you don't get something of genuine value out of it. Here, the desired result is to ensure users get some value from a new site marketplace. Value to a new marketplace can be defined as new users being shown match results for whatever thing -- or person -- they are seeking. I.e., the solution is to make sure that none of your users ever see the message "Sorry, it looks like we can't find any matches right now." The answer is the airbnb approach: create "dummy temp accounts," rather than literally fake accounts. This may not be entirely, explicitly accurate, but generally speaking, Airbnb just went on craigslist and other sites and found people that need a place to crash. Then, dummy accounts were created on airbnb with those people's needs. If someone came on the site that offered what those people needed, airbnb shot those people an email inviting them to airbnb, letting them know that they had a place to crash. Sure they got tons of crap for being spammy, but ultimately, it worked. In this way then, they weren't really creating "fake" accounts per se, rather they were creating "dummy temp" or "theoretical" accounts: a fake account is falsely representing something that doesn't exist; a "dummy temp account" represents something that does exist, albeit in some other domain. Another interesting case study is the highly dubious -- and highly dubiously, highly successful -- dating (hookup?) site http://badoo.com. They do a similar thing, albeit with people, rather the places to crash. In this way, (1) nobody ever sees the dreaded SNM (sorry no matches) error message; (2) they are incentivized to keep using the site because they do see matches, and matches = value; (3) this in turn gets them to invite their friends; and (4) it allows the site to send email invitations to those people for whom dummy temp accounts were created in the first place, letting them know that there really are indeed matches for them. And because these dummy temp accounts are not truly fake accounts per se, it is ultimately a win for all after all, and not, as it were, spam.

User-created content websites all face that problem. One way is to create "fake" content. Regardless such websites just all take time to build. Are the existing users actually performing the key activities you want to perform? If you are building a market place like eBay, then the users that are more important are definitely buyers. Once the buyers are there, the sellers are there. It's not necessarily a "chicken and egg" problem. What I have suggested some of the marketplace startups I've mentored is that you can try to just get a handful of merchants that sell niche products. For example, find 30 great merchants who sell kitchenware, which provides up to 1000 products. Advertise your marketplace as a niche marketplace so you can first get it going. As soon as that traffic is up then you start to expand to other types of products. Just so you know, Amazon started out w/ eBooks. If you want to learn more about how do growth hacking, check out this -> http://startitup.co/guides/103/growth-hacking-get-users-now

Picket Lines. Kittens. Ice Cream. And of course: A proper DeLorean, complete with mandatory Back to the Future attire! So who's responsibly for this odd combination...? Uber. Thats who. Pretty much everyone who isn't currently living in a fallout shelter (and maybe even those select individuals) have at least heard of Uber, and in many cases, taken a spin with Uber. But before I continue, I should state Uber can be extremely polarizing. I've found a lot of people either love them or completely hate them. We've all heard some of their executive's comments and/or the shear amount of praise/amazement/backlash/burn-them-down anger that users, drivers and competitors can throw at them. With that said, Uber is really good at certain things (and horrendously bad at others). See, they're really good at: A) moving someone from one place to another B) creating sleek looking overlays that you get to play with so that they can do A for you; and C) paying lawyers. They are really, really good at this one. I'd hate to see their retainer bills. None of these, however, holds anything compared to what they are truly f**king amazing at. Would you like to know what that is? Uber is f**king amazing at the art of grabbing a two-sided marketplace effectively, countless times in a row, as they leap frog from city to city. Sure, the first city Uber launched in was certainly the hardest. And surely they derive some serious benefits from their brand name during current launches. But most of us can admit the enormous challenge in launching half way around the world, while under extreme legal, regulatory and competitive attack on countless fronts (all going on in geographically diverse territories, all at once), inside of a new country, complete with a new language, team and local culture. The challenges are so enormous that Uber essentially has to fresh launch their marketplace .... again .... everytime. They most certainly try to reuse processes and systems that may have worked before...but the carryover is not as useful when dealing with such vastly different cultures, peoples, and legal hurdles. So what does Uber do to continually grab that marketplace during a rollout? At the core of each city launch, Uber has to both get riders and drivers. Lack of riders = Drivers unwilling to drive and NO drivers = no riders going anywhere, anytime soon. Without either of these parties, Uber not only doesn't work and in turn, it doesn't make any money. And Uber really likes/needs their money. (See bullet C, located under things they are really good at.) Plus, they want to see if they can't get a $100B valuation...cause VC logic. Hell, I'll slow golf clap if you can convince the next guy that $500B is warranted... Anyway, to fix this delimma, Uber starts with traditional methods. Yes, they send out the traditional press releases to radio stations, tv networks and websites in the city they are launching in. Sure, they do some interviews and blog posts and misc whatevers,etc. And they set up the traditional promotions of ride free on this day, etc, crap, etc, more crap, etc etc. But this is all so boring...and everyone is doing it. Boring + everyone is doing it = buried on page 14 of the local 15-page newspaper, sandwiched between soufflé recipes and poker tips. So......... Uber then drops the PR equivalent of a thermo-nuclear bomb on the city. Uber either finds a boiling local issue to poke a stick at, or simply bribes the area. Either is fairly effective at getting the attention desired. Take Boston. When attempting to launch successfully in Boston, Uber took notice that the Bus Workers Union was striking........and turned it right back around on them. Uber turned around and offered Parents and Students free rides to any Boston Public School (subject to some minor conditions). The media literally picked it up and ran with it. TV Networks blasted it, major area websites had it listed side by side with photos of the potential strikers and then social media just had a field day with it. Up Next: Uber Ice Cream. Yeah, they pulled out almost all of the tricks on this one. Uber coordinated national ice cream delivery days in both new cities and existing cities...cause ice cream. And I mean, com'mon, who doesn't want ice cream? Something tells me the leader of this tactic also sends some "heavily discounted" trucks to hang out outside news outlets in NYC, LA, SF and DC. Cause this thing practically goes vertical on the viral charts every time its done. And if they didn't, that person needs to be fired and replaced with a more Machiavellian character. Maybe Frank Underwood after Season 10? He'd make a nefarious ice cream trickster. Of course, this writeup would not be complete without.....UberKittens. Yep, thats a Kitten. Uber pulled the damn kitten card. With the master of Kittens, Cheezburger. Its not even fair. How the hell does anyone compete with kittens? Not only was demand brisk (apparently they needed an additional 5223 kittens to properly serve the NYC, Seattle and SF markets), but this thing blew them up for days on all types of media. Hard print, social media, international dispatches, etc. Its news cycle literally went worldwide, cause kittens. Plus it got six kittens adopted. And there were so many more cases of similar tactics by Uber, including offering free rides to NFL players (shortly after several press worthy player "incidents"), using boats to provide shuttle services, the DeLorean's, and on and on and on....... Conclusion So I'm getting a bit tired. I usually only write these answers when I can't sleep. And I can't sleep. But now I have to try since I'm supposed to be up in three hours, five minutes and 23 seconds give or take. But who's counting? At the end of the day, Uber's example shows a fantastic pattern of: A) Creating noticeable, pressworthy event/stunts/etc. B) Tying of and/or taking advantage of local situations through bullet A. C) Getting the users, press and social media to do the rest for you. This pattern has also been used by numerous other companies too. Lyft, one of Uber's main competitors, appears to have originally intended their Pink moustaches to be a temporarily marketing stunt..and which in turn became their "thing,." AirBNB, got their big start during the Democratic National Convention, by leveraging a mixture of marketing stunts (such as cereals about the two candidates) and traditional PR/marketing methods. And so on, and so on, and so on. Uber, and so many other companies, do this for one simple reason. It works. It gets users attention, which in turn motivates them to check out the marketplace, and which in turn leads them to utilize the service. Follow their lead, and you may just get the user base you desire. I leave you with this: If you desire to get noticed....then go get noticed. Create a newsworthy event/stunt/etc. Just make sure it connects with your sub-market on a personal level. Then get everyone else to help spread it for you. For some further reading and ideas, check out 's answer and some of the links at the end of this. Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanLokey Additional Notes: This writing expresses a combination of my own personal opinion, original participants opinions and facts that could be gathered on the subject. Any viewpoints expressed are not designed to infringe or harm any of the parties involved, and are solely intended to provide the most accurate information available at the time it was written. Please feel to reach out if you can provide additional information or clarification on the above at. For more reading: (please, by all means, knock yourself out.) http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/10/airbnb-brit-co-taskrabbit-and-lyft-founders-share-how-they-nabbed-their-first-10k-users/ http://blog.uber.com/DataKITTENS http://blog.uber.com/BPSfreerides http://blog.uber.com/nflpanews http://www.cnet.com/news/uber-offering-rides-back-in-time-with-delorean-promotion/

I'm the cofounder of Lawtrades, http://Lawtrades.com, we're a platform that makes it easy for businesses to find and hire amazing independent business attorneys. Here are some of the things that we did to bring on our business customers. Here are some of the things we did initially to bring in our business customers. These channels got us to our 20-30k in GMV. - Wrote A LOT of content- Created a huge meetup group & hosted events weekly- Conveyed price difference for businesses using us vs. a huge law firm. - Created relationships- Made every customer feel like a champion. These are all manual ways of grabbing customers but this helped us get started in the early days. Most of our competitors were flushing money down the toilet on things like adwords and PR. The lawyer side of the marketplace was easier for us to figure out because they get liquidity.

I used to work with few marketplaces (DeliveryHero as an example), so want to share my experiences and thoughts on this topic.Creating a two sided (profitable!) marketplace is not an easy task, because - obviously - you have to balance the supply and demand for your service. The margins are low, the volume matters, so it takes time and money to reach scale and profits. On the other hand, two-sided marketplaces have one important feature that can be almost always used for growth - they solve real problems and customers, when delighted, are great ambassadors of your brand and are willing to refer your service. Thus remember to always be customer centric, generate as much feedback as possible and use your delighted customers to refer your service - see below how to reach this stage.As you mentioned, there is always a chicken-egg problem - however, there is one strategy with the highest potential for growth and was proven by many successful businesses. The strategy consists of 3 phases - 1. build local supply side, 2. build local demand side, 3. scaleLet's see the details:Phase I - build your local supply sideAs a first step, always build the supply side! Focus on one major city/region and do your best to generate suppliers. Don't think about generating revenue yet, offer them your service for free with the promise you'll get them new customers - since the entry barrier low, who says no? It's for free, so they don't expect many new customers, they are prone to wait. You'll charge them soon once they start getting new customers from you and will see the real business benefit of using your platform.Phase II - build your local demand sideWhen you manage to create first suppliers' base you have to balance the market with the demand. This is the time to focus on generating first customers, getting traction. This is crucial step for you business - you have to prove it has potential to be profitable and both sides will be happy :) If you'd focused on getting your customers first, they would leave quickly because without suppliers, you wouldn't be able to deliver the promise. Remember, once you're customer is lost and unhappy, it's extremely difficult to get them back.In terms of getting traction - I suggest using http://tractionbook.com/, where you extensively test and focus on one/few of the traction channels. Phase III - scale, scale, scaleOk, so you've proven your idea for a marketplace and you're sure both sides believe in your business. The next (but the most difficult...) step is to scale. Replicate what you’ve done in the first city/region, always focusing first on supply, then demand. It's a lot of work, will generate lots of costs, but in the end this is the only way to generate real profits and revenue. About the ideas for growth: SEO - use your user-generated content to (automatically) create lots of landing pages. By lots I really mean hundreds, or thousands :) It all depends of course on your marketplace type and the amount of UCG you gather AdWords/SEM - in B2C marketplace it's the fastest way to grow and maintain your business. In the marketplaces I've worked for SEO and SEM were responsible for 60-80% generated sales/orders Always look on your cohorts and work on the loyalty of your customers Use e-mail marketing to reach your customers, send them promotions, coupons Think about the referral program - your customers will help you grow if they are delighted! Product - when you generate reasonable traffic start working on your conversion rate, always look on funnels and see where your customers drop. When they drop in the last step (payment) use solution that increases conversion, like http://SecurionPay.com Co-operate with bloggers, they will provide you with stable traffic and good links to increase your Page Rank hope this helps!