18. The key to gaining traction is through
the right supply strategy
Comprehensiveness Exclusivity Curation
19. Comprehensiveness involves giving
customers a diverse base to choose from
Users wanted to discover who delivered to them even when
the restaurant didn’t provide online ordering through
GrubHub
GrubHub grabbed every takeout menu, scanned them and
uploaded them to the website. They called every restaurant
to map their delivery boundaries.
Comprehensive supply became Grubhub’s source of
differentiation
20. Some marketplaces need to create
exclusivity to differentiate
Netflix realized that comprehensiveness was not going to
be strategically or operationally possible
Locked up streaming rights for popular content
Netflix purchased, and then created original shows
21. Bringing the two together
Comprehensive
Exclusive
Began with
comprehensiveness but
pursued exclusivity as
part of streamlining
strategy
Began with 100%
exclusive inventory,
expanded to
comprehensiveness
22. Exclusivity often leads to multi-tenanting
Exclusivity Strategy Dominant Marketplace
Comprehensiveness Strategy
Competition & Consolidation
Owned
Multi-
Tenant
Supply
Demand
Multi-Tenant Owned
The Holy Grail
23. Curation involves hand-picking the supply
to appeal to a niche audience
Curated high-quality restaurants and tried to differentiate
on service and food quality.
Was focused on audiences that were willing to pay more for
quality.
Ultimately, curation is best used as a secondary strategy: a
way for marketplaces to segment their customer bases as
DoorDash eventually did with Caviar
25. The following metrics will help maintain
your marketplace health(1/2)
Match Rate: How successfully can the two sides of the marketplace find each other?
Market Depth: Is there enough supply? Does it fit users’ needs?
Time to Match(or inventory turnover): How long does it take for supply and demand to match?
Concentration of supply and demand: How concentrated is the marketplace on the supply and
demand sides?
Take Rate: How valuable is the marketplace?
Unit Economics: How is the business doing?
26. The following metrics will help maintain
your marketplace health(2/2)
Switching Cost: How easy it is for users to join another network?
User Retention Cohort: Is your user retention improving for newer cohorts?
Core Action Retention Cohort: Is the core action for the product, improving for newer cohorts
Dollar Retention: Are newer cohorts retaining better on a dollar basis, for given time period, than older
cohorts
Retention by location/geography: Are participants in older markets better retained than newer
markets?
Power User Curves: Are users becoming more engaged over time?
