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“...make something that's fun, and then we can monetize it later.” This seems to be the biggest problem with this industry. When has this worked out well? Why not just charge the business $1 for anyone who finds them through the service? If no one wants to pay for your product, it’s not a good product.
There are many cases when the "correct" price is zero (Google and Facebook being very good examples). It also often makes sense to subsidize a marketplace in the early stages. It is REALLY hard to build both sides of a marketplace and get it to scale. But once it is at scale it is a very durable business. What you do to get it there is often very different than what you do once you are there.
Uber for example had mass subsidies of both drivers and riders in the early days.
This is Adam's third marketplace (and the first two had successful exits), so worth at least hearing what he has to say about how he is building this one...
Oh, there's no question that it's worth hearing. That's for sure. But at some point - success is subjective. We'd consider Facebook to be a failure for humans. The idea of a "successful exit" is funny. If we're successful - we're not going to exit. Adam seems like a great guy. Really enjoyed the conversation.
Far enough. Facebook may or may not be bad for humans, but it was certainly a success for Mark and the early investors.... Whether an exit is a success or not depends on the goals of the individual. I think Adam was happy with both outcomes (and investors did alright too - even though they did not end up with Facebook-level valuations)
“...make something that's fun, and then we can monetize it later.” This seems to be the biggest problem with this industry. When has this worked out well? Why not just charge the business $1 for anyone who finds them through the service? If no one wants to pay for your product, it’s not a good product.
There are many cases when the "correct" price is zero (Google and Facebook being very good examples). It also often makes sense to subsidize a marketplace in the early stages. It is REALLY hard to build both sides of a marketplace and get it to scale. But once it is at scale it is a very durable business. What you do to get it there is often very different than what you do once you are there.
Uber for example had mass subsidies of both drivers and riders in the early days.
This is Adam's third marketplace (and the first two had successful exits), so worth at least hearing what he has to say about how he is building this one...
Oh, there's no question that it's worth hearing. That's for sure. But at some point - success is subjective. We'd consider Facebook to be a failure for humans. The idea of a "successful exit" is funny. If we're successful - we're not going to exit. Adam seems like a great guy. Really enjoyed the conversation.
Far enough. Facebook may or may not be bad for humans, but it was certainly a success for Mark and the early investors.... Whether an exit is a success or not depends on the goals of the individual. I think Adam was happy with both outcomes (and investors did alright too - even though they did not end up with Facebook-level valuations)