Transcription
[Music]
Welcome to our Everything Marketplaces Workshop, which is going to be on building a Marketplace MVP today. We've had lots of founders request a workshop on how to leverage no-code and low-code tools and platforms to build a Marketplace MVP, so that's what we're going to be covering in detail today.
Connor Finlisten will be leading the workshop, and most of you probably know him, but if not, he has some really awesome experience building no-code and low-code marketplaces like Unicorn Factory, along with lots of others that he's helped founders build.
As a quick note, the format for our workshops is once again 20 to 25 minute presentations followed by group Q&A. So if you have any questions throughout the workshop, you can post them in the Zoom chat. Please be sure to turn on your camera, and you can use the Zoom raise hand functionality so that way we know to call on you when we get to the group Q&A.
With that said, thanks for joining us here today to lead the workshop, Connor. I'll actually just let you start with a brief intro, and I'll take it from here.
All right, well first of all, Mike, thank you so much for having me. I've been a member of Everything Marketplaces for a while, and I've gotten a lot of value out of the community, so I'm more than happy to come in and share some of the things that I've learned about building marketplaces as a non-developer.
I want to keep it short. First of all, a little bit about me: I run a freelancer marketplace in New Zealand called Unicorn Factory. I started it about six years ago when I was looking for freelance work myself, and I kind of felt like there was a real need for a localized version of something like Upwork or Fiverr.
I don't come from a coding background, so I kind of had to teach myself how I could use some of the tools that we're going to be talking about today to basically build a basic MVP of what I'm doing. Now we are the biggest freelancer marketplace in New Zealand.
I also have a YouTube channel, because you know, who doesn't nowadays? I started my YouTube channel just to share some of the learnings along the way, and so if after this talk you're interested in learning more about it, you'll find a lot of resources on this here.
I also have a little bit of a community and mastermind where I teach first-time founders to get their MVPs up and running, but we can talk more about that later. I live in Ottawa, Canada, but as you can probably tell from my voice and my accent, I'm actually from New Zealand.
Now, there's a lot to cover. There's a lot that you can dive into when you get into no-code related things, so I kind of condensed it down to what I think are the most important things to know when you're just getting started.
First of all, I want to just address straight out of the room the whole code versus no-code debate. There are four key reasons why I think no-code is the best solution in 99% of the cases.
Then I want to also dive into the different no-code tools that I personally use for Unicorn Factory that I think are the state-of-the-art tools. There are six of them, so I'm going to be walking you through each one of them.
One of the main concerns I hear a lot of people have about no-code is that there are certain limitations and you can't build a lot of features and all that kind of stuff. So what I'm going to do is give you a few examples of features that you can build with these no-code tools, and then I'm going to wrap it up by shouting out some of the people in my mastermind who come from a non-technical background and have built successful marketplace businesses.
Okay, let's dive straight into it. So there are four main reasons why I think no-code is a better option for first-time founders when it comes to building your marketplace.
Reason number one, and actually one of the main reasons why people have come to me to build their MVPs, is if you hire developers to build your marketplace business, even if it's an MVP, you are going to be spending a lot of money.
It's not even really the upfront cost that should worry you; it's having them on call that should worry you because you need a person you're dependent on, and it's just going to cost a ton of money.
No-code, on the other hand, you essentially just pay for the tools, so you can get away with spending anything between $200 a month to maybe $2,000 a month as you start to scale up during the MVP stage of it all. So cost-wise, no-code doesn't really compare to code.
The second part is, let's just assume that money or investing that type of money is just completely off the table. You have no access to funding. Then the options are really, okay, should I go down the path of learning how to code or should I learn no-code?
Now, I have tried both. In fact, I actually started off trying to learn how to code because I was convinced that the only way I was going to get this platform up and running was by learning how to code because all of the other big marketplaces like Airbnb and Uber obviously did it with code.
I was wrong. I tried a lot of Codecademy stuff, but I was going nowhere. It's a good path if you want to become a developer, but if you want to build an online business, I don't think you need to really get into the weeds as much.
It takes a long time, and compared to that, no-code is, you know, while it still has a bit of a learning curve, it's a visual development tool. It's kind of like getting really good at something like Excel or getting good at fancy things that you can do in Google Slides and stuff like that.
So it does take time to get good at it, but the learning curve is significantly lower, and therefore a way better option.
The next thing is, while you're on the MVP stage, you just need to move fast. You need to basically build something, bring it to market, get feedback from the market, and then go and make whatever adjustments you want.
If you're working with a developer or a team, those feedback cycles and redeployment cycles just take so much longer. If you're the person in charge and in control of your build, you can get things out in one week, two-week cycles, and you'll get feedback a lot faster.
You can iterate a lot faster, and it will just make it a lot easier for you to kind of figure out what the right direction is for your marketplace.
I mean, I've said this a few times: speed is key here, and I think this is where no-code and code is a good option.
The last thing that I want to say on this is that obviously if you are someone that doesn't come from a technical background and you don't have access to funding, these four reasons alone will pretty much be the main reasons why you should potentially look at no-code.
But even if you are a developer, there are some pretty good arguments for using no-code tools just for quick prototyping because just the speed to get things set up does not compare.
Now, what tools do I use? This is going to be contentious no matter who you talk to in this space. There are so many different options out there, and everyone will have their own preferences.
These are the tools that I am currently using, and four out of these six tools were mentioned in the workshop that I did here three years ago, so my tool set has not changed a lot at all.
I've added two. One tool is Glide, which I use for all of my user accounts and my portals, and I use that because it's a lot easier and a lot faster.
Then, of course, AI tools, just because that wasn't even around when I launched the first version of Unicorn Factory.
Now, I am going to give you a quick rundown of how I use these tools and why I use these tools, but at the end of this workshop, I'm going to leave a link to my website where you'll be able to watch a video where I go in-depth into how I use these tools on my freelancer marketplace, Unicorn Factory, so you can actually see the tools in action and visualize how they all work.
But let's get into the first one. The first tool that I use is Webflow.
Webflow, as some of you may know, is a very popular marketing website builder. Now, there are a few things that I use it for. First of all, it's a visual development tool. I can see what I am building in real-time. You don't need to write any code.
It's beautiful when it comes to marketplaces specifically. There are a few things that make Webflow way better than, say, tools like Squarespace or Bubble or even all-in-one builders.
Number one is that it is amazing for SEO, and especially on Unicorn Factory, but I think this applies to most marketplaces. Being able to rank well for search terms is key, and so you need the tool that you're using to create your marketing pages to have best practices implemented straight from the outset.
From my experience, Webflow does this better than anyone else. The next thing is their inbuilt CMS.
One of the key things that I've done on Unicorn Factory that has really given me an edge specifically in New Zealand is that I can programmatically create thousands of unique landing pages, for example, for logo designers in Auckland or for Webflow developers in Wellington.
I was able to create all of these landing pages programmatically using automation tools and using AI tools, and that basically allows me to rank for all these long-tail keywords, which essentially leads to all this traffic that ultimately then ends up converting into freelancer signups and client signups.
So those are the main reasons why Webflow is the best tool. You also get a lot of design freedom, and it has really good APIs as well, which means that it will integrate with most automation tools that you use.
The next tool that you're going to need is a database tool. Now, as you saw, I use six different tools, and that means that there's going to be data in a lot of different places.
One of the things that you don't want to have happen is that you've got some information in Stripe that is different in Webflow and that is different somewhere else. You need to essentially have one central source of truth, and the tool that I use as my central source of truth is Airtable.
Now, here's a screenshot of what an Airtable base looks like. This was for a different project that I worked on, but you can kind of think of Airtable as something like Google Sheets with a whole bunch of additional and advanced features.
The way it works is you have your Airtable base, which in this case for my freelancer marketplace would be my Unicorn Factory base, and then within your base, you have tables.
So on Unicorn Factory, I'd have a table for all of the freelancers that sign up, for all of the clients that sign up, for all of the interactions between clients and freelancers, and I control the flow of data from inside of Airtable.
You can essentially use it as your admin portal. Now, I do go into this in more detail in the video that you'll be able to access afterwards, but it's an incredibly powerful tool, and it's also very visual, which means that you don't need to worry about it being complicated to learn.
It's kind of straightforward once you start working with it. Next, we need a tool that sends data from, say, Airtable to Webflow.
So if, for example, a freelancer signs up, they send all of the information about their freelancing skills or whatever it is, and I approve them, and I want to create a profile page for them in Webflow. If these tools didn't exist, I would have to basically go in and type in the name and upload the photo manually.
Tools like Make.com allow you to do this automatically. Now, some of you may know Zapier. Zapier is probably another automation tool that is very popular, and Make is essentially the same tool; however, it allows for some more advanced workflows, and it's also a bit cheaper, so therefore it's kind of the best automation tool out there.
Now, I use Make to basically automate any kind of task involved with Unicorn Factory. This includes onboarding, connecting clients to freelancers, and payments that I would have to do manually. I can just plug into Make.com, and it kind of takes care of it for me.
Next, I use Glide apps. Now, when you run a marketplace or any business that has users, for that matter, you need to allow your buyers and sellers to control their accounts.
This was actually a bit of a challenge when I made this first workshop. I used a tool called Memberstack, but Memberstack is a very technical tool and not particularly accessible for people who are just getting into using no-code tools.
I found that a lot of the people that I was working with struggled specifically with Memberstack, so I went and did some research and found another tool that is a lot user-friendlier, allows you to get started a lot faster, and allows you to create really good-looking user portals.
The tool is Glide. Now, the beautiful thing about Glide is as you're building your Airtable database, you can actually use that database as your data source, which means you can basically take all of the information in a table and convert it into an app that your users can control.
So what can they do with it? For example, freelancers can come in and upload portfolio items to be displayed in their profile. They can update their profile. Clients can create job listings. Clients can get a list of all of the freelancers that apply for jobs.
Again, I'd love to show you behind the scenes, but just for time purposes, I'm going to keep it short. But again, in the video, I dive into very specific examples of that where I basically show you how it works.
Glide has been one of the tools that has been a complete game changer when it comes to streamlining my builds and just creating a really, really good user experience for both the freelancers on Unicorn Factory and clients.
Next, we have Stripe. Now, Stripe is obviously a payment tool. Here's the thing that I love about Stripe: they pretty much cater for all payment use cases that you'll encounter as a marketplace business.
The basic ones are one-off payments and subscriptions, but then specifically for marketplaces, there are also going to be use cases that are not commonly covered by tools that try to create wrappers around Stripe.
Those are when you charge commission or a transaction fee, you know, so clipping the ticket usage-based pricing. Stripe allows you to do all of that, and you can actually just use the Stripe API and tie it directly into your user portals.
So on Unicorn Factory, my business model is a usage-based business. Usage-based pricing for freelancers means they can essentially buy credits, and whenever I make an introduction or they receive a lead from a client, it uses up a credit.
As soon as they run out of credits, they just go back to the payment portal, click the add credit button, and it takes them straight to a page like this. So it basically has all your bases covered when it comes to payments.
Then, of course, AI. When OpenAI launched the API, I kind of played around with it probably the same way that a lot of you have as well, you know, creating content, blog posts, and all those kinds of things.
But then I actually came across a use case that was really great for this particular thing, and that is creating job briefs. Whenever clients would post jobs to Unicorn Factory, they would write horrible job briefs.
They would write something like, "I want a logo," and then they would post that like a two-hour job board, and freelancers wouldn't want to apply for the job because it's too vague or it doesn't look legit or whatever it may be.
It's simply because the clients that were using the site may not have had experience with writing out a job brief. So what I decided to do is create a tool that basically streamlines the process of them creating a high-quality job listing.
What happens is they can just describe what it is that they're looking for, they can submit their company details, and then they can also set some preferences like their budgets, their timelines, all those kinds of things.
Then I use OpenAI to essentially create a job brief. I do have a video on how that works at the end of it, so it's pretty cool. If you've never seen it before, I think a lot of marketplaces can solve for that particular use case.
If not that, another use case is to help your sellers create super high-quality profile bios that have SEO benefits. It also makes your sellers look a lot better, and it just creates a better experience for everyone all around on the platform.
Again, check it out. I think even if you are building with code, understanding the workflows behind that will really allow you to build some pretty cool things.
That is actually the one feature that a lot of clients bring up when they reach out about the experience on the platform.
Okay, the next part is, one thing I hear a lot is when it comes to no-code, people are primarily concerned about the limitations. Does it scale? Can I do this? Can I do that?
You know, while you are definitely going to run into certain types of limitations if you compare it to something like coding, what you can do with these no-code tools is usually way more than people anticipate.
So here are some of the key features that you could implement yourself. The first thing is SEO-optimized programmatic landing pages. That's kind of like the starting point, I think, for most people.
If you want to create hundreds of landing pages targeting certain keywords, no problem with no-code tools. Again, custom buyer and seller portals. This is something that if you did with developers would take forever.
I whipped them up pretty quickly using Glide and no-code tools. Again, you can build AI tools into your portals, kind of what I just mentioned, but you know, creating high-quality job listings, creating high-quality profile pages.
Another very common use case I think for marketplaces is calendar bookings. So you can build a feature where you can integrate cal.com into your marketplace platform.
This was actually created by one of the people in my community, Omar, who built a marketplace for tutors where people can just come and book a session with a tutor and pay directly, and he clips the ticket on the transactions.
Private one-on-one chats between buyers and sellers is also something that can be created. So if that is something you want to do, I just whipped this one up as a quick demo.
I haven't actually integrated this myself just because of the nature of how my marketplace works, but if you want to keep all of the conversations between buyers and sellers in your platform, there are ways to do that.
And then, of course, all the marketplace payments that you might want to solve for. Those are the main ones that come up often, but beyond that, there are really so many other ways that you can build.
You can build little analytics solutions for your customers. You can set up all your transactional email workflows. You can even do some automated social media content creation.
For example, if a new seller signs up to your platform and you want to create a little LinkedIn post about them, you can do all of that as well.
Another thing is you can actually tap into high-scale databases like Supabase, which means that you'll be able to have thousands and thousands of records for messaging and all those kinds of things.
So you can really take these things quite far. Now, at this point, I was going to do a demo, but I made a video of the demo, so we're going to skip the demo.
Now I want to show you some examples of some marketplaces that were built by some of the people in my community. Again, all these people come from a non-technical background.
The first one is Omar. He started working on TutorLift about a year ago. He comes from the consulting world. He started at Deloitte and basically gave businesses advice on how to set up businesses like this, but he never created anything like this himself.
He decided that he wanted to learn how to use no-code tools, and within a few months, he had the first version of TutorLift live. Now he's processing a lot of bookings. I don't know exactly how many, but he's doing incredibly well with it.
Michelle, she's a member of Everything Marketplaces as well. She created a managed marketplace called Reviews in Lusaka, Zambia. Basically, she helps home builders find vetted service providers.
Again, no technical background, just built the MVP, started going out doing sales, and now she's kind of got Glide portals. She's got all these Make.com automations. She's streamlined her business, and she's got a team that helps her run the business, but yeah, she's killing it as well.
Alex, who was actually a freelancer on Unicorn Factory, came from a Facebook advertising background. He had an agency that did renders for real estate agents.
Whenever they wanted to sell a house or something like that, his agency would do renders and their marketing. He decided that he wanted to build a tool that would help him get more leads but also a tool that would help him promote his clients.
So he created Townhouses.nz, and it's basically like a real estate platform where home buyers or people who are looking for townhouses can find all of the different townhouses that are on the market.
Again, no technical background, created this thing, and now he uses this as a platform that generates him some good money, but it's also a great lead generation tool for his agency as well.
Chive is a marketplace where charities in New Zealand can list themselves, and it just makes it easy for people to find causes and basically charities that they can support.
Stephen and Alice both come from the social enterprise space. When they started, they had no clue how to do it. They actually came to me after things went incredibly wrong with a developer, but now Stephen runs an incredibly successful no-code agency.
This is how you kind of go from knowing nothing about no-code, and now he's selling people the no-code dream. Then I've got a bunch more examples I can go through.
Brian here created a marketplace to help authors find assistants that were experienced in publishing. There are tons of them.
The key thing is that all of these people kind of started from zero. So even if you're sitting there right now thinking about building your MVP and you're like, "I need to have a certain level of experience with these tools," no, you don't.
From my experience, it takes anywhere between two to three months to get to the point where you're really comfortable with these tools if you stick to working on specific projects and have a bit of a plan to follow.
But once you get it out there, it goes pretty fast. I wanted to just share a few more key things that I've learned over the last few years of helping people set up their marketplaces, but also doing it myself.
The first thing is that no-code tools still take time to learn. I feel oftentimes when people look at no-code tools and they compare it to code, it's just a matter of sitting down and clicking a few buttons, and you're good to go.
There's a learning curve involved with it. I would probably say if you're willing to commit a solid month or two to getting the basics of building a landing page down, you'll get it, and it will be quite easy to build from there.
My number one recommendation for anyone who is interested in exploring it is just to learn one tool at a time. You know, like I've obviously talked about a lot of different tools here. I've shown you six tools that I use, and one of the mistakes that people make is they try to learn all the tools at once, and it's confusing.
Start off with one tool, get to like 80% good at that tool, and then it will become a lot easier to understand how all the other tools work. I recommend starting off with Webflow. Learn how to build a basic landing page for your marketplace business, and then start building a database tool, CRM with Airtable as needed.
I think that is something that is important. Another thing is that I've helped a lot of people get their MVPs up and running. Some have worked out incredibly well; others not so much.
One of the things that I have taken away from the entire experience is that most no-code marketplaces that fail to take off don't fail to take off because of no-code. It's usually you. You didn't do the Everything Marketplaces school.
You need to get your basics right. You need to lay your foundations. No-code is not a shortcut or a magical tool in that sense that it will allow you to skip things like market research and all that kind of stuff.
Also, another thing, and this is just because I feel like it's useful to bring up, is if you have perfectionist tendencies, these tools will drive you crazy.
If you've got a marketplace idea and you've got it all mapped out to the tee in Figma, these tools will drive you crazy. Maybe if you're a bit of a "ship it and hope for the best" type of person, you're going to love these tools.
But yeah, I would definitely keep in mind that these tools can have some things that come up sometimes. That was pretty much what I wanted to say.
I don't know how long this took, but I'm personally more looking forward to the Q&A stuff, so let's get into it.
Awesome! Well, I appreciate you walking us through. There's a lot of cool updates since your last workshop on that.
So, yeah, actually, I had one question to kind of start things off here, and that's, you know, when it comes to some of the costs, can you give us a general breakdown on what the costs are for the tool stack in the earlier stages?
Yeah, so when I started Unicorn Factory, the first tool that you'll probably want to pay for is Webflow. Webflow will cost you roughly $50 a month, so that's kind of like really the only tool that you need to get started.
As soon as you start using Airtable, Airtable is about $20 a month, which can scale up to $49. Then tools like Make.com is also another tool where you start off at like say $20, and it would then scale up.
So as you're just getting started, you can really get away with just spending under $200 a month to basically have your entire infrastructure running. As things start to scale up, things get more expensive.
Most of the automation tools that you'll use will start scaling up in price. The one tool that I use that is quite expensive is Glide. I mean, and I say relatively expensive relative to all the other no-code tools. Glide costs me a grand a month.
So, you know, compared to say like the $50 that I pay for Webflow, it's obviously quite a bit more. However, the amount of time and money that Glide saves me actually makes it a no-brainer.
However, I would not start off with Glide. I would get to the point where your business is kind of humming just for things manually first, and then as you need user portals, you can start adding more tools, and it will be easy.
So I think for most of the people that I've worked with, at the beginning, under $200, and then it can scale all the way up to a few grand a month.
I think we have some questions now. Hi, do you want to come on?
Oh yeah, um yes. So you talk about the grand per month for Glide. With the traffic cost, is that just a steady price or upscaled usage-based?
So Glide actually has cheaper plans. If you want to ever play around with it, they have like a free plan, and they also have like a $49 month plan. For marketplaces specifically, you're probably going to have a lot of users, and that is how they price their services.
I'm on the Enterprise plan, and the Enterprise plan gives me unlimited users. A lot of the people that are just getting started with Glide building marketplaces can get away with like a $200 per month plan.
But once you start getting a lot of users using your platform, you're going to exceed the monthly limit of how many users you can have, and you'll get onto the Enterprise plan pretty quickly.
I think one way that you can potentially overcome that in the short term is to create a portal maybe only for your sellers but not for your buyers, and that might kind of keep you under the limit.
But I've got a portal for my buyers, and I also have like an admin portal for people that manage stuff for me, and so I exceeded the user count pretty quickly, and that's why I'm on the $1,000 month plan.
I think anyone who has a validated marketplace that's got traction is going to end up on that plan pretty fast as well.
Thank you!
Good, thank you! Awesome. Yeah, feel free to use the raise hand if you have any questions.
One question I was wondering, this is great, thank you first of all. I think it's really interesting to see the stack. If you are someone who is either short on time or realizes it's not a good use of your time to spend the time learning each of the tools and then doing it, you know, sort of integrating everything, and you wanted to bring on a partner or maybe you have a co-founder, do you have you found in your experience that a product person is best suited for kind of the role of manually using these tools, or is it more of a developer?
Would a developer more or less feel like, "I code, this is beneath me"?
A lot of these tools have specialist freelancers that you can get. So let's say, for example, you want to have someone who builds this out for you in Glide. Glide has their own expert portal, and a lot of the time, the people that are freelancers in that space come from a product design background in the first place and just use those tools because they can't code themselves.
There's a lot of talent out there that will allow you to do a lot of the things if you want to bring someone on. I think in most cases, it's actually good just to have specialists on hand for certain types of projects.
For example, if you need someone to create landing pages for you on Webflow, let's hire someone who's really good at Webflow. I definitely wouldn't look for an all-rounder because, you know, Jack of all trades, master of none is kind of very applicable in the no-code space.
I would probably say, hey, if you're at the stage where you are kind of building out your homepage, you want to have your programmatic landing page set up, hire a Webflow developer.
If you want to start building out your user portals, hire a Glide expert. To be honest, there are some super talented people out there that charge a fraction of what the developers would charge you.
As soon as you get them like a recurring revenue type situation, they'll be there for you whenever you need them. So the talent is absolutely out there that can basically allow you to do it.
But with that being said, you know, once you do have it all set up, you'll kind of be in a position where you'll be able to make a lot of the changes yourself as well, so you don't have that constant back and forth where you need to spend a few grand on someone to fix some basic stuff for you.
So it has advantages in both ways.
Thank you!
No worries!
Hey, Demitri, do you want to come on?
Yes, thank you. I have kind of two questions for you. One, is there something that allows you to do reviews and feedback that’s easy enough to integrate?
My second question is, is there anything that allows you to do experiments? So say you have two versions of a landing page, you're interested in whether one copy works best. Is there anything that allows you to gauge and measure the difference in the conversion rates?
Yeah, so 100%. I have that on Unicorn Factory. I don't have a rating system like Uber, but I do ask for feedback on how the interaction went and all that kind of stuff.
You can just, I think the simplest way to do it is to just send them a link to an Airtable form or a Typeform if you're not at the stage yet where you have a Glide portal set up.
But if you have a Glide portal set up, you can just notify them whenever the job gets closed and then have a section in your app where they can leave a review for a freelancer.
The way I do it is that when clients log back in, they can basically tell me whether or not they hired them. If they didn't hire them, they can tell me why not, and usually, I get really good insights as to why certain freelancers are closing deals while others are not.
So yeah, if you have an idea of how you want to set up a workflow like that, it's quite easy to implement into a tool like Glide.
What was the second question again?
It was around experimentation. So you have two versions of a landing page, and you want to test the difference in conversion.
Yeah, so in Webflow, you can definitely do that. I mean, the cheapest way to do it is to just use something like Google Optimize. You just create your landing page in Webflow, plug in the Google Optimize script, and then you can test different landing page variations.
If you want to do some more advanced things, Webflow actually just launched a new set of features specifically around that. There's a new feature called Webflow Optimize, and what it allows you to do is programmatic A/B testing or multivariate testing.
You can upload images and different texts, and it will just automatically create thousands of landing page variations for you. They have inbuilt analytics to tell you exactly what is performing best, and it will then also kind of boost the one that is performing best.
So kind of what you can do with Facebook ads is now built into Webflow. It is designed to be an enterprise feature, but yeah, I mean, if that's your jam, you can do it natively in Webflow now.
Thank you!
All right, awesome! That'd be super helpful for us creating marketing landing pages for categories and geos as well.
So we actually had a question in the chat. I think Denise was asking for Glide. She's saying, can you build an admin approvals when users are updating their profiles?
Oh yes! I mean, I built an admin portal for kind of everything, I think. So approvals is kind of like the first thing that I built. I built it in Airtable, actually, and I just have a dropdown.
Basically, they sign up, I've got all their profile information, and then there's a dropdown that says "Needs review," and then I can just go approve or reject or waitlisted or whatever.
It's just a matter nowadays of clicking a button, but I did that just in a table. But I built an admin portal in Glide as well, and that's made things a lot easier.
So I've built the approval process into that as well. Now I get a nice profile preview, and I can just look at it and be like, "Would I hire this person?" and then I can click approve or reject, and it just triggers all the workflows.
It sends out all the emails and all that kind of stuff. Another few things I implemented into my admin portal that I'm particularly stoked about is the biggest bottleneck that I have found is just support.
I'd get all these emails about, "Hey, why does this not work?" or "Hey, my client ghosted me," or whatever it may be. I now built a tool where I can actually just record my answer as a voice note, and it will automatically draft the email reply and send it to them.
You can really do some pretty epic stuff with these tools these days. So yeah, maybe I might make a video about my admin portal in the future because it has been a massive time saver for me.
So in short, yes, you can build admin approvals and stuff like that.
Yeah, that'd be a cool video to see!
So cool! Hey, Jesse, do you want to come on?
Yeah, I'm not sure if this is a question for Connor or more for Mike. I know in the community we talk a lot about Sharetribe, and Sharetribe hasn't come up here as any of the stack.
I'm curious about how to think about that, if you know, and maybe that's because you started building a while ago and that wasn't available. But how do you think about that?
Yeah, so that's a good question. Sharetribe was available when I started. There are a few reasons why I opted not to use Sharetribe.
Now, don't get me wrong, Sharetribe is great. I mean, it really comes down to your personal preferences. Mike built a massive marketplace with Sharetribe that he sold, so if that's your, you know, if you've played with it before, definitely try it out.
There are a few reasons why I don't like all-in-one tools, and that is that all-in-one tools limit you more than individual tools that solve for certain use cases.
For example, Webflow is not trying to be everything; they just focus on making it easy for you to build the best marketing site possible. Airtable is not trying to give you the ability to build a website as well; it's just about, "Hey, let's be the best database tool."
I find that when you use tools that focus on being really good at one thing, you can solve for a lot more use cases. Whereas if you're using an all-in-one tool, you're kind of limited to the use cases that they've decided to solve for.
Now, I haven't used Sharetribe much, so I can't really comment on it. However, I have found with most all-in-one no-code tools that is the exact problem that comes up, and that's the exact limitation that people end up dealing with.
Another example of a tool like that is Bubble. Bubble is another very, very popular no-code tool. Again, the main reason why I opt out of something like Bubble is simply because it has horrible SEO.
I don't want to rely on the organic traffic that Webflow will bring me, which is why something like Bubble, while more functional than Webflow, isn't the right fit for what I'm looking for.
So that is kind of how I look at all-in-one tools. But I always look at it also as what kind of examples of businesses have been created with these tools.
I know for a fact that people have built fantastic businesses with Sharetribe. People have built fantastic businesses with Bubble. So it really comes down to what you feel you can get the hang of faster and then just double down on those particular tools.
If I could throw in a quick follow-up, do you think if you pick one path and it's not working for you, the cost of rebuild is super high? Or it's like, you know, just get started and you can always change later?
That's a great question. I think that the main cost is time, to be honest. I've had a lot of people who have come to me who have gone down one path and then just decided this is not the way to go.
It's just part of it, you know? At the end of the day, something you kind of have to try something out to see that it doesn't work for you.
But the way I like to do it is I just like to solve it on a use case by use case basis. For example, my starting point is, okay, I want to build a marketplace. What is the first step that I should take?
It's like, I want to build a landing page so I can start promoting my marketplace and maybe get some waitlist signups. Now, do I need a full-on marketplace building tool for that? No, I can fully get away with that just using Webflow.
So that's where I start. Now I'm at the point where I've got a lot of traffic coming to the site, a lot of people are filling out my contact form. What's the next thing that I need? Well, I need to get organized, so maybe now I'll integrate a database tool.
Okay, maybe I want to automate some, and so you kind of add it on a case-by-case basis. I think that makes using those tools a lot easier as well because you're kind of learning how to use the tools as you encounter bottlenecks and problems that you're trying to solve.
All of the bottlenecks and problems are hypothetically already solved in the all-in-one tools, you know? So that's why my preference is just to pick the best individual tool for the job at the time.
That's a good question. We could probably have an entire sidebar conversation on different tools and platforms.
So yeah, I just want to kind of jump in here as well and also mention that I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand, okay, what's that next kind of need and kind of functionality that I need.
But that's all kind of, you know, being derived from actual user feedback. So I think that's key here, and you know, that might not apply to all marketplaces that are like, "Hey, maybe we're doing something else that might be more capital intensive or other needs."
100%. That kind of sums it up as well.
Yeah, because you might not need messaging, for example, but now all of a sudden you've got a tool that doesn't allow you to disable messaging.
So yeah, Mike, you kind of nailed it there.
I'll just jump in here too and also mention, you know, I think it also depends on the specific type of marketplace you're looking to build and kind of, you know, how far you are along in that process.
If it's really just like an idea, a lot of, you know, of course, what Connor is mentioning is, you know, he's really focusing on that validation, right?
So how do you be as resourceful as possible by using some of these tools and platforms to quickly spin something up to just kind of get as much progress and validation as he can, right?
So that starts with like a homepage, kind of starting to capture like waitlist, as he mentioned, while you're trying to, you know, then kind of, you know, further understand,