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I ran eBay’s marketplace. I ran OpenTable’s marketplace. So when I saw Airbnb, I recognized the pattern immediately.
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Airbnb’s genius was turning millions of spare bedrooms into hotel rooms. The supply was already there. They just unlocked it.
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The hardest part of any marketplace is getting to critical mass. After that, the network effects do the work for you.
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Instacart proved that grocery delivery wasn’t just a COVID trend. It was a permanent behavioral shift. COVID just accelerated it by five years.
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As a board member, I can tell a founder exactly what will go wrong at scale because I’ve seen it happen. That’s worth more than any check.