4 ms·
Welcome to the start-up everyone started-up in 2001 that failed for the same reason: content. Craig won the lottery on this one. Here's something to think abo
by dpcan 17y ago
Welcome to the start-up everyone started-up in 2001 that failed for the same reason: content.
Craig won the lottery on this one.
Here's something to think about though:
Critical mass and exponential growth.
It's going to take you a few years to hit critical mass, which I "imagine" is around 60,000 to 100,000 sellers.
It's at this point where if every person tells 3 people about your service, and 1 of those 3 people use the site, you'll start getting enough traffic that enough products will be sold that enough of your sellers will return to sell again, maybe your buyers will too.
My first thought is to create a community for your sellers. Give them an outlet to talk with each other. They'll help you improve your site. Engage in that communication. Let them make it a home away from home, let them make friends with each other.
It's these people that will give your site legs.
(I do have some past experience in this space...)
- quellhorst 17y agoI actually did this before for a client in the auction market. Most of the initial users were in the Texas / Louisiana area. After around 30,000 users we had a nice critical mass. The biggest problem came from the client not anticipating the support required fro 30k users. Fraudulent transactions like fake Rolexs with western union money transfers were too common. Another issue that came up was people paying for postings yet using stolen credit cards. If you charged $5 to signup, but then had a chargeback, you would get dinged for that $5 and a chargeback fee of $25.