27 learnings from running a marketplace business

Here are 27 learnings and lessons from running a peer to peer crowdfunding marketplace business. Including people first, community over competitors, people need people, 3 different and important types of online identities, focus your people and your product, products have to be (1) easy to learn (2) easy to use (3) easy to share, concentrate on people who are in action state not test state and find your dunbar number

Transcript

1. 27 Learnings From
   Leading A Marketplace
   Business
   July 2020
   Danny Denhard www.focus.business
   

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2. Here are 27 learnings from 4 years &
   £220m + in transactions from
   7 million great & supportive people
   

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3. User Tells Their Story
   % of users would create a story and go
   on to raise money for their friends, family
   or community
   Unlock More Stories
   The more pick up and sharing that
   happened the more stories created
   Shares Story For Support
   Shares story to their audience and
   becomes the marketing for their
   story and the service
   Press Pick Up
   If story is shared enough or sold into
   press the story and service is pushed.
   Stories Get Stories Loop
   Marketplace Overview
   

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4. People First
   

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5. Always put community & customer first.
   Always over the competition
   but…
   Always respect your enemy.
   aka users
   #1
   Learning
   

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6. Always put community & customer first.
   Always over competition
   but…
   Always respect your enemy.
   Competitors will often have small wins and make you feel like you
   need to worry about them more than you actually do.
   Ensure you have a very strong and confident strategic plan and
   roadmap. Be ruthless in knowing your own direction and drive
   change in your market. Be the brand to own the market
   #1
   Learning
   

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7. People always need people
   People give to people
   #2
   Learning
   

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8. People always need people
   People give to people
   In the 5 years working in the peer to peer Crowdfunding space, people turn to
   people for help, (dunbar’s kin or ‘super family’ first) friends, family, community and
   strangers to help them or those people closest to them.
   Not pages or products
   It is baked into our DNA, we crave
   being part of a tribe, it is how we
   survive. We need love & support
   #2
   Learning
   

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9. +There Are 3 Important Internet Identities
   1 3
   2
   PUBLIC
   PRIVATE SEMI PRIVATE
   #3
   Learning
   

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10. +There Are 3 Important Internet Identities
    1 3
    2
    PUBLIC
    The mass sharers, those who
    understand the power of social
    media & sharing information with
    as many people as possible.
    These public people will help
    spread your product far and wide.
    But if they have an issue you will
    know about extremely quickly.
    PRIVATE
    There is a portion of internet
    users who want to stay private,
    share their information privately
    and only to their nearest and
    dearest. These are savvy users
    but does not naturally increase
    the reach of your product.
    SEMI PRIVATE
    The typical internet user, will offer as
    much information they are comfortable
    with however they have private social
    media accounts, they want to share to
    their friends and family and don’t have
    huge following. If they have a good
    experience - they will recommend you
    to an extended circle.
    

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11. +Know What To Focus Your People On
    IMPORTANT
    Educating all users is essential.
    Understand what the updates (over notifications)
    are and what the next actions are.
    Educate & Inspire!
    If you are not showing users what they should be
    doing, now ➡ next & ➡ in the future you confuse
    people & they will need help from customer
    support & Product updates become an effort vs
    reward vote and growth slows.
    #4
    Learning
    

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12. Product
    

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13. Your Product has to be easy to learn
    Easy to use
    Easy to share
    #5
    Learning
    

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14. Your Product has to be easy to learn
    Easy to use
    Easy to share
    You have to learn how to
    use the product or you
    won’t
    Can’t use it, won’t use it, won’t hit the objective
    Share with friends, family, strangers
    Why?
    #5
    Learning
    

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15. Social networks & emails are filtered far more
    than people realise
    #6
    Learning
    

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16. Social networks & emails are filtered far more
    than people realise
    Social networks hate external links, to gain visits you need to share a URL, private
    messengers and groups best way to leverage or remove the algorithmic filtering.
    Sending Emails to friends doesn’t feel very normal, we panic or we question if it
    might be spam. If you send to a mass list Outlook and Gmail are very strict on this.
    Sending the same copy and paste text seems easiest but rarely helps and often
    results in filtering
    #6
    Learning
    Hint: use instant messengers, SMS & group chat to win
    

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17. Product decay rate will kill you by a thousand
    cuts
    Product enhancements are vital
    No innovation = silent market share loss
    #7
    Learning
    

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18. Target people at need state and action state
    Need to do something Essential to take action ASAP
    Product Use
    0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
    Test State Need State Action State
    #8
    Learning
    

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19. Target people at need state and action state
    Need to do something Essential to take action ASAP
    Product Use
    0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
    Test State Need State Action State
    Focus your efforts here ⤵
    #8
    Learning
    

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20. Build for the early adopters,
    Not
    The everyday user
    #9
    Learning
    

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21. Build for the early adopters,
    Not
    The everyday user
    Early adopters show everyday
    users the way and the tools to
    use
    Everyday users need the right swarm of
    users to show them the way forward,
    otherwise you have a lot of test users and
    onboarding & hand holding has to be
    incredible.
    #9
    Learning
    Why?
    

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22. +Bonus
    Just remember with marketplace business your
    users / community are your “free” marketing
    channels.
    Leverage this with them.
    

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23. Strangers
    Fundraiser
    Family and
    close friends
    Colleagues
    Friends of
    friends
    People with
    same interests
    Help Find
    Your
    Customers
    “Dunbar
    Number”
    Strangers
    #10
    Learning
    

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24. Strangers
    Fundraiser
    Family and
    close friends
    Colleagues
    Friends of
    friends
    People with
    same interests
    Strangers
    Help Find
    Your
    Customers
    “Dunbar
    Number”
    1 - 17
    1 - 5
    1 - 10
    Circles
    # of
    Supporters
    1 - 100
    1 - 1m
    #10
    Learning
    

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25. Identify your core strength and focus on moat
    building
    Brand was key, as was adding reactance
    Extending your features, building relationships,
    enhancing network effects
    #11
    Ensure users take control of their story & distribution
    Learning
    

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26. Marketing
    PPC
    SEO
    Brand
    PR
    Press
    Product &
    Dev
    Customer
    Support
    Customer
    Success
    Early Comms Lines
    CRM
    Data & Insight
    Growth
    #12
    Learning
    

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27. Marketing
    PPC
    SEO
    Brand
    PR
    Press
    Product &
    Dev
    Customer
    Support
    Customer
    Success
    Maturing Comms Lines
    Growth
    Growth
    Retention
    Data & Insight
    #12
    Learning
    

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28. Growth: Enable someone or create a small
    group to concentrate on growth. Get them
    thinking completely differently. Step back & out
    to win
    Think: Optimisations + Features + innovation + +
    These people can rotate, it’s important you get fresh ideas & outside your market
    #13
    Learning
    

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29. Culture
    

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30. Set up a crystal clear Focus metric
    Set up clear action plans to get to your goals
    Clear goals guide everyone
    #14
    Learning
    

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31. Set up a crystal clear Focus metric
    Set up clear action plans to get to your goals
    Clear goals guide everyone
    North Stars are often difficult for everyone to know they can
    influence directly
    Focus metric = One core metric to focus all other metrics
    #14
    Learning
    

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32. Empowered caring people will empower users
    #15
    Learning
    

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33. Empowered caring people will empower users
    A team that cares and genuinely wants to help will empower your
    users and help guide your product team to build for your
    community of users and their networks.
    #15
    Learning
    

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34. Watch the market everyday
    Growth - Hyper Growth - Maturity
    #16
    Learning
    

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35. Watch the market everyday
    Growth - Hyper Growth - Maturity - 2020
    0
    2.5
    5
    7.5
    10
    2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
    Hyper Growth
    M
    aturity
    2020
    Growth
    #16
    Learning
    

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36. Or 2020
    Growth - Hyper Growth - Maturity - 2020
    0
    1.3
    2.5
    3.8
    5
    2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
    Hyper Growth
    M
    aturity
    2020
    
    Growth
    #16
    Learning
    Discuss regularly,
    review, communicate
    and prioritise product
    updates & pricing
    regularly
    

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37. Just one small issue or disagreement can be
    HUGE & negatively impact you at growth stage
    
    
    #17
    Learning
    

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38. No team(s) silo’s
    Update as one team against their own metric
    they are targeted to move.
    Roll up to the Focus metric
    #18
    Focus metric = One core metric to focus all other metrics
    Learning
    M M
    M
    M
    M
    M
    M
    M
    M
    

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39. Build an environment of sharing data, insights
    and analysis.
    Build a culture of internal coaching, teaching
    and collaboration.
    Build a business to identify and develop talent
    & trusting your people and strategy
    #19
    Learning
    

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40. Strategy
    

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41. Think: 5 Years
    Plan: 3 Years
    Action: 1 Year
    Important for internal teams to
    Focus around & strive for
    Important for Product & Dev
    Important for Product, Marketing,
    Customer teams, & Growth
    Strategy
    & Revisit twice a year
    #20
    Learning
    

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42. A list of tactics is not strategy
    Short term thinking hinders everything you
    want to achieve
    Start Tactical & You Won’t Break Out Of That Thinking Cross Functionally
    Only looking at the short term will blind you
    #21
    Learning
    

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43. Build agreed principles that work for everyone
    Stand Up Daily
    Sit Down weekly
    Principles are essential: Agree on comms, prioritisation, tools usage, updates flow
    One master dashboard, not death by dashboard.
    Anyone can create a report, the insights
    and analysis are the actionable business changing elements.
    #22
    Learning
    

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44. Build agreed principles that work for everyone
    Stand Up Daily
    Sit Down weekly
    Principles are essential: Agree on comms, prioritisation, tools usage,
    updates flow
    One master dashboard, not death by dashboard.
    Anyone can create a report, the insights
    and analysis are the actionable business changing elements.
    #22
    Learning
    

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45. You have to plan for the very best
    And for the very worst
    Raising money that solves a life changing problem
    Raising money for an action that goes goal
    When national tragedies hit
    Bad actors are everywhere, especially when there is potential financial gain
    #23
    Learning
    

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46. Strangers want to help
    Strangers just haven’t seen your story or hasn’t been able to connect with it yet
    #24
    Learning
    

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47. There will be milestones and key events that
    will make and break you (teams and
    performance)
    #24
    Learning
    

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48. Ripples
    Ripples =
    Seem large impact but are just
    surges
    Waves =
    Momentum shifts
    Vs Waves
    #25
    Learning
    Understand the waves and ride the first and control the second wave
    

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49. Unpicking what exactly worked and why, is
    extremely difficult, but
    do everything you can to unpick & optimise!
    & drive users towards it.
    Communicate the importance
    of these finding regularly
    #26
    Learning
    

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50. Find the winning daily and weekly metric and
    optimise, optimise and optimise
    Daily =
    Shows your pulse
    Weekly =
    Shows your health
    Monthly =
    Too late to make
    positive changes
    & again.
    #27
    Learning
    

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51. +Bonus
    Think of the upstart team / collective as a sports
    team, one bad player can effective the squad.
    One great addition can propel you.
    Know when to coach, mentor & get out of the
    way!
    

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52. Always keep in mind
    There will be one penny drop moment that
    validates everything you are doing
    

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53. 53
    +Thank You From Focus
    DANNY DENHARD
    The world of work has lost its focus!
    Focus was created to cut through the noise, cut through confusion and
    ensure businesses focus on developing their organisations and
    performance.
    Get
    FOUNDER
    E: DANNY@FOCUS.BUSINESS
    W: WWW.FOCUS.BUSINESS/MANIFESTO
    

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