Marketplace Bingo

I was doing some thinking about how to develop a broad breadth of experience in marketplaces. You don’t necessarily need to do EVERYTHING, but you definitely want to do a wide variety of things.

And, naturally, a bingo card seemed the best way to “keep score”, so to speak, so I present… Marketplace Bingo:

If you are one of the first 29 people to try this, you can click this link and play it for yourself: https://mfbc.us/m/sfz5a88 

(Idk what happens to person 30, okay, LinkedIn message me and we’ll figure it out)

👉 Post yours on my LinkedIn Post! https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ruthchew_marketplace-bingo-activity-7161786185214873601-VoTH/

Accessibility-friendly text version, with comments

A 5 x 5 bingo grid

Rows 1 and 2 cover marketplace verticals

Row 1:

• E-Commerce

• Transportation

• Food & Beverage / Delivery

• Travel & Hospitality

• Digital Good → Think marketplaces like Steam or Coursera

Row 2:

• Labor & Services (General or Specialist)

• Real Estate and Housing

• Events and/or Entertainment

• Health & Wellness

• Pets and Children → Deliberately grouped together 😂

Row 3 covers “hard mode” marketplace types, that are even more finicky than normal:

• Real-time

• Geographically constrained

• Section of Craigslist (FREE) → The traditional center square in Bingo is a freebie. This one is in reference to the famous / infamous graphic showing that many marketplace companies are just… Bits of Craigslist that have been split out.

• 3-sided

• No payment changes hands between parties → Think dating apps. It’s not like one side pays the other… So how do you monetize it?

Row 4 covers different flavors and variations:

• International or cross-border

• C2C

• B2C

• B2B

• Vertical not covered above → There’s a lot of verticals I couldn’t fit into rows 1 and 2. If you have one not covered there, this is the bingo square for you!

Row 5 covers “99 problems”, or, weird problems that marketplaces tend to have:

• Cold start problem

• Regulatory gray area

• Everyone tries to game your matching algo

• Blamed by media for wrecking the existing market

• Assault / violence police case

The last one in row 5 (“Assault / violence police case”) hits a little… Too hard haha. So suggestions and edits are very welcome!

Thanks for reading! Subscribe below to make sure you get each new article from MarketMaker. I also welcome comments, corrections, and feedback - connect directly with me on LinkedIn for that.