New York and Berlin: It’s a Wrap!
Hot off the presses, this is the 52nd edition of The Marketplace Snippet curated by Irene and Mathias on behalf of the Speedinvest Marketplaces & Consumer team 🔥
In this edition:
- A recap of our recent Marketplace Meetups in New York and Berlin
- Finding the product in your platform
- The truth on referral programs
- Encouraging news from our portfolio companies
More on these topics and additional thought-provoking discussions below.
If you’ve missed past newsletters or simply can’t get enough, catch up on recent editions here.
Marketplace Meetup: NYC & Berlin Recap
We are very happy to wrap up our New York and Berlin Meetups and to say that both were a great success!
A New York Recap…
On February 20th, we hosted our very first overseas Meetup in partnership with our friends at FJ Labs, welcoming 70+ marketplace founders, investors, and leaders from across the Big Apple for an afternoon of networking and best practice sharing on AI in marketplaces at the NYSE!
We would like to thank our amazing guest speakers Randi Zuckerberg (HUG 🤗 and Zuckerberg Media), Fabrice Grinda (FJ Labs) and Alexandra Cavoulacos (HUG), plus Mathias Ockenfels, Jeroen Arts and Katharine Spooner of our Marketplaces & Consumer team for sharing their in-depth knowledge and insights.
… and a Berlin One
Just a few days later, on February 29th, we had the pleasure of hosting the Berlin edition of our Marketplace Meetup, together with our long-term supporters from Globant at their new Berlin office. First of all, many thanks to all participants for finding their way to the meetup (from as far as Helsinki!) despite the public transportation strikes in Berlin –– you made our day! The Berlin meetup was all about monetization strategies for marketplace businesses.
Our Venture Partner, Sameer Singh, kicked things off with an impulse presentation on the topic of the day, followed by two panels showcasing hands-on examples from our amazing panelists: Benedikt Greinhofer (GotPhoto / fotograf.de), Diego Bestard (Urbanitae), Enno Einfeld (Tilta), Eyüp Akkurt (Stripe), Katharina Lüth (Raisin) and Michael Högemann (Magaloop). Many thanks again to all of them not only for sharing their valuable experience and insights but also for creating an engaging dialogue with the audience. Last but not least, our very own Irene Gentili and Jeroen Arts did a great job moderating the panels and leading us through the evening. .
If you loved these events or couldn't attend and can't wait for our Marketplace Conference in September, take note: The event will take place in Berlin at Cafe Moskau on September 24th. Tickets will be available on our website in the course of this week!
Insights From Marketplace Operators
Finding the product in your platform
In the age of platform hype, Sangeet Paul Choudary, Author, Researcher, and Founder of Platformation Labs, analyzes the risks of over-emphasizing platform thinking and the “platform-beats-all” narrative and how instead to embrace true ‘product thinking’ and find the product in our platform.
Vinted, Lightspeed and scaling internationally
In this episode of 20VC, Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Vinted, and Alex Taussig, General Partner at Lightspeed, discuss their long-standing partnership, opportunities in Europe and how Vinted has broken the “chicken and egg” problem of launching a marketplace in a new country.
On measuring (and optimizing) product market fit
Rahul Vohra, CEO of Superhuman, summarizes a product-market-fit-measuring methodology by Sean Ellis that he found useful in the very early days of his company and shows some practical examples on how to put it into practice.
How do your values change as your company scales up?
Kirill Bigai, Founder & CEO of Preply, discusses how tuning and articulating your values as your company grows is vital for your business and your company culture and shares insights on how he manages to still keep his 650+ staff members still involved in their development.
The key for driving demand in Marketplaces
Casey Winters, former CPO at Eventbrite, and Dan Hockenmaier, previously Partner at a16z and currently Head of Strategy and Analytics at Faire, deep dive on techniques to drive demand in marketplaces and explore one of the most potent and untapped demand acquisition channels: your own suppliers.
Insights From Marketplace Investors
Are referral programs any good?
Andrew Chen, General Partner at a16z, dives into on the pros and cons of incentives-driven user acquisition, drawing real life examples from his experience heading the early Uber’s $300M+/year referral program.
Letters to a Young Investors
Reid Hoffman of Greylock, prolific marketplace builder and investor, shares his thoughts on following your intuition, developing your own “theory of the game” and - sometimes - going against a colleague’s advice, a rationale that backed his investment in Airbnb and his rejection to Stripe.
A study on ACV Auctions and 11 learnings for B2B Marketplaces
Alexandre Dewez, Investor at Eurazeo, and André Libeaux, Investor at Talis Capital, share insights from their deep dive into US-based B2B Automotive Marketplace ACV Auctions and summarize key learnings from the company’s success in the public market, as well as their effective monetization strategy development.
State of Marketplaces 2024: An overview
Adevinta and Dealroom share their annual State of Marketplaces report. Take a look at what happened in the past year and the key takeaways to keep in mind for 2024, from top-funded verticals, to hyped business models, to the applications of AI.
To conclude: Some Speedinvest-branded insights on the go
Our own Mathias Ockenfels joins two episodes of Startup Insider this month, discussing European case studies on investment and exits, first on Cake and Deliveroo, together with Felix Klühr, Partner at HV Capital, and then on Everli and Bob W, together with Magnus Karnehm, Principal at Left Lane Capital (both in German).
News From Our Portfolio
Conversations with our founders:
- Lawrence Leuschner, Founder & CEO of TIER, joins this episode of Startup Insider, to discuss the rationale behind this strategic milestone for the two companies, the exciting aspects of this partnership and his vision for a sustainable urban future using micromobility (in German).
- Nicolas Heymann, Founder & CEO of Kittl, joins another episode of Startup Insider to discuss their recent successful $36M Series B round, how he manages the company culture and interesting strategic decisions including their HQ relocation to the US (in German).
Two rounds of celebrations:
- Congrats to Lapse for the closing of their $30M Series A round, led by Greylock and DST Global Partners, which will enable the team to continue building the ultimate authentic social experience for the new generation.
- Kudos to Inkitt for securing $37M in a Series C round led by Khosla Ventures to further strengthen its self-publishing platform using AI to develop and distribute bestsellers.
And some more news from our companies:
- London-based HomeCooks just launched their app: In ‘Netflix’ fashion it allows users to browse through all available dishes within seconds. If you’re based in the UK, give it a try and don’t forget to make use of their first-timer discount code!
- Amanda Maiwald, Founder & CEO of Berlin-based Complori, joins Florian Saul from stern in a video interview discussing the introduction of digital screens to young generations and how to get it right as a parent (German only).
New Investments in Marketplaces Around the Globe
With 28 deals announced, including Bending Spoons and our own Lapse and Inkitt, February 2024 marketplace deal activity is ramping up with respect to the start of the year.
Join Us!
We are always on the lookout for top-tier talent! Have a look at our open positions at Speedinvest and across our portfolio and check out our talent pool, an exclusive platform connecting top executives (like you?) with over 300 dynamic companies in our portfolio - join now to gain access to a pool of 1000+ open positions across various industries.
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