Firehose #194: ⚖️ Operating leverage. ⚖️

On Ecommerce and Marketplaces: Look for 1. Positive unit economics on the product, positive contribution margins on products sold. 2. Logistics: how long does it take to get to you? Will people pay for convenience. 3. Ability to browse as a human and connect, products that delight the customer, 4. Hooks the customer going forward, 5. The future is ... See more

Vertical service marketplaces can optimize around one or a few adjacent verticals, but the low frequency of most verticals (other than cleaning and lawn care) creates challenges.

The service is still valuable, and getting more so, but there aren't strong forces driving the expert networks to be much less fragmented than the people they connect their clients with. There are still advantages to scale, and of course the biggest network will be able to find more unique people to contact than the smaller ones, but the unique-tal... See more