Workshop 2C - "Hierarchy of Marketplaces" with Sarah Tavel

​How do you build an enduring, profitable marketplace?

​In this presentation (which I published on my Medium), I lay out a framework that synthesizes my learnings, both as an investor at Benchmark, and as an operator at Pinterest. We start by talking about how to focus correctly when you kickstart a marketplace. Then what it takes to tip a market. And lastly, how to build dominant, “winner take most” value.

​Bio: Sarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark. Sarah invests in consumer businesses (particular focus on marketplaces & social), SaaS, and the future of work. Sarah led Benchmark's investment and currently sits on the boards of Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Rekki, and three additional unannounced companies. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners, where she led Greylock's investment in Sonder and Gixo (acq). Before Greylock, Sarah was the product lead for search, recommendations, machine vision, and pin quality at Pinterest. As one of the first 25 employees, her first order of business was to launch Pinterest internationally and close the Series C financing. Sarah then moved into product, becoming Pinterest’s founding PM for search and discovery, and launching Pinterest’s first search and recommendations features. She also led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hyper-growth. Sarah graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Philosophy. How do you build an enduring, profitable marketplace?