The Marketplace Library 📚
170+ books, blog posts, podcasts and videos on Marketplace Businesses
Marketplaces create enormous value for society. For consumers they increase choice, reduce prices and create a platform which acts as a portal of trust to other consumers or businesses around the world.
Investors love marketplaces as they (can) grow very efficiently and, once established, are highly defensible due to network effects. Marketplaces are also resilient, as demonstrated when their growth outpaced the rest of tech during the pandemic.
I have been operating and investing in marketplace businesses for the past 7 years. During that time I’ve kept an informal reading list of all the resources I’ve found useful. In an effort to give something back to the startup community I’ve spent time tagging and structuring all the resources into a database and now I’m sharing it with you.
At the time of writing it is 170+ books, podcasts, videos and blog posts from some of the best founders, investors, operators and academics in the world.
I’ve tagged them across various categories so whether you’re a Series A marketplace founder looking for resources on fundraising, an Investor trying to analyse a B2B marketplace or a product manager looking to solve a supply-side growth problem- you will be able to find the right resource quickly.
If you have any suggestions for additions please message me on twitter. If you find it useful then enter your email below to get similar content in the future.
🗺️ Library User Guide
In order to use the filters, it is recommended to use the Library on desktop (if anyone has another suggestion other than Airtable for structuring this, I’m all ears.)
If you’re looking to quickly navigate to content on a specific topic you can filter by the following criteria:
Date (some posts are undated by the original author)
Title
Author Name
Author Type - Founder, Investor, Operator, Academic, Journalist
Resource Type - Blog Post, Book, Podcast, Video, Media Article, Interview, Spreadsheet, Scorecard, Academic Paper, Tool, Free, Paid
Target Audience - Founders, Investors, Growth Teams, Product & Engineering Teams
Content - Getting Started, Demand Growth, Supply Growth, Pricing, Success Stories, Cautionary Tales, Quality Control, People, Marketplace Analysis, Product, Fundraising
Level - Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert
Alex’s Rating - 1-5 Star
A note on Level: depending on your background and area of expertise what could be beginner for you, is expert for someone else. This was based on my reflection as a Series C Stage Founder and Angel Investor.
A note on Alex’s Rating: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I’m sure you will not take my ratings as gospel, but it was simply based on how useful that particular resource was for me. Regardless of the rating level, there are no ‘bad’ or ‘useless’ resources on the list (in my opinion) - I left many out.
🏫 The Marketplace Library
If you tap the button below it will take you to the marketplace library 💫
Before you head there, I want to take a moment to thank all of the founders, investors, operators and thinkers who have taken the time to create the content for the library. The vast majority of the content they have created is completely free.
As that knowledge compounds with new founders, investors and operators I will continue to add resources to the Library and I’m confident that marketplaces will continue to grow in their contribution to society.
(I recommend browsing on desktop in order to use all the filters & search functionality)
🔰 Getting Started
If you’re new to learning about marketplaces, and find the library overwhelming, here’s my recommended top picks to kick off your marketplace knowledge:
Thank you to the 70 founders, investors and creators whose work made the Library possible: Anand Ayer, Andrew Chen, Andrei Brasoveanu, D’Arcy Coolican, Jeff Jordan, Anne-Lee Skates, Katie Baynes, Angela Tran, Arun Sundararajan, Bill Gurley, Boris Wertz, Borja Moreno de los Rios, Brad Stone, Brian Balfour, Brian Chesky, Casey Winters, Anne Lewandowski, Chris Dixon, Cristobal Garcia, Brandon Barros, Li Jin, David Evans, Richard Schmalansee, David Lu, David Sacks, Peter Flint, Dennis Schaal, Elad Gil, Ali Chait, Frank Chen, Geoffrey Parker, Marshall Van Alstyne, Sangeet Paul Choudary, Mathias Ockenfels, James Currier, Keith Rabois, Scott Cook, Scott Duke, Jason Calacanis, Nick Kokonas, Zach Coelius, Jonathan Golden, Josh Breinlinger, Juho Makkonen, Vincent Rosso, Julia Morrongiello, Julia Weinmayr, Leah Busque, Lenny Rachitsky, Linxin Wen, Madhavan Ramanujam, Manish Chandra, Max Mullen, Mike Williams (Yoroomie), Nabeel Hyatt, Sarah Tavel, Pawel Chudzinski, Payal Kadakia, Philip Specht, Alexandra Woodman, Robin Dechant, Sameer Singh, Sjoerd Handgraaf, Charles Adler, Sophie Adelman, Steve Sloane, Susan Su, Thomas Eisenmann, Scott Duke Kominers and Harry Stebbings.
Please message me with any other suggested additions to the Marketplace Library.