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We're sharing a recent post from the community by Mike Williams on our blog, which is a brief list of 10 tips for first-time marketplace founders. This was originally shared as a post in the community here.
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Hey all, I was having a chat with someone going through Marketplace School earlier and they were asking for more general advice on launching a marketplace based on past experience. I mentioned a few things, but specifically 10 things that I would tell myself as a first-time marketplace founder.

I wanted to note this is more quick advice that came to mind, but the following are 10 things I would go back to tell myself as a first-time marketplace founder:
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1. Operate with a unique insight
2. Don't skip through the idea validation stage & talking to users
3. Don't overbuild your MVP
4. Launch as soon as you can
5. Create transactions (value) by manually matching
6. Identify the "hard side" to solve for
7. Focus on getting to liquidity, since this is ultimately what matters
8. Find (or build) a distribution advantage from the beginning
9. Marketplaces are hard, so don't try to do it alone
10. Don't give up
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There are more things I would tell myself, but the above are some of the key things specific to building a marketplace. I’d be happy to expand on any of the above (i.e: like #2 being about understanding typical marketplace challenges, benefits, etc and using this as a basis for working through the idea stages). There's also lots of additional learnings for these, like with #6 the "hard side" usually being demand, #7 usually requires constraining, etc. I’d also love to hear from you all and maybe a few things you would go back to tell yourself before starting your marketplace in the replies below.
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You can connect with Mike to discuss this post in the Everything Marketplaces community here.