Katie says Pantee has been running for the last ledger account year or so with just her and her sister as full-timers, supported by contractors. With a round of investment under their belts, Pantee is about to take on its first full-time employee. In either case, evaluate whether your current sourcing and manufacturing processes still function well at scale. “That was actually a really valuable part of the process for us—sitting down and saying, ‘Where do we want to be?
- Getting things done faster or more efficiently at scale can be made easier with tools designed to automate your workflow.
- Explore different marketing channels, such as social media, email marketing, and content marketing, to find what works best for your business.
- With a round of investment under their belts, Pantee is about to take on its first full-time employee.
- The better SEO your site has, the higher the site will rank in searches driving more traffic to your site organically.
What is a scaling strategy?
In SaaS, teams can spend years building, prototyping, designing and layering on slick features. While marketplace builders do this too, it should not be an early focus. Instead, top billing is bringing in more suppliers and establishing high standards of service.
PRODUCTS
Finally, establish clear metrics to track performance and identify areas for improvement. Scaling is about creating sustainable systems that allow your business to grow without you being involved in every detail. A scalable platform ensures that as your user base expands, your marketplace continues to run smoothly. Think of it as building a solid road that can handle increasing traffic rather than a quick pathway that cracks under pressure. For marketplaces with pronounced local network effects, suppliers and buyers have to be at the same how to scale a business quickly location for a transaction to happen. A restaurant in New York won’t benefit from Doordash acquiring customers in London.
Let’s get more productive
The median number of levers that the biggest marketplace companies relied on to kickstart supply growth was just TWO (and the average was 2.5). Though this isn’t necessarily true for everyone, the lesson here for most teams is to focus, focus, focus. Early on, you are more likely than not to find most of your success in a couple of levers. But after reaching the critical level of market penetration, the sheer size of your platform will make your business more defensible and more prepared for exponential growth.
How to scale your marketplace into new markets
Pre-seed startups might keep it short (2/3 pages maximum) yet we recommend seed and Series A+ startups to include 4/5 pages at least instead. Demonstrating in your business plan that not only team members but also experts are advising and/or sitting on your board is a strong selling point. The roadmap tells investors where you are going and how is product going to evolve in the future. You can either keep it high-level (e.g. your long-term strategy) or more detailed (e.g. the pipeline of the near-future product features).
And finally, maybe the most unique lever of supply growth I came across in this research came from Etsy.
Scaling costs money, and you might need to identify the right time to seek outside investment to see your plans through and keep your cash flow flowing. Matt scaled Hug Sleep while remaining with the same manufacturer in his home state of Wisconsin. In fact, a more local approach can help ease the stress that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on global supply chains. Pantee, for example, was originally inspired by creating underwear from thrifted t-shirts.
- Katie and her sister Amanda are the brains behind Pantee, a line of underwear and bras made exclusively from dead-stock t-shirts and t-shirt fabric.
- Scaling is all about optimizing your resources for long-term and constant growth.
- Sustainable growth means expanding your marketplace’s functionality, tweaking it to perform well under high load, and adapting it to your changing business processes and marketplace needs.
- That’s why you need to open more categories, penetrate new markets, and even go global if started locally.
- Remember, the marketplace landscape evolves, so continuous research and adaptation are key.
- Marketplaces often need to compete for commitment and mindshare among their sellers, as they have other options to go to market.
Start a marketplace today
To do away with any of that while scaling would defeat the purpose of trying to grow your business and impact. Nail down where your business is right now, as well as where you want your business to go. Use the resources below to get started and consider the next steps in scaling as you create your plan. Matt started Hug Sleep with an idea, a dream of entrepreneurship, and $2,500. The Hug Sleep is known as the blanket that hugs you back—a cozy, soothing experience based on the science of weighted blankets.
From Startup to Scale-up: Taking Your Marketplace to the Next Level When Scaling Marketplace Startups
- Social media and search engine ads were proven to be an effective way to acquire early demand for many startups, including Breather, Airbnb and GrubHub.
- Matt started Hug Sleep with an idea, a dream of entrepreneurship, and $2,500.
- For example, Spotify uses Google Cloud to manage its massive user base, scaling compute and storage resources automatically to support billions of daily music streams.
- Starting and scaling a business is one of the most rewarding yet challenging journeys an entrepreneur can undertake.
- AR, on the other hand, enhances the real-world environment by overlaying digital information.
- One area that can deliver outsized benefits is looking to improve the effectiveness of your product in driving growth.
- It is crucial, however, to ensure idiosyncrasies and nuances of new markets are always taken into consideration.
You can spread yourself too thin in many markets and niches, spend a fortune, and get nothing. At Thinslices, we’ve seen how https://www.bookstime.com/articles/how-to-scale-a-business thoughtful strategies and actionable steps can transform scaling from a daunting challenge into an opportunity for innovation and long-term success. With the insights and methodologies outlined in this guide, your product can not only meet today’s demands but also thrive in an ever-evolving digital landscape.