Etsy has come to dominate the handcrafted and vintage goods market by focusing on a niche market, leveraging network effects, prioritizing technological investments to win on ease of use. But after over 10 years of growth, how sustainable is the business model today? And as they continue to pursue growth, what costs are they willing to take?
Network Effects
Amazon Handmade: Not All Networks Can Be Stitched Together
In late 2015, experts declared Etsy dead as Amazon launched Handmade, it’s peer-to-peer marketplace for handmade products. And yet with all the factors in place to favor explosive growth, Handmade’s performance has been underwhelming at best. Where did Amazon miss the target?
IBETCHA Want Network Effects
Hobby games are booming and they're making the jump online in search of network effects.
China’s Taxi Wars: Winner-take-all or lose-lose for Uber and its rivals?
Rival taxi-hailing and ride-sharing apps are sustaining heavy losses in the battle for market share. Can a differentiated competitor win in the end?
Shut out: Can Meerkat win the mobile live streaming war?
In March, techies (myself included: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/why-meerkat-is-going-to-make-it/) went wild over a new kind of live streaming. A startup called Meerkat launched a mobile app that let users broadcast high quality live video to the world straight from their phones, using Twitter […]
SpotHero: Making city parking work better for you
SpotHero dramatically improves the self-parking experience for city drivers
Textbook Network Effects: How Instagram Achieved Instagrowth
Instagram is the textbook example of how a business initially attracts users in the absence of network effects and quickly grows by leveraging those network effects.
BzzAgent: An Effective Management of Network Effects
Mitigating negative effects of network congestion and a clever monetization of the network participants’ needs leads to a sustainable high-margin business.
Eventbrite: Transforming from a Ticketing Provider to an Event Discovery Platform
In less than 10 years Eventbrite has established itself as a major force in the ticketing industry. Longer term, the company’s ultimate goal is to become not just a technology provider for individual ticket sellers, but rather a robust discovery platform for consumers to find out what is happening in the world around them.
LOVE YOUR DOG, LIVE YOUR LIFE: ROVER.COM OFFERS PET PARENTS A PEACE OF MIND
Rover.com provides a dog Airbnb service that connects pet sitters and pet owners.