Two Businesses in a Trench Coat

A head of biz dev at B2B finance marketplace startup called me today, and started off with: “I’ve read your profile. We don’t have a pricing problem. Our pricing is good. We have a customer problem.” First off, helluva way to jump in. Props. Second, there’s a list of startup business models I’m inherently skeptical of. Two-sided marketplaces are right close to the top of that list. My skepticism isn’t that they don’t exist or can’t work. Just that, out of the gate, it’s massively resource intensive to build sufficient volume on both sides of with enough people ready to transact to demonstrate it works. I worked on a couple of these in the venture studio. One found lots of volume on the supply side but none on the demand side. The other never found enough volume on either side, but was able to execute one single transaction. Lynn Breedlove founded Homobiles in 2011. A nonprofit providing safe rides to San Francisco’s LGBT community – drag queens, transgender riders, and the people…