Comment by CharlesW
4 years ago
> Its all very well having a vision, but executing it is a different question.
This also relates to the clickbait-y "I'm building an open-source Amazon" positioning, which I don't think serves you well.
You're building (I think) an e-commerce platform upon which someone can build online shops ("nano-Amazons"?). Where the "open-source Amazon" pitch is difficult to take seriously, I think there probably is space for new e-commerce platforms.
This is just one piece of the puzzle. I explained it in another comment:
> I think of it this way. Launching a marketplace today is very difficult, but what if we made the backend of a marketplace open-source and used that as leverage. One that could be your backend for all operations. You can choose to enable the integrated marketplace or not, but the system is yours. It’s about bringing power back to the sellers.
> This is just one piece of the puzzle.
Yes! That is the point, which is why over-selling this as an "open-source Amazon" will backfire spectacularly with anyone who understands what they're talking about.
It's important to know what you're building (from the POV of potential customers) and who your competitors are. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-ecomme...
Is my understanding correct that: The leverage comes from lowering the seller’s switching cost to go to/add another market place by intermediating the seller/market place relationship with open-ship. That way when you release the open marketplace open-front you can get easy discoverability and a very low switching/adding cost from an existing set of sellers?
You nailed it! Existing and future marketplaces would adapt to your system, not the other way around.