Product in Marketplaces done right: from how to deal with the "cold start", to how to organize the product team - With Cliff des Ligneris (GetYourGuide)
02/26/23 • 47 min
In this Reasonable Product Interview, I had the pleasure of having Cliff des Ligneris talk about 2 sided marketplace.
Cliff is Product Lead at GetYourGuide and has been running product at several marketplaces in the past including at Doodle, Car4You, and now at Get your Guide.
We spoke about two-sided Marketplaces and why they are hard to build, (the “cold start problem) - but also why they’re a great business once you’re in.
As Cliff said, there is not really you can do to make it easier, besides the fact that “sometimes you have to cheat. You have to find the chat code to create one so that the other side. Because you can’t do both at the same time, it’s just impossible”. Cliff also shared some concrete tips and experience doing this kind of “cheating” to bootstrap a marketplace against an established incumbent.
We went on discussing how to create the right team setup for a marketplace business, and why this will have to change over time anyway.
Finally, we spoke about being a PM in Europe vs in the US. In Europe, there are just fewer people to look at in terms of best practices, which requires PMs and aspiring PMs to be even more proactive in grabbing the skills and way of thinking that you need to be a great PM.
Cliff shared with us what he gives as “PM tools” to his new hires, and what he expects from them to get “up to speed”.
The most important piece of advice from Cliff to become a PM? “think twice before you you actually decide you want to be a PM, it’s hard!”
To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:
- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com
In this Reasonable Product Interview, I had the pleasure of having Cliff des Ligneris talk about 2 sided marketplace.
Cliff is Product Lead at GetYourGuide and has been running product at several marketplaces in the past including at Doodle, Car4You, and now at Get your Guide.
We spoke about two-sided Marketplaces and why they are hard to build, (the “cold start problem) - but also why they’re a great business once you’re in.
As Cliff said, there is not really you can do to make it easier, besides the fact that “sometimes you have to cheat. You have to find the chat code to create one so that the other side. Because you can’t do both at the same time, it’s just impossible”. Cliff also shared some concrete tips and experience doing this kind of “cheating” to bootstrap a marketplace against an established incumbent.
We went on discussing how to create the right team setup for a marketplace business, and why this will have to change over time anyway.
Finally, we spoke about being a PM in Europe vs in the US. In Europe, there are just fewer people to look at in terms of best practices, which requires PMs and aspiring PMs to be even more proactive in grabbing the skills and way of thinking that you need to be a great PM.
Cliff shared with us what he gives as “PM tools” to his new hires, and what he expects from them to get “up to speed”.
The most important piece of advice from Cliff to become a PM? “think twice before you you actually decide you want to be a PM, it’s hard!”
To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:
- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com
Previous Episode
Deep Dive: A Product & UX look into pricing - Netflix removes account sharing
Netflix has been historically very tolerant of a practice called “accounts sharing” practices, aka paying customers sharing their usernames and password with other users.
Good times are now over, and Netflix believes it’s now time that each user starts to pay his own subscriptions. This change has been recently communicated by the company and has been largely relayed by the press.
What is the impact of this move on the product, on the user experience, and on the economics? Does it actually make as sense as it may look at a first glance?
Was this change really thought off, or just rushed? Time will tell. In this podcast, we will see why this is much more than "enforcing" a legit usage question. And why it comes with huge implications on prices, "free to paid" conversion journey, customer segmentation, and UX.
In this podcast, I will try to go through the different implications of this move, based on my experience in the subscription businesses. To be clear, I do respect and share Netflix's willingness to monetize its users a lot. At the same time, I will argue that the path they’re taking seems somehow inspired by the rush and could have unexpected consequences on their own product positioning.
As a final note to product management practitioners: there is still too much attention spent on frameworks, delivery, and agile topics. Pricing is a core element of product that too often gets neglected.
To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:
- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com
Next Episode
A recruiter's view on the job market for product management: layoffs, salary negotiations and hiring tips - with Doug Bates (Intelligent People)
2023 seems to be a special year for the Tech job market. Layoffs made the headlines already in January, and several companies have followed this trend since. But is it really so? Is the tech market stuck? What does it take in 2023 to be a great Product leader, and to be noticed by recruiters? In this Podcast, I spoke with Doug Bates, director at Intelligent People, a boutique recruitment agency specializing in Product leadership positions.
Doug is optimistic about the current job market for product people, and he sees the same or higher number of job offers for the top candidates. Yet, product professionals have to know how to "sell themselves", with a recruiter receiving hundreds of CVs per day. We spoke about candidate employability, selling yourself as a product, and how negotiating your next salary.
Doug has plenty of great advice for hiring managers as well, to make the right hiring choices, and to business leaders and CEOs about the right moment to hire a CPO. We also discussed what is turning off the best product people in the market and how a solid product organization that reports to... product leaders is key to attracting talent.
You can find all the material that Doug mentioned in the Podcast here https://www.intelligentpeople.co.uk/
And you can contact Doug via email at [email protected]
To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:
- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com
Reasonable Product - Product in Marketplaces done right: from how to deal with the "cold start", to how to organize the product team - With Cliff des Ligneris (GetYourGuide)
Transcript
[00:00:00] Cliff:
Like you need to cheat somehow, like you need to find the cheat code to, to, to create one side that the other side will want to come to you because you can't do both at the same time. Like it's just impossible.
[00:00:15] Salva:
Hello, good morning to this reasonable interview today. I'm very happy because I've got Cliff with me. Cliff, good morning. Good morning, .
[00:00:23] Cliff:
How are you? Very good, thank you.
[00:00:26] Salva:
There is one
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