The Harsh Truth About Building a Marketplace: You’re Not a Platform, You’re a Concierge
Most marketplace founders waste months building features before they have any transactions. The hard truth is that before liquidity, you’re not a platform — you’re a concierge. The only way to break the chicken-and-egg problem is to manually connect the first buyers and sellers, handle disputes, and even fake activity. The code can wait. The manual grind can’t.