The Next 10 Years Will Be About “Market-Networks”

https://www.nfx.com/post/10-years-about-market-networks

by anacleto • 8 years ago

102 23 8 years ago

dfee• 8 years ago

I’m trying to differentiate “market network” from “marketplace” and I’m not clear that the distinction is adjacent but instead the latter is a type of the former.

The question then becomes: if presenting on this to an investor, how would another investor defend the difference as being more than just a repackaged term?

ddevjani• 8 years ago

Same here.

Seems like (someone correct me if I'm wrong) the "network" part is about how users can have profiles and use these profiles as their portfolio. So a network of people/ providers.

Also, the SaaS part seems just thrown in there, like ketchup on French food.

glenstein• 8 years ago

the "network" part is about how users can have profiles and use these profiles as their portfolio.

I'm not necessarily sold on their premise, but the network part is about types of fields where professionals are not interchangeable, so relationships, vetting, recommendations, professional cooperation are important dynamics.

hitekker• 8 years ago

The last time I heard this term used, was to obfuscate the value proposition is company that failed as a marketplace.

Looks like the one described in the article will be dying soon.

svp5552• 8 years ago

It's a network model, where the interactions carry $$ value.

Social network = connected nodes, each interaction is typically free (content)

Market network = connected nodes, each interaction typically involves payment

Marketplace = a forum for buyers and sellers (can be 2 sided, 3 sided etc..)

Market network = an N-sided marketplace (thus it looks like a network)

pietroglyph• 8 years ago

I think there's a lot of potential in targeting markets where service providers are not commodities, but the higher value and subjectivity of the services they provide creates a greater challenge. I think getting clients and service providers to trust these new market networks will be much more difficult than it is to trust the Ubers/Lyfts because of the higher value. (I think AirBnB is actually pretty close to a market-network.)

vm• 8 years ago

Mods - please update title to show that this is from 2015.

Author says Honeybook Series B was "last month" - it was Mar 2015 https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/honeybook

aetherson• 8 years ago

Heh. So if we're 3 years into "10 years that are about Market-Networks," how's that prediction aging?

TrainedMonkey• 8 years ago

How much are you willing to pay for that information?

Animats• 8 years ago

More than that, the title seems to be about 10 years out of date. We're already there.

yalogin• 8 years ago

Oh wow. Did not notice that. If it’s from 2015, Why would someone post this though?

Envec83• 8 years ago

It looks like HoneyBook pivoted from what is described in the article. Curious huh?

d6e• 8 years ago

Uber doesn't seem like a market since the "sellers" can't actually set the price of their service.

corwinstephen• 8 years ago

Yeahhhhhh I'm not so sure

simonebrunozzi• 8 years ago

The article is from 3 years ago.

It might be useful to know that since then, Honeybook raised a series C ($14M, compared to a $22M B round) in June 2016 [0].

I see this as not necessarily a good sign of the health of the company (no rounds for 2 years, and a smaller C round), but that's only a superficial opinion of course.

This is not to discredit NFX's article or thesis, but just an FYI on the specific company mentioned in the article.

[0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/honeybook#section-fu...

rs86• 8 years ago

Network effects... This is not an insight. This is basic economics.

sajacy• 8 years ago

Look - the next 10 years is all about card-circulators. It's actually a combination of two things: Cards, which present business metadata such as contact info and personalized notes, and a circulator, which efficiently organizes and presents the best contact for any particular job. We're branding it Rolodex, but really, there is a whole industry ready to break the mold of traditional B2B.

the users will need to adjust to new ways of organizing and sorting, but some power users already have proven the new model.

SamPatt• 8 years ago

Instead of having a bunch of proprietary, centralized markets for each service, why not create an open source, p2p protocol for trade and let anyone offer anything they want?

Rhetorical question. It's called OpenBazaar and it's already in use around the world. I work on it and I hope the original article is correct that there's tremendous value in market networks.

svp5552• 8 years ago

you sound like Dwight Schrute

jamisteven• 8 years ago

LMAO this is such a stretch, there will be no one stop "market-network", markets will exist alongside markets like they always have, nothing new here and why in the world would anyone invest in such a thing.

Dwolb• 8 years ago

There’s a lot that’s missing on the thesis that needs to be explored.

1) How repeatable is a market-network that the workflow can be standardized?

2) For repeat providers, how can you provide more value to stay than to disintermediate? Note by the nature of the examples these are all high value situations.

3) An argument why these work flows and discovery tools are any better than Google + email + a document suite

I like where it’s headed but we need to drill down a few more levels to understand value and pain points.

jeisc• 8 years ago

who owns the data collected on the groups in the circle?

Dowwie• 8 years ago

This is also known among larger circles as an "economy".

The Next 10 Years Will Be About “Market-Networks”

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