Ask HN: How do you solve cold start on a three-sided 3d printing marketplace?
2 comments
An idea that came to mind. Focus on makers with customers first, offering them a marketplace that intends to help them grow, by bringing designers who need them.
It's like bringing two working sides in and finding the third side to bootstrap.
It's like bringing two working sides in and finding the third side to bootstrap.
The model: designers upload files, nearby makers fulfill physical orders, shoppers get something printed and shipped locally.
The cold start problem is three-sided (no makers means no physical orders, no designers means no catalog, no shoppers means nobody joins the supply side).
For now, I'm recruiting makers first (I have a small existing community of printer owners from Patreon). But I'm curious how others have thought about how to approach this.
Did anyone here solve a multi-sided cold start without outside capital?