Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:55:43 · Lenny Rachitsky, Casey Winters
[00:55:43] S1: And maybe explain, like, what it was initially the SaaS tool versus the [00:55:46] S0: Oh, sure. So so OpenTable promised both a SaaS tool that would help you understand, like, what tables are open and where to seat people. So for, like, the host at the... In the front of the house in a restaurant, but also bring in additional reservations to fill up your restaurant. Right? Because I think what people misunderstand about restaurants is they're like, oh, these restaurants are these incredibly low margin businesses. And it's like, yeah, they are because they're paying the rent no matter what happens. So once you're already paying the rent no matter what happens, you're incentivized to pump as much food out the kitchen and to get as many people seated in house as possible. So people would say like, oh, Grubhub and DoorDash, you're charging too much. And it's like, no. Like, delivery orders and catering orders are basically pure margin to restaurants. The chefs are already there. The, you know, the rent is already being paid. The more things we pump out of the kitchen, the more money we make, which is why, you know, restaurants are willing to pay higher fees. Like, these restaurants are not stupid. They're not being, like, misinformed. Right? So OpenTable, well before there were any delivery startups, was like, we're gonna fill up your tables, we're gonna give you the software that helps you manage your tables most effectively to to make the most profit. [00:57:00] S1: Got it. Okay. Great. So keep going.
00:57:00 · Lenny Rachitsky, Casey Winters
[00:57:00] S1: Got it. Okay. Great. So keep going. [00:57:03] S0: So that's OpenTable. So look. This is definitely the strategy we are working on with Eventbrite, where we started with something that was more SaaS like, you know, enabling, easy payments and, you know, certain tools to make event creators' business more efficient. And we're layering in more of the traditional Marketplace value prop of demand, you know, driving more ticket sales for these event creators. And, you know, I would say it's got a ways to go to be working really well. And what does working really well look like? It's when the Marketplace model unlocks those cross site network effects that make it easier to grow. So, you know, event creators, when Eventbrite started, they would just go do their own marketing to bring people to Eventbrite to transact on their events that they had listed there. And now Eventbrite drives, you know, 25% of the ticket sales itself. And, you know, that percentage is growing faster. [00:57:51] S1: That's amazing.
00:57:51 · Lenny Rachitsky, Casey Winters
[00:57:51] S1: That's amazing. [00:57:52] S0: Yeah. It's growing faster than the rest of the business, which is great. But it probably needs to be closer to, like, 50% to unlock those real cross side network effects. And that would mean that creators start selecting Eventbrite because of all the demand Eventbrite has versus the quality, you know, of the SaaS tools. So that's obviously something we're working on. Faire is a company I advised more recently that I think has, unlocked this model in in, like, the reverse, where Faire is a wholesale marketplace between independent retailers and brands so that you could sell products at these retailers, like a, you know, a boutique, you know, in in your local neighborhood. So Faire built the marketplace first, and then it later built a SaaS tool that allowed the brands to onboard their current, you know, retailers into the platform and get better terms, on payments and and free returns. And it didn't charge anything to use the SaaS tool for any rebookings that happened through that platform. But what that did is it onboarded more independent retailers that they could cross sell to other brands without, you know, needing to use a sales team. And when they cross sold, of course, Faire did, you know, take their percentage on those transactions. So I I think that model has worked out really well, and and Faire has grown quite quickly.
00:59:05 · Lenny Rachitsky, Casey Winters
[00:59:05] S1: And so the examples you gave, Eventbrite was a SaaS tool trying to add a marketplace. Yep. Faire is an example of a marketplace adding a SaaS tool. And is the takeaway there that it's... In your experience, it's generally more... You're gonna have a better time if you're a marketplace adding a SaaS tool versus the other way around. [00:59:23] S0: Yeah. I think that's right. So I think, you know, I don't know when it was. It was maybe, like, 2015 or whatever. A bunch of investors started writing about SaaS to marketplace transitions, and, like, that's the transition Eventbrite's going through. It's going to work, but it's hard. And it's not replicable for a lot of other SaaS businesses. You need to have a direct relationship with your customer's customers, first off. Those customers need to have needs beyond that single supplier. Usually, it's like a discovery value prop, you know, for other suppliers. And you be... Need to build, like, this totally new skill set, to build tools for your customer's customer who is very different from your current customer. [01:00:02] S1: Whereas, [01:00:03] S0: you know, marketplaces that add a SaaS component, you know, as a customer acquisition tool like Faire or a workflow or retention tool to, you know, increase retention or reduce disintermediation, I think you'll see that be a lot more common approach and and much more replicable. [01:00:20] S1: Is this just rooted in the fact that marketplaces are incredibly hard no matter whether you start with them or whether you add them? Like, is that the root of the issue here?
01:00:20 · Lenny Rachitsky, Casey Winters
[01:00:20] S1: Is this just rooted in the fact that marketplaces are incredibly hard no matter whether you start with them or whether you add them? Like, is that the root of the issue here? [01:00:28] S0: I think that's a good way to frame it. It's... So if, you know, you're building a startup in 2023 and you're like, oh, I'm gonna build this SaaS business. And then five years later, I'm gonna build this Marketplace business on top of that, it's kind of like, it's gonna take a long time for you to derisk the hardest part of that strategy. Whereas if you get the hard part done upfront, it opens up a lot of amazing, you know, adjacencies, different ways to grow. So I think there's definitely truth in that statement. [01:00:53] S1: So kind of the takeaway here is if you're trying to add a marketplace, it's gonna be very hard. You shared a couple things of... A couple attributes that kind of tell you that maybe it might work. Maybe just share those again real quick.
01:01:06 · Casey Winters
[01:01:06] S0: So take Square or Substack or or Patreon or or, like, Eventbrite. Right? All of these are examples of SaaS businesses that, in providing the SaaS service, deal with the customer and the customer's customer. Right? That makes it a lot easier because you already have a relationship. They already know your brand. Whereas, like, Stripe, when we buy things, we don't know if we're buying it through Stripe. Right? Like, it's just a SaaS tool that's white labeled in the back end. We have no idea. So I think that's the first element. Right? There's a lot of businesses that look like that, but it is a subset of SaaS businesses that look like that. And then secondly, those customers that you're you're building a relationship with, they need to have a reason to transact with more than one of your current customers on the supply side. Right? So if you're always gonna use that same supplier, there's no need for me to show you the rest of the inventory. And, basically, all marketplaces win on, like we mentioned, selection and you needing selection. You know, there's... And then there's, of course, the marketplaces that win with, like, standardization of, like, I can get it at any time. It might be from different people, but I know that Uber car is gonna be there in five minutes or whatever. I don't care as much who the driver is. So one of those has to be there. And you just find in a lot of these examples, like, there isn't really that much of a discovery need for for, you know, who the demand side would be in this theoretical marketplace when you when you dig into it.