This mega-essay by Lenny Rachitsky, former supply growth lead at Airbnb, synthesizes insights from 17 marketplace businesses, including Doordash and Etsy. Topics include how to drive supply and demand, growth levers, and maintaining quality.

Pared co-founder Dave Lu argues that not all marketplaces are created equal—and outlines the dimensions that influence marketplace success.

a16z’s Jeff Jordan (veteran marketplace operator and investor; former CEO of OpenTable and GM of eBay North America) and D’Arcy Coolican describe the opportunity to unbundle horizontal platforms into vertical marketplaces.

For all the emphasis placed on liquidity, there are few resources that delve into how to measure it. Julia Morrongiello of Point Nine Capital cuts to the chase.

A failed Uber request inspired Trusted CEO Anand Iyer to write this deep dive into a critical (but oft overlooked) metric: search to fill.

From licensing requirements to one’s Net Promoter Score, a16z partner Li Jin unspools eight factors to consider when building a managed marketplace in a regulated category.

The next wave of work opportunities will be in platforms that enable people to monetize their passions, predicts a16z’s Li Jin. Here’s how these marketplaces are treating individuality as a feature, not a bug.

As the founder and former CEO of TaskRabbit, Leah Solivan is intimately acquainted with the complexities of marketplace businesses, which she calls “the ultimate puzzle.” In this post, the entrepreneur-turned-VC (she’s now a general partner at Fuel Capital), describes how automation has transformed the building and scaling of marketplace businesses and streamlined the user experience.

Tech and media analyst Ben Thompson is perhaps best known for his digestible daily newsletter, the Stratechery. But he often goes long when unpacking the dynamics of various marketplace companies, including Airbnb and Uber. In this essay, he uses Amazon and Shopify to highlight the distinction between platforms and aggregators.

Bill Gurley, now an investor but former longtimeAmazon analyst, explores how internet marketplaces enhance productivity and efficiency, drawing on examples from Ebay, Uber, Upwork, Hipcamp, and Instawork.

a16z’s Jeff Jordan taps into his experience as the former SVP and general manager at eBay to explain why marketplaces need to nurture and manage “perfect competition” to thrive.

How Booking.com went from a scrappy pet project to a travel juggernaut, as told by the people that lived it.