Here are 27 learnings I had from running a marketplace business for four years with over £220 million raised from 7 million transactions / donation from consumers. Learnings include product: easy to learn, easy to use, easy to share. Always put community & customer first & People always need people & people give to people 24 more learnings and tips

1. 27 Learnings From
Leading A Marketplace
Business
July 2020Danny Denhard 🔗 www.focus.business

2. Here are 27 learnings from 4 years &
£220m + in transactions from
7 million great & supportive people

3. User Tells Their Story
% of users would create a story and go
on to raise money for their friends, family
or community
Unlock More Stories
The more pick up and sharing that
happened the more stories created
Shares Story For Support
Shares story to their audience and
becomes the marketing for their
story and the service
Press Pick Up
If story is shared enough or sold into
press the story and service is pushed.
Stories Get Stories Loop
Marketplace Overview

4. People First

5. Always put community & customer first.
Always over the competition
but…
Always respect your enemy.
aka users
#1Learning

6. Always put community & customer first.
Always over competition
but…
Always respect your enemy.
Competitors will often have small wins and make you feel like you
need to worry about them more than you actually do.
Ensure you have a very strong and confident strategic plan and
roadmap. Be ruthless in knowing your own direction and drive
change in your market. Be the brand to own the market
#1Learning

7. People always need people
People give to people
#2Learning

8. People always need people
People give to people
In the 5 years working in the peer to peer Crowdfunding space, people turn to
people for help, (dunbar’s kin or ‘super family’ first) friends, family, community and
strangers to help them or those people closest to them.
Not pages or products
It is baked into our DNA, we crave
being part of a tribe, it is how we
survive. We need love & support
#2Learning

9. +There Are 3 Important Internet Identities
1 32
PUBLICPRIVATE SEMI PRIVATE
#3Learning

10. +There Are 3 Important Internet Identities
1 32
PUBLIC
The mass sharers, those who
understand the power of social
media & sharing information with
as many people as possible.
These public people will help
spread your product far and wide.
But if they have an issue you will
know about extremely quickly.
PRIVATE
There is a portion of internet
users who want to stay private,
share their information privately
and only to their nearest and
dearest. These are savvy users
but does not naturally increase
the reach of your product.
SEMI PRIVATE
The typical internet user, will offer as
much information they are comfortable
with however they have private social
media accounts, they want to share to
their friends and family and don’t have
huge following. If they have a good
experience - they will recommend you
to an extended circle.

11. +Know What To Focus Your People On
IMPORTANT
Educating all users is essential.
Understand what the updates (over notifications)
are and what the next actions are.
Educate & Inspire!
If you are not showing users what they should be
doing, now ➡ next & ➡ in the future you confuse
people & they will need help from customer
support & Product updates become an effort vs
reward vote and growth slows.
#4Learning

12. Product

13. Your Product has to be easy to learn
Easy to use
Easy to share
#5Learning

14. Your Product has to be easy to learn
Easy to use
Easy to share
You have to learn how to
use the product or you
won’t
Can’t use it, won’t use it, won’t hit the objective
Share with friends, family, strangers
Why?
#5Learning

15. Social networks & emails are filtered far more
than people realise
#6Learning

16. Social networks & emails are filtered far more
than people realise
Social networks hate external links, to gain visits you need to share a URL, private
messengers and groups best way to leverage or remove the algorithmic filtering.
Sending Emails to friends doesn’t feel very normal, we panic or we question if it
might be spam. If you send to a mass list Outlook and Gmail are very strict on this.
Sending the same copy and paste text seems easiest but rarely helps and often
results in filtering
#6Learning
Hint: use instant messengers, SMS & group chat to win

17. Product decay rate will kill you by a thousand
cuts
Product enhancements are vital
No innovation = silent market share loss
#7Learning

18. Target people at need state and action state
Need to do something Essential to take action ASAP
Product Use
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Test State Need State Action State
#8Learning

19. Target people at need state and action state
Need to do something Essential to take action ASAP
Product Use
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Test State Need State Action State
Focus your efforts here ⤵
#8Learning

20. Build for the early adopters,
Not
The everyday user
#9Learning

21. Build for the early adopters,
Not
The everyday user
Early adopters show everyday
users the way and the tools to
use
Everyday users need the right swarm of
users to show them the way forward,
otherwise you have a lot of test users and
onboarding & hand holding has to be
incredible.
#9Learning
Why?

22. +Bonus
Just remember with marketplace business your
users / community are your “free” marketing
channels.
Leverage this with them.

23. Strangers
Fundraiser
Family and
close friends
Colleagues
Friends of
friends
People with
same interests
Help Find
Your
Customers
“Dunbar
Number” Strangers
#10Learning

24. Strangers
Fundraiser
Family and
close friends
Colleagues
Friends of
friends
People with
same interests
Strangers
Help Find
Your
Customers
“Dunbar
Number”
1 - 17
1 - 5
1 - 10
Circles
# of
Supporters
1 - 100
1 - 1m
#10Learning

25. Identify your core strength and focus on moat
building
Brand was key, as was adding reactance
Extending your features, building relationships,
enhancing network effects
#11
Ensure users take control of their story & distribution
Learning

26. Marketing
PPC
SEO
Brand
PR
Press
Product &
Dev
Customer
Support
Customer
Success
Early Comms Lines
CRM
Data & Insight
Growth
#12Learning

27. Marketing
PPC
SEO
Brand
PR
Press
Product &
Dev
Customer
Support
Customer
Success
Maturing Comms Lines
Growth
Growth
Retention
Data & Insight #12Learning

28. Growth: Enable someone or create a small
group to concentrate on growth. Get them
thinking completely differently. Step back & out
to win
Think: Optimisations + Features + innovation + +
These people can rotate, it’s important you get fresh ideas & outside your market
#13Learning

29. Culture

30. Set up a crystal clear Focus metric
Set up clear action plans to get to your goals
Clear goals guide everyone
#14Learning

31. Set up a crystal clear Focus metric
Set up clear action plans to get to your goals
Clear goals guide everyone
North Stars are often difficult for everyone to know they can
influence directly
Focus metric = One core metric to focus all other metrics
#14Learning

32. Empowered caring people will empower users
#15Learning

33. Empowered caring people will empower users
A team that cares and genuinely wants to help will empower your
users and help guide your product team to build for your
community of users and their networks.
#15Learning

34. Watch the market everyday
Growth - Hyper Growth - Maturity
#16Learning

35. Watch the market everyday
Growth - Hyper Growth - Maturity - 2020
0
2.5
5
7.5
10
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Hyper Growth
M
aturity
2020🤷
Growth
#16Learning

36. Or 2020
Growth - Hyper Growth - Maturity - 2020
0
1.3
2.5
3.8
5
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Hyper Growth
M
aturity
2020
🤷
Growth
#16Learning
Discuss regularly,
review, communicate
and prioritise product
updates & pricing
regularly

37. Just one small issue or disagreement can be
HUGE & negatively impact you at growth stage
😔😔 😔
#17Learning

38. No team(s) silo’s
Update as one team against their own metric
they are targeted to move.
Roll up to the Focus metric
#18
Focus metric = One core metric to focus all other metrics
Learning
M M
MM
M
M
M
MM

39. Build an environment of sharing data, insights
and analysis.
Build a culture of internal coaching, teaching
and collaboration.
Build a business to identify and develop talent
& trusting your people and strategy
#19Learning

40. Strategy

41. Think: 5 Years
Plan: 3 Years
Action: 1 Year
Important for internal teams to
Focus around & strive for
Important for Product & Dev
Important for Product, Marketing,
Customer teams, & Growth
Strategy
& Revisit twice a year
#20Learning

42. A list of tactics is not strategy
Short term thinking hinders everything you
want to achieve
Start Tactical & You Won’t Break Out Of That Thinking Cross Functionally
Only looking at the short term will blind you
#21Learning

43. Build agreed principles that work for everyone
Stand Up Daily
Sit Down weekly
Principles are essential: Agree on comms, prioritisation, tools usage, updates flow
One master dashboard, not death by dashboard.
Anyone can create a report, the insights
and analysis are the actionable business changing elements.
#22Learning

44. Build agreed principles that work for everyone
Stand Up Daily
Sit Down weekly
Principles are essential: Agree on comms, prioritisation, tools usage,
updates flow
One master dashboard, not death by dashboard.
Anyone can create a report, the insights
and analysis are the actionable business changing elements.
#22Learning

45. You have to plan for the very best
And for the very worst
Raising money that solves a life changing problem
Raising money for an action that goes goal
When national tragedies hit
Bad actors are everywhere, especially when there is potential financial gain
#23Learning

46. Strangers want to help
Strangers just haven’t seen your story or hasn’t been able to connect with it yet
#24Learning

47. There will be milestones and key events that
will make and break you (teams and
performance)
#24Learning

48. Ripples
Ripples =
Seem large impact but are just
surges
Waves =
Momentum shifts
Vs Waves
#25Learning
Understand the waves and ride the first and control the second wave

49. Unpicking what exactly worked and why, is
extremely difficult, but
do everything you can to unpick & optimise!
& drive users towards it.
Communicate the importance
of these finding regularly
#26Learning

50. Find the winning daily and weekly metric and
optimise, optimise and optimise
Daily =
Shows your pulse
Weekly =
Shows your health
Monthly =
Too late to make
positive changes
& again.
#27Learning

51. +Bonus
Think of the upstart team / collective as a sports
team, one bad player can effective the squad.
One great addition can propel you.
Know when to coach, mentor & get out of the
way!

52. Always keep in mind
There will be one penny drop moment that
validates everything you are doing

53. 53
+Thank You From Focus
DANNY DENHARD
The world of work has lost its focus!
Focus was created to cut through the noise, cut through confusion and
ensure businesses focus on developing their organisations and
performance.
Get
FOUNDER
E: DANNY@FOCUS.BUSINESS
W: WWW.FOCUS.BUSINESS/MANIFESTO