Browse Case Studies

Events.com is a marketplace platform for events, founded by the co-founder of Active.com (The Active Network), which achieved significant scale and was acquired by Vista for $1.05 billion before selling divisions including to Global Payments for $1.2 billion. The founder brings extensive experience in the events and active lifestyle space, having also founded ActiveEurope.com and served as chairman of Triathlete Magazine.

A cleaning services marketplace that has achieved $1.2M ARR by scaling through a franchise model offering $35k franchise opportunities. The platform connects customers with cleaning service providers while enabling entrepreneurs to launch their own cleaning businesses through the franchise system.

Ayooh is a seafood ordering and delivery app founded by Ahmed Shalaby and launched in Alexandria, Egypt in January 2021. The startup targets the MENA region with a niche focus on seafood commerce. Limited traction data is publicly available, but the founder plans regional expansion.

Ask Experts Anything Marketplace is a two-sided marketplace connecting customers with experts. The platform has achieved significant scale with $1.5M in annual revenue, 20,000 paid experts, and 80 customers, backed by $5.5M in funding.

A marketplace platform connecting construction companies with equipment rental opportunities, enabling them to monetize idle equipment between jobs. The founder has grown the business to $100k/mo in revenue, demonstrating strong product-market fit in the construction equipment sector.

MeowTel is an Airbnb-style marketplace for cat sitting that shares profits with local shelters. Founded by Sanya Petkovich in August 2015 after she left a career in big tobacco, the platform had 50 registered sitters and 2-3 actual bookings three months after launch. The business is bootstrapped and focuses on building supply and demand equilibrium across its initial markets of San Diego, Richmond Virginia, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Brian Brushwood is an entertainer and content creator with over 400 Discovery Channel episodes, 1M+ YouTube subscribers, and multiple podcasts. Three years ago, he launched Scam Stuff (Modern Rogue Gear), an online store selling magic equipment, lockpicking sets, and bar culture products. The online store has become his highest revenue stream, complementing his diversified income from podcasts ($2,000/episode via Patreon), corporate speaking ($10,000+/gig), stage shows, and TV production work.

BiggerPockets is a freemium community marketplace for real estate investors founded by Joshua Dorkin in 2004. Starting as a personal forum to help himself learn real estate investing, Dorkin spent 3-5 years focused purely on building community before monetizing. The platform now has 390,000 members, over 10,000 paid subscribers at $9-$29/month, 1.2 million monthly unique visitors, and a podcast ranked #14 in business podcasts, generating well over $1.1 million in annual recurring revenue.

MyTime is a two-sided marketplace and SaaS platform connecting consumers with local service businesses. The company operates a marketplace that takes a 40% commission on new customer acquisitions, plus MyTime Scheduler, online booking software designed to help businesses acquire, book, and retain customers. The platform serves over 2.5 million nearby businesses with approximately 1 million monthly visitors.

Snap Wire is a marketplace platform that disrupts traditional stock photography by allowing photographers to submit images directly to branded photo challenges/requests rather than relying on keyword searches. Founded by Chad Newellen in July 2014, the platform takes a 30% commission on direct sales (photographers keep 70%) and 50% on library sales through partners like Getty Images and Corbis. By July 2014, the company was selling approximately 600 photos per month at an average price of $800 per image, generating roughly $40k in monthly revenue.

Bellhops is a tech-enabled marketplace connecting DIY movers with local, vetted college athletes who provide affordable moving and lifting help at $40/hour. Operating in 128 US cities with nearly 5,000 active service providers and processing 3,000-5,000 bookings weekly, the company has raised $8M+ in funding (including a $600K seed from Lampus Group and a $6M Series A led by Binary Capital).

Growth Geeks is a marketplace that connects businesses with pre-vetted marketers and growth hackers for hire on-demand, either part-time, full-time, or gig-based. Launched in private beta in January, the platform reached public launch about three months later and now does $55,000 in monthly recurring revenue with over $250,000 in total revenue since launch. The platform takes 25% commission on gigs, with contractors keeping 75%, and has grown to a 5-person team while being accepted into the Techstars Chicago accelerator program.

Lawn Starter is a two-sided marketplace that simplifies lawn care ordering for homeowners while providing backend infrastructure for local lawn care providers. Founded by 23-24 year old Ryan Farley (who left a $100k Capital One job) and Steve (who dropped out of Virginia Tech), the company reached over 2,000 customers across DC, Austin, and Orlando within ~2 years, generating ~$500k in annual revenue with $7.25M in funding.

Onboy is an on-demand food delivery app exclusively focused on the college market, founded by 20-year-old Anthony Zhang. The company has processed nearly 10,000 orders and generates just over $10k in monthly revenue with 45% month-over-month growth, powered by a 100% student delivery workforce and exclusive restaurant partnerships that allow deliveries in under 30 minutes. Anthony pitched Mark Cuban and got funded $100,000 on the spot, and is part of the 500 Startups batch in Mountain View.

Chad Whitman is a serial entrepreneur who first built Edranck Checker, a Facebook analytics tool that grew to $60K MRR before selling to Social Bakers for approximately $2.8M in 2014. He then co-founded Dolly, an on-demand moving marketplace that leverages pickup truck owners as a unique asset class, raising $1.7M seed and $8M Series A (valuation ~$50M range) by taking a 20% cut of jobs on the platform.

Tom Hunt is a 26-year-old founder who left his job at Accenture in 2015 to launch Virtual Valley, a marketplace connecting entrepreneurs with vetted virtual assistants from the Philippines. The platform charges a 20% markup on assistant salaries ($500-$1,000/month per assistant) and offers recruitment, payment escrow, and time-tracking software. Tom projects $7,000 MRR by February 2016 and aims to build to $15,000 MRR by year-end, with a long-term goal of selling the company for $4 million.

Vroom is an online used car retailer founded by Alon Block in August 2013 that sells cars directly to consumers, buys cars from consumers, and facilitates financing entirely online. By January 2016, just 2.5 years after launch, the combined business (which acquired Texas Direct Auto in late 2015) generated $900 million in revenue with approximately 500 employees, growing from essentially zero through operational excellence, software-driven reconditioning processes, and a focus on high-volume, efficient business model similar to Amazon and Costco.

Borrowell is a Canadian online marketplace lender connecting borrowers with lenders through a proprietary platform. Founded about a year before this interview (circa 2015), the company raised $5.4 million in seed funding and was approaching a significant Series A round. Their growth strategy centers on an innovative product-led approach using a rate-checker widget as their primary customer acquisition tool, exemplifying the "engineering is marketing" principle.

DealFlicks is a Priceline-style marketplace for discounted movie tickets, partnering with over 600 US theaters (including 13 of the top 50 chains) to sell empty seats at up to 60% off. Founded by Sean Wycliffe in late 2010, the company generates a ~$2.4M annual revenue run rate with 2x year-over-year growth, selling roughly 100,000 tickets and concession packages monthly at an average price of $15. Growth is driven primarily through SEO (people searching for movie deals), AdWords, and affiliate partnerships, with DealFlicks keeping 15-20% of transaction value while theaters capture the remainder.

SoundBetter is a two-person marketplace connecting self-producing musicians with freelance audio professionals (including Grammy winners) to help them complete professional-quality songs. As of June 2015, the company achieved an $800k annual run rate through a two-sided commission model: freelancers pay $4 per proposal and 5% of completed job value. Their primary growth driver is organic search traffic, bringing in approximately 30,000 unique monthly visitors searching for audio production services.