Many marketplaces started as side projects, and most began as something simpler: a list, a newsletter or a single listing. Remotive, the remote jobs board, started as a newsletter its founder wrote while working remotely at Buffer. Starting with one side of the market and adding the other later is the pattern that runs through this group.
In this guide
- At a glance
- The marketplace problem
- How a side project gets around it
- The stories in this group
- What to look for in these stories
- If you are building one
- More marketplace stories on the way
- Frequently asked questions
At a glance
| Marketplace | Started | Built alongside | Where it went |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remotive | 2014 | A remote job at Buffer | Founder went full time in 2017; built without outside funding |
Figures come from the full story, where each one is sourced. More marketplaces will be added to this table as their stories are published.
The marketplace problem
A marketplace only works when it has both sides: buyers and sellers, employers and job seekers, hosts and guests. Sellers will not list where there are no buyers, and buyers will not visit where there is nothing to buy. Every marketplace has to solve this at the start, and it is usually the hardest part of building one.
A funded startup can spend its way through the problem, paying to attract one side until the other follows. A founder working in the evenings cannot. That is why marketplaces that start as side projects tend to look different in their first years: smaller, slower and often not like a marketplace at all.
How a side project gets around it
Remotive, and many of the upcoming stories in this group, used one of three moves to avoid the cold start:
- Start with an audience. Build a newsletter, blog or list that one side of the market wants to read. Once there are readers, the other side has a reason to pay to reach them. Remotive followed this route.
- Be the first supplier. List your own product, room or service so the marketplace is never empty. Several of the upcoming stories in this group began with the founder as the only seller.
- Start in a small place. Serve one campus, one city or one niche well enough that both sides show up, then expand.
Each move suits a founder with limited hours, because it replaces money with time and focus.
The stories in this group
Remotive. Rodolphe Dutel is from Paris. Before Remotive he worked at Allianz, at Accenture and in sales at Google, and he liked side projects: blogs, newsletters, startup weekends, none of which took off. In 2014 he joined Buffer, a software company that worked entirely remotely, which was rare at the time. Friends kept asking him how he had landed a remote job and how they could do the same.
So he wrote about it. Remotive started as a blog post on Medium about working remotely and being productive. Readers signed up for updates, and once he had more than 400 subscribers he named the project and set up a website. The weekly newsletter shared the best articles on remote work and passed 5,000 subscribers in about three months. In early 2015 he added Remotive Jobs, a hand-picked list of remote startup jobs.
For about two years Remotive was strictly a side project. Dutel loved his job at Buffer and did not need Remotive to make money, so he kept it free and useful. He did not pay for ads; people shared it because it was clearly one person helping others, and he published spreadsheets of remote salaries and remote-friendly startups that spread widely. By early 2016 the newsletter reached more than 15,000 remote workers.
Between 2014 and 2016 Remotive made little money, from newsletter ads and job listings. In 2017 Dutel left Buffer to work on it full time, at first bringing in around $60,000 a year, and later moved the focus to the job board and services for companies hiring remotely. When the pandemic pushed millions of people to work from home in 2020, interest in remote jobs grew sharply. Read the full story: Remotive: The Remote Jobs Newsletter Started at Buffer.
What to look for in these stories
As this group grows, three questions are worth keeping in mind for each story.
Which side came first? Remotive built an audience of job seekers before it served employers. Other marketplaces started with sellers. The answer usually explains the business model that followed.
What did the founder do by hand? Early marketplaces are often run manually. Dutel picked jobs by hand for his list. Doing things that do not scale is easier when the marketplace is small, and it teaches the founder what to automate later.
When did it start to charge, and whom? Remotive’s early money came from newsletter ads and job listings paid for by companies, not from readers; a paid community came later. Most marketplaces charge the side that values access more, and the timing of that first charge is often the moment a side project becomes a business.
If you are building one
Remotive’s story suggests a few practical rules for a marketplace built in spare hours.
Start with content, not listings. Articles and a newsletter built Remotive’s audience long before the job board mattered. Content is cheap to produce in the evenings and gives the other side of the market a reason to arrive.
Use the job you already have. Dutel’s remote job made him the person his friends asked for advice. Your position in an industry is often the best source of both the idea and the first audience.
Publish data people want to share. The salary spreadsheets spread further than any promotion would have. Useful, original data is one of the few kinds of marketing that costs only time.
Let the side project stay small until it is ready. Because Dutel did not need Remotive to pay, he could keep it free and generous for two years. The goodwill that built became the foundation of the business.
More marketplace stories on the way
The 5 to 9 is adding marketplace stories every week. Coming next in this group are Airbnb, which began with air mattresses rented out to pay the rent; Plenty of Fish, Markus Frind’s side project while working as a programmer; eBay, whose first code Pierre Omidyar wrote as a hobby while employed; VRBO, started by an owner renting out his own ski condo; TaskRabbit, Leah Busque’s side project while working as an engineer; The Muse, a blog and newsletter started while its founders had consulting jobs; and AngelList, an investor email list that grew out of a blog.
All the stories published so far are listed below and on the All stories page.
Frequently asked questions
Which marketplaces started as side projects?
Among the stories covered here, Remotive began as a newsletter its founder wrote while employed at Buffer. Airbnb, Plenty of Fish, eBay, VRBO, TaskRabbit, The Muse and AngelList also started as side projects and will be covered in this group.
How do you start a marketplace without money?
The founders in this group used time instead of money: they built an audience first, became the first supplier themselves, or focused on one small market until both sides showed up. Remotive built a newsletter audience before its job board became the business.
Can a job board start as a newsletter?
Yes. Remotive did exactly that. A blog post and a weekly newsletter built the audience of remote workers, and a hand-picked jobs list followed in early 2015.
How did Remotive grow without paying for ads?
Through social media sharing, support from Buffer and its staff, goodwill towards a one-person side project and useful data such as remote salary spreadsheets, according to the full story.