**This is a one-off cross-promotional episode of our new podcast: Sharetribe Founder Stories.**
This new podcast features interviews with founders building successful online marketplaces with Sharetribe. Discover how founders identified opportunities, overcame challenges, and scaled their platforms—from their first transaction to millions in GMV. Each episode dives into both the strategies that worked and the mistakes that taught valuable lessons.

In this first episode, you can hear the story of Marcel Fairbairn and Gearsource.

GearSource is a marketplace that helps rental companies sell professional audio and event production equipment they no longer need. Marcel Fairbairn built the company in 2002, which makes GearSource one of the oldest online marketplaces still in operation, alongside giants like eBay and Amazon.

What you'll learn:

• How a self-funded founder built one of the oldest surviving marketplaces on the internet
• How Marcel identified an “invisible inventory problem” that became an idea for a marketplace business
• The critical "aha moment" when Marcel realized his 16-year-old business was actually a marketplace, and how that changed everything in Marcel's approach
• Why lowering commission rates accelerated growth and scalability
• The painful lessons from three platform migrations before finding stability with Sharetribe
• How to transition from a high-touch service model to an automated marketplace
• Marcel's unconventional strategy: "Be aggressive on growing revenue, conservative on growing expenses

In this solo episode, Sjoerd wraps up Season 3 of Two-Sided, summarizing key lessons from eight insightful conversations with leading marketplace investors. He highlights essential themes like leveraging network effects for defensibility, the power of starting small before scaling, succeeding in B2B marketplaces, and how AI is reshaping the future. A concise yet rich recap—don’t miss it!

In this episode, we dive into the world of marketplaces with Pete Flint, co-founder of NFX, one of the leading venture firms specializing in network effects. Pete brings decades of marketplace experience, from the founding team at Lastminute.com to the creation of Trulia and its merger with Zillow. At NFX, Pete and his team have a unique perspective on how network effects drive defensibility in marketplace businesses.

Here are three highlights from the conversation:

• The Key to Defensibility: Pete explains why network effects are the best form of defensibility for marketplace businesses and how they make companies resilient over time.
• AI's Role in Marketplaces: Pete discusses how AI is both disrupting and enabling marketplaces, and why it’s creating entirely new marketplace models.
• The Best Advice for Marketplace Founders: Pete shares his top tips for aspiring founders, from identifying the hardest side of the marketplace to seizing opportunities during economic or regulatory change.

Tune in to hear Pete’s insights on building long-lasting, resilient marketplace businesses powered by network effects.