Marketplace Mechanics #3 - Andrew Needham, HeadBox

Welcome to the third episode of Marketplace Mechanics, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of two-sided marketplaces and the people building them.

In this episode, I speak with Andrew Needham, a serial entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO of venue marketplace, HeadBox

Welcome to the third episode of Marketplace Mechanics, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of two-sided marketplaces and the people building them.

In this episode, I speak with Andrew Needham, a serial entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO of venue marketplace, HeadBox.

To subscribe to email updates for each episode, head to marketplacemechanics.com

Follow the show on Twitter @marketplacepod and follow James on Twitter @thejamesmcaulay

SHOW NOTES

1:55

Interview Begins - what is HeadBox?

2:49

What are the problems being solved by the HeadBox marketplace?

How did people book venues before HeadBox?

4:25

HeadBox Origin Story - where did the idea come from?

5:32

What did the first few days and weeks of HeadBox look like?

How did you get started?

9:25

Who were the first hires, and how did they acquire supply and demand?

11:10

After you had acquired your first 1000 venues - when did you switch on demand?

How did you decide which channel was best for your marketplace?

15:15

The importance of learning lessons about your customers yourself (the hard way) vs. offloading marketing to an agency

16:25

The importance of learning in startups

18:40

Manual processes behind the scenes (things that don't scale) when growing HeadBox

21:08

SaaS-enabled marketplace - what the hell is a SaaS-enabled Marketplace?

22:05

HeadBox as the first SaaS-Enabled Marketplace in the Venue Industry

24:40

Spinning the 'flywheel' of growth by solving problems for customers and suppliers in tandem

26:20

Where will HeadBox be 3 years from now? What does the future of booking a venue look like?

30:25
Andrew's advice to people starting or building two-sided marketplaces

34:09
Outro