Need help deciding what to do with a complete production grade marketplace that was built but never launched?
#Marketplace #Ecommerce #DjangoOscar #MedusaJS
Background
Hey there! At the beginning of 2023, I was really excited about a specific niche and decided to build a marketplace around it. After struggling with open-source e-commerce projects like Django-Oscar and Medusa JS, I realized it would be quicker to create my own system from scratch. I successfully built a marketplace with payment, logistics, warehousing, and order management, including a multi-vendor checkout, vendor dashboard, web app, and hybrid mobile app.
Situation
Unfortunately, personal events forced me to put the project on hold and I haven’t revisited it since. Now, I’m wondering what to do with this fully functional marketplace that’s just sitting there.
Options
1. Launch it as your own business
2. Sell it to someone who can benefit from it
3. Partner with another entrepreneur to bring it to life
4. Open-source it for the community to use and improve
What would you do if you were in my shoes? Let me know your thoughts! #Entrepreneurship #BusinessIdeas
Package it up as a boilerplate marketplace for a one-time price
Sell it to Amazon
Let’s see it.
Demo please
What kind of marketplace. If its not customized to specific industry theres still alot work to be done
Would you be open to customizing it for a specific use case and selling that?
What is the tech stack? Could it handle high volume micro transactions with cryptocurrency valuation?
Nobody will buy it . No payment integration. That’s a minus.
Too many market places already. Just like you people would rather build than buy.
Learn from the project and build something which is needed by people and are ready to pay for . not what you are excited about
White label the solution and charge a monthly subscription. Team up with various marketplace communities and build use cases around your target customers
What niche?
Time to think like a ceo. What industries can this product serve? Is it ideal for a small company or large enterprise? With those answers, look up those companies and those are your potential customers. Sell them the product as a SaaS.
Consider open-sourcing it or partnering with someone who can continue the project and bring it to market.
Following. Interested to see demo or GitHub repo if you open this up.Â
Interested to see a demo post that can make a mind to buy, DM.
I have some top domains… if they fit the profile, we could ‘partner’. DM to chat
I own a custom built marketplace and have also practically abandoned it. There’s no money to be made in marketplaces unless you’re getting funded by others who share the same fantasy that it’ll work or if you have millions to burn or go viral like Airbnb did due to the Superbowl being overbooked.
Most investors told me to make it profitable first. My competitors got millions in funding which they burned through and have as many listings as I have. The supply is ok but the real challenge is in the buyers of the niche. They ask a myriad of questions so I decided to make the platform for free. The fees do not really make it profitable and circumvention is super easy.
For now, my marketplace is more of a community service type of thing. I make money off ads which pay the hosting and the occasional repairs, but I’ve moved on. Thankfully the site rarely goes down and when anything wrong happens, it only costs me a hundred bucks to fix.
I would not recommend any form of marketplace to anyone. They’re incredibly difficult to balance out.
Open source it and put a donate link.
If it’s good and people run with it, you’ll make some money, not great money but some money, unless it really blows up.
Or try to peddle it to unwitting people using posts like this. Problem is technical people won’t adopt a code base they can’t really check out ahead of time. People who are not technical enough to know this will find it very tough to support a proprietary code base without the owner.
The truth is making a product / marketplace is only the start. Until you refine it to the point people are willing to pay you a million a year for it, it needs a lot of work to be really good.
You may think you are selling a production grade awesome marketplace but until it’s battle tested, it isn’t really worth much to anyone. Sorry.
If you want out – I would package it up and try to find a buyer.