20 VC: The Ultimate Guide To Marketplaces with Boris Wertz, Founding Partner @ Version One Ventures

Boris Wertz is one of the top tech early-stage investors in North America and the founding partner of Version One. He is also a board partner with Andreessen Horowitz . Before becoming an investor, Boris was the COO of AbeBooks.com which sold to Amazon in 2008 . He was responsible for marketing, business development, product, customer service and international operations – leading a team of 60 people. In 2005, he was named the Pacific Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year. A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Boris make his way into the wonderful world of VC? 2.) Why have we seen a mass re-emergence of the marketplace model now? 3.) What was the objective in writing Version One’s book, A Guide To Marketplaces? What did Boris feel the public needed to know that was not already known? 4.) For an entrepreneur looking to move into the marketplace sector, how can they select the right market, are there any essential components they must consider? 5.) The book discusses the benefits of both direct and indirect network effects for marketplaces but in the early days what should startups focus on; demand or supply? How should they go about addressing this element? 6.) What are the core required elements of scaling a marketplace? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Boris's Fave Book: Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz Boris's Fave Blog or Newsletter: AVC by Fred Wilson Boris's Most Recent Investment: Headout To check out The Two Minute Takeaway from today's show, click here! As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC , Harry and Boris on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! Free Ebook: How to boost your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) by over 100% Have you ever wished more of your website visitors would convert into a sale, signup or referral? If so, you need Loyalty Bay . With their saas conversion optimizer tool they increase any conversion metric by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards to get them to convert. They work with large enterprises like Virgin Media through to startups and have increased conversions on average by over 100%. Free 30 day trial at www.loyaltybay.co.uk