Results

I ran the due diligence process for 2 companies:

1. A marketplace for handyman services. Main questions: Competitive advantage over the many competitors and growth potential in their segment.
2. An on-demand fitness streaming platform. Main questions: Ability to create stickiness with the audience and scale recording operations.

We did not end up investing in these companies, so I cannot speak to any result beyond the trust I developed with the founders and the impact my analysis had on our decision. However, I learned a lot, including:

1. It's very hard to launch a marketplace, even harder to monetize.
2. Customer experience (through stickiness) and technology (through automation) are crucial to achieve growth and profitability.
3. One metric can make or break the model, so we must be data-driven: acquisition costs, supply/demand balance, commission and conversion rate, churn, etc.