Sinu

The principal disruptive power of the Internet is as a marketplace. Nothing is better for matching buyers and sellers than the Web. The most successful Internet companies - Google, Amazon, EBay – are all marketplaces, and landfills are littered with the plans for “Internet” businesses that didn’t recognize that power. I worked for one; an entertainment company that predicted that the Web would become a content channel, but failed to recognize what YouTube did when it created a marketplace for producers and watchers.

There is still enormous opportunity to develop Internet marketplaces that will disrupt traditional businesses. If I ran a VC firm, I’d be casting about for a company that could build a platform for the development of marketplaces – a tool to let anyone create a market. The needs are fairly simple: a simple UI that allows any buyer or seller to post, a trusted method for the transfer of funds, and a solid reputation system to keep people honest. It may be good to own the means of production, but the chance to own the marketplace is a 100-year storm.

-John C.