Can Etsy Scale?
inc.com
Can Etsy Scale?
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#2Printer-friendly version: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110401/can-rob-kalin-scale-ets...
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#3Wait, what? Why the hell would anyone WANT Etsy to scale? Their brand is synonymous with the worst sort of tasteless kitsch known to man. What really needs to happen is someone needs to reboot the concept but include istockphoto.com's vetting process for potential vendors.
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#4Etsy has a huge UI challenge right now: as the volume of listings increase, it becomes harder to find things that I'm interested in. Even text search is quickly overwhelming, because it's hard to describe new and quirky objects that are Etsy's biggest draw (for me).
If Etsy could create a good "we see you've bought quirky post-industrial greeting cards, maybe you'd be interested in ____" function (much like Netflix, Amazon, etc) then it would be greatly improved. It's a much harder problem to sovle than Netflix and Amazon because many items are one-of-a-kind (nobody else bought exactly what you bought), but comparisons of trends across sellers, across keywords, and across image features might work.
Etsy has an experimental "pick the object you like most" feature that leads to some results, but it doesn't allow narrow enough focusing yet: http://tastetest.etsy.com/
Same for the "explorer" view: http://www.etsy.com/explorer
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#5Etsy really has the potential to become a major player in the micro-vendor market if it can take design considerations seriously - it may be at the vanguard of the industry at the moment but without actual design consideration for the future may be exactly the problem. I sometimes frequent the site and get the craigslist-this-will-probably-stay-the-same-forever feeling.
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#6Can a business ever just reach a natural size and say to themselves, "this is as large as we're going to get, we're profitable, having a good time, and everyone is happy."
I realize they have funding and thus a responsibility to maximize their investments, but I'd love to build a company that feels like it has a natural size.
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#7Can a business ever just reach a natural size and say to themselves, "this is as large as we're going to get, we're profitable, having a good time, and everyone is happy." I realize they have funding and thus a responsibility to maximize their investments, but I'd love to build a company that feels like it has a natural size.
That is one definition of a "lifestyle business" -- usually a boostrapped small company that reaches a peak that balances the founder's financial interests with his/her interest in free time.
Unfortunately, once you've taken VC money it's very hard to justify not scaling. They are looking for home runs, not bunt singles. If the company stops scaling because the founder doesn't want to scale any more, the founder will be quickly replaced as CEO. If the company stops scaling because the market is saturated, then some very hard conversations will follow.
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#8Can a business ever just reach a natural size and say to themselves, "this is as large as we're going to get, we're profitable, having a good time, and everyone is happy." I realize they have funding and thus a responsibility to maximize their investments, but I'd love to build a company that feels like it has a natural size.
Sure, but you will have to either self fund or find investors that share your vision. A lot of family businesses work like that, they grow to the extent they need to to support the family and then stop once they have reach a level of desired comfort.
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#9Ughhh, after the second pop-over ad I quit reading.
Re: Can Etsy Scale?
#10I learned last week that one of the founders of Etsy is Jared Tarbell, the excellent computational artist (http://complexification.net/gallery/, http://www.levitated.net/). He wasn't mentioned in the article though, I wonder why.