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Solving the Two-Sided Marketplace Puzzle: Lessons from Stasher’s Journey to Product-Market Fit

Building a two-sided marketplace is like playing chess on two boards at once. You have to win with both audiences — supply and demand — and keep the game balanced while you grow.

Jacob Wedderburn-Day, co-founder of Stasher, turned an offhand joke about charging to store people’s bags into an international network connecting travelers with vetted hotels and shops for secure short-term storage.

Along the way, he navigated the classic chicken-and-egg problem, pivoted his supply model, raised funding, and steered the company through the complete collapse of global travel during COVID — while launching a second venture in sustainability.

Lesson 1: Start with a Real, Relatable Problem

The best marketplace ideas don’t come from brainstorming in a vacuum — they come from noticing recurring friction in everyday life.

  • Stasher’s origin was personal: friends asking to leave luggage at a flat near major London train stations.

  • The “Airbnb for luggage” analogy made the concept immediately understandable to potential users and partners.

SaaS takeaway: Your positioning should solve a problem people can feel in seconds — and be explainable in one sentence.

Lesson 2: MVP First, Then Professionalize

Rather than over-engineer, Stasher launched with:

  • A basic site built on Sharetribe (a no-code marketplace builder).

  • Two initial “storage locations” — the founders’ own flats.

Only after proving demand did they invest in a custom platform.

Consulting insight: For B2B SaaS and marketplaces, the first iteration is about proving a working loop of acquisition, usage, and retention — not building every feature on your wishlist.

Lesson 3: Pivot Supply for Scalability

Early hosts were individuals, but that model had scaling issues:

  • Unpredictable availability.

  • Inconvenience for hosts.

Switching to hotels and retail shops created:

  • Reliable hours and security infrastructure.

  • Higher customer trust.

  • The ability for one host to serve hundreds of bookings a day.

SaaS parallel: Sometimes your early adopter supply isn’t your scalable supply — and pivoting can unlock growth.

Lesson 4: Two-Sided Marketplaces Need Asymmetric Tactics

The supply side (hotels, shops) had low urgency — extra income from storage was a nice-to-have, not core revenue. This meant:

  • Easier onboarding without immediate demand.

  • Time to build demand in parallel without losing partners.

Consulting takeaway: In marketplaces, target supply partners with low opportunity cost and high capacity to serve demand.

Lesson 5: Surviving an Industry Freeze

When COVID shut down travel, Stasher’s bookings evaporated. Their response:

  • Entered “hibernation mode” to preserve cash.

  • Leveraged government furlough support to retain talent.

  • Used downtime to reduce tech debt and strategize marketing.

  • Launched Treepoints, a B2B sustainability API, to keep the team engaged and create a secondary growth engine.

Founder insight: In a crisis that wipes out demand, preserving runway and morale matters more than short-term pivots that don’t align with your core model.

Lesson 6: Trust and Credibility Take Time

For storage, the trust hurdle was high — users were handing over physical belongings. Credibility built over time through:

  • Partnerships with recognized brands (Holiday Inn, hotel chains).

  • Insurance coverage.

  • Thousands of 5-star reviews.

SaaS takeaway: In high-trust categories (security, finance, health), brand partnerships and third-party validation can accelerate mainstream adoption.

Lesson 7: Don’t Underestimate the Marketing Challenge

Wedderburn-Day’s advice to founders:

“Most startups over-invest attention in the product and under-invest in the marketing engine.”

In Stasher’s early days, they could profitably run Google Ads because the category was uncontested. That’s rare — and founders must plan for competitive, noisy channels.

Consulting insight: Your go-to-market strategy should be tested as aggressively as your product — before you scale.

The Consulting Angle — What SaaS & Marketplace Founders Can Learn

Stasher’s growth playbook reinforces:

  1. Anchor your product in a clear, relatable pain point.

  2. Launch an MVP fast, then invest in custom build after proof.

  3. Be ready to pivot your supply side to scale.

  4. Balance two audiences with asymmetrical tactics.

  5. In a crisis, protect your runway and your team.

  6. Build trust deliberately over time.

  7. Treat marketing as a first-class growth lever, not an afterthought.