This skill is tool-agnostic. It covers how to launch and grow a two-sided service marketplace — the cold-start problem, supply-vs-demand sequencing, supply recruiting channels, and the integrated one-page GTM plan you write before the first dollar moves.
Step 1 — Gather context
If references/learnings.md exists, read it first.
-
Where are you in the cold start?
- A) Idea / pre-launch — no supply, no demand
- B) Have some supply, no demand
- C) Have some demand, no supply
- D) Both sides exist locally but flywheel isn't spinning
- E) One geography works, expanding to a second
-
What's the marketplace? (cleaning, food delivery, courier, lawn care, mobile detailing, home services, pet care, other) — drives which supply-recruiting channels make sense
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What's your local labor market like? (loose / tight / dependent on a specific demographic)
- What's the geographic scope of the pilot? (single corridor / single neighborhood / city-wide / multi-city)
Skip-ahead rule: if the user's prompt already has these details, skip to Step 2.
Step 2 — Route or answer directly
| If the question is about... | Route to... |
|---|---|
| Door-to-door / territory / 60-second pitch design — DEMAND-side execution | /sales-field-sales [question] |
| Marketplace payouts — paying 1099 supply workers / sellers / drivers (Stripe Connect, Hyperwallet, Trolley, etc.) | /sales-marketplace-payouts [question] |
| Local SEO / Google Business Profile for inbound demand | /sales-seo [question] |
| Digital ads for demand acquisition | /sales-b2b-advertising [question] or /sales-retargeting [question] |
| Email cadences for demand (B2B side only) | /sales-cadence [question] |
| Referral programs for buyer growth | /sales-audience-growth [question] |
| Calling / coaching recorded in-person sales calls | /sales-siro [question] |
| Customer success / retention on the demand side | /sales-customer-success [question] |
If the question is genuinely about marketplace GTM strategy (cold-start, sequencing, supply-recruiting, integrated GTM plan), continue to Step 3.
Step 3 — Supply-side recruiting channel reference
Read references/platforms.md for per-channel notes on supply-side recruiting (Wonolo, Instawork, Bluecrew, Steady, Jobble, Workstream, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Craigslist, Snagajob, Veryable, Gigpro, Sharetribe). Each entry covers what it's best for, vertical fit, fee model, and W-2 vs 1099 implications.
Answer using only the relevant sections. Don't dump the full file.
Step 4 — Actionable guidance
The marketplace GTM playbook has four pillars. Work them in this order.
4.1 Cold-start sequencing — demand-first vs supply-first
The chicken-and-egg framing (Andrew Chen's Cold Start Problem, NFX's 19 tactics): your platform has no value until both sides are active, so you have to fake it on one side until the flywheel spins. The diagnostic question: which side is harder to acquire in your market? Whichever side is harder is usually the more valuable, and once you have enough of them, the other side becomes 2-10x easier.
For local service marketplaces (cleaning, lawn, courier, home services), the practical answer is almost always anchor demand first, then route supply against guaranteed volume. Why:
- A 1099 cleaner won't sign up for a marketplace with zero booked jobs — opportunity cost is real, and they have other gig options.
- A local SMB buyer (restaurant, gas station) doesn't care whether you're a marketplace or a small services company — they care that the bathroom gets cleaned at the right price. So buyer signup is decoupled from "is this a real platform yet."
- Once you have N anchored buyer contracts with predictable weekly volume, you can recruit supply by selling guaranteed hours: "I have 12 confirmed visits per week paying $40 each. Want 3 of them?"
Anchor-demand-first playbook:
- Close 3-5 buyer contracts manually with the founder doing every visit (use
/sales-field-salesfor the demand-side execution). - Lock weekly cadence — predictable hours are the supply-recruiting currency.
- Recruit your first 2-3 supply workers by selling those guaranteed hours, not "join our platform."
- Add one anchor buyer per week and one supply worker per anchor.
- When supply utilization hits ~70%, recruit ahead of the next anchor.
Counter-cases (when to seed supply first):
- Marketplace where supply is highly mobile and already gathered on existing platforms (Uber-style — drivers move between Uber/Lyft/DoorDash freely). Then aggregating supply gives demand a reason to switch.
- Marketplace where supply is the differentiator (e.g., "all our cleaners are background-checked + insured"). Then you have to certify supply before demand will trust you.
For local 1099 service marketplaces in unsexy verticals, the seed-supply-first case is rare. Default to anchor-demand-first.
4.2 Supply-side recruiting in tight local labor markets
Two things change everything:
Insight 1 — Every demand-side sales call is also a supply recruiting call.
When you're door-to-door at a gas station pitching cleaning services and the clerk says "I don't mind cleaning the bathrooms", that's not a rejection. That's a pre-qualified 1099 supply recruit:
- They've already done the work (so onboarding is fast)
- They know what good looks like in that specific environment
- They live within commuting distance of buyer demand
- They're available during the hours you need
Train the demand-side script to flip the objection: "Totally fair — would you ever want to do it on the side for cash? We have 3 spots opening up this month at $X/visit, all within a 10-min drive."
Capture clerk name + phone + days available even if the owner says no to the buyer side. Two pipelines from one knock.
Insight 2 — Channel selection depends on your local market and verticals.
Order of effectiveness (from research and field experience) for 1099 gig recruiting in tight labor markets:
| Channel | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Point-of-buyer-signup recruiting | Anywhere with a field-sales motion | Free. Highest fit. Use /sales-field-sales clerk-flip technique. |
| Existing-worker referrals | After you have 3-5 supply workers | Pay a flat referral bounty ($50-200). Highest retention. |
| Indeed | All verticals, mid-tight markets | Pay-per-application or sponsored. Workstream-style SMS-apply boosts conversion. |
| Craigslist | Tight labor markets, immigrant labor pools, blue-collar verticals | Cheap. Still high-volume in some metros. |
| ZipRecruiter | All verticals, especially restaurant + hospitality | Aggregates across boards. |
| Workstream | Hospitality / restaurant / multi-location, hourly | All-in-one hire + onboard + payroll. SMS-apply + Voice/Video AI screening. |
| Wonolo | When you need fill-in capacity, not core supply | 45% markup on worker pay. Mix of contractor + W-2. Best as a surge layer. |
| Instawork | Hospitality + light industrial day-of-shift fill | Mix of W-2 + 1099. Variable markup. Day-of-shift fill. |
| Bluecrew | Industrial / warehouse / light manufacturing | ~40% markup. W-2 only. |
| Steady | Worker-side gig discovery — post to reach side-hustlers | Worker-facing app, not employer-facing platform. |
| Jobble | Side-hustler audience, event staffing | Lower-friction posting. |
| Snagajob | Hourly retail + restaurant + hospitality | Large hourly-worker audience. |
| Veryable | Light industrial / warehouse on-demand | On-demand laborers, narrow verticals. |
| Gigpro | Restaurant gig staffing specifically | Vertical-specific, restaurant-only. |
See references/platforms.md for fuller notes.
4.3 Single-corridor / single-city pilot framework
Density beats sparseness. Run the pilot on the smallest viable footprint before expanding.
Pilot scope rules:
- One corridor (sub-2 mile walking corridor) for hyperlocal services like cleaning, courier, mobile detailing
- One neighborhood (3-5 mile radius) for home services like lawn care, pest control
- One city for delivery / pickup with vehicles
- Pilot runs 90 days minimum. Don't expand before then.
Pilot success criteria (set BEFORE you start — write them down):
- Demand: ≥10 active recurring buyers
- Supply: ≥3 active 1099 workers with ≥70% utilization
- Unit economics: contribution margin positive on each fulfilled visit (not blended, per-visit)
- Founder hours: ≤30/week on platform ops by day 90 (otherwise you can't expand)
Expansion gating:
- Only expand to a second corridor / city when the first hits ALL four criteria
- Expansion follows the same playbook — anchor demand first
- Don't go multi-city until you have 2-3 corridors humming in city #1
Andrew Chen's frame: build atomic networks first — small but functional in one place — then stack them.
4.4 One-page integrated GTM plan template
Before you start, write this. Update it monthly.
ONE-PAGE GTM PLAN — [marketplace name] [corridor / city / scope]
WHO (audiences):
- Demand: [target buyer persona — e.g. independent restaurant owners on Old Seward Hwy, 10-50 employees]
- Supply: [target worker persona — e.g. part-time 1099, 2-15 hrs/week, lives within 10 min of corridor]
WHY (problem framing in their words):
- Demand: "[verbatim language from buyer interviews]"
- Supply: "[verbatim language from worker interviews]"
OFFER (what the marketplace promises each side):
- Demand: [price + cadence + guarantee]
- Supply: [hours + pay + flexibility]
BRAND (positioning in 10 words):
- [a sentence the buyer / supplier / corner-grocery owner would all agree on]
DEMAND ACQUISITION (this 90 days):
- Primary channel: [/sales-field-sales corridor canvassing — N stops/week]
- Secondary: [local SEO, Google Business Profile, referral from anchor buyers]
- Target: [N new recurring buyers per week]
SUPPLY RECRUITING (this 90 days):
- Primary channel: [point-of-buyer-signup clerk-flip — N captures/week]
- Secondary: [Indeed + Workstream / Craigslist / referral bounty]
- Target: [N new active workers per week]
LOCAL VISIBILITY:
- Google Business Profile, Yelp, Nextdoor posts, corridor flyers, local sponsorship
- Goal: every corridor knock has heard the name before you arrive (within 60 days)
UNIT ECONOMICS PER VISIT:
- Revenue: $X
- Worker pay: $Y
- Platform fee / margin: $Z
- Contribution margin: $X - $Y - allocated COGS = $W
90-DAY MILESTONES:
- Day 30: [N buyers, N supply, $X revenue]
- Day 60: [N buyers, N supply, $X revenue]
- Day 90: [pilot success criteria hit — expand y/n]
WHAT KILLS THIS:
- [risk 1 — e.g. seasonality]
- [risk 2 — e.g. one anchor buyer churn = -40% revenue]
- [risk 3 — e.g. cleaner injury / insurance gap]
The plan fits on one page. If yours is three pages, you haven't decided yet.
If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.
Gotchas
Best-effort from research and field experience — marketplace dynamics vary by vertical; verify with current operators in your category.
- Seeding supply first in a local service marketplace usually fails. Supply has alternatives and won't sit idle. Anchor demand first, then sell guaranteed hours.
- "Both sides at the same time" is a fundraising answer, not an execution answer. Pick one. Default: anchor demand first for local services.
- The clerk-flip is the highest-fit supply channel and most founders ignore it. Train it into the demand-side script from day 1.
- Multi-city expansion before pilot success kills more marketplaces than slow growth does. Cap pilot scope, hit all four success criteria, then expand.
- W-2 vs 1099 classification matters from day 1. A 1099 misclassification lawsuit can wipe out 24 months of margin. If you control schedules, set pay, or supervise tasks, you're risking a W-2 classification — read your state's ABC test.
- Marketplace ad inventory looks like growth but burns margin. Don't pay for digital demand acquisition until your unit economics per visit are clean and you've hit corridor density.
Before recommending a specific platform skill
This skill covers a strategy domain across many platforms. Before pointing the user to any specific platform skill (any /sales-{platform} listed in ## Related skills), read that platform skill's actual SKILL.md first. The 1-line description in ## Related skills is enough to identify a candidate — not enough to commit to it or to write a prompt that invokes it well.
How to read it: if ~/.claude/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md exists locally, Read it. Otherwise WebFetch https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md.
After reading, ground your recommendation in something concrete from the SKILL.md (its scope, an argument-hint shape, or a "Do NOT use for..." clause). If the platform skill turns out to be a poor fit, swap to another or handle the question here directly.
Related skills
/sales-field-sales— Door-to-door / territory / route-based outbound — the DEMAND-side execution layer this skill coordinates with/sales-marketplace-payouts— Supply-side payment infrastructure — Stripe Connect / Hyperwallet / Trolley / etc. — the layer that pays the workers this skill recruits/sales-seo— Local SEO and Google Business Profile — drives inbound demand alongside outbound corridor canvassing/sales-audience-growth— Buyer-side referral programs and word-of-mouth growth/sales-customer-success— Retention on the demand side once anchored/sales-data-hygiene— Worker compliance records, classification audit trail/sales-outscraper— Local business scraping — corridor list source for demand acquisition/sales-do— Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install:npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code
Examples
Example 1: Cold-start sequencing decision
User says: "I'm launching a cleaning marketplace for restaurants. Should I sign cleaners first or restaurants first?"
Skill does: Recommends anchor-demand-first (restaurants are buyers, cleaners are supply — supply won't sit idle for a marketplace with zero booked jobs). Sequence: founder closes 3-5 restaurant contracts manually doing the visits, locks weekly cadence, then recruits 2-3 cleaners by selling the guaranteed hours. Routes the door-to-door restaurant closing to /sales-field-sales. References Andrew Chen's atomic network framing — build one corridor functional first.
Result: User stops trying to do both sides at once, runs the founder-as-cleaner playbook for first 4 weeks, recruits supply against booked demand.
Example 2: The clerk-flip supply insight
User says: "I keep losing restaurant pitches because the clerk says 'I don't mind cleaning the bathrooms.' How do I fix this?" Skill does: Reframes the objection as a supply-recruiting opportunity — the clerk is a pre-qualified 1099 candidate (already does the work, knows the environment, lives nearby, available during the hours you need). Provides the flip script ("Totally fair — would you ever want to do it on the side for cash?...") and tells the user to capture clerk name/phone/availability even when the buyer side is a no. Notes this is the highest-fit supply channel and most founders ignore it. Result: User trains the field reps to capture two pipelines per knock — buyer and worker.
Example 3: Single-corridor pilot framework
User says: "We have a cleaning marketplace working in one Anchorage neighborhood. When do we expand to Tucson?" Skill does: Lays out the four pilot success criteria (≥10 active recurring buyers, ≥3 supply workers ≥70% utilization, positive per-visit contribution margin, founder ≤30 hrs/week on ops). Recommends NOT expanding until ALL four hit, and gating multi-city expansion behind 2-3 corridors humming in city #1. References Andrew Chen's atomic network stacking — build the corridor model fully, then replicate. Result: User pauses Tucson plan, audits Anchorage against the four criteria, fixes the gap (likely founder hours or supply utilization).
Troubleshooting
Supply churn is killing the flywheel
Symptom: Recruited workers in week 1 and lost half by week 4 Cause: Recruited without guaranteed hours — workers had nothing to do and went back to other gigs Solution: Stop recruiting ahead of demand. Re-anchor by closing 2-3 more buyer contracts, then recruit against those specific guaranteed hours. Pay a flat retention bonus ($100-200) at the 30-day mark for the first cohort.
Founder is the bottleneck
Symptom: Demand is growing but you (the founder) are doing 60 hrs/week of operations Cause: You haven't built the worker hiring/onboarding system because you've been doing visits yourself Solution: Stop taking new buyer contracts for two weeks. Use that capacity to set up Workstream (or equivalent) for repeatable worker hire/onboard, and codify the visit SOP into a 10-minute checklist. Resume buyer acquisition only when you can onboard a new worker in under 4 hours of your time.
Multi-city expansion stalled
Symptom: City #1 works, city #2 has been "launching" for 4 months Cause: City #2 founder/operator doesn't have the field-sales motion locked, and you can't transplant a marketplace by ad spend Solution: Send the founder (you) to city #2 for 30 days. Run the corridor canvas yourself. Recruit the local operator from one of the first 5 buyer accounts (typically a clerk or office manager who liked the service). Don't hire a sales rep ahead of demand traction.