Jason Bergman thinks most marketplace founders underestimate the power of sales.

Jason is a big sports fan and has always loved working in sales. Before founding MarketPryce, he ran his own sports agency where he tried acquiring customers by sending Instagram messages to almost three thousand professional athletes.

The success rate of the Instagram tactic was pretty terrible. But the experience paid off big time when Jason co-founded MarketPryce, a platform for athletes to find marketing deals. MarketPryce has matched thousands of brands and athletes together. For finding both sides, effective direct sales has been a core strategy.

In the latest episode of Two-Sided, Sjoerd talks with Jason about:

• How most marketplace founders still underestimate the power of direct sales
• How a change in regulation grew MarketPryce’s market one hundred times overnight
• How MarketPryce modeled its user experience after Tinder.

  
  

A fun episode, giving a glimpse inside a relatively early-stage marketplace growing very rapidly.