Etsy

Build Jungle Scout for second-tier marketplaces (Etsy, Poshmark, Airbnb)

Shaan's thesis: B-class marketplaces like Etsy, Poshmark, Mercari, and Airbnb have far less competition than Amazon. Build seller-tooling SaaS (à la Jungle Scout) on top of them, since the existing tools 'exist but they're not great.'

“So I'm really interested in the second tier or like what I'll call B-class marketplaces. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean it more like if you're in real estate, you're like, oh, do I buy an A, you know, A-class property, which is like it's a modern building, fully leased up, blah blah, or do you go for like an older thing that has upside, right?”

Steal thisFind a big marketplace where the third-party seller tools are weak, then build the 'Jungle Scout' for it.

Unbundle Etsy: spin out custom gifts as a Fiverr/Cameo-style marketplace

Shaan proposes taking one vertical of Etsy — custom gifts — and turning it into a standalone push-button marketplace like Fiverr or Cameo, then hijacking Etsy's search/Google traffic. Same playbook as people unbundling Craigslist and Reddit.

“So here's, that's the, that's the core idea is unbundle one of the verticals of Etsy. What I would do, I was looking at the, the categories, I would do custom gifts. So custom gifts is one of the top categories on Etsy and people go there because they wanna send a thoughtful, kind of like what looks like a homemade handmade gift to somebody”

Steal thisPick the single biggest vertical of a broad marketplace, rebuild just that as a focused product, and rank for its specific search terms.

Kids Etsy: a subscription marketplace where kids buy each other's crafts

Shaan pitches 'Kids Etsy': kids photograph the stuff they make to create listings, and buy each other's creations with tokens. Parents pay ~$15/month for tokens, so the buying is funny money, but kids get the dopamine of selling and the lesson of running a tiny store online.

“So every parent pays like $15 a month, that gives you like 5 tokens, and then you use a token to buy something that somebody else made, and then that kid gets excited.”

Steal thisMonetize the emotional payoff for parents (proud kid) via subscription while keeping the in-app economy as token-based funny money.

Native deodorant: natural in a stick, sold for $100M

Moiz Ali saw natural deodorant was a top seller on Etsy but sold messily in jars; he figured out how to deliver it in stick form for convenience and sold the business roughly 18 months later for $100 million.

“And he's like, look, people want— people want natural deodorant, but they want the convenience of the stick. If I could figure out how to put natural deodorant in a stick, I think I can make a business that works. And, uh, you know, 18 months later sells it for $100 million.”

The Native deodorant smell test: run a mile, sniff each other's armpits

Ali and his brother started Native by buying deodorants off Etsy, applying them under each armpit, running a mile, then sniffing each other's pits to find which one worked. Native was later sold to Procter & Gamble in a 9-figure deal.

“So we put some of the deodorant that we bought from Etsy under each of our armpits. We go run a mile and then we sniff each other's armpit to see, is this deodorant actually good? Highly scientific. It's totally unscientific, but also very effective.”

Steal thisValidate a physical product with the crudest possible real-world test before building any brand around it.