Having trouble with your startup? Gurus explain how to get it right

Starting a business and having troubles? ET invites early-stage entrepreneurs to ask their questions — anything from business development to scaling up — and we will get those answered by the experts.

GURU
Zishaan Hayath,
Founder, Toppr.com

Two-sided marketplaces are tough to build. But they offer a strong network effect as a moat. For Leverage, it makes sense to scale supply as you gradually build demand. Only focusing on one side while letting the other either spiral out or completely starve will create an inefficient user-experience.

Very high supply without enough demand will make your mentor community disinterested. Very low supply with ample demand will leave your students starved. I would keep supply slightly greater than demand, assuming that demand is more expensive to build in the initial phase. If supply is more expensive than demand, then I would keep demand slightly more than supply.

SEEKER
Akshay Chaturvedi
CEO, Leverage Edu

Leverage is a marketplace that uses AI to match students with mentors from across the world, for mentorship, college applications and job readiness.

How legit is it for us to build a curated marketplace, where supply will be built gradually consistent with demand growth versus one that evolves on its own? What is the better route?