Surprise! It’s a Two-Sided bonus episode! Sjoerd sat down with Constantine Anastasakis, CEO of Dribbble, to discuss their transition from an online design community to a lead-generation marketplace.

The shift sparked a loud social-media backlash, but, as you’ll hear in the episode, the comments mostly missed what was actually happening on the platform.

We discuss:

• The pivot timeline and rationale: Constantine explains why the change occurred now and how it was introduced step-by-step to the community.
• Finding out who your power-users are and what they want: There were several assumptions, both internally and externally, about what Dribbble was, who it served, and who its power users were. But when Constantine had several conversations with uers, and combined the insights from there with the data, it became clear that agencies were the true power users, which helped shape the direction of the changes.
• The aftermath and the metrics: Despite the initial uproar online, the team soon realized that the loudest comments didn't come from the power users. In fact, within three months, the team saw the GMV triple.

All in all, a very thoughtful conversation, that offers several practical lessons on turning attention into reliable revenue, without breaking your community. A must-listen for anyone building a service marketplace!

**This is a one-off cross-promotional episode of our new podcast: Sharetribe Founder Stories.**
This new podcast features interviews with founders building successful online marketplaces with Sharetribe. Discover how founders identified opportunities, overcame challenges, and scaled their platforms—from their first transaction to millions in GMV. Each episode dives into both the strategies that worked and the mistakes that taught valuable lessons.

In this first episode, you can hear the story of Marcel Fairbairn and Gearsource.

GearSource is a marketplace that helps rental companies sell professional audio and event production equipment they no longer need. Marcel Fairbairn built the company in 2002, which makes GearSource one of the oldest online marketplaces still in operation, alongside giants like eBay and Amazon.

What you'll learn:

• How a self-funded founder built one of the oldest surviving marketplaces on the internet
• How Marcel identified an “invisible inventory problem” that became an idea for a marketplace business
• The critical "aha moment" when Marcel realized his 16-year-old business was actually a marketplace, and how that changed everything in Marcel's approach
• Why lowering commission rates accelerated growth and scalability
• The painful lessons from three platform migrations before finding stability with Sharetribe
• How to transition from a high-touch service model to an automated marketplace
• Marcel's unconventional strategy: "Be aggressive on growing revenue, conservative on growing expenses

In this solo episode, Sjoerd wraps up Season 3 of Two-Sided, summarizing key lessons from eight insightful conversations with leading marketplace investors. He highlights essential themes like leveraging network effects for defensibility, the power of starting small before scaling, succeeding in B2B marketplaces, and how AI is reshaping the future. A concise yet rich recap—don’t miss it!