Portfolio Log #005

The last two weeks have been less like running a portfolio and more like temporarily pretending I only have one product.

At the start of the month, Thomas put together a small Uneed community challenge: eight founders publicly committed to shipping something before September 30.

My promise was to launch a new product based on an idea from Uneed’s project-ideas channel.

That product is now live at placery.co.

So, by the narrowest possible definition, the challenge is already done. The more important part has only just started.

I paused almost everything for Placery

In the last log, Placery had appeared over a weekend as a slightly irresponsible detour: a small marketplace for newsletter sponsorships, based on an idea from Thomas.

Instead of returning to the rest of the portfolio, I pretty much paused everything and kept going.

Over the following two weeks I finished the product, worked through the less exciting operational details, and launched it. Newsletters can list their publication for free, advertisers can submit a brief, and I match the two by hand. Both sides approve the fit, price and date before anything is booked, then Placery handles the creative, payment, tracked link and payout.

The application is now complete enough to carry a sponsorship from the first introduction all the way through to the final report.

That is satisfying, but it is also the part I already knew how to do.

The marketplace problem arrived immediately

I have started cold outreach to the first batch of newsletter publishers and advertisers.

It is going surprisingly slowly.

I expected advertisers to care about which newsletters were already available. That is the inventory they would be paying to access, after all.

What I underestimated was how quickly newsletters would ask the mirror-image question: which advertisers are already there?

That happens even though listing is free, non-exclusive, and does not commit them to accepting a sponsorship. From my side, joining looks almost risk-free. From theirs, it still takes attention, trust and a little bit of work. “Free” does not mean “why not?” when the marketplace cannot yet show that the other side exists.

There is a useful lesson in that. I thought the early pitch to newsletters was mostly about removing friction: list once, keep editorial control, and let relevant sponsors come to you. But before that promise becomes interesting, I need enough demand to make it believable.

Next week is mostly outreach

The temptation, as always, is to react by building more. There are plenty of small improvements I could make to Placery, and working on them would feel productive.

But another feature will not answer the question that matters now: can I get enough good newsletters and advertisers into the same small network to create the first match?

So I am scaling up the outreach over the next week. More publishers, more advertisers, more conversations, and probably a few iterations on the pitch as I learn where each side hesitates.

Most of the rest of the portfolio will stay quiet while I find out. Grepture is the exception, because Grepture is always ongoing.

I've always avoided two-sided marketplaces, and the above is a reason why. However, I also think there is still a bit of a moat if you manage to get the demand going on both sides, especially in the times of AI.