My Favorite Company Deep Dives of 2020

Hello everyone and happy new year! To kick it off, I gathered a few of my favorite business deep dives that I read over the last year.

From Around the Internet

[FVRR, UPWK] Freelance marketplaces (Paywall) | Scuttleblurb
If you don’t subscribe to Scuttleblurb, you should change that. I can’t recommend his writing enough. This post, on freelance marketplaces, discusses the two main marketplaces (Fiverr and Upwork), how they compare to incumbents and what to think of their lofty valuations. A sample: “Whereas Fiverr can spin up network effects atop a fixed base of technology, incumbent temp agencies run what is essentially a cost-plus model on commoditized labor inputs managed by staffing specialists, resulting in few scale economies. Consultants have a somewhat similar business model but a respected brand like McKinsey can at least charge a premium for specialized expertise and CYA validation.”

$1 trillion in equity: How Carta is set to unlock the private markets | Tribe Capital
An excellent deep dive into Carta, a company that provides cap table management software and other services related to a companies capital structure. One of their new products is CartaX, a marketplace providing private market secondary transactions. This article goes over how the company grew, how they built network effects, and their plans for CartaX.