I'm about to build my first marketplace, so what I'm about to say is simply my theory; but it is what I'm planning on doing myself. My short answer would be to build simultaneously. Here's my long answer: At the end of the day, it comes down to providing value for both parties. If one side feels as though they're getting less out of the transaction, they'll be your limiting factor. In my mind, it's like building a marketplace requires you to think about developing two products at a time, because you're serving two totally different value propositions. I'll use the example of a freelance marketplace because that's what I'm building. A question I often ask myself is: "How can I deliver 10x value to clients and freelancers?" I'm attempting to guarantee freelance work. So far my assumption is this: For freelancers, you let them join projects immediately. And you let multiple freelancers join the same project. In theory, this fixes the problem of inconsistent work which is a BIG problem. For clients, letting freelancers join immediately, should (if I can figure out the process) 1. Dramatically reduce the time to complete a project 2. Increase the quality of the output because you have multiple people iterating on the project. And from my experience, more iteration produces a higher quality product. So I'm trying to find a way to build a system that simultaneously produces 10x value for both parties. And in this case, it's allowing freelancers to join projects immediately without any pitching. I think this may be a little bit off topic talking about the value proposition side, but at the very least, balancing your propositions so that they deliver around the same value for both parties should make solving that "chicken and the egg" problem a little bit easier.

Hey Akshay, I'm back. And I found a great resource you'll definitely find valuable. This is exactly the article you need to read. It's 19 tactics to solve the chicken or the egg problem. https://www.nfx.com/post/19-mark... By the way, I did figure out what my other value proposition for clients is that's equally substantial to guaranteed freelance work. It's: Same day delivery on any size digital project. Meaning, if you want an entire app designed and developed in a day, we do that. And the goal is to get insanely big. Far bigger than any marketplace has dared to go. Society has tended to flourish when you dramatically reduce shipping speed, and I seriously think I can reduce both speed AND cost.