Building a marketplace is one of the hardest things you can do as a founder.
You are not just building a product — you are building two sides of a network: supply and demand. And if one side is missing, the whole system breaks.
I’ve been working on a project called Hizmetgo, an AI-powered service marketplace based in Turkey, and I wanted to share how we are approaching this problem from a different angle.
🚀 The Idea
Hizmetgo is designed to connect users with local service providers such as cleaners, electricians, movers, and more.
But instead of the classic marketplace model where payments flow through the platform, we use a lead-based monetization system.
Here’s how it works:
- Users create service requests
- Service providers browse these requests
- Providers pay to unlock contact details and connect with the customer
This model reduces friction, avoids complex payment flows, and allows us to scale faster.
⚙️ The Biggest Challenge
The biggest challenge in marketplaces is always the same:
“How do you get users without providers, and providers without users?”
Instead of trying to solve both at once with paid ads (which is expensive and unsustainable), we decided to focus heavily on SEO.
📈 Our Strategy: Programmatic SEO
We are building city-based and service-based landing pages to capture high-intent traffic.
For example, someone searching for cleaning services in Istanbul can land directly on a relevant page like this:
https://www.hizmetgo.app/hizmetler/temizlik/istanbul
This approach allows us to:
- Capture organic traffic from Google
- Match users with local providers instantly
- Scale without relying heavily on paid marketing
🧠 Why This Matters
Most marketplaces fail because they try to force growth with ads before building a strong organic foundation.
By focusing on SEO and structured landing pages, we are building a system that grows over time instead of burning money.
🔥 What We’re Working On Next
- Expanding to more cities and service categories
- Improving matching algorithms
- Increasing conversion rates for service providers
- Building trust and reputation systems
🤝 Looking for Feedback
If you have experience building marketplaces, scaling SEO, or working with lead-based monetization models, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
What would you do differently?
Thanks for reading 🙌
Top comments (0)