Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…Not a domain I will suggest I'm an expert in, really, really tricky stuff, but we've got to be beyond that. Yeah. Another I think problem that's sort of unique to Etsy, something that I think people call the graduation problem. Which is where you join Etsy, things start to grow, you become really successful. And then you're like, "Why am I paying Etsy all these fees? Why don't I just make my own website and just sell it directly, and not pay any fees?" And I think you guys went through that. And so if that's true, is there anything you've learned about just how to avoid getting people to want to leave? I think the core thought there is, our fees are generally low and highly competitive. So from that perspective, there's a reason to stay on Etsy. What we've seen and what we know, our sellers are really smart business people. And so if they can distribute their products through another channel, that might be their own website, another marketplace in person. Probably going to try to do that. They want to make more sales. Not all, but many of them are wired to want to grow their business. And so really understanding the role that we play in that construct of distribution channels to make it a little reductive is really helpful to understand. And to some degree, we want to be the place that not only they make sales on, but they love to sell on, because our tools are really catered to the needs that they have. So there is some degree of stickiness. I mentioned Teams earlier. There are places where sellers go to congregate, share ideas, share grievances in some cases, but ultimately support each other. And so there are reasons to stick around. I'm sure there certainly sellers who scale out of Etsy who realize, "I want to build my own website," to the example you cited. The reality is that's neither cheap nor fast. It's hard work. It's hard work to build, hard work to maintain, expensive to drive traffic to. And so that may be a part of the way they want to take their business, but oftentimes, Etsy still does play a role in how they're thinking, about where they make sales, and ultimately where they're going to see growth from.…

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