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About this episode
Jonah Lind built Rotaly, a rental marketplace, in a country of two million people. In a small market, every bad experience reaches everyone by Friday.
We talk about why small markets reward trust over scale, the city that almost sank them and how they decided when to expand.
In this episode
0:00 Two million people
8:50 Trust over scale
19:30 The city that almost sank us
28:00 Three things to borrow
Three things to borrow
Treat every customer like a reference. In a small market, they are one.
Grow city by city. Rotaly only entered a new city once the last one ran without the founders.
Fix the worst experience first. One bad landlord did more damage than a hundred good ones did good.
Mentioned in the episode
AirAsia, from an airline to a super app.
Transcript
Leo: Jonah, what's different about a marketplace in a small country?
Jonah: Every bad experience reaches everyone by Friday.
Leo: Which city almost sank you?
Jonah: Our third one. We launched before we had enough landlords, and the first renters had nothing to choose from. Word spread fast.
Leo: How did you recover?
Jonah: We paused marketing for three months and only signed landlords. When we relaunched, people gave us a second chance because we'd been honest about the first one.
The guest
Jonah Lind
Founder, Rotaly
Jonah founded Rotaly, a rental marketplace in the Baltics.
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