Guide to Build a Chicken Without Eggs 🐣

Personal AI agents are coming. They’ll book our flights, reorder our groceries, and schedule our haircuts.

But there’s one problem:

Merchants have no tools to sell to AI agents — and customers won’t shop with agents if there’s nothing to buy.

Classic chicken-and-egg.

At Latinum Agentic Commerce, we’re building the middleware layer that lets AI agents transact directly with traditional businesses. But to get there, we need to crack the hardest part: the cold-start problem.

So we studied the real-world pioneers — to decode how they solved it:

Here’s what we learned.👇

🔹 1. Supply First — Only If You Solve a Real Pain

Most successful platforms didn’t start by chasing users.

They started by solving operational headaches for suppliers.

🪑 OpenTable gave restaurants software to manage tables.
✂️ Fresha gave salons free scheduling and POS.
🩺 Zocdoc made it easier for doctors to fill their calendars.

Give before you get.
Start with SaaS — build the marketplace later.

🔹 2. Fake the Inventory Until You Make It

No supply? No problem. Fake it.

🍽 DoorDash scraped menus before signing restaurants.
🛏 Booking.com listed hotels manually before onboarding.
🔧 Thumbtack filled out pro profiles from Yellow Pages.

Simulate liquidity.
Then convert it into the real thing.

🔹 3. Use Demand to Pull in Supply

Don’t pitch “cool software.”
Pitch customers, revenue, and traffic.

🩺 Zocdoc told doctors, “We already have patients looking for you.”
🚕 Uber paid drivers before riders existed.
🏨 Booking.com showed hotels live user searches.

Lead with value, not tech.

🔹 4. Start Hyper-Local

Every marketplace you know started small.

🚕 Uber: one city at a time.
🍽 OpenTable: restaurant by restaurant.
🏠 Thumbtack: ZIP code + service vertical.

Density wins.
Local trust = faster matches = real network effects.

🔹 5. Turn Supply Into a Growth Engine

The best supply-side users bring their own demand.

🎟 Eventbrite: organizers share their own events.
🧘 Mindbody: studios embed booking tools on their site.
🎓 Preply: tutors promote their own profiles.

Let your suppliers become your marketing team.

🔹 6. Build Trust Like Your Life Depends On It

No one transacts in a marketplace they don’t trust.

✅ Zocdoc: verified reviews, insurance filters.
✅ Booking.com: instant confirmation, cancellation.
✅ Fiverr: transparent ratings and seller videos.
✅ Uber: driver tracking, two-way reviews.

Trust isn’t a feature — it’s the product.

🔹 7. Monetize Later

Nobody wants to pay for something that doesn’t work yet.

💰 Uber, Zocdoc: subsidized one or both sides.
💰 Eventbrite, Fresha: charged only when money was made.
💰 Fiverr: took a cut, but only after the deal was closed.

Prove value. Then charge.

🔹 8. Design Like It’s a Product, Not Just a Platform

Product quality isn’t just UX polish — it’s growth strategy.

🧠 Booking.com mastered CRO: urgency tags, smart filters.
📲 Uber: magic UX — tap a button, car appears.
🧑‍🎨 Fiverr: freelancing as product cards.
🩺 Zocdoc: filter by insurance in seconds.

Design = retention → scale → supply → dominance.

🌀 The Cold-Start Flywheel

Here’s how the real winners lit the spark — and kept it burning:

1. Solve a real pain for supply
2. Simulate demand or inventory
3. Trigger real demand (SEO, promos, referrals)
4. Use demand to win supply
5. Add trust and frictionless onboarding
6. Focus deeply on one niche
7. Build viral loops from supply
8. Monetize only after delivering value

If you’re building in AI commerce, remember:

You don’t need both sides to start.
You just need the chicken 🐔 — the egg will follow. 🥚

If you want to dig dipper checkout the whole list of case studies..

📚 Essential Reads on Cold Start & Marketplaces

1. The Cold Start Problem — Andrew Chen

How platforms ignite network effects from zero.
Case studies: Uber, Tinder, Zoom.

2. Platform Revolution — Parker, Van Alstyne, Choudary

How marketplaces work: supply/demand balance, governance, monetization.

3. Blitzscaling — Reid Hoffman

Scaling fast once cold start is solved.
Focus: LinkedIn, Airbnb, Dropbox.

4. The Lean Marketplace — Makkonen & Gracia

Bootstrapping both sides of a marketplace.
Written by Sharetribe founders.

5. Hooked — Nir Eyal

Building habit-forming products.
Crucial for retention after activation.

6. Matchmakers — Evans & Schmalensee

Economic lens on platforms.
Cross-side network effects and pricing models.