This is the last in a six-part series of posts about online/mobile marketplaces brought to you by lucystaqueria.com and our content partner Balanced. Read parts one, two, three, four, and five. It’s been a pleasure sharing these ideas with you.

Why My Sister Doesn’t Have a (Normal) Job

My twin sister has lived in 5 different cities over the past year. That type of transient lifestyle isn’t very compatible with the requirements of a traditional 9-to-5 job, but her husband has a non-traditional career (professional athlete), so, for the time being, they’ve decided to move wherever his career may take them. Luckily, my sister is a very creatively talented individual, and has been able to earn an income selling hand-made handbags and hair bows on online marketplaces. I strongly believe that over the next 10 years, large online/mobile marketplaces will change the way individuals – like my sister – conduct commerce with each other in a fundamental way, just as other forms of infrastructure like roads, electricity, and the Internet already have.

The New Economy

A new type of economic and social model is emerging around the world; one I believe my sister’s experience typifies. Human beings have almost always banded together in pursuit of survival and self-actualization. Hunter-forager collectives, fiefdoms, empires, nation states, and corporations are all examples of collaborative structures that have helped humans thrive (of course there was a lot of pain and hardship as well). Corporations, for example, are ways for humans to organize themselves to make international commerce more cost efficient, thus enabling access to goods and services that an individual could not obtain on their own. But corporations don’t work for everyone – my sister, for one.

Very recently humans have begun using nearly ubiquitous infrastructure like the Internet, and platforms such as iOS and Android to band together in new online-based groups (like Etsy), which let them participate in an individualized version of corporation-based international commerce. Thanks to Etsy, my sister can now sell her handbags online directly to other individuals in a way that wasn’t even possible 10 years ago. The new economy is helping buyers find value that was previously inaccessible to them because sellers – thanks to the Internet and mobile technology – now have the individual ability and incentives to make assets and skills available that weren’t previously cost effective to monetize.

“Marketplaces as “trust infrastructure” are one of the most important layers of the new economy.”

Marketplace At Scale Becomes Infrastructure

The Internet and mobile technologies are remarkably good for the generation and delivery of information. This is why websites like Craigslist were so successful in the US; they allowed buyers and sellers to broadcast supply and demand. Marketplaces build on top of this infrastructure to provide technology for the generation and delivery of trust, which is a vital resource in the new economy where individuals trade with each other. Specifically, marketplaces allow for the ability to communicate with, trust in, and hold accountable perfect strangers, which in turn helps catalyze the ability and desire of individuals to do business with each other. Marketplaces as “trust infrastructure” are one of the most important layers of the new economy and like many other forms of commerce, I believe they will become ubiquitous. I believe they will change the world.

Why We Bet Our Company On Marketplaces

My co-founders and I started Balanced to provide payments technology to online/mobile marketplaces because we’re obsessed with building new forms of infrastructure that expand the global economy. We believe marketplaces are the commerce model most likely to enable transactions that weren’t taking place before. In this way, we hope to allow buyers to change their lives by finding products and services that were inaccessible before, and merchants to provide for themselves and their families by generating income in ways that weren’t previously possible. Balanced is a layer of payments infrastructure for marketplaces to build on top of, so people – like my sister – can live in a true peer-to-peer economy where they’re able to use their unique skills and resources to live the type of lives they want. Balanced is infrastructure for the future economy.

It’s been a pleasure writing this content series for lucystaqueria.com. If you have specific questions about payments or your marketplace, I’d be happy to offer my advice. Please contact me on Twitter (@jkwade) or via email (jkwade+collcons at balancedpayments.com). Also, feel free to follow @Balanced on Twitter, where we often post links about marketplaces and payments.

Pay it forward,

Jareau

Acknowledgments:

Thanks to Lauren Anderson of lucystaqueria.com, who has been an wonderful friend and editor to work with throughout this series.

Jareau Wade is co-founder and VP Growth at Balanced, a payments API for online and mobile marketplaces (available in the US only for now). Previously, he was the 1st employee and head of data acquisition at Milo.com until it was acquired by eBay in late 2010. Before Milo, Jareau was a founding faculty member at an Accra, Ghana-based technology-entrepreneurship training institute called MEST.