Speedrun Fireside: Cold start playbook - Marketplace for Rockstars
A candid conversation for founders who want clarity, not clichés.
This week’s guests:
Nikhil Bhat, Krithi Bhat and Pradeep Ramachandra — founders of GetReal (getreal.buzz)
Why we’re excited
Most founders think they want to build a marketplace.
Very few understand what that really means until they’re deep in the mess:
cold start
trust problems
cancellations + disputes
supply quality
demand that browses but doesn’t book
ops that quietly becomes the moat
GetReal’s mission is bold: become the “Uber for artists” — a seamless way to discover and book performers for real-world events.
They’re building in a category where trust is the product and ops is strategy.
If you’ve ever wondered:
how two-sided marketplaces actually get liquidity
what “trust” looks like in product terms (not vibes)
how you design payouts, pricing, and dispute resolution without killing conversion
what it takes to scale a local marketplace across cities
…this conversation will be worth your time.
The topic we’ll explore
How to build a two-sided marketplace when trust is the product
(aka: building a gig-economy platform in the real world, not on slides)
We’ll get into
The wedge: the first narrow use-case that unlocked momentum
Supply before demand: onboarding artists + maintaining quality at scale
Trust mechanics: verification, ratings, guarantees, and “what happens when it goes wrong”
Marketplace health: what they track to know if liquidity is real
Pricing + take rate: where money is made (and where it leaks)
Ops as moat: cancellations, disputes, refunds, last-minute chaos
Scaling cities: what changes when you expand beyond one pocket
(Context: GetReal positions itself as a platform to discover and book talent across event types, and highlights scale across artists/cities on its own pages.)
What to expect
No keynote. No hype. No “10 growth hacks.”
Honest founder stories + the unsexy realities (cold start, failures, constraints)
Practical takeaways you can apply this week
Live Q&A / AMA with Nikhil & Pradeep
A short wrap-up: “If we were starting again today, here’s what we’d do first.”
Who this is for
Founders building marketplaces, platforms, or communities
Anyone working on trust, payments, fulfillment, or ops-heavy products
Builders exploring the creator economy / gig economy beyond “content”
People who value real execution lessons over startup clichés
How it works
Register on Luma
Fill the quick verification form (sent by email)
If selected — you’ll get access to the event + community