Where to Find Your First Vendors (Before You Have Any Customers)

The chicken-and-egg problem of every new marketplace is real: customers want selection, vendors want customers. The way through it isn’t marketing spend — it’s finding the specific handful of vendors who’ll say yes before you have any traction to show them.

Vendors who are already underserved

Look for businesses currently paying a large commission to an existing aggregator, or turning away delivery/booking demand because they have no online presence at all. These vendors have the clearest incentive to try something new — they’re already losing money or business the way things are.

Local business associations and chambers of commerce

Most neighborhoods and small cities have some version of a local business association, a Main Street group, or a chamber of commerce. These groups exist specifically to help independent businesses find opportunities — and a hyper-local marketplace pitch is exactly the kind of thing they’ll pass along to members.

Neighborhood social groups and local subreddits

Local Facebook groups, neighborhood app threads, and city-specific subreddits are full of people recommending — and sometimes venting about — local businesses. These threads are a low-cost way to both spot underserved vendors and find your first handful of customers once vendors are on board.

Walk in

For a genuinely hyper-local marketplace, physically visiting shops in the target neighborhood still works better than almost anything else. A five-minute in-person conversation with a shop owner converts at a much higher rate than a cold email, and it lets you demo exactly what joining looks like on the spot.

Ask your first vendors for the next ones

Once you have 2–3 vendors signed on, ask them who else in the area they’d recommend. Vendors trust other vendors more than they trust an unfamiliar platform, and a warm introduction from a peer converts far better than outreach that starts cold every time.

Don’t wait for the “right” number

You don’t need 50 vendors to launch — you need enough that a customer opening the app sees real variety, not an empty shelf. Five to ten genuinely engaged vendors, each with real listings and real availability, will get you further than twenty who signed up and never finished onboarding.