Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Inside Etsy’s product, growth, and marketplace evolution | Tim Holley (VP of Product)

September 3, 2023

AI Summary

5 min read

Tim Holley, Etsy's VP of Product, discusses the company's evolution from a consensus-driven culture to a faster, GMS-focused operation, key marketplace lessons from COVID-era growth, and principles for building buyer experiences around unique seller inventory.

Shift to Business Discipline

Etsy transitioned in 2017 under CEO Josh Silverman from lengthy debates and identity-tied passion to prioritizing gross merchandise sales (GMS) as the north star KPI. This clarity aided prioritization, with leaders repeating a consistent narrative on why changes mattered. An outside-in view benchmarked against competitors, recognizing buyers shop broadly despite Etsy's unique handmade items. Guiding principles like "dig deeper" for insights and "minimize waste" by killing low-value work supported lean execution in a small team of about 2,000.

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What you'll learn

1 *(00:00:37) **COVID Mask Surge and Marketplace Response**
2 *(00:04:43) **Tim Holley's Etsy Tenure and Values**
3 *(00:07:15) **2017 Transition to Business Discipline**
4 *(00:12:26) **Etsy's Guiding Principles**
5 *(00:18:46) **Marketplace Strategy: Supply-Demand Balance**
6 *(00:28:43) **Conversion and Experimentation Wins**
7 *(00:37:55) **Acquisition, Retention, and Brand Moats**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

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Tim Holley is VP of Product at Etsy where he leads the Etsy buyer experience. With a tenure spanning more than a decade, Tim has seen the company through many transitions (both in culture, in leadership, and in growth), and his team’s product changes have had a significant impact on buyer retention, conversion, and global expansion. In this episode, we discuss:

• Lessons from navigating corporate culture shifts

• How Etsy capitalized on the explosive growth of e-commerce during the pandemic

• Marketplace learnings: when to focus on supply vs. demand, optimizing conversion, and more

• How Etsy solves the “graduation problem”

• Tips for hiring product managers

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-etsys-product-growth-and-marketplace

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Where to find Tim Holley:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timholley/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Tim’s background

(04:23) Tim’s time away at SoulCycle and what led him back to Etsy

(06:34) Lessons from the 2017 culture shift at Etsy

(12:15) Etsy’s guiding principles

(13:32) How Etsy adapted to increased demand during the early days of mask mandates

(16:38) What Tim learned about managing stress with his team during the pandemic

(18:46) Lessons from building a thriving marketplace

(21:47) Prioritization at Etsy

(24:37) Supply constraint vs. demand constraint

(28:43) Conversion wins

(33:27) Experimentation at Etsy

(37:58) Acquisition and top-of-funnel tactics

(39:44) The seller referral program

(40:33) Etsy’s habit loop framework

(44:11) How they set themselves apart from other marketplaces

(51:23) Retaining sellers

(53:23) The defunct Etsy studio

(55:18) Running the product team

(57:20) Who the decision maker is

(1:01:20) What Tim looks for when hiring PMs

(1:03:03) A reflection exercise