I Built an Experiences Marketplace Five Years Before Airbnb Experiences

Marketplaces

Startup Lessons

India Startups

Tushky had the idea, the unit economics, and the inventory. It still failed. The reason wasn’t timing — it was confusing a transaction platform for a community.

Author

B. Talvinder

Published

April 2, 2026

In 2011, we built Tushky — a marketplace for local experiences in India. Cooking classes with home chefs. Heritage walks through old Mumbai. Photography workshops in the Western Ghats. Five years later, Airbnb launched Experiences and scaled the exact same model globally.

We had the idea first. We executed reasonably well. We still failed.

The reason wasn’t timing or capital or competition. It was something more fundamental: we optimized for transactions when we should have been building social infrastructure.

What we got right

Profitable unit economics on outbound marketing. We could acquire customers through Facebook ads and Google search profitably. Rs 200-300 customer acquisition cost, Rs 800-1200 average booking value, 15-20% take rate. Not venture scale, but sustainable.

Easy supplier onboarding. Experience providers could create a listing in under 10 minutes. No approval bottleneck. We had 150+ experiences listed within six months.

Unique inventory. A Parsi chef teaching dhansak in her South Mumbai apartment. A tabla master offering two-hour sessions in Dadar. A birding expert leading dawn walks in Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

The product worked. People booked. Providers got paid. Reviews were positive.

Transactions hit a wall at about 80-100 bookings per month.

We couldn’t break through. We added more experiences. We improved search. We ran more ads. We tried discounting. Nothing moved the number sustainably.

The diagnosis in our internal docs: “Repeat customers were not getting enough options and first timers wanted more options to decide from.”

That diagnosis was wrong.

What actually broke

The real problem was visible in how our experience providers talked about us.

We wanted to be seen as business partners. We positioned ourselves that way in pitch decks and partner communications. But providers saw us as a booking channel — one of several ways they got customers, not materially different from their own Facebook page or a listing on JustDial.

When we asked providers to promote Tushky to their existing customers, most didn’t. When we asked them to refer other providers, most didn’t. When we suggested they collaborate on multi-experience packages, almost none did.

They had no social capital invested in the platform. We were a lead source, not a community.

Compare that to what Airbnb built. They didn’t just launch a booking interface. They built host meetups. They created an online forum where hosts shared tips. They featured hosts in marketing materials with their stories, not just their listings. They built a brand that hosts were proud to be associated with.

Their CTO told me years later: “The product is not the website. It’s the final booking.” Meaning: the value isn’t in the interface, it’s the trust infrastructure that makes the transaction possible.

We built a website. They built social capital.

The numbers that should have told us

Our repeat booking rate: 12-15%
Our provider referral rate: <5%
Our provider-to-provider collaboration rate: 0%

Those aren’t marketplace metrics. Those are lead generation metrics.

A real marketplace creates network effects. Each new provider should make the platform more valuable to customers. Each new customer should make the platform more valuable to providers. We had linear growth at best.

We also made a strategic error on marketing. Outbound worked. We could buy traffic profitably. So we kept doing it. What we didn’t realize until too late: outbound marketing scales linearly with spend. Inbound marketing — SEO, word of mouth, community — scales exponentially but takes longer to build.

From our internal strategy doc in 2013: “Inbound marketing is the way to go. Build extremely loyal experience partner base. They will do word of mouth for you.”

We knew it. We wrote it down. We didn’t do it. Because outbound delivered this month’s numbers. Inbound required believing in next year’s numbers. We were optimizing for the wrong time horizon.

What I got wrong

I treated the chicken-and-egg problem as a supply problem. I thought: get enough experiences listed, and demand will follow. So we focused on making supplier onboarding frictionless.

That was backwards.

The constraint wasn’t the number of listings. It was the depth of engagement. We needed 20 customers who booked 5 times each, not 100 customers who booked once. We needed suppliers who saw Tushky as their primary channel, not one of five. Who would promote it to their customers. Who would collaborate with other suppliers. Who had reputational skin in the game.

That requires a different product. Not a listing interface. A community infrastructure.

We also underestimated the importance of curation and quality signaling. We made listing easy, which meant we had a quality variance problem. Some experiences were exceptional. Some were mediocre. Customers couldn’t tell the difference from the listing page. Airbnb solved this with detailed reviews, verified photos, and editorial featuring. We had basic star ratings.

The final mistake: we thought being first was an advantage. It’s not. Being first means you absorb all the market education cost. You teach customers that “experience marketplaces” exist. Then someone with more capital and better execution takes the market you created.

First-mover advantage is real in network-effect businesses only if you can build the network faster than competitors can copy the product. We couldn’t.

The test that matters

If you’re building a marketplace, here’s the question:

Are your suppliers investing social capital in your platform, or are they just using it as a lead source?

If it’s the latter, you don’t have a marketplace. You have a lead-gen business with marketplace unit economics. That’s not venture-scalable. It’s also not defensible.

The test is simple:

Do suppliers refer other suppliers?
Do suppliers promote your platform to their existing customers?
Do suppliers collaborate with each other through your platform?

If the answer to all three is no, you haven’t built the social infrastructure yet. You’ve built a directory.

We spent two years optimizing transaction flow when we should have been building community. By the time we realized it, we didn’t have the capital or the team energy to rebuild.

Airbnb had the capital. They also had something harder to replicate: they understood from day one that the product wasn’t the booking form. It was the trust system that made strangers willing to transact.

I still don’t know if we could have won even if we’d understood this earlier. The India market in 2011 wasn’t ready for experiential consumption at scale. Airbnb launched Experiences in 2016 into a global market that had already been trained by Airbnb Stays.

But I know we lost for the wrong reasons. We lost because we optimized for the transaction when we should have been building the social capital that makes transactions possible at scale.

The question I’m still working through: how do you build social capital infrastructure before you have transaction volume? Community requires critical mass. But you can’t get to critical mass without community.

That’s the real chicken-and-egg problem. Not supply and demand. Trust and scale.

--- title: "I Built an Experiences Marketplace Five Years Before Airbnb Experiences" description: "Tushky had the idea, the unit economics, and the inventory. It still failed. The reason wasn't timing — it was confusing a transaction platform for a community." date: 2026-04-02 categories: [Marketplaces, Startup Lessons, India Startups] draft: false --- In 2011, we built Tushky — a marketplace for local experiences in India. Cooking classes with home chefs. Heritage walks through old Mumbai. Photography workshops in the Western Ghats. Five years later, Airbnb launched Experiences and scaled the exact same model globally. We had the idea first. We executed reasonably well. We still failed. The reason wasn't timing or capital or competition. It was something more fundamental: we optimized for transactions when we should have been building social infrastructure. ## The Social Capital Gap Most marketplace failures are diagnosed as "chicken-and-egg problems" — you need supply to attract demand, you need demand to attract supply. That's true but useless. It's like saying you failed because you ran out of money. The question is *why* you couldn't solve the bootstrap problem when others did. The answer is what I call the **Social Capital Gap** — the difference between a transactional platform and a community with economic infrastructure built on top. Airbnb Experiences closed that gap. We didn't. Not because we didn't understand marketplaces, but because we treated the wrong thing as the product. ## What we got right **Profitable unit economics on outbound marketing.** We could acquire customers through Facebook ads and Google search profitably. Rs 200-300 customer acquisition cost, Rs 800-1200 average booking value, 15-20% take rate. Not venture scale, but sustainable. **Easy supplier onboarding.** Experience providers could create a listing in under 10 minutes. No approval bottleneck. We had 150+ experiences listed within six months. **Unique inventory.** A Parsi chef teaching dhansak in her South Mumbai apartment. A tabla master offering two-hour sessions in Dadar. A birding expert leading dawn walks in Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The product worked. People booked. Providers got paid. Reviews were positive. Transactions hit a wall at about 80-100 bookings per month. We couldn't break through. We added more experiences. We improved search. We ran more ads. We tried discounting. Nothing moved the number sustainably. The diagnosis in our internal docs: "Repeat customers were not getting enough options and first timers wanted more options to decide from." That diagnosis was wrong. ## What actually broke The real problem was visible in how our experience providers talked about us. We wanted to be seen as business partners. We positioned ourselves that way in pitch decks and partner communications. But providers saw us as a booking channel — one of several ways they got customers, not materially different from their own Facebook page or a listing on JustDial. When we asked providers to promote Tushky to their existing customers, most didn't. When we asked them to refer other providers, most didn't. When we suggested they collaborate on multi-experience packages, almost none did. They had no social capital invested in the platform. We were a lead source, not a community. Compare that to what Airbnb built. They didn't just launch a booking interface. They built host meetups. They created an online forum where hosts shared tips. They featured hosts in marketing materials with their stories, not just their listings. They built a brand that hosts were proud to be associated with. Their CTO told me years later: "The product is not the website. It's the final booking." Meaning: the value isn't in the interface, it's the trust infrastructure that makes the transaction possible. We built a website. They built social capital. ## The numbers that should have told us - Our repeat booking rate: 12-15% - Our provider referral rate: <5% - Our provider-to-provider collaboration rate: 0% Those aren't marketplace metrics. Those are lead generation metrics. A real marketplace creates network effects. Each new provider should make the platform more valuable to customers. Each new customer should make the platform more valuable to providers. We had linear growth at best. We also made a strategic error on marketing. Outbound worked. We could buy traffic profitably. So we kept doing it. What we didn't realize until too late: outbound marketing scales linearly with spend. Inbound marketing — SEO, word of mouth, community — scales exponentially but takes longer to build. From our internal strategy doc in 2013: "Inbound marketing is the way to go. Build extremely loyal experience partner base. They will do word of mouth for you." We knew it. We wrote it down. We didn't do it. Because outbound delivered this month's numbers. Inbound required believing in next year's numbers. We were optimizing for the wrong time horizon. ## What I got wrong I treated the chicken-and-egg problem as a supply problem. I thought: get enough experiences listed, and demand will follow. So we focused on making supplier onboarding frictionless. That was backwards. The constraint wasn't the number of listings. It was the depth of engagement. We needed 20 customers who booked 5 times each, not 100 customers who booked once. We needed suppliers who saw Tushky as their primary channel, not one of five. Who would promote it to their customers. Who would collaborate with other suppliers. Who had reputational skin in the game. That requires a different product. Not a listing interface. A community infrastructure. We also underestimated the importance of curation and quality signaling. We made listing easy, which meant we had a quality variance problem. Some experiences were exceptional. Some were mediocre. Customers couldn't tell the difference from the listing page. Airbnb solved this with detailed reviews, verified photos, and editorial featuring. We had basic star ratings. The final mistake: we thought being first was an advantage. It's not. Being first means you absorb all the market education cost. You teach customers that "experience marketplaces" exist. Then someone with more capital and better execution takes the market you created. First-mover advantage is real in network-effect businesses only if you can build the network faster than competitors can copy the product. We couldn't. ## The test that matters If you're building a marketplace, here's the question: **Are your suppliers investing social capital in your platform, or are they just using it as a lead source?** If it's the latter, you don't have a marketplace. You have a lead-gen business with marketplace unit economics. That's not venture-scalable. It's also not defensible. The test is simple: - Do suppliers refer other suppliers? - Do suppliers promote your platform to their existing customers? - Do suppliers collaborate with each other through your platform? If the answer to all three is no, you haven't built the social infrastructure yet. You've built a directory. We spent two years optimizing transaction flow when we should have been building community. By the time we realized it, we didn't have the capital or the team energy to rebuild. Airbnb had the capital. They also had something harder to replicate: they understood from day one that the product wasn't the booking form. It was the trust system that made strangers willing to transact. I still don't know if we could have won even if we'd understood this earlier. The India market in 2011 wasn't ready for experiential consumption at scale. Airbnb launched Experiences in 2016 into a global market that had already been trained by Airbnb Stays. But I know we lost for the wrong reasons. We lost because we optimized for the transaction when we should have been building the social capital that makes transactions possible at scale. The question I'm still working through: how do you build social capital infrastructure before you have transaction volume? Community requires critical mass. But you can't get to critical mass without community. That's the real chicken-and-egg problem. Not supply and demand. Trust and scale.