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This week we caught up with one of our newest Advisory Board members, Polly Applegate, to get her thoughts about what motivated her to join the Marketplace Risk Advisory Board.
Having led the Community Experience teams at the global fashion marketplace depop from Series B to Etsy acquisition, Polly moved to advisory work in similar spaces. She has great experience in how online communities grow through providing a safe and transparent platform for their users particularly in the marketplace, live shopping & e-commerce space.
Working as an advisor she supports founders and early stage teams across a number of scaling challenges, and is always thinking about how to shape decisions with a people-first approach to get team buy-in by creating a culture where teams feel a sense of belonging and inclusion.
Our Advisory Board is the very lifeblood of everything we do at Marketplace Risk. From conferences and virtual events to resources and advice for startups, our board takes a hands-on approach to providing indispensable insight and guidance, drawing on their broad experience that spans a multitude of platforms and industries. We are so excited to welcome Polly to the Advisory Board!
As Marketplace Risk continues to grow, we have expanded our Advisory Board, with calls for new members who can use their skills and experience to help startups. We asked Polly a few questions to get to know her better:
What interests / fascinates you most about marketplaces/the sharing economy?
The peer-to-peer transaction in any sense is fascinating, add in communication on a platform and payments and you've got a whole load of fun areas that can both improve users lives by broadening their community, and create some interesting problems to solve! I think the marketplace community is growing significantly and expectations from users are higher than ever, which gives us a gatekeeping responsibility to keep on top of evolving governance and safety measures that I find particularly interesting.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Either a police woman or a Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle or a combo of both, perhaps.
What motivates you the most about your business/platform?
I work with several at the moment, but always fascinated to look at user interactions and behaviour, and how to keep people safe in communicating online. I also love building teams and figuring out pain points in when it comes to people and scaling
Do your friends and family understand what you do?
I'd say 50/50, some friends perhaps understand because they know Depop but are unlikely to be able to describe my work skills and would just suggest that being an advisor makes me a happier person to be around.
Who inspires you from a business point of view?
Any founder who is able to take an idea and make it work - the passion and dedication this takes is wild.
What do you think the world of marketplaces/sharing economy will look like in 10 years?
Hopefully not all in the 'metaverse'?
If you’d like to be part of a dynamic group of founders, operators and subject matter experts, and your expertise and ideas could help us to better support the marketplace ecosystem, reach out to us at info@marketplacerisk.com.