Building BOOKD: Attempting to solve the creative space booking problem

My co-founder and I just launched BOOKD - a marketplace to help creators find and book spaces for their creative projects. I wanted to share our journey so far and hopefully get some feedback from this community.

The idea behind BOOKD came from a frustration that haunted me as a creator: ➡️ "Why is it SO hard to find and book the perfect space for a creative project?"

I would spend days scouring Instagram, sending countless DMs, negotiating prices, and hoping the space actually looked like the photos. By the time we secured a location, we'd lost momentum on the actual creative work!

I saw this process drain creative energy and momentum from projects before they even begin.

So, we built BOOKD (https://www.bookd.space) as a simple solution - a platform where creators can:

• Browse spaces with clear visuals of what they're actually getting
• Filter by amenities relevant to creative work
• See hourly pricing upfront
• Book without the back-and-forth

Our Journey So Far:
• Started just by manually connecting friends with spaces
• Built a basic MVP to test if others had the same pain point
• Got some initial bookings that validated we might be onto something
• Iterated based on feedback from both sides of the marketplace
• Now taking a more serious approach to scaling

Early Challenges:
Building a marketplace is humbling! Getting both sides of the platform growing simultaneously has been our biggest challenge. We've also struggled with defining the right verification process for spaces without making onboarding too cumbersome.

Where We Are Now:
We're still very early - we have a small but growing number of spaces and have facilitated some bookings. The encouraging sign has been seeing repeat customers on both sides.

What We're Working On:
• Adding more diverse types of creative spaces
• Improving the search experience
• Building features that both creators and hosts have requested

Questions for the IH Community:
Q: Has anyone here successfully bootstrapped a marketplace? Any wisdom to share?
Q: For creators - what would be the biggest hurdle to trying a service like this?
Q: Any thoughts on how to efficiently grow both sides of the marketplace without burning through cash?

I'd love to connect with anyone interested in this space or who has insights to share. And of course, any feedback on the product would be incredibly valuable.