Trade Me: The Inside Story

by Michael "MOD" O'Donnell

Few companies have captured the hearts and minds of New Zealanders like Trade Me.

Originally built by university dropout Sam Morgan on a borrowed laptop, Trade Me was to change the face of retailing in New Zealand, destroying newspapers' classified businesses and going on to become part of the vernacular as some 2.5 million Kiwis became members.

Now for the first time the story of Trade Me is told, the first 10 years of this remarkable company. Author Mike O’Donnell is Head of Operations at Trade Me and tells the whole story. From fragile beginnings, to being laughed out of the room by Telecom, through to becoming the number one force on the New Zealand internet and being sold for a staggering $750 million.

Featuring a foreword by Trade Me founder Sam Morgan and numerous interviews with all members of the original Trade Me team, this is the first ever history of arguably New Zealand’s most loved company, and has the added benefit of telling the story from the inside.

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2010

Reviews

[Hugh Fergus]

From reading this book I learnt about what it is like to run a business. I learnt that it is hard to get a business started when you are the underdog. Trade Me initially struggled to find advertising partners, “However, in 1999 the online advertising market in New Zealand was nascent at best, with most corporates choosing to stick with tried and true print and broadcast mediums. And, while Sam was successful in obtaining some ad revenue, it never came close to chinning the cost bar. The importance of the advertising revenue at this stage cannot be over-emphasised as both buying and selling on Trade Me were free, and the site only offered classified listings.” This quote sums up Sam Morgan’s struggles to initially make revenue off Trade Me. He had to try and convince big business corporations to invest in his business, which at this point no one had heard of and no one was sure if it would succeed. I have learnt by reading this book that Sam really put his all into the company and persuaded some of the biggest companies in New Zealand to buy into Trade Me. The fact that Trade Me went from a business set up on one laptop by one person to one of the most used websites in NZ in such a short amount of time is crazy. Though this book has taught me how hard it is to set up a business it has also taught me that when you are passionate about something and make it for the people who use it you can go far in life. I learnt from Trade Me - The Inside Story that Sam Morgan spent a large chunk of his early adulthood struggling to get Trade Me to its feet, but he made the company and website for the people who use it and this allowed to move further and faster than anybody else in his field. I feel that this is a form of good karma. He made a website that is easy to use and benefits everyday people, and in return they lifted his creation up to heights even he didn’t dream of reaching.

[Suzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives a good inside view of a successful internet startup and how they beat both eBay and Yahoo in New Zealand.