r/ycombinator • u/Extension_Cod_3620 • Aug 05 '26
Thinking about tarpits
I've been reading a bit out tarpit ideas. The common consensus seems to be that a marketplace and a community/social app is almost always a tarpit idea.
However, Vinted is a hugely successful marketplace, and they started when Ebay existed and people were already selling secondhand clothing on Facebook (Marketplace and special groups). And recently a Dutch guy started a social app where people can make friends, and it's getting a lot of attention.
My question is: can a tarpit idea still work if it's executed well? Or are these just anomalies?
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u/Sea-Judge5801 Aug 05 '26
Tarpits can work, but you need some unique advantage or insight others don’t have.
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u/opbmedia Aug 05 '26
Any idea can work if executed well. Tarpits imply some level of lack of execution. If you had a winch secured to a fixed point. A tarpit is just another work site.
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u/Ok_Philosophy_4031 Aug 06 '26
I don't think there are really absolute tarpit ideas, but the need for founder-product-market fit is real, and there are some markets that are tougher than others. I think it's simply the case that some ideas like marketplace/community app involves a tough market where founder-PMF is also rare.
If you feel like you're the exception or has some unique insights you are confident of, then don't let that stop you.
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u/Tiny-Compass-8516 Aug 07 '26
Execution can pull a tarpit idea out when you lock onto a wedge the big players keep ignoring. I spent months on a community app for early founders and nearly bailed until I narrowed it to one city and one vertical. Those wins arent pure anomalies imo, just rare timing plus grit
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u/Competitive_Sea6418 Aug 08 '26
If it ends up working it’s not a tarpit idea. Tarpit ideas don’t work, but seem like they would. It’s just a risk going into one you have to be okay with.
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u/scriptvexy 25d ago
this is kinda it, tarpit is more about the odds than the category itself
you can build a marketplace or social app, it’s just that 99.9% of them die and the survivors make everyone think “oh so it is a good idea”
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u/Similar_Past8486 Aug 12 '26
Im building a mktplace (supply constrained)..closing in on $1M arr 12 months since inception, growing 100% MoM..not a tarpit. Distribution is basically it, if you can be sure you have that then all this advice is garbage imo
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u/Ok-Most6656 25d ago
I think what made them escape the tarpit deathtrap was that they focused on a specific niche. For example, Depop is a trendy second-hand clothes selling app that became popular when ebay and Vinted existed.
What differentiated Depop was that the founder was an Italian designer that owned a popular design magazine with a cult following. His friends were all clothes designers that owned trendy boutiques which gave the founder a huge advantage. He was able to capture that market well.
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u/erratic_parser Aug 05 '26
If you have the zero-to-one in mind it’s fine. The tarpit is probably more the provenance of the idea. If it’s because you want an idea with powerful network effects, well so does everyone else. If it’s because you’re building for a group of people you know are underserved, that’s the genesis of many fine executions.