6 Things We Learned from Cam Lockrey About the Gig Economy
Cam Lockrey has spent two and a half years building marketplace products for local services. His latest, Gig N Go, hit nearly 1,000 users in its first five months. In episode two of the Socialync podcast, he broke down the lessons that got him here.
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1. Create the Demand Before You Build the Product
Cam's biggest lesson from two and a half years of building: don't spend tens of thousands of dollars on a product and then hope people want it. Market the value proposition first, build a waitlist, and validate demand before writing a single line of code.
"The number one thing I would do differently is creating the demand before building the product. I definitely found the bucket of wasting tens of thousands of dollars building a product that people kind of wanted, but not to the full extent."
Try this today: Before building your next feature or product, post about the problem it solves. See if people respond. If they don't care before it exists, they won't care after.
2. Trust Is the Gap Big Platforms Ignore
Facebook Marketplace, Thumbtack, even Google reviews. They all optimize for transactions, not relationships. Cam saw this firsthand when customers kept coming back not because of price, but because they liked working with him and his partner.
"There's always a scarcity of trust. How do you fix that scarcity of trust? Content is quite literally the new currency."
Try this today: If you're a service provider, post a short video introducing yourself and showing your work. That one video does more for trust than 50 five-star reviews.
3. Your First Product Will Probably Need a Pivot
Kickback got 4,000 downloads and local news coverage. But retention was low, the MVP broke, and users were showing up from places the platform wasn't designed for. Instead of forcing it, Cam recognized the signals and pivoted.
"I started seeing job postings everywhere throughout the entire United States, and the platform wasn't made for that. What does this tell me about the market?"
Try this today: Look at your analytics honestly. Where are users dropping off? What are they trying to do that you didn't plan for? Those signals are your roadmap.
4. Marketplaces Are Harder Than SaaS
Building a two-sided marketplace means keeping both sides happy simultaneously. If workers don't see homeowners, they leave. If homeowners don't see workers, they leave. Cam is blunt about how much harder this is than a typical software product.
"You don't have to worry about just one side. You have to worry about two sides simultaneously and make sure that they both support each other, because if they don't have each other, it dies."
Try this today: If you're building a marketplace, pick one side to serve exceptionally well first. Let that side's enthusiasm pull the other side in.
5. Gamify the Mundane
Cam's vision for Gig N Go isn't just "find a worker." It's making odd jobs feel fun. Record a video of the job, share your personality, get hired, repeat. The content creation loop becomes the product itself.
"How cool would it be to have a platform that gamified the experience of just mowing the lawn? Go on the app, boom, you go record, do a video, make money. I just had fun filming and recording and making money."
Try this today: Whatever your product does, ask: can I make the core action feel rewarding in itself, not just for the end result?
6. Give Anything Eight Years
Cam's perspective on timelines is refreshingly patient. TikTok is only eight years old. Most people work 30 to 40 years. If you give something real time and keep iterating, the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor.
"You give anything eight years to grow and it's gonna grow. TikTok, 2018, it's blown up to this multi-billion dollar company. That's eight years, only eight."
Try this today: Stop measuring your progress in weeks. Zoom out. Ask yourself where this could be in three years if you keep showing up.
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