Building a marketplace sounds exciting until you actually start doing it.
Over the past months, I've been building Mumtaz, a marketplace designed to help people and businesses find trusted professionals across Morocco.
Like many founders, I started with a simple idea:
How can I make it easier for people to find reliable service providers online?
Instead of building everything from scratch, I chose WordPress and the Listeo theme. This allowed me to focus on validating the idea rather than spending months on development.
Along the way, I've learned a few lessons:
User experience matters more than features.
Trust is one of the biggest challenges for any marketplace.
SEO can become a major growth channel if implemented correctly.
Small technical issues can consume far more time than expected.
I'm still early in the journey, but building a marketplace has taught me a lot about WordPress, SEO, growth, and product development.
I'd love to hear from others who are building marketplaces, directories, or local service platforms.
What has been your biggest challenge so far?
