Building a Two Sided Marketplace App for Land Owners and Users with Dittofi

Dittofi played a central role in the development of the custom marketplace Acre Access. Leveraging Dittofi’s powerful tools & resources, Acre Access were able to quickly bring our vision to life & create an app that meets the unique needs of our customers. Dittofi’s developer support and training were particularly valuable in helping us adapt and build the specific features that our customers were asking for.

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A two sided marketplace app is an exchange platform. It enables two different user groups to exchange products and services – think Uber, Airbnb, Amazon.

Two sided marketplace apps are incredibly popular with investors investing more than $24 billion into these ventures since 2010. One of the main reasons for their popularity is that two sided marketplaces are highly scalable. A two sided marketplaces does not need to own any inventory. Airbnb is a great example of this, where it is amongst the top 100 vacation rental places globally, all without owning a single hotel room.

This month we met up with two ambitious entrepreneurs, Mason Mazzaro & Seth Wasilewski. Mason & Seth identified an opportunity to develop a two sided marketplace that would enable private landowners to rent out their land. After finding this gap in the market, Mason & Seth founded a company called Acre Access, & set out to develop a two sided marketplace app to facilitate short-term access to private land.

We spoke directly with Masson Mazzaro, to learn more about how Acre Access was born & how they took their idea to app launch using Dittofi.

Hi Masson, before we kick off, could you give us some background to what exactly Acre Access is?

Masson Mazzaro: “Sure! Acre Access is a company that was founded in the spring of 2022 by myself & Seth.

We started Acre Access as college roommates at Ohio State University. Both of us are avid outdoorsmen, with core values rooted in conservation that lead us to appreciate nature’s beauty & to value land. Both Seth & I have founded startups in agriculture & outdoors space before, & so we were always bouncing around entrepreneurial ideas for a new start up.

Eventually we stumbled across an idea for a new startup that would become “Acre Access”. What we realised was that we had identified a gap in the market for short-term access to private land, & started researching solutions to this problem.

As we talked to private landowners, we discovered that many of them were struggling with bills, taxes, & income streams. Seth & I saw an opportunity to build a platform that could help connect landowners with land users in a way that benefits both parties. And so, Acre Access was born. Our vision was to create a two-sided marketplace that could serve the needs of both landowners & land users”

Seth & I saw an opportunity to build a platform that could help connect landowners with land users in a way that benefits both parties.

So you identified what you thought was a real problem for private landowners. What were the steps that you took to get Acre Access off the ground?

Masson Mazzaro: “So after we’d identified a problem & a potential solution to that problem, my co-founder Seth & I went about looking to test if the market was interested in the solution that we were developing.”

The key events that took place are listed below.

Spring 2022 - Company incorporated & we built out our MVP
Summer 2022 - Customer development (we discovered what our customers really wanted)
Fall 2022 - Phase 2 MVP – iteration & adding in new features
Spring 2023 - Developed our two sided marketplace & network of partners using Dittofi

After getting used to Dittofi, we’ve built features and functionality ourselves: both for frontend and backend.

Okay, so you built an MVP, tested & validated the concept & then decided to build an app. Why did you feel like you needed to develop a custom app?

Masson Mazzaro: “We recognized that the landscape of our industry is constantly evolving, & we needed an app that could adapt & evolve with it. By building our own app, we have the flexibility & control to respond to customer feedback quickly & efficiently, & to make the changes necessary to stay ahead of the curve.

We chose to build on the Dittofi platform & technology stack, because it provided a vastly superior solution compared to the competitive alternatives. Dittofi was the only low-code, full-stack app builder that met our high standards for scalability, code ownership, & customization. In addition, we were impressed by the level of professional app development support & training that Dittofi offered.

How did you utilise Dittofi to build your new app?

Masson Mazzaro: “Dittofi played a central role in the development of our new app, which is a custom marketplace built from scratch. This was our first version of the app outside of the MVP, & we needed a platform that could support our vision for a more robust & feature-rich app. Leveraging Dittofi’s powerful tools & resources, we were able to quickly bring our vision to life & create an app that meets the unique needs of our customers. Dittofi’s developer support & training were particularly valuable in helping us adapt & build the specific features that our customers were asking for.”

What were the main features that you used within Dittofi?

Masson Mazzaro: “We’ve taken advantage of almost every feature that the platform has to offer. However, the two main features that have been particularly instrumental in our app development journey are the Dittofi backend & API builders. We’ve found the Dittofi backend builder to be an incredibly practical & customizable tool that allows us to streamline our backend operations & to tailor our app to meet our unique needs. In addition, the API builder has been crucial in helping us integrate with third-party services & to enhance the functionality of our app.

At the moment, we’re just a few days away from launching our Dittofi app to both our existing & new users.

What does the future look like for your app development?

Masson Mazzaro: “Our app development journey with Dittofi has been nothing short of transformative. As we continue to expand our partner network & add new features to our app, we’re confident that the future looks incredibly bright. Dittofi has not only been a reliable app builder for us, but a valuable partner that has helped us unlock new possibilities for our business. With their support & expertise, we’re excited to explore endless possibilities & take our app development to the next level. We’re confident that our collaboration with Dittofi will continue to fuel our growth & drive us towards even greater success in the future.”

Our app development journey with Dittofi has been nothing short of transformative. As we continue to expand our partner network & add new features to our app, we’re confident that the future looks incredibly bright.

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