The secret to scaling supply on the marketplace is a great expert experience — paying experts well and on time, treating their work as dignified, and maintaining strong communication — which drives a strong referral program, supplemented by a sourcing team that finds people with very specific skills globally.
Oswald attributes Mercor's supply-side success to three factors: a great expert experience (timely pay, transparent compensation, dignified work) that drives referrals, a strong sourcing team that finds niche talent globally, and the compounding effect of both working together to fill spiky demand. ✦ AI generated
Oswald Nitski · 20VC · 2026-07-25 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 33:53
“What has been the secret to scaling supply on the marketplace side so efficiently?”
I probably put it down to three things. The first one is a great expert experience. So experts get paid on time, they get paid well, transparently. Everybody involved in what the expert experience cares deeply about whether or not they're having any challenges and whether or not the work is dignified and well paid and fairly paid. And that is a requirement for a great referrals program because nobody's going to refer their friends or their colleagues to some kind of job that sucks, right? So, everybody caring about expert experience drives a great referral program and additionally a great sourcing team that's able to find people in every corner of the world with very specific skills helps us fill the gaps when we have spiky demand for a specific skill set.
verbatim transcript · starts at 33:53
33:53you guys done that so well? >> I probably put it down to um three things. Um the first one is a great expert experience. So uh experts get paid on time, they get paid well, uh transparently. Um the everybody involved in what the expert experiences cares deeply about um whether or not like whether or not they're having any challenges and whether or not the work is um
34:26dignified and well paid and fairly paid. And that is a requirement for a great referrals program because nobody's going to refer their friends to you know their colleagues to some kind of job that's like that sucks, right? So, everybody caring about expert experience drives a great referral program and additionally a great sourcing team that's able to find people in every corner of the world with very specific
34:53skills helps us fill the gaps when you know we have spiky demand for a specific skill set. >> Are people as short-sighted as just being wanting to be paid the most? I've heard that Mckool pays the most. Is that the secret? >> It's It's not I wouldn't say it's like you know short-sightedness because we want to retain the top experts as well, right? So, if you get paid a lot on like
35:19one project and it's like you know there's like some kind of like I I know there are a lot of other competitors in the space who will do some crazy like bonus payouts and stuff and for short-term sprints. Um, that's not that doesn't get you to come back as much as a great experience with a lot of work, visibility into like what future work is coming up, the feeling of like I'm