In this episode of Monetizing SaaS, I sit down with Niklas Halusa, co-founder & CEO of Nautical Commerce. Niklas started his career in investment banking and VC before realizing he wanted to found and build. That journey led him to build Nautical Commerce, a platform that allows founders to launch and scale multi-vendor marketplaces without rebuilding commerce infrastructure from scratch.

What We Cover in This Episode: - The hidden challenges of building and scaling marketplaces

- Why Amazon, Shopify, and Etsy don’t just take a GMV percentage—they monetize additional services

- Why early-stage pricing isn’t about financial efficiency—it’s about learning- How pricing should evolve as a company scales

- The hardest trade-offs in launching a marketplace startup

- What Nautical Commerce is building to “arm the marketplace rebels”

Niklas has been through every pricing model—flat fees, value shares, onboarding costs, and feature-based pricing. His learnings? - Early-stage companies should optimize for learning, not revenue extraction

- Pricing should reduce friction to buy

- Founders should talk to customers constantly about willingness to pay

If you’re building a SaaS product, a marketplace, or thinking about pricing & packaging, this has been one of my favorite conversations on Monetizing SaaS. ⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Intro & Welcome

02:00 – Niklas' journey: From finance to tech to founding Nautical

06:30 – The key differences between investing and operating

10:45 – Why marketplaces are just infrastructure for commerce

14:15 – Incentivizing supply vs. demand in a marketplace

18:40 – The insight that led to founding Nautical Commerce

22:05 – The trade-offs of building for startups vs. enterprise

25:10 – The hidden challenges of pricing a marketplace

30:30 – Why pricing is stage-dependent for venture-backed startups

34:20 – Pricing & packaging at Nautical: Lessons from iteration

38:50 – The future of marketplace pricing: From GMV to service monetization

42:45 – How Amazon captures more value without increasing take rates

46:00 – Reducing friction in pricing & the importance of willingness to pay

50:20 – Niklas' vision for arming the marketplace rebels53:00 – Final thoughts & where to learn more #SaaS #PricingStrategy #Marketplaces #Startup #Ecommerce #MonetizingSaaS #NauticalCommerce