Tactics to Solve the Chicken-Or-Egg Problem and Grow Your Marketplace

Several of these strike me as "concentrate things so your initial offering meets some minimal threshold of value to participants." I think the clearest example of what I mean by that is this:

Tactic 17: Set a time constraint. You can actually program excitement into the marketplace with the help of time constraints.

Examples: At launch, Tophatter only let people bid between 8-9pm PT. During this hour the marketplace felt crowded.

I wouldn't frame it as being about feeling crowded. To my mind, limiting the time frame helps ensure that there is a sufficient activity level to be worthwhile for participants.

Straightforward, interesting, practical, not overpromising or overbearing ... does this person not know how the modern web operates?