There's no reason to do this as a startup. Someone could spin up an ecommerce site over a weekend and then put in the work to white glove onboard sellers without ever taking investment and turn this into a very nice business all without outside capital. As we're now seeing, outside capital which will want a large return doesn't jive with managing a business for artisanal/homemade sellers.

I had to read this three times before I realized that by "startup", you implied "taking on investment".

Fair for me and I think a lot of people a startup is a new business that attempts (and hopefully succeeds) to take on outside investment to grow rapidly -- otherwise you're just a new small business.

Any founder will explain that the ideal startup would take no investors at all.

I think people use the terms "startup" and "new small business" interchangeably these days, regardless of investment. It's a buzzword