Amazon Launchpad for Startups
Here's my take on it and someone can chime in if I'm wrong on the details...Imagine you're a startup/inventor that manufactures a widget that you'd like to sell to the mass market, you could either (1) try to sell direct from your website (2) get on the shelves of national stores like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc.  The "shelves" include the real ones at their brick & mortar stores and the virtual shelves on their online websites.(1) is hard to attract shoppers since nobody knows about your low-traffic website.  Also, you'd have to handle the hassle of fulfillment yourself.  Amazon Launchpad leverages their competency in global logistics to do this for you.(2) is difficult to get meetings with corporate retail buyers and convince them to carry your product.  Sometimes, there are also "slotting fees" (sometimes aka "bribes") to get prime shelf locations (eye level vs the floor.)What Amazon is doing is opening up their "shelves" which includes the prime pixels real estate on their front page to promote startups' products.  They are actively marketing your product.  This is a different initiative from passively showing the 3rd-party marketplace sellers on amazon product pages.However, to filter out the low quality junk and avoid every garage warrior trying to sell their flavor of homemade barbeque sauce, the products have to come from "the approved network"[1] that includes firms such as a16z, Accel Partners, etc.  If we scan that list of affiliates, we'd expect the products vetted by them to be "cutting edge" and "innovative".What's not specified in all the press releases and FAQ about Amazon Launchpad is the type of payment structure Amazon expects.  Is it negiotiated on a product-by-product basis?  Is it flat percentage?[1]https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee