Lumen Learning: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy

Product Management
medium45 min0 submissions
Goldman Sachs
Scenario

Lumen Learning runs a edtech marketplace in India, live in 10 cities.

Last month: 336,920 active buyers, 7,137 active sellers, 212,721 searches, and an overall fill rate of 44%.

That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 73%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 22%.

Growth marketing has been buying buyer-side installs, because buyer acquisition is cheaper and the install numbers look good in the board deck. Supply acquisition is manual and slow.

Supporting data

scale

searches
212721
active buyers
336920
active sellers
7137
buyer to seller ratio
47.2

liquidity

cities live
10
overall fill rate pct
44
top 3 cities fill pct
73
bottom half cities fill pct
22

acquisition

buyer side
paid, scaling
seller side
manual, flat
Your task

Advise the general manager. Your answer should provide:

  1. Analysis — which side is constrained, where, and what the fill rate really says.
  2. Risks — what happens if you keep acquiring on the current side.
  3. Recommendation — which side, which cities, which mechanism, and the metric that proves it.

State any assumptions you make.

Ready to move forward? Up next: Northwind Energy: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to BuyNext question
How you'll be graded

80 points, 60% to pass.

  • recommendation15
  • market analysis25
  • risk assessment20
  • financial analysis20
Hint
Reveal suggested structure

Liquidity is local. Find the constrained side per geography, stop acquiring on the long side, and concentrate supply until density crosses the threshold.