Northwind Energy: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy

Product Management

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Scenario

Northwind Energy runs a renewables marketplace in Europe, live in 40 cities.

Last month: 311,375 active buyers, 3,970 active sellers, 452,605 searches, and an overall fill rate of 40%.

That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 90%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 25%.

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: 452605
active buyers: 311375
active sellers: 3970
buyer to seller ratio: 78.4

liquidity

cities live: 40
overall fill rate pct: 40
top 3 cities fill pct

bottom half cities fill pct

acquisition

buyer side: paid, scaling
seller side: manual, flat

Your task

Advise the general manager. Your answer should provide:

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

State any assumptions you make.

Ready to move forward? Up next: Kirana Connect: Buy the Supplier or Keep Buying From Them?Next 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.