Basil & Co: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy

Product Management
medium45 min0 submissions
Goldman Sachs
Scenario

Basil & Co runs a quick service restaurants marketplace in India, live in 29 cities.

Last month: 42,020 active buyers, 27,211 active sellers, 346,372 searches, and an overall fill rate of 68%.

That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 75%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 19%.

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
346372
active buyers
42020
active sellers
27211
buyer to seller ratio
1.5

liquidity

cities live
29
overall fill rate pct
68
top 3 cities fill pct
75
bottom half cities fill pct
19

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: 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.