Vantage Analytics: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy

Product Management
hard45 min0 submissions
Bain
Scenario

Vantage Analytics runs a B2B SaaS marketplace in India, live in 19 cities.

Last month: 226,753 active buyers, 21,780 active sellers, 676,721 searches, and an overall fill rate of 66%.

That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 81%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 12%.

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
676721
active buyers
226753
active sellers
21780
buyer to seller ratio
10.4

liquidity

cities live
19
overall fill rate pct
66
top 3 cities fill pct
81
bottom half cities fill pct
12

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: Pallas Pharma: 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.