Tessellate: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy

Product Management
hard45 min0 submissions
Stripe
Scenario

Tessellate runs a developer tools marketplace in US, live in 40 cities.

Last month: 129,260 active buyers, 17,020 active sellers, 213,665 searches, and an overall fill rate of 40%.

That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 73%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 15%.

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
213665
active buyers
129260
active sellers
17020
buyer to seller ratio
7.6

liquidity

cities live
40
overall fill rate pct
40
top 3 cities fill pct
73
bottom half cities fill pct
15

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.