Uber Case Interviews: Which came first, the supply or the demand side?
One of my clients recently asked the following question:
I'm a bit in my head for the interview tomorrow. When I'm doing product sense for a 2 sided marketplace (new product for Uber, skill sharing, contractors, events, etc.), I always tend to go towards users because without demand there's no supply. I'm also a consumer facing PM so I've never fully thought about the supply side. My reasoning is always, we have to build for demand first to capture product audiences and supply will come with it. When should I think about building for supply first? Do you have a best practice for thinking about this?
So, what really comes first, the demand or the supply?
A structured approach to the 2 sided market
My approach is to always design for the demand side when designing new products. This makes your job a lot easier as an interviewer and will likely make your interviewer’s job easier too.
The key to getting on this path is to thoroughly justify your approach. Be sure to point out the following when you begin customer segmentation:
There is a 2 sided market dynamic at play
We may need the participation of both sides in order for any customer-facing product to work
We need to define the customer experience first because we don’t know how or if the supply side needs to be involved yet to provide customers value
Note, this is not the same as “prioritizing” the demand side. We simply want to know what the app is for and what it does for the end customer. It makes sense to envision an excellent experience for the demand side first while leaving the work of integrations, partnerships and possible in-app experiences until after we know what the customers will need.
The Takeaway
When working through a product sense case — or an actual roadmap — the first question should be: What do we want this product to do for the customer? Only then can we figure out how the supply side needs to be built, integrated, or incentivized to make that possible.
