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Led Buyer Research to Influence the Multi-Year Marketplace Roadmap
Objective
Transitioning from "gut-feeling" decision-making to an evidence-based product strategy by conducting the most comprehensive buyer research study in the company’s history.
The Challenge: Beyond Intuition
When I joined, B-Stock was at a crossroads. While there was an intuitive push toward a "Many-to-Many" (3MP) marketplace model, the vision lacked empirical validation. The foundational needs, barriers, and lifecycle of our buyers had never been comprehensively documented, leaving the product roadmap vulnerable to internal assumptions rather than market reality.
Methodology: Orchestrating an Organizational Study
I partnered with two members of the PM team to design the research plan, scripts, and methodology, ensuring a balance of product and design objectives:
Segmenting the Journey: We targeted 40 participants across 11 distinct cohorts—ranging from abandoners to active keepers—to identify precisely where and why value was leaking from the funnel.
The "Observer-Moderator" Dynamic: The PM team moderated 40 informal, qualitative interviews lasting 1–1.5 hours. I dialed into the sessions as the strategic observer, messaging follow-up questions in real-time to probe on insights that suggested new revenue streams or triggered deeper thoughts.
Democratizing the Synthesis: To ensure the findings weren't siloed, I organized 13 people across Product, Marketing, and Account Management to participate in the analysis. This collective effort involved hundreds of hours of listening to audio and reading transcripts to ensure a 360-degree view of the business.
Artifacts: I synthesized the collective findings into a comprehensive 75-slide strategic framework that helped define the multi-year product roadmap, supported by a 10-slide executive summary used to align leadership and the broader company on the core insights.
The Shift: From Observations to Outcomes
The synthesis transformed raw qualitative data into a prioritized multi-year roadmap:
Discovering Buyer Personas: We moved beyond a "one-size-fits-all" approach by identifying distinct buyer personas based on business size and category expertise, allowing us to tailor the 3MP experience to professional needs.
A Unified Roadmap of Opportunity: I translated our findings into 35 high-level observations, which were mapped to 15 solution areas and 62 specific feature ideas across the entire platform. This provided a comprehensive, evidence-based backlog that addressed everything from standard friction points, like legacy payment and delivery issues, to long-term growth initiatives.
Uncovering Unarticulated Needs: A critical outcome of the research was identifying unexpected "off-platform" hurdles in the post-purchase journey. By discovering the manual work buyers were doing to resell goods—such as copying manifest data to create B2C listings—we identified a major opportunity to increase resale velocity. Automating these steps would allow buyers to liquidate inventory faster and return to the bid flow sooner.
Validation of the 3MP Vision: The data provided the definitive "green light" for the ground-up platform rebuild, proving that a unified ecosystem was the primary driver for buyer retention.
Impact
Roadmap Alignment: The multi-year roadmap was prioritized based on this study’s findings.
Revenue Growth: Several "0-to-1" ideas born from this research were fast-tracked and have already become revenue-generating products.
Cultural Legacy: Established a new standard for how product decisions are made at B-Stock, replacing "I think" with "the research shows."