Platform · 10-12 weeks
B2B Marketplace for Pre-Fundraise Validation
Validated the business model before a major fundraising round.
01 · Situation
The state of the team before we started
Founder with a B2B marketplace thesis going into fundraise season. Internal debate on whether to build an automated matching engine in v1 or to validate the model with manual matching first. Engineering wanted the engine. Founder needed evidence the model worked.
02 · Diagnosis
What the Clarity Sprint surfaced
Clarity Sprint forced the question: what does an investor need to see to fund this. The answer was completed transactions per supplier per week — actual liquidity, not algorithm sophistication. A matching engine would not validate that; only actual transactions would. Documented the gap.
03 · Decision
The call that was made, in writing
Two-sided platform with manual matching as v1. Automated matching deferred to v2, conditional on liquidity proof from v1. Ship the platform infrastructure (accounts, payments, messaging) and let humans handle the match.
04 · Build
What we actually shipped
10-12 weeks. Production-grade platform with payments and messaging. Internal matching console for the team to run matches by hand. Instrumentation that tracked supplier liquidity and transaction completion rates from day one.
05 · Result
What happened next
Marketplace shipped with proof of concept and an honest liquidity baseline before the fundraise. The fundraise process used real transaction data, not an algorithm demo. Manual matching moved to automated post-raise, on a much better understanding of what the matching logic actually needed to do.
Note on anonymity
Most of our work is under NDA. Identifying details have been removed; the situation, diagnosis, decision, and outcome are real. References are available on request once a fit conversation is underway.
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