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Developing a technology and product strategy for a two-sided marketplace
Case Study: Relish Works x Foxhound Systems
Service areas
Technical Guidance
Product Strategy
Organization
Relish Works
Relish Works is an innovation hub that invests in products that help restaurants and other entities in the food service industry. Relish Works was seeking to build a two-sided marketplace for the food service industry to facilitate an unmet need.
Relish Works engaged Foxhound Systems to help refine their product strategy for developing this marketplace and provide technical guidance on the best methodologies to employ to build the marketplace software platform.
An innovation hub developing products to help the food service industry.
Why Foxhound Systems?
Relish Works chose to work with Foxhound Systems on this project for several reasons.
An example of a sequence diagram created by Foxhound Systems in the process of refining the functional requirements to model the user experience flow between the various entities that would be using the two-sided marketplace. This is part of the process of developing clear technical requirements based on the client’s vision for the project and desired features and functionality.
Project goals
- Assist Relish Works in refining their product strategy for the two-sided marketplace project.Relish Works approached Foxhound Systems with a product idea in mind and documentation outlining the business goals and design concepts. However, Relish Works wanted help with looking at every aspect of the project and identifying all of the functional requirements necessary to realize the features desired in the platform.
- Evaluate different methodologies and platforms for building the two-sided marketplace.Relish Works asked Foxhound Systems to evaluate and present different approaches for building this type of project. In today’s world that included examining numerous approaches including “no code” and “low code” platforms, marketplace-specific service platforms, and various degrees of custom development.
- Create a technology service map clearly layout out the path to building a minimum viable product.Relish Works wanted our team to synthesize the business goals, project requirements, including time on the calendar and total cost of development, as well as technology considerations and produce a plan for developing a minimum viable product.
An exercise that Foxhound Systems performed with stakeholders from Relish Works to stack rank project priorities. Ranking the priorities in this way is valuable to help understand the relative importance of the various aspects of building a software product, and influences the provided technical guidance and recommended execution strategy.
Project outcomes
A flowchart created by Foxhound Systems modeling the user registration flow of the two-sided marketplace that Relish Works was seeking to build. This diagram illustrated the underlying complexity in the registration necessary for the platform.
Foxhound Systems assisted Relish Works in developing and refining the functional requirements of the project in several ways:
- We modeled key processes in the system using diagrams (such as the one above) to clearly illustrate both the user experience flow as well as identify the functional and infrastructure components required, such as an admin panel and user review queue as part of the user registration system requirements.
- We assessed the complexity of each desired feature and associated requirements, and helped Relish Works drop low value, high complexity items from the minimum viable product plan.
- We provided various paths to achieve certain user experience and business goals, helping stakeholders at Relish Works understand the trade offs of each approach.
Foxhound Systems conducted a detailed development platform and methodology comparison, illustrating the various approaches possible for building a minimum viable product:
- Our team evaluating several different platforms, including “no code” approaches, marketplace-specific platforms, and various types of custom builds.
- We ranked the various available methodologies in terms of suitability for building the two-sided marketplace, while also identifying which approaches were not viable for this project.
- In consideration of the project priorities, such as delivery timeline, development cost, and app performance, our team made recommendations on which approach to use to build the two-sided marketplace product.
Foxhound Systems provided a detailed report to Relish Works outlining the refined requirements and recommendations associated with this project.
- Our report included written breakdowns of each step we took over the course of our engagement, along with all diagrams, flowcharts, and other supporting documentation for stakeholders to review.
- We drafted a clear and concise executive summary, allowing a high level stakeholder to quickly understand the project, the recommended approach for building it, and the time and costs associated.
