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    Case studyManaged marketplace for refurbished e-bikes

    Building a CRO Experimentation Program From Zero

    A growth-stage marketplace with no experimentation capability, where the binding constraint was supply rather than demand.

    Product
    Managed marketplace for refurbished e-bikes
    Model
    Buys, refurbishes, and resells e-bikes across three European markets
    Timeframe
    3 months

    Results

    0 to 1
    CRO experimentation program built
    4
    Experiments shipped every two weeks

    What we did

    • Framed a conversion brief as a supply problem and descoped the demand storefront
    • Implemented A/B experimentation tooling (GrowthBook) alongside a component library, so tests could be built and shipped without bespoke engineering each time
    • Wrote the operating model the team runs
      • Experiment build guide and results guide
      • Pre-sprint ticket audit cadence
      • A definition of ready, so nothing enters a sprint half-specified
    • Set supply-side guardrails distinct from the demand funnel's, and held that line when seller-flow tests were judged on buyer metrics
    • Ran a competitive teardown across car, electronics, and bike resale marketplaces to source the hypothesis backlog
    • Reconciled two conflicting offer-acceptance rates into one number for the CEO

    Most teams that want a testing program buy a tool and stall, because the tool was never the constraint. The constraint is a backlog worth testing, a build path that does not need bespoke engineering per test, and an agreed bar for what counts as a win. Those three got built alongside the tooling, which is why the cadence held at four experiments every two weeks rather than spiking and dying. Early results are landing now and the compounding read comes at the end of the program.

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