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Purpose: To show how I think as a product marketer from the first customer insight all the way to launch day.
Role: Solo strategist. I handled research, positioning, persona development, messaging, GTM planning, and the product roadmap from scratch.
Problem: Planning a milestone celebration means tracking down a dozen vendors one by one across texts, google search, tabs, and group chats. Most people give up or overpay.
Solution: For anyone planning a milestone celebration who has better things to do than stalk vendors online, ToastReady is the platform where you send one request and let the quotes chase you eliminating 15+ hours of manual outreach.
It sort of does, and that’s the problem. Thumbtack and Bark already let you request vendors. But they charge providers per lead, whether the job books or not. 💸 📉
So why does everyone still hate it? 🤨
Vendors pay for leads that go nowhere. Best providers with busy calendars, opt out entirely. What’s left is skewed toward whoever needs leads most, not whoever’s best.
What makes ToastReady different?
Vendors pay a flat monthly fee, not per lead so better ROI for them. Better vendors show up because pricing is fair to them.
Buyers save hours of outreach & get a side-by-side comparison!
TAM | Total US party & event services market
$3B
SAM | Milestone celebrations, target income segment
$2M
SOM | realistic year-1 capture in Houston
#1 THUMBTACK
UVP speed & scale, pay-per-lead
+ve huge scale, trusted brand
—ve built for home tasks, not events
#2 BARK
UVP found fast, pay-per-lead
+ve fast vendor matching
—ve no comparison, no pricing transparency
#3 PARTYSLATE
UVP inspiration, browse only
+ve great inspiration, editorial curation
-ve browse only, can't book or compare
#4 GIGSALAD
UVP easy booking, one category
+ve easy one-category booking
-ve locked to entertainment only
#5 The bASH
UVP ideas + booking, split focus
+ve ideas + booking in one place
-ve split focus, doesn't fully commit to either
LINKS TO RESEARCH
Market Research User Research Interview Findings Metro Selection
3 buyers and 2 vendor personas and their journey maps
-Detailed matrix w 18 dimensions -Positioning & -Market Gaps: where the white space is -SWOT analysis -Business model comparisons
Which features would be in the MVP and what comes in later stages.
-Who im building for -How I’d enter the market -Revenue model worked backwards -Unit economics and scenarios -The engine: acquisition, activation, retention, growth -Integrated execution roadmap - How I'd measure it -What has to be true to move between phases -Where I'd challenge my own plan -What am I missing? Gut check
Access the underlying research, data sources, and methodology.
GTM STRATEGY OVERVIEW
positioning, growth loops, funnel
launch roadmap, pricing, metrics
Year one is simple. Houston has enough vendors that a buyer gets real options. Buyers show up because the options are real. The flywheel starts turning on its own. The numbers that would tell us it’s working:
150 active vendors in Houston by month 6
(based on minimum viable density of 20+ vendors per occasion category across 6-8 launch categories.)60% of vendors still subscribed at month 4; retention beats acquisition as the core health signal.
(modeled on SaaS free-to-paid conversion benchmarks; no direct marketplace data available)Average buyer receives 4+ quotes per request
(derived from minimum threshold for meaningful side-by-side comparison.)3 celebration categories with enough vendor depth to market confidently
(based on launch persona coverage and Houston demographic opportunity.)
Three phases, no fluff:
Phase 1 — Houston, supply first (months 1-6) Sign vendors before spending a dollar on buyers. No demand marketing until vendor density is real.
Phase 2 — Demand activation (months 6-12) Turn on buyer acquisition. Community partnerships, bilingual social, and quinceañera expo presence. Let the first real reviews do the heavy lifting.
Phase 3 — Second metro (month 12+) Pick the next city using the same criteria Houston was chosen for: large population, demographic diversity, deep vendor ecosystem. Dallas or Miami are the likely candidates.
Three things I would take into any real launch from this project:
1. Pricing is positioning.
Choosing flat subscription over per-lead was a business decision and a trust decision at the same time. It changed who showed up on the vendor side, and that changed what the buyer experience could even be. One pricing call affected every other part of the strategy.
2. The hardest persona to convince is the most important one.
Pat doesn’t trust platforms. He has been burned before. If the product cannot honestly answer his objection without dodging it, it doesn’t deserve his business. Building the messaging to confront that directly, not around it, was the most useful exercise in this whole case study.
3. Supply comes first, always.
A marketplace with buyers and no vendors is a broken promise. Sequencing supply before demand is not a creative choice, it is the only choice. Every two-sided platform that has failed fast has gotten this backwards.
ToastReady doesn’t exist yet. But if it did, this is exactly how it would launch.