Marketplace Liquidity Bucket Strategy
Narrow your marketplace definition until every unit of demand can match every unit of supply
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 80%
To reach liquidity as fast as possible in a fragmented marketplace, Convoy deliberately narrowed the dimensions it served — by geography (local vs. regional vs. long-haul) and equipment type — so that any incoming shipment could theoretically be served by any truck in its network. This is the opposite of trying to be everything to everyone; by refusing requests outside a tightly defined bucket (e.g., only local drive-in loads for Unilever in Texas), Convoy avoided fragmenting its limited supply and could deliver a reliable experience, expanding the bucket only after liquidity was achieved in the narrower one.
Origin
Advice Dan Lewis credits to an unnamed early mentor, applied directly during Convoy's Texas/Unilever expansion.
Core principles
- 01The least fragmented marketplace is one where every demand unit can be served by every supply unit
- 02Say no to out-of-bucket requests to protect service reliability while density builds
- 03Expand bucket definitions only after liquidity is proven in the narrow one
How to run it
- 1
Map the dimensions that split supply
List every attribute that fragments your supply pool, such as distance/route type (local, regional, long-haul) and equipment/product type.
- 2
Define a tight bucket
Choose an initial segment narrow enough that all available supply can realistically serve all incoming demand within it.
- 3
Refuse requests outside the bucket
Explicitly decline business that falls outside the defined bucket, even from major prospective customers, until the network can support it.
Pro tip Being disciplined here builds trust — customers know exactly what reliable service they'll get.
Watch out Every competing broker will offer to handle everything nationwide immediately; resist matching that promise before you're ready.
- 4
Expand the bucket once liquid
Once density and reliable matching are achieved in the narrow bucket, deliberately widen geography or load types to the next adjacent segment.
In the wild
When Unilever asked Convoy to handle freight, Convoy insisted on only local, drive-in shipments within Texas rather than accepting broader freight it couldn't yet reliably serve.
→ The disciplined, narrow bucket let Convoy build genuine density and prove reliability before expanding into other lanes.
Common mistakes
Trying to serve every lane and load type immediately
Spreading supply too thin across too many geographies or equipment types prevents any single segment from reaching real liquidity.
Saying yes to enterprise demands beyond current capability
Promising nationwide coverage before the network could support it would have broken the reliable experience Convoy needed to build trust.
Is it for you?
Best for
Fragmented, multi-segment marketplaces (freight, services, local commerce) expanding into new categories or geographies.
Not ideal for
Markets where supply and demand are already homogeneous and undifferentiated.
From the transcript
“you want every single piece of demand that comes in that marketplace to apply to all of your supply”
“what are all the dimensions that split supply?”
From the episode
Convoy (with CEO Dan Lewis)