SAHN
- Status
- Specced, shelved by choice
- Role
- Product, system design, go-to-market
- Kind
- Marketplace, Product spec, Systems design, GTM
- Activity
- No public repository
A two-sided marketplace for events, planned for Pune first. I wrote a deep product and technical spec, then chose not to build it. That decision is part of the story.
What it was
SAHN matched event organisers with vendors (catering, AV, photography, venues) and with free or in-kind community venues. Pune first, Bengaluru next.
How it was designed
The spec describes 16 named engines, including matching, fairness and exposure, cold-start handling, vendor reliability scoring, badges, review integrity, abuse detection, in-kind hosting, availability, pricing intelligence, demand forecasting, notifications and platform health.
Go-to-market
Launch with tech and design events in Pune only. Expand to Bengaluru once Pune has traction. Win Pune completely while growing Bengaluru, then add one or two more cities.
Weddings were out of scope by design. General personal events such as birthdays were a planned later niche.
Why I stopped
Photography looked like a weak revenue category. At tech and design events it is usually volunteer work, and the premium paid end (₹20K and up) is already served by existing platforms. A marketplace that can't monetise one of its headline categories needs a different shape, so I dropped it and moved on rather than build it anyway.