Building Goodbash – From Pain Point to Marketplace
A Founder’s Journey in Microscope
Building a marketplace is one of the hardest startup challenges.
At its core, everything depends on one fragile balance: matching demand with supply. Get it wrong, and nothing works. But that’s only the beginning.
Marketplaces are complex by design. They serve multiple personas at once, each with different needs, behaviors, and expectations. That complexity quickly turns into higher marketing costs, fragmented messaging, and increased financial risk. Decisions around ads, positioning, timing, and scale carry far more weight than in single-sided products.
In this episode, we explore what it really takes to reduce that risk. From synchronizing supply and demand, to managing marketing exposure, to questioning whether pre-launch strategies like waiting lists genuinely create traction — or simply the illusion of it.
Join this podcast where we will address all those issues with a founder who dared to implement it.
The Story Behind
Goodbash began with a simple observation: people want memorable experiences, but they do not want stress.
Behind the scenes, planning an event can involve dozens of decisions that require expertise few people have. Budget concerns, venue selection, timing logistics, vendor matching, decision fatigue, and last-minute changes create friction at every turn.
The team set out to design a system that helps users think through the whole planning process intelligently. They did not want to automate everything blindly. They wanted to give users the confidence that decisions would be informed, feasible, and tailored to their expectations. That intent shaped the design of Goodbash from the earliest wireframes to its beta platform.
And this is where the story begins.
What You Will Learn
Building a marketplace from scratch
Setting a concept (or concepts) of a prelaunch
Syncing Demand and Supply
Transitioning from consumer to service provider in a familiar market, without prior provider experience
Questions We'll Explore
The compelling event (why this and why now)
Before Goodbash was a product, what was the moment that made you think: “This needs to exist”?
Was there a specific event, frustration, or personal experience that pushed you to start Goodbash? At that point, did it feel like a gap in the market, or more like a pain you couldn’t ignore anymore?
Had you worked in event planning, marketplaces, or adjacent industries before, or did you come in as an outsider?
Market awareness & Early conviction
When you first explored the space, did you feel this was an underserved market—or a misunderstood one? Were you afraid of that?
What made you confident enough to say, “Yes, this is worth building,” instead of just saying, “This is annoying”?
Early-stage challenges
What have been the hardest parts of building Goodbash so far?
Was it more difficult to find:
the right tech talent?
the right marketing team/approach?
Solo-founder reality & Decision fatigue
You’ve been building this largely as a solo-preneur. What’s the hardest part of doing this alone?
And on the flip side—what freedoms or advantages does being solo give you that teams don’t have?
How do you handle the constant switching between product, tech, marketing, partnerships, and operations?
Was there a moment you underestimated how mentally demanding marketplace building would be?
Growth philosophy
When you think about scaling Goodbash, what feels more natural to you right now: organic growth or external funding?
Do you see venture capital as an accelerator—or a constraint? Are you more inclined toward: bootstrapping longer, angel investment, or institutional VC?
What would have to be true for you to say yes to outside capital?
Marketplace complexity
Marketplaces are notoriously hard to scale. What do you see as the hardest lever to pull as Goodbash grows?
Supply? Demand? Trust? Operations?
Scaling pain
Looking ahead 12–24 months, what do you believe will be your biggest challenges as Goodbash grows?
What worries you more: speed, quality, or focus?
Team philosophy
How do you think about building your first real team?
Are you leaning toward: remote-first, local talent, or a hybrid setup?
Do you imagine Goodbash as a company with an office culture—or a distributed, outcome-driven team?
What kind of people do you think thrive in an early-stage marketplace like this?
Founder insights & Advices
What’s one thing you now understand about building a startup that you didn’t fully appreciate before starting Goodbash?
If someone is sitting on a marketplace idea right now, what’s the one question they should ask themselves before starting?
One year from now, what would make you say: “This was worth it”?
Featured Guest
Siji Osuntokun
Product Lead/Co-Founder at Goodbash
Siji Osuntokun is a senior product manager and founder with 10 years of experience across tech and adjacent industries. She has built and scaled digital products in fintech, e-commerce, travel tech, content platforms, and most recently, EventTech as the founder of Goodbash.
Earlier in her career, Siji worked in partnerships and business development at fintech companies including Rexelpay and Aza Finance, where she helped strengthen market presence and led initiatives that sealed infrastructure partnerships, improved enterprise engagement, and sales outcomes.
She began her career at the United Nations Information Centre in Lagos, where she developed a strong appreciation for user-centered communication and experienced firsthand the challenges of organizing events with limited resources—insights she later carried into partnerships and business development roles, and ultimately into her founder perspective and product approach at Goodbash.
As a product manager, Siji is passionate about continuous discovery, intuitive design, and optimizing the user journey experience. In her personal life, she is passionate about celebrating the people she loves and honouring milestones.
She holds a BSc in International Law and Diplomacy, and a Masters in Business Administration, and Digital Business.