Sequencing eBay Ads' Yearly Roadmap: Two Partner Integrations and One Platform Bet

You lead product for the advertising business at eBay. Three projects are proposed for 2021: two of them integrate eBay's ads business with external partners, and the third is an internal project that delivers the long-term vision for the ads platform. Explain how you would plan the 2021 roadmap for these three projects: how you would assess and compare them, the order and timing you would choose across the year, and how you would handle the trade-offs and dependencies between them. ```hint Look for links between the projects Before ranking anything, ask whether either partner integration would be cheaper or more valuable once the platform work exists, and whether a partner's own deadline fixes its timing. Sequencing follows from those links as much as from each project's value. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - What does each partner integration deliver (new advertiser demand, new ad inventory, data or measurement), and does either come with a contractual or partner-imposed date? - What is the platform vision meant to change, for example ad serving, targeting, measurement or self-serve tools for sellers, and what later work depends on it? - What capacity is available: one shared team for all three projects, or separate teams that can work in parallel? - What does the ads business most need from 2021: in-year revenue, advertiser growth, a better buyer experience, or long-term platform capability? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Goals for the ads business in 2021, and how each of the three projects contributes to them. - A consistent way to size and compare the projects (impact, confidence, effort, strategic value, risk including partner-side risk) that does not automatically starve the platform work. - Dependency and capacity analysis that drives the sequence, such as whether partner work should be built on the new platform or ahead of it. - A concrete quarter-by-quarter plan with milestones, decision points and the triggers that would change it. - Stakeholder alignment, plus metrics for each project and guardrails for the marketplace and its buyers. ### Follow-up Questions - Midway through the year, one partner asks to pull its launch forward by a quarter. What do you do? - Leadership proposes cutting the platform project to fund more partner work. How do you respond? - How would you report progress on the platform project when it earns almost no revenue on its own in 2021?