A North Star Metric That Creates a Roadmap Conflict

Your marketplace product's North Star metric is "successful transactions completed." The design team has two candidate projects for the next quarter, and only enough engineering capacity for one:

• Project A: a full visual redesign of the buyer-facing homepage — new typography, imagery, and layout. Stakeholders (including the CEO) are enthusiastic about it and it would be a strong portfolio piece for the design team.
• Project B: an overhaul of the seller's listing-creation flow, which current data shows has a 35% abandonment rate, meaning over a third of sellers who start creating a listing never finish it.

1. Using the North Star framing from this subject, which project should you argue for, and why?
2. The CEO pushes back: "The homepage is what everyone sees first — doesn't first impressions matter more?" How would you respond using this subject's concepts, without dismissing the concern?
3. What would change your recommendation, and under what evidence would Project A become the stronger choice instead?