DOC-20240612-WA0000_240618_085727

Product
Management
Interview
A Preparation Guide
A Practical Industry-Level Guide to

Approach the Product Management
Interview
Product Management Interview - A Preparation Guide by Technomanagers
Preface
Are you aspiring to become a successful Product Manager and embark on a
journey in the world of tech and innovation? Are you eager to stand out in
your product management interviews and secure that dream job? Look no
further! Welcome to the "Product Management Interview - A Preparation
Guide," your comprehensive roadmap to acing product management
interviews.
In today's competitive job market, the role of a Product Manager has

become increasingly vital to the success of technology companies. Product
Managers are responsible for shaping the future of products, driving
innovation, and ensuring that products meet customer needs. As a result,
the interview process for Product Management positions has become more
rigorous and demanding.
This book is designed to be your trusted companion on your journey to

becoming a Product Manager. With in-depth insights, practical tips, and
real-world examples, you'll gain the knowledge and confidence needed to
excel in interviews and secure your dream role. Each chapter is carefully
crafted to provide you with the tools and strategies necessary to navigate
the entire interview process.
1
Table of Contents
● Introduction to Product Management Interviews
○ The Rising Demand for Product Managers
○ Skills Required for Success
○ Interview Formats
● The Role of a Product Manager
○ The Crucial Role of a Product Manager
○ Challenges Faced by Product Managers
○ Impact of a Product Manager
● Understanding the Interview Process
○ The Stages of the Product Management Interview Process
○ Preparing for the Interview Process
● Case Interviews: Cracking the Product Management Case
○ What Are Case Interviews?
○ The Structure of a Case Interview
○ Strategies for Cracking the Product Management Case
● Product Design Interview Cases
● Product Improvement Interview Cases
● Product Strategy Interview Cases
● Product Metric Interview Cases
● Technical Interview Preparation
● Bonus - Google Preparation
● Conclusion and Next steps
2
Chapter 1: Introduction to Product Management

Interviews
Welcome to the first chapter of the "Product Management Interview - A
Preparation Guide." In this chapter, we will embark on a journey to
understand the fundamentals of Product Management interviews. We will
explore why Product Managers are in such high demand, the key skills
required for success in this role, and the typical interview formats you can
expect to encounter.
The Rising Demand for Product Managers

Product Management has emerged as a linchpin in the tech industry. Product
Managers play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between engineering,
design, and business strategy. As technology companies strive for innovation
and customer-centricity, the demand for skilled Product Managers has
soared.
One of the primary reasons for this demand is the unique skill set Product
Managers bring to the table. They must blend technical knowledge, market
understanding, and strategic thinking. They are responsible for defining a
product's vision, strategy, and roadmap, and ensuring that the product
aligns with customer needs.
Furthermore, Product Managers are often referred to as "mini-CEOs" of their
products. They have decision-making authority and must navigate complex
trade-offs between competing priorities, all while keeping a laser focus on
delivering value to customers and the company.
Skills Required for Success

To excel in Product Management interviews and the role itself, you need a
diverse skill set. These skills include:
● Technical Acumen: While you don't need to code, you should have a
solid understanding of the technical aspects of your product. This helps
you communicate effectively with engineering teams.
3
● Market Insight: Being aware of market trends, competition, and

customer needs is critical. You should know how to conduct market
research and translate it into actionable strategies.
● Strategic Thinking: Product Managers need to think strategically,
defining a clear vision for their product and devising plans to achieve
it.
● Communication: Strong communication skills are vital. You'll be
collaborating with cross-functional teams, and the ability to convey
your ideas clearly is essential.
● Problem-solving: You'll face complex challenges. Being able to break
them down and find creative solutions is crucial.
● Data-Driven Decision-Making: You'll rely on data to make informed
decisions. Understanding how to collect, analyse, and use data
effectively is a must.
● User-Centric Approach: Always keep the user in mind. Understand
their needs and ensure your product addresses them.
Interview Formats
Product Management interviews come in various formats, depending on the
company and stage of the interview process. Some common formats include
Product Design/Improvement Interviews: You might be given a
product scenario to design or improve. The focus is on your ability to
think through user problems and propose solutions.
Product Strategy Interviews: Similar to those in consulting, you'll
be presented with a business problem and asked to develop a strategy
or make recommendations.
Product Metric Interviews: A metric based question is asked to
assess your ability to analyze complex problems, make data-driven
decisions and communicate effectively.
Technical Interviews: While you won't need coding skills, you may
face technical questions related to the product's technology stack or
industry-specific challenges.
Behavioural Interviews: These assess your past experiences and
how they relate to the role. Expect questions like "Tell me about a time
when you had to prioritise features."
4
As we progress through this guide, each of these interview formats will be

explored in detail, with tips and sample questions to help you prepare
effectively.
In conclusion, the demand for Product Managers is on the rise, driven by

their pivotal role in technology companies. Success in Product Management
interviews and the role itself requires a blend of technical acumen, market
insight, strategic thinking, and excellent communication.
Throughout this guide, we will equip you with the knowledge and strategies
to master each facet of the interview process.
5
Chapter 2: The Role of a Product Manager

In this chapter, we will delve deep into the role of a Product Manager (PM).
Understanding the responsibilities, challenges, and impact of a Product
Manager is fundamental to preparing for Product Management interviews
and excelling in the role itself.
The Crucial Role of a Product Manager

Product Managers serve as the lynchpin between various departments within
a company, including engineering, design, marketing, and sales. Their
primary mission is to drive the successful development and launch of a
product that aligns with the company's vision and meets the needs of its
target customers.
Let's break down the key responsibilities that define the role of a Product
Manager:
● Product Vision: PMs are responsible for defining and communicating
the product's vision. They set the long-term direction, envisioning
what the product should become over time.
● Strategy and Roadmap: Developing a strategic roadmap that
outlines how the product will evolve is a critical task. PMs prioritise
features and enhancements based on business goals and user
feedback.
● Market Research: A thorough understanding of the market, customer
needs, and competitive landscape is essential. PMs use market
research to make informed decisions.
● Cross-functional collaboration: PMs collaborate closely with
engineering, design, and other teams to ensure the product's
successful execution. They serve as a bridge between these teams,
ensuring everyone is aligned.
● Requirements Definition: PMs create detailed product requirements
that guide the development process. This includes defining user
stories, acceptance criteria, and feature specifications.
6
● User-Centric Focus: Keeping the user at the centre of

decision-making is a core principle. PMs continuously gather user
feedback to refine and improve the product.
● Product Launch: Coordinating the product launch involves everything
from marketing strategies to user training. PMs ensure a smooth
transition from development to market.
● Performance Analysis: Post-launch, PMs track key performance
indicators (KPIs) to measure the product's success. They iterate based
on data and feedback.
● Problem Solving: PMs are often called upon to address complex
challenges, make tough decisions, and find creative solutions.
● Communication: Clear and effective communication is crucial. PMs
must convey the product vision and roadmap to all stakeholders.
Challenges Faced by Product Managers

While the role of a Product Manager is rewarding, it's not without its
challenges:
● Balancing Priorities: PMs must juggle multiple priorities, often with
limited resources. They need to make tough decisions on what
features to prioritise.
● Handling Ambiguity: The tech landscape is constantly evolving. PMs
must thrive in an environment of uncertainty and change.
● Managing Stakeholders: PMs deal with various stakeholders, each
with their own interests and expectations. Managing these
relationships can be demanding.
● User-Centricity: Maintaining a deep understanding of user needs and
preferences requires ongoing effort and research.
● Technical and Business Acumen: PMs need to speak the language
of both engineering and business, bridging the gap between these
disciplines.
Impact of a Product Manager

Effective Product Managers have a profound impact on the success of a
product and a company. They:
7
● Drive Innovation: PMs are the catalysts for innovation, constantly

seeking ways to improve products and meet evolving customer needs.
● Enhance User Experience: By prioritizing user feedback and
advocating for user-centric design, PMs ensure products resonate with
customers.
● Increase Revenue: Well-executed product strategies can lead to
increased sales and revenue growth.
● Build Strong Teams: PMs create collaborative environments where
cross-functional teams work efficiently toward common goals.
In conclusion, the role of a Product Manager is multifaceted, demanding a

combination of strategic thinking, technical understanding, and effective
communication.
Product Managers are the visionaries and orchestrators behind successful
products, and they play a pivotal role in driving a company's growth and
innovation.
8
Chapter 3: Understanding the Interview Process

In this chapter, we will explore the intricacies of the Product Management
interview process. Understanding the various stages, formats, and
expectations is essential for effective preparation and success in securing a
Product Management role.
The Stages of the Product Management Interview Process

Product Management interviews often consist of multiple stages, each designed to
assess different aspects of your abilities. Here's an overview of the typical stages
you can expect:
● Initial Screening: This is usually a phone or video call with a recruiter or HR
representative. It's a preliminary evaluation of your qualifications and fit for
the role.
● Case Submission: Depending on the company, you might be asked to submit
a case presentation which will test your product management capabilities.
Remember to follow the case instructions carefully.
● Product Design/Improvement Interviews: In these interviews, you'll be
presented with a product scenario or a design challenge. The focus is on your
ability to think critically about user problems and propose solutions.
● Product Strategy: Similar to case interviews in consulting, you'll be
presented with a business problem or a market scenario. Your task is to
develop a strategy, make recommendations, or analyze a product-related
issue.
● Product Metric: A metric based question is asked to assess your ability to
analyze complex problems, make data-driven decisions and communicate
effectively.
● Technical Interviews: Depending on the company, you may encounter
technical interviews. These can involve questions related to the product's
technology stack or industry-specific challenges. However, PM interviews are
less technical than those for software engineers.
● Behavioral Interviews: These interviews assess your past experiences and
how they relate to the role. You'll be asked about challenges you've faced,
how you've prioritized features, and how you've worked with cross-functional
teams.
9
Preparing for the Interview Process

Effective preparation is key to success in Product Management interviews:
Research the Company: Understand the company's products,
culture, and mission. Tailor your answers to show why you're a good
fit.
Review Your Resume: Be ready to discuss your experiences,
focusing on how they relate to Product Management. Highlight your
achievements and problem-solving skills.
Product Design/Improvement: Practise analyzing and designing
products. Consider the user's perspective, prioritize features, and think
about usability.
Product Strategy: Develop a structured approach to solving
problems. Practice breaking down complex issues into manageable
components and communicating your thought process.
Technical Knowledge: Brush up on relevant technical knowledge
related to the product and industry. While not as in-depth as technical
roles, Product Managers should have a basic technical understanding.
Behavioral Questions: Prepare answers for common behavioral
questions like "Tell me about a time when you had to make a tough
decision" or "Describe a situation where you had to pivot a product
strategy."
In conclusion, the Product Management interview process is multifaceted,

consisting of several stages and formats. Effective preparation, including
researching the company, practicing common interview questions, and
honing your problem-solving and communication skills, is essential for
success.
Additionally, cultural fit plays a vital role, so be prepared to demonstrate

your alignment with the company's values and mission.
10
Chapter 4:Case Interviews: Cracking the Product

Management Case
Case interviews are a distinctive and critical part of the Product Management
interview process, assessing your ability to think analytically, solve
problems, and make data-driven decisions. In this chapter, we will delve
deep into understanding case interviews, what to expect, and strategies to
excel in them.
What Are Case Interviews?

Case interviews are a structured assessment method used by many
companies to evaluate a candidate's problem-solving skills and
decision-making abilities.
In the context of Product Management, case interviews present a

product-related challenge or scenario that you must analyze and provide
recommendations for. These scenarios can be hypothetical or based on
real-world situations the company has faced.
The Structure of a Case Interview

Case interviews typically follows a specific structure:
● Introduction: The interviewer introduces the case, provides
background information, and sets the stage for the problem at hand.
● Problem Statement: You are presented with the core problem or
question that needs to be addressed. This is often a high-level,
open-ended question.
● Information Gathering: You can ask the interviewer clarifying
questions to gather additional information about the problem. This is a
critical step to ensure you fully understand the context and
constraints.
● Analysis: You analyze the situation, break down the problem into
manageable components, and develop a structured approach to
solving it. This may involve creating frameworks, conducting data
analysis, or brainstorming solutions.
11
● Recommendations: Based on your analysis, you provide

recommendations or solutions to the problem. Be sure to justify your
recommendations with logical reasoning and data, if available.
● Discussion: The interviewer may engage in a discussion with you to
explore your thought process further or challenge your assumptions.
This is an opportunity to showcase your adaptability and analytical
skills.
Strategies for Cracking the Product Management Case

Understand the Basics: Before your interview, familiarize yourself
with fundamental Product Management concepts, such as market
research, user personas, product strategy, and KPIs. This foundational
knowledge will serve as a basis for your analysis.
Listen Actively: Pay close attention to the case introduction and
problem statement. Clarify any ambiguities and ask relevant questions
to ensure a clear understanding.
Structure Your Approach: Use frameworks to structure your
analysis. Common frameworks in Product Management include SWOT
analysis, the Five Forces model, and the Product Lifecycle. Adapt these
frameworks to suit the specific case.
Think Aloud: Communicate your thought process clearly and logically.
Interviewers are interested in understanding how you approach
complex problems.
Consider Trade-Offs: Recognize that in many cases, there are
trade-offs between different solutions. Evaluate these trade-offs and
make informed decisions.
Practice, Practice, Practice: Practice case interviews with friends,
peers, or through mock interviews. This will help you become more
comfortable with the format and improve your problem-solving skills.
Time Management: Keep an eye on the time and pace yourself
throughout the interview. Don't spend too much time on any one
aspect of the case.
Be Adaptable: Be prepared for unexpected twists or changes in the
case. Your ability to adapt and maintain a structured approach is
valuable.
12
Preparing for these interviews involves understanding the structure,

practicing with mock cases, and developing a structured and data-driven
approach to solving problems. With practice and a systematic approach, you
can excel in Product Management case interviews and demonstrate your
readiness for the role.
Common Mistakes to avoid in Product Management Interview

1. Asking the clarifying question just for the sake of asking: Lot of
candidates don’t know what questions to ask the interviewer. It gives a
wrong indication to the interviewer that the candidate is not able to
comprehend the problem statement and situation. There is a particular
way in which you should ask questions and there should be solid
reasoning behind asking questions. Always give a reason behind why
you are asking the question.
2. Using framework blindly: You should not blindly follow the popular
frameworks like Circle, AARRR, RICE etc. Every other candidate is
using Circle’s method and the interviewer gets bored of listening to the
same old framework. Sometimes it looks like force-fitting, so we have
developed a creative circle method and which we will showcase that
with examples as we start discussing different product interview
questions
In conclusion, case interviews are a distinctive and important part of Product

Management interviews, assessing your analytical and problem-solving
abilities.
13
Chapter 5: Product Design Interviews Cases
Product Design Questions

Product Design questions are a significant part of Product Management
interviews. These questions assess your ability to think critically, analyze
user needs, and come up with innovative solutions for real-world problems.
In this chapter, we'll dive into the world of Product Design questions,
covering the essentials and providing you with sample questions and
solutions.
Understanding Product Design Questions

Product Design questions typically present you with a scenario where you're
tasked with designing or improving a product.
The goal of the interviewer in asking Product Design questions is to evaluate
● Product thinking
● User-centric approach
● Problem-solving skills
These questions often revolve around user experience (UX) design, usability,
and the overall product design process.
Approach to Product Design Questions

1. Understand the Problem: Begin by thoroughly understanding the
problem statement. Ask clarifying questions to gather more
information if needed. Define the objectives and goals. What is the
problem you're trying to solve, and what outcomes are you aiming for?
2. User-Centric Thinking: Always keep the user at the center of your
design. Consider their needs, pain points, and goals throughout the
process.
3. Define User Personas: Create user personas to represent different
types of users who might interact with your product. This helps in
tailoring your design to specific user needs.
State all the primary users, secondary users, and other stakeholders.
i.e. while designing a digital assistant for students, students will be
14
primary users, parents will be secondary users, and school admins will
be other stakeholders.
4. User Segments: Come up with as many user segments as you can
using their Demographics(Age, Gender, Income, Education, etc.),
Psychographics(Beliefs, Values, Pain Points, etc.), Geographics(Region,
City, Community, etc.) and Behaviour(Hobbies, Habits, Digital Media
usage, etc.)
5. User Journey: Outline the steps a user will take to interact with the
product. Consider the user journey from start to finish. For example -
Broadly the customer journey of users who use travel applications can
be divided into Pre Travel like Exploration, Booking, During Travel and
Post Travel.
6. Use Cases/Pain Points: It is always advisable to map out the
customer journey and then find out different pain points in the
journey.Understand the pain points of users by getting into their
shoes. These can be related to bad UI/UX experience, low quality
products, gap in the market etc. For example - Zomato identified lack
of information about restaurants, no time for cooking etc. and created
a platform to serve these needs.
7. Define Feature to solve Pain Points: Think of what features can be
built to solve the above pain points. Think about how easy it is for
users to navigate your design.
8. Prioritize Features: Prioritize the features you've designed based on
their importance to the user and business goals. Determine the scope
of the design. Which features and functionalities should be included in
the initial release, and which can be added later? Consider what will
deliver the most value. Mention at least one Moonshot(100x) solution
(Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, etc.) to signal the interviewer your
creative thinking style.
9. Success Metrics: It is crucial to measure the success of any product
or feature that you are building.Start by defining North Star Metric and
then relevant supporting metrics.
15
Question 1: Design Lyft for Kids.

Interviewer: Design Lyft for Kids.
Priyanka: Before we proceed, I would like to clarify my understanding of Lyft. So,

Lyft is a digital ride-hailing platform that connects riders with drivers. The
passengers can request a ride on the platform, and the driver can fulfil the demand
by dropping them at the desired location. Lyft acts as a facilitator between the two
and takes a cut out of each ride that happens through its platform.Is my
understanding correct?
Interviewer: Yes.
Priyanka: Alright, to understand the problem better, I would like to ask some
clarifying questions. When we talk about kids, I am assuming we are referring to an
age group of 10–16 years who can travel alone. Also, I am assuming that parents
will be booking the rides for their kids.
Interviewer: That’s a fair assumption
Priyanka: Also, we are catering to the age group of 10–16, so there will be no
requirement for booster seats.
Interviewer: That’s correct.
Priyanka: Should we design a new app or integrate it into the existing app? I think
we can extend the existing app as this will help us leverage our existing user base
to use this feature.
Interviewer: Sure.
Priyanka: Today, parents struggle to get their kids to travel alone and want to
make their kids independent from a young age. So, having the option to book a
safe ride through Lyft can reduce the transportation issues they face. The goal of
the product is to provide a safe ride to the kids who want to travel from one point
to another.
Interviewer: Yes.
Priyanka: Is there any time or resource constraint should I be acquainted with?

Interviewer: You are not bound by any such constraint.
16
Priyanka: Okay, the way I would like to go about it, first we will discuss the
different user segments and then focus on a specific user persona. We will go
through their journey to see the pain points they face. Then we will see solutions
corresponding to the most pressing pain points. After that, we will talk about the
metrics to track whether our solution is working or not. Finally, we can discuss
some trade-offs or future trends that can be used. Are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: Sounds great, please go ahead.
Priyanka: Let’s discuss the different user segments

User Segments:
1. Single/working parents who struggle with getting their kids to different
places like tuition classes due to their busy schedule
2. Physically challenged parents who are unable to drive their kids to
different places and depend on other people to help them.
3. Teenagers who want to meet their friends or just visit their hobby classes.
4. Drivers
Priyanka: Essentially, our app will cater to all the different customer segments.
From the parent segment, I would like to focus on single/working parents as they
are the ones who have to potential to provide a huge user base for our application.
Teens will be the secondary users of our application.
User Journey:
I will try to visualize the journey of a parent who wants to book a ride for their kid
from point A to B.
1. Register their kids on the platform
2. Schedule a ride for their kid
3. Kids will board the cab
4. Track the ride
5. Kids will offboard the cab at the destination
6. Payment will be charged for the ride
Pain points/Use Cases:

1. As a working parent, I want to preschedule/schedule or remotely book rides
for my kid.
2. As a working parent, I want to ensure that my kid has conveniently boarded
the right cab when they are traveling alone as I am not able to drop them off
due to my busy schedule.
17
3. As a working parent, I want to ensure my kid is traveling with a trusted

driver.
4. As a working parent, I want to track my kid’s ride and receive an
acknowledgment when my child has been dropped at the desired location.
5. As a working parent, I would want my child to have a fun-filled ride.
6. As a working parent, I would want my child to get some refreshments
especially if he had a long tiring day.
Pain point Prioritization:
I would like to prioritize pain points 2 and 3 as safety and trust is of utmost
importance and cannot be compromised in this scenario.
Solutions/Features:
Solutions for the pain points #2:
A. Smart screen: There will be a smart screen in the cab. Parents will be able
to chat with their kids so that they can know their whereabouts. They can
also send an SOS signal in a single tap through the screen if they are
uncomfortable during the ride. This will help them in getting immediate
assistance.
B. Drop-off/Pickup Notes: If the parent is booking a ride for their kid
remotely, they can add notes through which they can provide instructions to
their kids. For example — If the kid needs to sign out of their cricket practice
session, the parents can send a reminder to collect their kit through the
notes section.
C. Verification code: Parents might book rides for their kids remotely. So they
can provide a code to their kids which will help them identify the right cab.
The driver will match the code shared by the kid, and post verification, the
ride will begin.
Solutions for the pain points #3:

A. Driver sensitization: When parents book a ride for kids, Lyft should connect
them with drivers who are top performers and have gone through rigid
screening. Also, drivers should be sensitized toward handling kids.
B. Multiple-time face verification: The profile picture of drivers can be
verified multiple times during the ride through facial recognition to ensure
that the driver is the same.
C. Immediate notification on route deviation: Parents should be able to
check the driver's history before booking the ride. Parents will be
18
immediately notified if drivers deviate from the normal route. Also, a support
team will instantly get in touch with the parents to help them.
D. Schedule with the same driver: The parents should be able to schedule
weekly rides for kids. Also, if the same driver picks up the kid there can be
increased trust and safety.
Prioritization (Impact vs Effort):

● Solution #2a [High Impact] [High Effort]
● Solution #2b [Medium Impact] [Low effort]
● Solution #2c [Medium impact] [Medium Effort]
● Solution #3a [High Impact] [High Effort]
● Solution #3b [Medium Impact] [Low Effort]
● Solution #3c [High Impact] [Medium Effort]
● Solution #3d [Medium Impact] [High Effort]
For MVP, I would like to have #2b, #3a, #3c in the MVP
Success Metrics:
1. Number of rides successfully completed by kids
2. Customer satisfaction score(CSAT)
3. Number of ride cancellations by drivers
4. The average rating that is given to the driver by the parent post-ride
completion.
Question 2: Design a product that improves the experience

of moving to new city.
Interviewer: How would you design a product that improves the experience of
moving to new city?
Shailesh: Okay, as I understand the problem, moving cities means people are
moving into a different city for a long period, like recent graduates joining the
company.
Interviewer: Yes
Shailesh: Okay, before moving on to the solution, I have some questions that I
want to clarify. When we are thinking of designing products for people moving into
the new cities, what is our prime focus? There are a lot of use cases like searching
for a home, and information about necessary services like schools, hospitals, etc. It
can be entertainment like socializing with others. According to my standpoint,
19
house hunting is the first thing we look out for, so we can target that; what do you
think?
Interviewer: Yeah, absolutely, that’s the first thing we look out for. Go ahead.
Shailesh: Also, I am assuming that we are the platform that is facilitating both the
parties, the ones who are listing the houses on the platform and the ones who are
seeking the houses on the platform.
Interviewer: That’s a fair assumption.
Shailesh: Alright, one more question, is there any resource or time constraint I
should be aware of? I am asking this question because it may play an important
role in prioritizing the feature and forming a product roadmap and deliverables.
Interviewer: Let’s say we have to deliver this product in the next 6–9 months.
Shailesh: Let me form a product goal; the goal of the problem is to design a
product that will improve the house-hunting experience while moving into a new
city.
Interviewer: Yeah, go ahead.
Shailesh: The way I would like to approach this problem is, first will see our
customer segment and their user journey and, depending on that, will see some of
the pain points. After prioritizing the pain points, we can see some potential
solutions in priority and corresponding success metrics. Last we can think of some
of the potential tradeoffs or future aspects of the solution. Sounds okay?
Interviewer: Sounds great.
Customer Segments/ Persona

Shailesh: We can have different user segments, but if I have to state the user
segment in a MECE(Mutually Exclusive and collectively Exhaustive) way, then I will
look into these segments.
1. Recent graduates: They are the ones who have just graduated from
college, and they need to join a company that is in the new city. They are
open to shared accommodation, and since they have just started working,
their priority is to get a not-so-costly accommodation.
2. Families: They are the ones who are looking for a safe apartment for rent,
and their priority is convivence and safety for their kids rather than money.
3. Retired people: People who have been serving the government and have a
government apartment but now they have retired, they want to have an
20
apartment in which they can spend the rest of their lives. Because they are
the ones for whom socializing is very important, they want that kind of
apartment.
4. People who want to lease their apartment on a rent agreement, PG owners,
etc.
Shailesh: All the customer segments are interesting; those I would like to focus on
are the ones who recently graduated. This has a great total addressable market,
and it is the segment with which I can personally relate as well. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, this can be a potential target segment. Go ahead.
Shailesh: Let me state the overall board journey of the customer segment so that
we can have a great list of the pain points of the customer segment.
User Journey
1. Decide on the locality depending on the different amenities.
2. Check out the houses, their prices, and other facilities.
3. After finalizing the house, they complete the formalities of the rent
agreement.
4. After moving into the house, the initial setup requirement is there or the
room decor requirement is.
Pain Points
So now, depending on the user journey, let me think of the potential pain points:
1. Deciding on the locality depending on your preference is a real pain. There is
always a tradeoff between deciding the locality. Let’s say there are multiple
layouts or localities near a tech park where our office is, so we need to
decide between different tradeoffs like price, is it close to the main road so
that I can find accommodation to the office or should I go for the
accommodation that is a bit deep inside the locality so that I will be away
from the all the pollution on the main road and vehicles noise, are all the
facilities available nearby, etc.? Choosing an area is a real pain.
2. After choosing the area, choosing the house or society is the real headache
because we need to talk to so many people like flatmates and owners,
shortlisting it and seeing if the house is clean or not, or if it is big enough,
Seeing pictures, reviews, etc., are time-consuming.
3. Negotiating with the house owner is also very daunting; people who are just
coming out of college may not have the required bargaining skills, so they
21
may feel looted after moving into the house regarding the rent or the
security deposits.
4. Completing all the formalities in the societies, and getting a rent agreement
formed is also frustrating.
5. Setting up the house and getting to know the essential things such as the
supermarket, hospitals, and medical shops is also sometimes painful. Some
people want to have some kind of décor.
Shailesh: Until now, we have discussed that we want to have one product that
makes the house-hunting experience very comfortable for the people moving to the
new city. Then we discussed the target segment and their pain points. I will pause
for a while if you have any questions regarding this.
Interviewer: This looks good.
Prioritization of Pain Points

Shailesh: Okay, now let me prioritize the pain points depending on the intensity of
the grievance, or we can also think of the frequency of pain points if that is
applicable here. So that we have looked to the complete breadth and depth of the
pain points, is that okay?
Interviewer: Yeah, that will be good.
Shailesh: I think getting to know about the essential things, supermarkets, etc., is
something that Google has done over several years, and they are doing a fabulous
job in this. People are also kind of accompanied by using Google in this. People are
also aware of the documents needed for rental rent agreements, and in many
cases, the owner is the one who agrees. The pain points #1 and #2 are still a big
problem because, as a person, I would want to live in the locality or house that
suits my preference.
So should I go ahead and put the solution for problems #1 and #2.
Interviewer: Yes
Solutions/Features
Solutions to Pain points #1

1. We can have one solution in which the person can search for the preferred
area or the office address since many people would want to stay close to
their office and the budget. The search results will include all the best
localities. The search result will also be assisted by the different filter/sorting
options like distance, budget, etc. There will also be some of the top qualities
22
like 4–5 hypermarkets and nearest bus stops. Depending on it, the user will
judge which society he wants to deep dive into.
2. We can have an AI voice assistant to which you can talk out all our
requirements, budget, and need areas, and it will automatically list out the
best result for you according to your preference. We can use collaborative
filtering for these features depending on the past preferences of some other
people.
3. We can have premium features like “Ask Expert,” where you can talk with our
expert and get 1–1 consulting and complete end-to-end house hunting
journey and solutions to hidden problems and nuances, etc.
Solution to Pain Points #2

1. We can have a feature in which you will be given a list of results and houses
that you filter out depending on your preference after you have decided on
the locality. I will have the contact numbers of the people living there, the
contact number of the house owner, amenities like clubhouse, initial setup,
etc. It will also be assisted with pictures and authentic reviews about the
society or house. We can allow our normal users to have one free contact,
but the premium customer can have 30 contacts for three months. From
contacts, I mean the contact of the owner, flatmates, etc.
2. We can have an AR feature in which a person can inspect the complete house
without going there. This will help to build trust among the house seekers.
They will be able to check out on their own the size of the rooms, amenities,
facilities, etc.
Prioritization
For MVP, by which we are testing out the hypothesis,
● We can go with features #1 or #3 for pain point #1.
● For pain point #2, we can have the solution that is #1.
We can have advanced features on our future roadmap once we have tested the
hypothesis and gauged the initial market sentiments about our offerings. Is that
okay?
Interviewer: Yes, that’s good.
Success Metrics
Shailesh: Now, let’s look at the success metrics that I want to track.
1. No. of installs/ Downloads of our application.
2. Average number of search queries for the areas and the houses per day.
23
3. Average number of listing of houses by owners per week.

4. No. of people opt for the premium feature out of the total number of
people who have downloaded it.
Question 3: Design a library for the future.

Interviewer: Design a library for the future.
Shailesh: Okay, let me first clarify my understanding of the library; the library is
the place where one can find a lot of resources which he wants to read, he can rent
books, and it also gives the kind of environment which is suitable for reading books
and networking with other people. Is there any other thing in your mind that you
want me to add to this?
Interviewer: This seems okay.
Shailesh: I have a few questions which I want to get clarified. When we are
designing the library for the future, I am assuming that we are using advanced
digital technologies, which may have a prominent impact on the social and
economic well-being, something like a high-tech library. Are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: Yes, we are designing something technologically advanced.
Shailesh: Alright, since libraries can be of different types, like physical, virtual, or
hybrid ones. What are we currently focusing on? From my standpoint, we can have
a high-tech hybrid library assisting with advanced technology. Although the
completely virtual libraries are highly scalable, the hybrid library will have an initial
physical cost. Still, the kind of impact hybrid libraries may give is completely
unmatchable, so I want to proceed with the hybrid library. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, you can go ahead with the hybrid library.
Shailesh: Is there any resource and time constraint should I be aware of because it
may play an essential role while prioritizing the features?
Interviewer: No, we do not have any resources or time constraints; you can go as
far as possible.
Shailesh: Alright, let me reiterate what we have discussed and form an objective of
the problem. The goal of the problem is to create a hybrid library assisting with
advanced technology or Industry 4.0 to give the users a one-of-a-kind experience.
Interviewer: Go ahead.
24
Shailesh: The way I would like to approach this problem is first will see our
the pain points. After prioritizing the pain points, we can see some potential
solutions in priority and corresponding success metrics. At last, we can think of
some of the potential tradeoffs or some future aspects of the Solution.
Interviewer: Sounds excellent.
User Segment/User Personas

Shailesh: Let’s first see the different user segments
1. Kids (with their parents), I am considering kids as a potential customer
segment because they are the ones who are very fascinated by colors,
shapes, patterns, etc. Their parents want their kids to learn concepts from
them using advanced technology and also want them to interact with other
kids.
2. Students who want to access different resources that are not available to
them like books, journals, etc. They want the kind of environment which is
suitable for reading.
3. Young professionals who want to read about something and network with
like-minded people, clients, colleagues, etc.
4. Retired people who just want to spend their leisure time reading and want to
socialize with people.
All are exciting customer segments, but I would like to target young
professionals because they are the ones who can relate better to the technologies
they are working on or have heard of. Can I target this segment, or do you want
me to consider the different user segments?
User Journey
Shailesh: Alright, let’s see their broad user journey, which will lead us to their pain
points and use cases.
1. Get into the library and put their belonging in a safe place.
2. I am searching for books and a place to sit.
3. Reading and access to the necessary facilities.
4. Return the material and check out the library.
Pain Points
Shailesh: Now, let’s see the different use cases or pain points
25
1. As a user, I would want to check beforehand about the availability of

books or if the library is houseful.
2. As a user, I would want easy access to the books and materials.
3. As a user, I would want intuitive navigation access inside the library.
4. As a user, I would want a suitable environment to read if I am alone and
a perfect space to talk with others if I discuss something with my
colleagues.
5. As a user, I would want a smooth checkout process.
Solutions/ Features
Shailesh: Now, let’s see the solutions to the above pain points.
1. The library can have a web application that anyone can access and is
able to see if there is an empty space inside the library or if certain
books are available or not. He should be able to book the slot. When you
reach the library, you just have to scan the QR code and enter the
library. [Solution to pain point 1]
2. The library can also have premium users who don’t have to book a slot;
they can just walk into the library; and the library can use computer
vision to track the users. [Solution to pain point 1] [Moonshot]
3. For searching the books, there can be a kiosk desk installed in which you
can type in the books you want to read. It will point out the exact
location of the books, and you can get the book. [Solution to pain
point 2]
4. The library can also have virtual reality installed in which you just say
which book you want to read, and it will tell you the location of the book
and escort you to the place. [Solution to pain point 2]
5. There can be drone assistants where you can talk, and they will escort
you to your seat and deliver the book there. [Solution to pain point 2]
[Moonshot]
6. The library can have audible rooms; you just book the room, and you can
listen to the books, this noisy room has an immersive screen at which
you can read the book. This feels like same as if you are reading a
physical book. The person can also see the summary of the book, also
bookmark anything, and send it to his personal note, etc. [Solution to
pain point 2]
7. There can be different dynamic infographics that can help a user to
access other areas like washrooms, drinking water facilities, and cafes to
get coffee. [Solution to pain point 3]
26
8. There can be a facility to call a drone assistant who will escort you to
different places like a washroom and can get you coffee, Sweets and
Savories etc. [Solution to pain point 3] [Moonshot]
9. The library can have the facility of walk-in and takeaway kind of feature
in which if a person wants to rent a book; he just needs to walk in taking
take away the book with him. He will automatically be charged with the
rent. (On the same line as Amazon Go). [Solution to pain point 3]
10. The library environment(Temperature and Odor) should be adjusted to
the one which is perfectly suitable for reading books. [Solution to pain
point 4]
11. The library can have multiple discussion rooms, which can be booked
online, and you can have discussions with colleagues. The discussion
rooms should be equipped with a projector, screen, etc., which boosts a
person's productivity. [Solution to pain point 4]
12. The library can have a feature in which, as soon as their slot gets over,
they will be automatically charged the amount. In the case of the
physical books, they don’t need to return the book, the drone will take
care of that, and in the case of the audible or digital text, the access will
be denied. [Solution to pain point 5] [Moonshot]
13. The library should also have a recommender system or use collaborative
filtering; it can suggest some of the books you want to read if you come
again. [Moonshot]
Prioritization
Shailesh: Now, let’s prioritize the different features since there is no constraint on
the time and the resources, so what I would like to go for are the ones that have
the highest impact. I would like to have features #1, #5, #6, #8, #9, #10, #11,
#12, #13.
Success Metrics
Shailesh: Now, let’s see some of the success metrics that I would want to track
● Average number of daily visitors.
● Average percentage (%) occupancy of the library.
● Average time spent by a user in the library.
● Average percentage (%) of the returning users.
● An average number of books read by a user per month.
● Customer lifetime value or average revenue per user.
● Daily visitors / Monthly visitors to gauge the user’s stickiness to the offerings.
27
Question 4: Design a Digital shop.

Interviewer: Design a Digital shop.
Shailesh: Okay, let me clarify some questions to get the scope of the problem.
What is the objective of designing this digital shop? I am asking this question
because the requirements of the different businesses can be different, and they can
vary from big enterprise businesses to small and medium-sized businesses,
depending on the nature of the business.
Interviewer: We want to design the digital shop to empower those who don’t have
their websites. During the COVID era, small and medium-sized businesses have
taken a hit, so we want to empower them to achieve more.
Shailesh: Great, So we are designing this digital shop for SMEs. Are we going to
provide our independent delivery fleet, or does the seller manage it, or does the
buyer have to take care of delivery?
Interviewer: For now, you can assume that there is an option of delivery with the
help of the existing workforce.
Shailesh: Is this a desktop application or a mobile application? Also, is this a single

application facilitating both buyers and sellers or do we have two different apps for
both of them?
Interviewer: This is a single application that is facilitating both sides.
Shailesh: Okay, Is this a digital shop for a particular segment like clothes,
necessary items, perishable or non-perishable? Or can I decide as I approach the
problem?
Interviewer: You can decide as you go.
Shailesh: One more question; Is there any resource or time constraint I should be
aware of? I am asking this because this may help prioritize the product’s features
and form a product roadmap.
Interviewer: You can assume we have to deliver this in the next six months.
Shailesh: Okay, let me reiterate the goal so that we are on the same page, “We
have to build a digital shop for empowering small and medium-sized businesses.”
The way I would like to approach this problem is first we will see the goal of the
28
product, we will see our customer segment, then will see their user journey after
prioritizing them. We can think of the potential pain point of the particular segment
and then list some of the solutions. After prioritizing the solutions/features, we can
think of their success metrics to see how our product is performing. At last, we can
think of some of the future features to be aware of to have a clear vision of the
product.
Interviewer: Sounds good, please go ahead.
Shailesh: Let me set the product goal; this product will facilitate both buyers and
sellers for a seamless sales experience. With that, let me define the customer
segment.
Customer segment
1. Buyers/shoppers
2. Sellers/shopkeeper
3. Delivery executives (If we are facilitating delivery)
4. Suppliers (secondary) I am adding suppliers if we have a vision of an
end-to-end digital supply chain.
I would like to target the shopkeeper as he is the owner of the shop.
User Journey for a Shopkeeper

1. Either they decide to open a new shop or extend branches of their shop.
2. Communicate about their shop to others via templates or hoardings etc.
3. Open the shop daily at a particular time.
4. Clean the shop and arrange all the products at their stipulated place.
5. When a customer comes, show them a different product type in a product
category.
6. Bargain with the customer
7. Get the money after a bargain, and do all the settlements
8. Check all the inventories that he needs to order from the supplier.
Pain Points
1. It is painful to hustle every morning to open the shop.
2. Sometimes shoppers see a lot of items and then don’t buy them. It feels
frustrating and time wasted to organize all those products back to their place.
3. It feels helpless to extend the product line because of the limited space in the
shop.
29
4. Bargaining takes a lot of time in a day; it feels even more frustrating when
the other shoppers want your attention.
5. There is always mental instability if we have given products on credit.
Sometimes it takes a lot of callbacks.
6. Forgetting the things that need to be ordered leads to calling the wholesaler
again for the items.
7. Worried about the growth of the shop.
Solutions/features
We will have a mobile application that will have the following features
1. We would be able to create as many shops as we want; there would be a
description of the shop where the shopkeeper can tell what this shop is all
about.
2. In the digital shop, he should be able to organize the different product
catalogs for different categories. He should be able to insert any new
product, its image price/other details, and which category it belongs.
3. There is one tap-sharing feature by which he should be able to share the
product catalog or the complete shop link to their buyer via WhatsApp or any
other social media channel.
4. The shopkeeper should get alert whenever something has become out of
stock so that he can plan accordingly. After the product is stocked out, it will
displace stockout for customers.
5. The shopkeeper should be able to list all the offers and discounts if he wants
to give them to the shoppers.
6. If a shopper has opted for delivery, then the shopkeeper should be notified,
and with one tap, he should navigate to the delivery place.
7. There should be the provision of digital payment so that shopkeepers can pay
online hassle-free. Also, the COD option should be available to foster trust.
8. We can also have a chat support feature where shoppers can ask their doubts
about the product listings.
9. We can have digital shopping rooms with AR/VR technology for premium
customers. In this room, the shopper will get the real shopping experience
assisted by the shopkeeper. In this digital shopping room, you can invite a
limited number of people with whom you can shop. We have missed social
shopping in this pandemic era, so this digital shopping room will be of great
help. [Moonshot]
10.We can have an integrated digital supply chain, so every time a product
count gets lower than a threshold, automatically, the supplier gets notified
30
for the product to stock up. It will reduce the lead time to get the product,
and the sales will not be lost. [Moonshot]
Prioritization:
● Must-Have — #1, #2, #3, #5, #7
● Should Have — #4 #6 #8
● Nice to Have — #9 #10
Currently I would like to focus on feature #1, #2, #3, #5 and #7 as these features
are the most basic features required by any shopkeeper to start their online
business.
We can keep features #9 and #10 for future scope as they can be deployed once
the business is successfully running on the digital platform.
Key metrics
1. The ratio of the Number of shopkeepers onboarded and the total number of
signups for a particular time.
2. The average number of sales per shopkeeper per day.
3. The ratio of orders placed and number of product catalogs shared for a
particular amount of time.
4. Daily active shops.
5. The average number of discounts/offers codes availed per day per shop.
Interviewer: Thanks.
Question 5: Design Lyft for specially-abled people.

Interviewer: Design Lyft for specially-abled people.
Shailesh: Thank you for the question. Let me clarify my understanding of Lyft. Lyft
is a platform that facilitates riders and drivers. The rider requests a cab on the
platform to a specific destination. The driver picks up the rider and drops him at the
location, and charges are paid to the platform. Lyft takes a commission out of what
the driver charges from the rider.
Interviewer: Yes.
Shailesh: Alright, let me clarify some questions regarding the problem statement.
There are different types of disabilities like physically disabled, blind or deaf. Are we
focusing on a specific disability?
31
Interviewer: For this, you can assume that we are building Lyft for physically
challenged people.
Shailesh: It makes sense since many people are physically disabled, and
transportation is a huge problem. So I am assuming the goal of the product is to
make transportation convenient for those who are physically challenged.
Interviewer: Yes
Shailesh: One more question; Is there any resource and time constraint I should
be aware of?
Interviewer: No such constraint.
Shailesh: Okay, the way I would like to go about it, first we will see the customer
segment and then focus on specific customer persona. We will go through their
journey to see different pain points. Then we will see solutions corresponding to
different pain points. After that, we will define metrics to track whether our solution
is working or not. Lastly, tradeoffs or the future technology that can be used. Does
it sound okay?
Interviewer: Sounds great; please go ahead.
Shailesh: Since we have already defined the customer segment. Let’s see the
different customer personas.
Customer Segment
1. A Physically challenged school student who is not very independent and
needs an extra bit of attention and care
2. Physically challenged young professionals who need to go to the office daily
3. Physically challenged homemakers/senior people who need transportation
help on specific days like doctor appointments or going to hypermarkets etc.
4. Driver (secondary user)
I would like to focus on physically challenged young professionals because they
need to travel daily. We can also focus on the school students, but not many
parents will be okay with sending their physically challenged children to school via
Lyft.
User Journey
Let’s see the broad journey of a person who wants to go from point A to B.
32
1. Wants to go to a certain location, request some relatives, family members or

maybe some taxi, etc.
2. Wait for a taxi, get into the car/Taxi
3. Reach the destination, get out of the car
4. Pay the bill
Pain Points
Let’s see the different pain points.
1. As a physically challenged person, I may find it inconvenient to get a taxi or
cab. My family members may not be available for help all the time.
2. As a physically challenged person, it is difficult for me to board a cab. At
times a driver may not be very empathetic to me, spoiling my mood.
Eventually, I may fear traveling to any location without my family.
3. Payment can be daunting if some random taxi driver does not accept digital
payment or doesn’t have change.
Solutions/Features
Let’s see the solutions for the pain points:
1. As a physically challenged person, I should book a cab seamlessly; a voice
assistant can help me book a cab to the exact location.
2. The vehicles for physically challenged people should have a different seating
arrangement, and it should have a ramp that can help the person get in the
cab.
3. There should be a provision for recurring rides because the young
professional has to go to the office from Monday to Friday.
4. The profile of the physically challenged person should be labeled exclusively,
and the driver should have some mandatory training sensitizing to physically
disabled people. While they accept the ride, they should know that the rider
is physically challenged and requires some special care.
5. Lyft can also start a fully autonomous car with all kinds of facilities for a
physically disabled person.
6. There should be a provision for lazy pay so there shouldn’t be any hustle for
change.
7. For physically challenged people, Lyft can tie up with some nursing homes to
escort people with physical disabilities.
Prioritization (Impact vs Effort)

● Solution #1 [High Impact] [Medium Effort]
33
● Solution #2 [High Impact] [Low effort]

● Solution #3 [Medium impact] [Medium Effort]
● Solution #4 [High Impact] [Medium Effort]
● Solution #5 [High Impact] [High Effort]
● Solution #6 [Medium Impact] [Medium Effort]
● Solution #7 [Medium Impact] [Medium Effort]
I would like to have #1, #2, #3 in the MVP
Success Metrics
1. Number of rides completed by the physically challenged person
2. The average amount of time a Physically challenged person uses the voice
assistant
3. Number of ride cancellations by physically challenged rider/driver
4. The average rating given to the driver after a physically challenged rider
completes the ride successfully.
Question 6: Design a product to improve the voting

process.
Interviewer: Design a product for the government to improve the voting process
Priyanka: I would like to ask a few questions to understand the problem better.
Interviewer: Sure, please go ahead.
Priyanka: Firstly, I would like to understand who we are. Are we a tech company
that was been given this project by the government? Have we had similar
capabilities in the past or is it the first time we are working on a government
project?
Interviewer: Yes, we are a private company, but we have collaborated with the
government on similar projects.
Priyanka: That’s interesting. Now I would like to understand what a product means
here. Is it a hardware product or a software product? I would like to assume that
we are building an app [software product] for the government. Building a software
product would be scalable as well. As we dissect the question further, I will discuss
more about the product.
Interviewer: Okay, that’s a fair assumption.
Priyanka: When we talk about improving the voting process, there can be several
34
types of improvement. Are we referring to making the voters more engaged,

making the process more hassle-free, or increasing the voter turnout? I believe all
of this is tied together and should contribute to increasing voter turnout during
elections.
Interviewer: I am aligned.
Priyanka: Is there any specific geography for which we are designing this app? I
am asking this question because the voting process is different in different regions
and geography
Interviewer: You can focus on India although the app can be used wherever the
voting process is the same.
Priyanka: Now I am trying to think why the government would need such a
product. I am assuming that there are a lot of people who are not aware of the
voting process. Even if they are aware of the process, they don't realize the
importance of how every vote counts. Every year the contesting party spends a lot
of money on election campaigns but is still not able to get a huge voter turnout. As
people spend a lot of time on their phones these days, having a software product
might help here.
Interviewer: That is true.
Priyanka: Is there any time/resource constraint that I should consider? This will
help me decide on ding the product roadmap later in terms of future use cases.
Interviewer: Yes, the state elections are happening in mid-2023, so we want the
product by then.
Priyanka: Just to recap what we have discussed till now; we would like to design
an app for the Indian government by mid-2023 to increase voter turnout. As the
state elections are two quarters away, we should be able to get more user adoption
also.
Interviewer: That is well-summarised.
Priyanka: Okay, the way I would like to proceed here is, that we will discuss the
user segments and then prioritize one of them. We will think through the pain
points they face. We will find solutions to some of the most pressing pain points.
Post that, we will talk about the metrics to track whether our goal is being achieved
or not. Are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: Yes
35
User segment:
Priyanka: There can be several user segments like elderly people, young
millennials, middle-aged adults, etc. but to ensure they are distinctly separate and
not overlapping I am using the following approach.
1. High knowledge, High motivation - Those who are fully aware of the
process, have a deep interest in politics, actively read the political manifesto,
and vote during the elections.
2. Low knowledge, Low motivation - Those who are neither much aware of
the process nor have the motivation to vote. They sometimes hear political
news from their friends or read WhatsApp forwards. They usually rely on
others to accompany them to the voting booths but would not go by
themselves.
3. No knowledge, No motivation – Those who don’t know about the political
situation and don’t realize the importance of voting.
Prioritization of User segment:

● High knowledge and high motivation[1] do not need special attention
● No knowledge and no motivation[3] can be difficult to convert
We can focus on Low knowledge and low motivation[2] as this segment has
the potential to convert easily and form a majority of the people. It is important to
make this segment aware of the importance of politics as the ruling party decides
the country's future growth & development, employment opportunities, etc.
User Journey of Voter:

Find Information about the contesting party -> Decide which party to vote ->
Locate voting center -> Travel to the voting center -> Follow the process -> Cast
the vote -> Exit
Pain Points of User segment:

● Not aware of contestants and their manifesto: As a voter, I don't have
much knowledge of which party to vote for. I usually rely on what my
family/friends are saying. I am not aware of the politics and might have a
negative connotation regarding that.
● Lots of fake information: I am not aware of authentic information sources
to know about the contesting party. There is a lot of fake information,
WhatsApp forwards, or biased news present in social media.
36
● Lack of motivation: I don't realize what is the importance of my vote. I

think my voting will not make any difference. As a voter, even if I have voted
for a political party I haven't been able to track what development has
happened so far.
● Cumbersome process: As a voter, I find the voting process quite hassled. It
is difficult to find out how I can reach my voting center and what all
documents to carry.
Prioritization of Pain Points:

Priyanka: Now, let’s prioritize the different pain points. Here I would like to analyze
the impact and criticality of the pain point. I believe solving pain points #1 and #4
would have a high impact as making information readily available and making the
process simpler can push people to vote. I want to prioritize pain points #1 and #4.
Are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: Yes, we are aligned.
Solutions:
[Solution to pain point 1]
1. Stats on Contesting party: We can provide voters with information about
the parties. They can access the profile history of the candidates and their
work experience and gauge how they have fared in the previous elections.
There will be data available on the members of the party, what development
projects they have done previously, what their current election manifesto is
etc. The challenge is maintaining the authenticity of the information. We can
have a crowd-sourcing model or editor who would build the profile still we
cannot ensure 100% non-biased information.
2. Open chat with contestants: The voters can communicate their
problems/issues on the app which the contestants can reply to. The
government can also broadcast information to the voters through the app.
This would be a cost-effective way of campaigning. They can also upload
short video clips or stories to interact with the voters.
1. Digi Locker to store voting documents: The government can provide
voters with a Digi Locker to store documents like Voting cards within the app.
This will reduce the tension of forgetting to carry relevant documents to the
voting center.
2. Smart Voting Buddy: The Smart Voting Buddy can serve the following
purposes:
37
● Voters can easily locate their voting center. The government can also
send them notifications and reminders closer to the voting date, so
they don’t miss out on the process.
● The voters can also find real-time queues at the center so that they
can decide what time to go.
● The government can partner with ride-hailing platforms to help people
travel to the booths.
Metrics:
To gauge the success of our app, we can track the following metrics:
● App downloads
● %increase in the Voting turnout of the users on this app
● App Stickiness during the voting period (App Stickiness = DAU/MAU)
● Adoption of Digi Locker
● App Uninstall after the voting period
Priyanka: To summarise, the problem statement was to design an app for the
Indian government by mid-2023 to increase voter turnout. We discussed how there
is a lack of awareness and motivation among voters and how our app can fill the
gap. We identified our user segment to be those who have low knowledge and low
motivation. We discussed how our app can address those issues by providing them
with better information about politics as well as making the process easy for them.
Lastly, we identified metrics that will help us track whether our goal was
accomplished.
Interviewer: It is well-summarised. Thank you.
Question 7: Design a vending machine for Hotels/Motels.

Interviewer: You are PM at a vending machine company. Your CEO asks you to
design a new line of vending machines to be placed at Hotels/Motels. What would
you do?
Shailesh: Okay, let me clarify the scope and understand the situation. Since the
vending machine can be of different types like a vending machine for packed snacks
and beverages, it can be of electronics items, medicines, etc. Any specific type of
vending machine are we going to make? I think we can go ahead with food and
packed items because some of the travelers travel at odd hours, and restaurants
and hotels might have closed by that time. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, go ahead with packed snack items.
38
Shailesh: Is this a luxurious hotel or an affordable one? I am assuming this

vending machine is going to be placed on each floor in the hotels.
Interviewer: Yes, this is an affordable one.
Shailesh: One more thing, any other resource and time constraint should I be
aware of? I am asking this because the time constraint may play a role in deciding
features to be built in the MVP.
Interviewer: Okay, let’s assume it has to be delivered in a year.
Shailesh: Alright, let me reiterate the goal of the problem; we have to design a
snacking vending machine for an affordable hotel/motel.
Interviewer: Yes, go ahead.
customer segment and their user journey and, depending on that, will look at some
of the pain points. After prioritizing the pain points, we can see some potential
solutions, prioritize them, and then measure the corresponding success metrics.
Last we can think of some of the potential tradeoffs or some future aspects of the
solution.
Customer Segments
Shailesh: Let us see the different customer segments.
1. Travellers
2. Hotel staff members
3. Vending Machine maintenance team
I would like to focus on the Travelers customer segment because they are the
ones who will be using it most. Let’s see the different Travelers user personas.
User Personas
● Travellers who are new to the city come for vacation; after an exhausting
day, they want to grab something to eat quickly.
● Business travelers who travel for their office meetings to a different city and
in general travel at odd hours
● Physically challenged people or blind people may also use the vending
machine when the kitchen is closed.
39
All of the above personas can be potential user personas, but If I see the total
addressable market, I would like to focus on Business travelers. Travelers who
come for vacation may have eaten outside before coming to the hotel.
Let’s see some of the use cases or pain points for Business travelers.
Use Cases/Pain Points

1. As a business traveler, I should be able to locate the vending machine easily.
2. As a business traveler, I should know what things are available in the vending
machine.
3. I should be able to get the ordered items easily; even in the case of multiple
items, I should be able to get them in one go.
4. I should be able to pay readily without juggling cash and changes.
Solutions/Features
1. There can be multiple infographics on each floor to help users navigate the
Vending machine.
2. A vending machine should have 3–4 sections like beverages, snacks, healthy
products, desserts, etc.
3. A vending machine should have a sensor; a person can scan his room key
card to access the vending machine; it should have a touch screen and the
buttons that help a person order the items.
4. Alternatively, there can be QR codes in each room as well as near the
vending machine, scanning which can open the web app, where the person
should be able to see the Vending machine’s location.
5. After locating the vending machine, you can just enter a code “room
number-last name” to open the vending machine menu where you should be
able to search - What are the available items; you can add multiple items to
the cart order them. After ordering, you can scan the QR code again to get
the item that you have ordered.
6. We can link the digital wallets or give an option to automatically charge his
account, which he can pay at checkout.
7. We can also use drone delivery, in which if the user has ordered something
from a vending machine, then the drone or robot will deliver the item quickly
to his/her doorstep.
Prioritization:
1. QR codes in each room assisting travelers in ordering straight away from the
room is a high-impact solution because it will allow users to see the menu of
40
the vending machine and order from their room — a post which they can
scan the QR code they’re to access their items.
2. Linking digital wallets and linking hotel accounts to pay is also of high
impact; lazy pay may increase the cart value of the user.
Success metrics
1. # of QR code scans per day.
2. Average cart value per user in a month.
3. The average time taken from scanning QR to placing an order per user.
Question 8: Design a Toothbrush for young children.

Interviewer: Design a toothbrush for young children.
Shailesh: Okay, let me ask a couple of quick questions to comprehend the

question. The term young children is subjective, so is there any specific age range
we looking at?
Interviewer: You can assume the age range to be 4–10.
Shailesh: Alright! One more question, our goal is to make the physical toothbrush
or are we looking at a toothbrush accompanied by some mobile app or software?
Interviewer: You can decide as you go.
Shailesh: Okay, so let me reiterate our goal; we are going to design the toothbrush
for young children aged between 4-10. The way I would like to approach this
problem is first will see our customer segment and their user journey and,
depending on that, will see some of the pain points. After prioritizing the pain
points, we can see some potential solutions in priority and corresponding success
metrics. Last we can think of some of the potential tradeoffs or some future aspects
of the solution.
Interviewer: That is well summarised. Please go ahead.
Shailesh: These will be our customer segment

● Young children [Primary users]
● Parents
User journey of young children while brushing their teeth:

1. Get reminded if forget to brush their teeth by their parents/elder siblings
2. Started brushing
41
3. Brush their teeth for a random time

4. Wash the brush, rinse the mouth, and put it back
Pain points
1. Young children tend to forget to brush their teeth or don’t like brushing; it’s a
tedious activity for them.
2. They don’t know how much time they have to brush; a study suggests that
children end up brushing their teeth less than the average brushing time due
to this ambiguity.
3. They don’t know if they have done brushing neatly and cleaned the majority
of the area.
4. They are generally not aware if they have developed cavities in their teeth
etc study suggests that people visit a dentist after a lot of damage has been
done.
I think pain points #1, #2 and #3 are more essential than #4 because if they have
been brushed daily for a reasonable amount of time, then it’s improbable that they
will get a cavity, but we can see that as well in a later stage.
Solution/Features
I will be designing an intelligent toothbrush accompanied by a digital app. The
following will be the features to solve the above pain points.
1. Since they are young children, the toothbrush will be in the shape of their
superheroes or have colorful themes to lure children and make it less boring.
It will be a vibrating toothbrush that can be easily charged and has great
battery life. [Must have]
2. It is also fitted with waterproof audio sensors and innovative bristles. This
audio sensor will keep reminding them how much more they have to brush
their teeth. Like after a minute, it will say 1 minute up and 2 minutes more,
something of that sort. [Should have]
3. The intelligent and vibrating bristles will automatically apply varying pressure
and help clean the majority of the area neatly. [Must have]
4. The data from the sensors will automatically go into the app, where parents
can see how much time their children have brushed if they have skipped
brushing, or not. If immediate attention is required or time to visit the
dentist. [Must have]
5. There can be another fancy projector fitted on the lower side of the brush
that can show a short 3–4 minute animatic video and help children make it
less boring. [Nice to have]
42
For prioritizing the solutions, we can see what the solutions are is a must in our
MVP.
I think vibrating toothbrushes with colorful themes, fitted with intelligent bristles
and analytics, are must-have solutions we can consider putting into MVP. The other
solution can be implemented in the future after testing this hypothesis.
We can also collaborate with some medical insurance companies or dentists in
the future.
Advanced data analytics can give us valuable insights that can be used in
personalized offerings and suggestions. It can be a good business model for
monetization.
Success Metrics
● # of toothbrushes sold
● % increase in the average duration of brushing time
● % decrease in the number of days when brushing teeth is skipped
Question 9: Design a shopping mart for retirement home.

Interviewer: Design a shopping mart for a retirement home.
Shailesh: Let me clarify my understanding of retirement homes. A retirement

home is a nursing home where senior citizens live together and socialize. Since
older adults require an extra bit of care, all kinds of facilities are provided.
Interviewer: Correct.
Shailesh: So let me clarify some questions, are we designing the shopping mart
inside a nursing home, or how far is it from there?
Interviewer: You can assume it to be somewhere else.
Shailesh: Also, I want to know if this shopping mart is exclusively for retirement
home people or if ordinary people can also come.
Interviewer: You can assume it to be the standard shopping mart that assists
people from retirement homes.
Shailesh: What is the geography of such people? Because senior citizens in India
might not be that tech-savvy, those in the USA may know how to do digital
transactions.
Interviewer: You can decide as you go
43
the pain points. After prioritizing the pain points, we can see potential solutions in
priority and corresponding success metrics. Last, we can think of possible tradeoffs
or future aspects of the solution.
Interviewer: This seems like a fair approach.
User segment
Shailesh: These will be our customer segments who will be coming to the shopping
mart.
1. Nursing home people with little and no tech literacy but want to socialize.
2. Nursing home people who are socially awkward and don’t like to visit places
until and unless necessary.
3. Nursing home people who are physically challenged (physically handicapped)
4. Senior age home people’s caretakers/assistants
5. Shopping mart people/staff
I would like to consider people without tech literacy because if we have solved the
problem for them, we will be able to solve the problem for most people.
User Journey
1. Get some requirements of daily essentials, small outings, etc.
2. They get permission or inform the respective authorities of the nursing
homes.
3. They reach the shopping mart.
4. They start shopping for essentials from their laundry list.
5. They navigate from one counter to another counter.
6. They go to the billing counter, pay for the items, and come home.
I am assuming that the people from the retirement home have got permission or
informed the authorities and are now at the entrance of the shopping cart.
Customer Use Cases/Pain Points

1. They should be able to enter the shopping mart hassle-free.
2. They should be able to move into the shopping mart quickly and should be
able to navigate through different counters.
3. They should know which products are kept where and should be able to see
the pricing.
4. They should know which product is suitable for them like gluten-free/allergic
items must be avoided by those who have allergies to these items.
44
5. Since everyone wants to socialize with friends, old age people must also have
feelings of having fun, so they should be able to eat an item of their choice
with their fellow buddies.
6. The billing of the items must be quick; they shouldn’t be waiting in queue
and juggling cash exchanges etc.
Solution/Features
1. There should be a smart ID card issued by the nursing homes linked with the
supermart. ID cards should have all the essential details, including their
medical information as well. There should be a priority queue for senior
citizens to enter; people from old age homes can swipe the cards there and
enter. It will also log their entry and exit timing for their security purposes.
2. Since it is an old age home, the majority of people will be senior citizens. So
inside the shopping mart, there can be a separate section for senior citizens
with a lot of easily understandable big infographics to easily navigate through
the section. Also, we can have a railing inside the area for their assistance.
The shopping mart should provide a moving cart in which they can put their
items. It should be lightweight and without any sharp edges.
3. On every shelf of the product, the price and name of the item should be
mentioned in big fonts so that they can understand easily.
4. Since they have a Smart-ID card that has all the medical information details
like allergic to certain items or some chronic ailments, at each shelf, there
can be a scanner at which they can swipe their card to know if that product is
good for them or not. Suppose it is not suitable for them, then the
salesperson can assist them with an alternative product.
5. Since the human being is a social creature, socialization is something that
every individual wants; it becomes even more important at an older age. So
if they are in the mood for an outing, there should be a small café in that
section from which they can buy products by swiping their ID card, with no
need to pay. There can be community-catered music as well.
6. At the time of billing, the item should be packaged and delivered to their
retirement home, and the payment is automatically made by the smart card.
The retirement home authorities should recharge this card monthly.
7. In the future, we can have a solution in which the whole shopping mart has a
lot of cameras, and using facial recognition and computer vision, the shopper
can be provided with a recommendation for items from their task
lists/laundry lists (like fetching data from google keep). They just have to
walk into the shopping mart; they have to pick the item from the shelf; if it is
45
allergic, a red light is flashed. They just need to pick the item from the shelf,
and it will automatically be added to their shopping cart for billing, if they put
it back, it will be cleared from the cart. They just need to walk out of the
mart, and the payment will automatically be deducted.
Certainly, there will be challenges for people who are not tech-savvy, and there will
be privacy and ethical issues for facial recognition and tracking, so we will keep this
feature for the future.
For MVP I will be considering the solution #1, #2, #3, #4, #6.
Having a café would be a delight, but we can have it in the future stage.
Success Metrics
1. Number of check-ins by people from retirement homes.
2. Average cart value of people from retirement homes.
3. The average amount of time they spend in the shopping mart.
4. Frequency of the visit of a certain individual from a retirement home.
Question 10: Design an elevator for blind people.

Interviewer: How would you design an elevator for blind people?
Shailesh: Okay, let me understand the question; I am assuming that the scope of
the elevator isn’t exclusively for blind people; this elevator can be used by ordinary
people as well.
Interviewer: Yes
Shailesh: When we are designing this elevator, what location are we considering?
Is it in a residential setting, shopping mall etc.? I am asking this question because if
it is in a commercial environment like shopping malls or offices, in that case, the
solution may differ.
Interviewer: You can assume it to be in a residential setting.
Shailesh: Okay, let me reiterate that we will build a common elevator for blind
people in the residential setting.
Interviewer: Yes, go-ahead
Shailesh: The way I would like to go about it is first to see all our customer
segments. Then will see the customer journey of the blind person and, through
that, will be able to tell their use cases. After that, we can design and ideate the
solution and prioritise them. From that, we can define some of the success metrics
46
to see the success of our solution. Then we can think of some tradeoffs and future
opportunities. This is the broad outlook I would like to take.
Interviewer: Please go ahead.
Customer segment:
Since it is the common elevator, there will be different user personas as follows
1. Blind people (Wholly and partially blind people) [Primary Customer]
2. Ordinary people who aren’t blind
3. Staff members for maintenance and cleanliness of the elevator
We will be prioritising the persona of blind people.
User journey:
● Reach the elevator
● Press the button for going up or going down?
● Decide which elevator to enter in case of multiple elevators and enter the
elevator.
● Press the button to the destination floor
● Wait for the destination floor
● Reach to the destination floor and check if they have reached the correct
floor
● Exit the elevator
Use Cases
1. As a blind person, I should be to call the elevator quickly.
2. As a blind person, I want to enter the right elevator; I should know if a
particular elevator is going down or up? Also, I should be able to know which
floor it is?
3. After entering the elevator, I should select which floor I want to go to; even
during the rush hour, I should choose the destination floor seamlessly.
4. While transiting between the floors, as a blind person, I should track which
floor has just passed or which floor will come.
5. If my floor has come, I should be able to go out of the elevator with ease.
Solution/Features
Features for Use Case 1
47
1. There should be big buttons on each floor near the lift with braille ingrained
in it to call the elevator. In addition to that, there should also be a voice
assistant button that should tell which floor it is.
2. Alternately, we can have a smart AI-enabled camera outside the elevator that
monitors the Queue outside the elevator and automatically stops if someone
is waiting against it. It is a feature in addition to the braille buttons. There
should be load balancing inside the elevator so that if the elevator is full, it
shouldn’t stop in between and communicate outside using voice assistant
that the elevator is full.

1. There can be a button inside an elevator pressing which it should tell if it is
going down or up; it will be helpful for the blind person to get into the correct
elevator in case multiple elevators are coming at the same time.
2. Another better solution can be that elevators are numbered numerically, and
blind people should be able to see the numbering of elevators by touching
the braille. If the elevator stops at a particular floor, it should say, “Number 3
elevator has arrived, and it is going down”.

1. After getting inside the elevator, there should be buttons on the railing inside
it; pressing it 2 times will take you to the second floor; pressing it 3 times
will take you to the third floor. It will be helpful for a blind person or any
person, in general, to press the nearest button on the railing. I assume it is a
residential building with not more than 6–7 floors; if it is a commercial
building, pressing it 20–25 times doesn’t make sense.
Features for Use Case 4 & 5

1. Elevators should be able to track which floor it had just passed and should be
able to tell which floor it is when it stops so that the blind person can move
out of it.
As we can see, all the use cases are essential to have a complete solution, but for
MVP, we can leave the AI-enabled Queue monitoring camera. We can expand it into
the smart elevator with sensors and AI-enabled cameras in the future.
Success metrics
1. No. of buttons pressed on the railings vs number of control pressed in the
typical scenario
48
2. No. of voice hours in a month by pressing the button for identifying the floor
3. No. of blind people using the elevator through a survey in the building.
Question 11: Design a Camera for Blind People.

Interviewer: How would you design a Camera for Blind People?
Shailesh: When we are building a camera, are we thinking of any digital app or a
physical camera? A physical camera can give a person feel a real photography
experience.
Interviewer: It is totally up to you; you can decide as you go.
Shailesh: What is our product goal? Is it only photography or it can have other
utilities that may help blind people in day to day tasks like a camera for reading the
text, currency identification etc.?
Interviewer: I am keeping it open-ended.
Shailesh: I am assuming that they can listen, feel the touch etc.
Interviewer: That is a fair assumption.
Alright, so we are building a camera for blind people which will empower them to
capture moments and feel them.
I think in this age of advanced technology, blind people deserve much more. There
are so many beautiful landscapes and sceneries in the world which are totally
inaccessible to blind people. It would be great if we would be able to provide that
kind of experience to them.
Customer Segment :
We can have the following different Customer segment
● Partially blind people, people who can still make sense out of colour and
shapes.
● Completely blind people
● Caretakers
I would like to focus on completely blind people because if are able to solve their
problems, then the problems of the majority of people will be solved.
Customer Pain Points :
49
1. If they have gone on some trip, then they aren’t able to capture the
moments because they are not able to see, if they even try to capture, then
they don’t even know if the landscape/people are in the right frame to click.
2. If someone else has clicked the picture, they can’t feel the picture missing
out on the belongingness of the community.
3. If they want to listen to environmental commentary or want to be aware of
their surroundings, not able to do.
4. They can’t store the captured moments, share them with their friends,
families or on social media also, they can’t relive them in future.
I will prioritise the customer pain points 1 and 2 in that order.
Solution/Features :
1. We can have a physical smart camera which has braille buttons on the top of
it from which blind people can sense how to click the photo. The camera
should be smart enough to tell them if the thing is out of frame. We can use
the voice-over feature for that.
2. All the photos that the person has clicked are stored on the SD card; there is
another base device in which if he inserts the SD card, all the pictures appear
in the braille format, so now he can feel the captured moments.
3. Both the camera and the base device should have long battery life. It should
have both the ability to charge and a cellular battery.
4. I wouldn’t be surprised in future if blind people have personalised drones
cameras capturing moments and directly connected to the base unit on which
blind people can see real-time imagery.
Interviewer: So you have chosen a hardware product.
Shailesh: Yes, it may sound odd, but by braille pictures, now blind people can feel
the outline of the mountain ranges. By this, we can empower them to feel close to
the real photography experience.
Interviewer: Alright, can you also take me through the digital/software product for
the same?
Shailesh: Sure. I am assuming it to be a digital mobile application. There is a

tradeoff now we are taking them away from real photography experience, but a
digital solution would be a much more scalable, and now sharing the pictures with
friends and family will become much easier.
Solution/Features :
50
1. We can have an app with a smart camera to describe the background.

Recognise friends and describe people around you, including their emotions.
For example, if a person is clicking the photo of his friend, it should tell if the
friend is in the frame or not. It should also be able to tell how far the person
is standing/sitting/smiling/gender etc.
2. Captured photos should be saved in the gallery, in which a blind person can
select the photo to share with friends and families or view it in the future.
3. The camera should be able to read/speak text in front of it, scan the
document, read the currency notes while paying bills by cash etc.
For the MVP, we can try the first feature, recognise friends and describe people
around you, including their emotions, along with sharing it with friends and family
members. Then we can extend it into scanning documents, reading currency notes,
scanning bar codes etc.
Success metrics :
1. No. of app downloads
2. No. of moments captured
3. No. of voice hours by the camera
4. No. of app shares
To summarise, it is an application that converts the visual world into an audible
experience and empowers blind people to achieve more in their lives.
51
Chapter 6: Product Improvement Interview Cases

Product Improvement Questions
Product Improvement questions are a key component of Product
Management interviews. They evaluate your ability to identify opportunities
for product enhancement, prioritize improvements, and articulate a clear
plan for implementation. In this chapter, we'll explore Product Improvement
questions in greater detail, providing examples and a structured approach to
address them effectively.
Question 1: What is your favourite software Product and

how would you improve it ?
Interviewer: What is your favourite software product and how would you improve
it?
Shailesh: Okay, as I understand the question, I need to discuss my favourite

software product which I like the most, irrespective of how it is performing in the
market. Then I need to discuss why it is my favourite product?
Interviewer: Yes
Shailesh: Okay, I would like to go about it is; first, I will explain what qualities a
good product should have and how my favourite product has all those qualities.
From there, we can think of some of the scopes of improvements.
Interviewer: Please go-ahead
Shailesh: For me, a good product should have the following qualities:
● It should solve the user problem [Usefulness].
● It should be intuitive/easy to use [Ease].
● It should be aesthetically pleasing, should have good UI/UX [Aesthetics].
Shailesh: Currently, my favourite product is CureFit; I use it almost daily. Let me

describe what it is all about to be on the same page. CureFit is a health and fitness
application which is offering digital experiences across fitness, nutrition and mental
wellbeing. Its vision is to become a complete digital health solution.
52
First, let’s talk about the Usefulness of the CureFit for that, I need to discuss my
pain points and how CureFit has addressed them seamlessly.
1. Working out has always been a difficult task for me; like most other people, I
procrastinate. Now, after covid, working out at Home has become even
harder. Without proper equipment, it feels like doing nothing. I juggled
between exercise and ended up wasting my time.
2. Even If I get equipment at home, I don’t feel motivated enough to work out;
I used to give up easily.
3. Lack of guidance about postures of different exercises exposes me to the risk
of physical tear down, and there is always a frustration of not getting the
desired result.
4. If I have done any workout activities like swimming laps, cycling, etc., there
is no way to have a consolidated record of my fitness activity.
5. There is always a frustration with proper guidance about diet; there is a lot of
information on the internet but trusting them is a pain. Sometimes following
someone else’s diet may result in lack of essential nutrients and ending up in
a chronic ailment.
Now let me discuss how CureFit has solved all my above problems efficiently.
1. CureFit app has a range of fitness sessions, like HIIT, HRX, belly burn etc. It
suggests a personalized fitness plan and sessions depending on our fitness
goals and health assessment. Online sessions are designed by experts so
that no equipment is needed; all the exercises are body-weight based
exercises.
2. In CureFit Subscription, we can book any number of classes at any time. In a
covid era, we miss going to the gym and working out with buddies; now, we
can book a session with our friends and buddies and work out together. Here
we will be assigned a rank depending on our performance, making us agile
and won’t let us procrastinate.
3. In an online session, we can have our camera turned on, so that the fitness
tracker can track our movements. Experts and trainers analyze our
performance and give us personalized feedback like what things are going
wrong and what things we need to improve.
4. In CureFit, we can track your fitness journey weekly and monthly. After
achieving the fitness goal, the new badge is unlocked, and the goal is reset
to a new high potential.
53
5. We can integrate IoT sensors such as Google fit, and Fitbit bands to the
CureFit app, which helps us log our fitness activity outside CureFit
consolidated at one place.
6. Apart from the workout, we have personalized diet recommendations and
post-workout supplements as per our fitness goals and body requirement.
There are video recipes in the app; either we can see those and cook our
post-workout meal, or we can have a meal subscription plan that will deliver
it to our doorstep.
7. CureFit has its marketplace where we can buy authentic post/pre-workout
supplements and sportswear at a discounted price.
8. For a healthy body, we should have a physically fit body, but mental wellness
is equally important. In CureFit, we can book mental wellness sessions and
can destress our body.
CureFit is very intuitive to use and has a great user experience. On the front page,
you have a tab bar at the bottom that divides the app into its four broad features:
Home, Live classes, wellness marketplace, CureFit. We can easily navigate through
the entire app with this tab bar. At the top, we have a movable tab bar that can
directly take us through all their core features like joining live classes, ordering
meals, meditation at home etc. The user doesn’t feel lost and ability to see all the
core features at the front makes it very easy for the user to navigate through it.
The personalized attention, unique socialization and intuitiveness to use the app are
the core reasons why I like CureFit the most. With that said, every product has a
scope of improvement. Let’s talk about what are the improvement areas I would
want to see in the CureFit app.
1. Calorie Tracker by picture: Currently, tracking calories is a very difficult
task; Curefit can have a Smart AI-enabled camera from which we can take
photos of your meal, and it will automatically update your calorie count.
2. Video Quality: CureFit video session doesn’t have any video quality control,
so if our network connection is frequently breaking, it becomes daunting to
load the video streaming again and again, resulting in the loss of productivity
and intensity of the workout.
3. Customer Support: CureFit doesn’t have quality customer service; if we
have ordered food from the CureFit eat and there is some issue like spillage,
there is no way to instantly contact customer care. We can only drop an
email to the customer team, and a delayed response may frustrate the user.
4. AI chatbot for the fitness companion: The chatbot can serve as your
fitness guide companion. The chatbot can set reminders for you to facilitate
54
your workouts every day.
Question 2: Improve music listening experience on

YouTube ?
Interviewer: How would you increase the music listening experience on YouTube?
Shailesh: Before that, let me clarify my understanding of listening to music on

YouTube. YouTube has two applications where a user can listen to music, one is
normal YouTube, and the other one is launched exclusively for music called YouTube
Music. People use YouTube because it is easy to search, it’s an extensive list of
songs, and they can see the video. YouTube has also launched YouTube music for
some subscription plans where you can download the song offline and play the song
in the background. Is there any other functionality that I should be aware of for this
question?
Interviewer: No, this is good.
Shailesh: I have some questions which I want to get clarified; what platform are
we talking about listening to music, Normal YouTube or listening to music on
YouTube music? According to me, we should go ahead with YouTube music because,
in that space, we can compete with applications like Spotify, Wynk and get the
market share there as well. What do you think?
Interviewer: I think we can go ahead with YouTube Music.
Shailesh: Another question I want to ask is when we are thinking about increasing
the listening experience, we are primarily focused on increasing engagement. If we
increase the listening experience, then people will listen to more music on our
platform. If I have to tie the objective broadly to the metric, we are looking to
increase the metric like this “average time spent by a user on YouTube while
listening to music”. Is my understanding correct or not?
Interviewer: Yes, go ahead with this.
Shailesh: One last question I want to ask if there are any resource or time
constraints that I should be aware of?
Interviewer: You are not bound by that.
Shailesh: Okay, let me form a goal of the problem from whatever we have
discussed till now. We need to increase the song listening experience in YouTube
55
Music.
Shailesh: The way I would like to structure the answer is. First, I will look into the
user segment and prioritize it. We can think of the different use cases and pain
points depending on the user journey. After that, we can think of the solutions and
the success metrics to see if the solution we are proposing is working or not. At
last, we can think of some future aspects or system design if time permits. Is that
okay?
Interviewer: Yes, sounds good.
Shailesh: YouTube has a different user persona; I can segment the uses into three
categories “Content consumers”, “Content Creators”, and “Advertisers”. Song
listeners will come under content consumers, and if I have to put them into more
MECE way, I will segment them into these three personas.
User Persona
1. A person who loves to discover a diverse set of songs. He is an extrovert in
terms of his love for music, he feels good when people acknowledge his
taste, and he also tries to express his love for the music in public.
2. A person who is very particular about what music he is going to listen to. He
doesn’t want to spoil its recommendation by listening and discovering music.
He is introverted in terms of his taste for music.
3. A person who is not very fond of music but listens while partying with many
friends, acquaintances, and family. He is the occasional listener of the song.
Shailesh: I think we can target user persona #1, “the song discoverer”,
because they are the ones who spend most of the time on YouTube. Solving
problems for them will create a much larger impact. What do you think?
Interviewer: Okay, let’s proceed with this.
Shailesh: Now, let’s see the different use cases for user segment #1.
Pain Points/Use Cases

Use Cases of the User persona #1
1. Sometimes they get bored of all kinds of recommendations; they want to
discover music in a fun way that is not yet seamlessly fulfilled by YouTube
Music.
56
2. Listening to music in a group is also painful on YouTube.

3. Music plays an important role in our lives; sometimes, we want to express
ourselves in some musical way or our mood in that way. Currently, there is a
broken experience of putting the story on Instagram, sending song snippets
in chat etc.
Prioritisation of pain points

Shailesh: Okay, now let me prioritise the pain points depending on the intensity of
grievance, or we can also think of the frequency of pain points if that is applicable
here. So that we have looked to the complete breadth and depth of the pain points,
is that okay?
Shailesh: I think the pain point #1, discovery of the music, is a big problem that
occurs whenever we think of listening to music. I would like to solve this problem
first. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, that’s the first step for listening to the song.
Shailesh: Now let’s look for the solution to pain point #1

Solution to pain point #1
1. YouTube Mobile can have features like “Song Geofencing,” where you can
discover the song being played in your locality via GPS. You just need to
shake your phone or spin a wheel, and you will have recommendations of
the songs being played in your surrounding.[High Effort][High
Impact]
2. YouTube hasn’t leveraged the full potential of followers and following.
YouTube Mobile can have features like “YouTube Social”, in which you can
express your opinion about songs and share it with your followers; in this
way, you will be able to discover the song in a much more fun way.[High
Effort][High Impact]
3. YouTube Mobile can have features like “YouTube Listen AI”, which is a
kind of Alexa of YouTube, and you need to tell about what kind of music
you want to listen to and what mood are you in right now; depending on
that, it will be suggesting you a personalized list of songs.[Medium
Shailesh: Now, let’s prioritise the solutions; I would like to weigh the solutions
depending on the effort required, the impact made, and our overall problem goal.
57
All the solutions above can create a high impact, but solution #3 requires less effort
because Google already has a voice assistant that can be integrated into YouTube.
Success metrics
Shailesh: Let’s see some of the success metrics for the solution.
1. Increase in the average number of songs listened to per day per user.
2. Average voice hours per day by “YouTube Listen AI”.
3. The ratio of songs skipped or stopped within 30 seconds of playing to the
total number of songs recommended by “YouTube Listen AI.”
Question 3: Improve shopping experience via Alexa.

Interviewer: How would you improve the shopping experience via Alexa?
Shailesh: Okay, before that, let me clarify my understanding of Alexa so that we

are on the same page. Alexa is a virtual voice assistant that helps people
seamlessly organise their lives by getting the information from the web, adding
items to the Amazon shopping cart, or helping with home automation. Is the broad
understanding of Alexa correct?
Interviewer: Yes, that’s okay.
Shailesh: Okay, now I have some questions that I want to clarify; my first question
is, what is the objective of improvement? As per my understanding of the question,
we are trying to improve the user experience and make it more engaging, want to
increase the cart value, or reduce the time taken by an individual to buy the item.
Is that correct?
Interviewer: Yes, correct. We can go ahead with this goal of reducing the time
taken by the user to buy the item on Amazon.
Shailesh: Alright, are we focusing on a particular segment of users like people

without disability can be one segment, blind people can be other etc. For this
question, I think we can focus on the people without any disability because this is
the segment in which we can have maximum impact.
Shailesh: Since we are improving the shopping experience for the future, I can use
the future technology in the developing or nascent stage.
Interviewer: Yes, you can.
58
Shailesh: One last question, is there any time or resource constraint should I be
aware of?
Interviewer: No, you are not bound by that.
Shailesh: Alright, let me quickly form a goal from whatever we have discussed till
now. The objective of the problem is to increase the shopping experience(Reducing
the time taken by the users to shop) of the user without any disability via Alexa,
and any resource and time constraints do not bind us.
Shailesh: Okay, the way I would like to approach this problem is; first, we can
think of the potential customer segment and then see the user journey of the
prioritized user segment. After that, we can think of their pain points and prioritize
them. From there will go on the solution and prioritize the solution for the MVP. At
last, we can think of some of the metrics to track whether our solution is actually
useful or not. We can also think of some of the future vision and technology of the
product. Is that sound okay to you?
Shailesh: There can be multiple personas who use Alexa for the shopping
experience, but if I have to choose to put them in the MECE way, I have the
following user personas for buyers.
User Persona
1. The first persona I can personally relate to is the people who exactly
know what they are going to buy. They may be busy individuals or those
who don’t do much cost-benefit analysis. They don’t fear post buying
regret or stress.
2. The second persona is the one who takes a lot of time before buying any
product; they search for reviews on YouTube and blogs, ask friends and
then only they will buy the product. They know what to buy but don’t
know about the brands etc.
3. The third persona is the one who neither knows what to buy nor knows
about brands; they do impulse buying or do window shopping on
Amazon.
Shailesh: If I have to select one persona, I will go after the second persona
because they are the ones who know what to buy, but they take a lot of time
reviewing blogs, videos etc. IF we put these personas on the bell curve, they are
59
the ones who will acquire more area, so solving problems for them would create a
bigger impact. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, that makes sense; go ahead.
Shailesh: Now, let’s see the user journey of the second person so that we can
come up with the different pain points.
User Journey Of Prioritized Persona

1. They got the need for something; they look for the item to buy on the
internet, ask friends, family etc.
2. Sometimes when they find the same item from a different brand, they
become unsure of whether to buy it or not.
3. Sometimes the price of the item becomes more; in that case, they either
don’t buy or search for some alternative.
4. Then they read the reviews and comments, ask friends, send photos to
friends and seek their approval.
5. After seeking a lot of validations, you add to the cart, apply coupons and
buy the product.
6. They keep track of the delivery status of the product.
7. Finally, they get the product from the delivery executive.
Shailesh: Seeing the user journey, now let’s look for the pain points.
Pain Points Of User Segment
1. Sometimes searching for the thing is pain; you have seen it somewhere
but cannot search.
2. Checking multiple things like reviews, ratings of the seller, comparisons
with the other product is painful; seeking validation from friends is too
time-consuming.
3. If you cannot find it or are too costly, you become distraught.
Prioritization Of Pain Points

Shailesh: Okay, now let me prioritise the pain points depending on the intensity of
grievance, or we can also think of the frequency of pain points if that is applicable
here. So that we have looked to the complete breadth and depth of the pain points,
is that okay?
60
Shailesh: I think the pain point #2 is the one that takes so much time; solving
that pain point will make a greater impact. What do you think?
Interviewer: Okay
Shailesh: Let me pause for a while; if you have any questions, we can discuss
them.
Shailesh: Now, let’s see the different solutions to the pain points.
Solutions/Features
1. Alexa can help us give a crisp summary of the product and can
recommend as “Go” and “No Go” depending on the rating of the product,
seller, reviews of users, reviews from the blog and the YouTube
comments and also tell us about what are the things which people find
good and bad.
2. Alexa can compare the products, give the point of difference and
similarities, and give smart recommendations of what to buy and what
not to buy.
3. Alexa can help us with real-time time feedback from family members,
friends etc. For example, in my command like “Get me reviews from XYZ
about this product”, Alexa will send a voice note and the link and ask the
other person about the product and get the review in real-time.
4. Amazon has Amazon fresh, and we can also send gift cards to our
friends. So We can integrate the Alexa into our refrigerator and
recommend what needs to buy. We just have to tell the dish we want to
prepare in the upcoming days. It automatically checks the refrigerator’s
availability and tells us if some core vegetable/fruits/dairy product is
missing.
5. Alexa can be integrated with our calendar and suggest smart
recommendations of necessary items like clothes etc., for upcoming trips
or vacations.
Prioritisation Of Solutions
Shailesh: Let’s prioritize the solutions depending on our objective, effort required
and impact it will create. I think solutions #1 and #2 will decrease the conversion
time by a huge margin. I would like to have this solution in our future release.
61
Let’s define some of the success metrics
Success Metrics
● Increase in the average lifetime value of the customer.
● Decrease in the average conversion time per user.
● Increase in the average no. of voice searches to Alexa per day.
● Increase in the average no. of product comparison by Alexa per day.
Question 4: How would you Improve Microsoft

PowerPoint?
Interviewer: You are a PM at Microsoft. How would you go about improving
Microsoft PowerPoint?
Priyanka: I would like to ask some clarifying questions to understand the problem
better.
Priyanka: I would like to clarify my understanding of Microsoft PowerPoint so that

we are on the same page. Microsoft offers a suite of products called Office which
works on a subscription pricing model. It is used by working professionals and
students across the globe. The suite includes products like Excel, PowerPoint, Word,
Teams etc. Microsoft PowerPoint is a part of the Office suite and allows users to
make presentations in a creative and collaborative manner.
Interviewer: That is well-defined.
Priyanka: When we think of improvement, it could be improving the user

experience, improving monetisation, or getting more users. I would like to
understand what the goal of improvement is. I have used Microsoft suite as I had
free student license during my college days. From my personal experience, there is
a lot of scope in improving the User experience. As of now, Office suite is
indispensable for working professionals, so it has a huge market share. Again,
monetisation should not be a problem for Microsoft for now, but this can also be a
valid goal.
Interviewer: Yes, let us focus on the user experience.
Priyanka: Are we planning to focus on the web version, mobile app, or the desktop
application? I am assuming that desktop app has higher installs compared to mobile
app so we can start from there.
62
help me in prioritizing our features later.
Interviewer: Nothing as of now.
Priyanka: Just to recap what we have discussed till now; we would like to improve
the user experience for Microsoft PowerPoint desktop version, and we are not bound
by any time-resource constraints.
Priyanka: Okay, the way I would like to structure this is, we will discuss the
different users and then focus on improving the user experience for a specific one.
We will discuss the pain points they face by analyzing their journey. Then we will
find out ways in which we can solve the problems. Are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: Yes, sounds good.
User segment:
● Students: These could be K-12 or college students who use PowerPoint to
prepare presentations for a simple school project or something as important
as a research project.
● Teachers: During Covid-19, as online classes became common thing, more
teachers started teaching using online presentations. Now even post Covid,
they want to continue teaching students in an easy format by creating and
sharing lectures hassle-free.
● Working professionals: Office suite plays a vital role in their daily
activities. They use it to make client presentations, internal team discussions,
reports etc and work in a collaborative environment. They can be
consultants, salespersons, business executives etc.
Prioritization of User segment:

While both the user segments work on PowerPoint but the frequency of usage for
working professionals is higher than for students. Teachers/Students can try other
alternatives like Google Slides, Canva etc. but for a working professional, if their
organization works on Office Suite, they must stick to PowerPoint for making
presentations. Hence, I would like to prioritize working professionals.
User Persona:
63
● Consultants: They use slides to give strategic recommendations to their

clients. They display detailed content in the form of rich text, diagrams,
charts, infographics etc.
● Salesperson: They use presentations to pitch their products to the clients.
They create brand content to engage an audience and get through business
deals.
User Journey:
Brainstorm Ideas -> Find template -> Structure content -> Format ->
Review/Collaborate -> Present
Pain Points of User persona:

1. As a user, I often struggle with finding the right template for my presentation.
2. As a user, I spend a lot of time in formatting my presentations.
3. As a user, I need to ensure that I can present my content in a limited time as
most of the presentations are time bound.
Prioritization of Pain Points:

Priyanka: All these are important problems to solve; hence I would like to take
them one by one. In my personal experience, I have often been worried about
finding a suitable template. I used to search for free templates online. Again,
formatting takes so much more time than brainstorming the content, which does
not seem like the best utilization of my time.
Solutions:
Template Marketplace: Microsoft can build a marketplace where users can find
diverse presentation templates. It can partner with large consulting firms to get
these templates. Users can be given a few templates for free and then charged a
small fee to use the licensable content.
Magic Formatter: PowerPoint, with the help of an inbuilt ML (Machine Learning)
model, can build the potential to analyze presentations created daily. Based on this,
it can help the users format their content automatically. The user can insert all the
content, images, graphs etc. and turn on the formatter. The formatter can do the
magic and arrange the content in the right order. Once this has been done, the user
64
can make minor changes. The model can also keep learning and getting better and
more creative.
Timing optimizer: PowerPoint has Rehearse timing which allows users to record
the time each slide takes. Going forward, it can create an advanced version where it
can recommend the users the amount of time a slide is going to take by analyzing
the content in the slide. Users can input the meeting duration, and it can
recommend where they can optimize the content. Based on the rehearsals done, it
can assign a probability score to the user on exceeding the time limit.
Expert Advice: PowerPoint can help users get expert guidance. They can rehearse
presentations with them and get tips on the best practices. To build the expert
platform, we can partner with retired consultants or YouTube influencers. One
caveat here is that working professionals have presentations that are confidential in
nature hence they cannot leverage help from external experts.
Priyanka: To summarise, we discussed what Microsoft PowerPoint is and how it is

an integral part of Office Suite. We narrowed down our problem statement by
saying we would focus on improving the engagement of PowerPoint. We discussed
the user journey and identified the issues faced by them. We worked on the
potential solutions and came up with certain creative ideas like Marketplace, Magic
Formatter, Timing Optimiser etc. to accomplish our goal of improving the
engagement of PowerPoint.
Interviewer: This was a great discussion. Have a wonderful day.
Question 5: Improve the LinkedIn Endorsement feature.

Interviewer: You are a PM at LinkedIn. How would you improve the LinkedIn
Endorsement feature?
Priyanka: To understand the problem better, I would like to ask few clarifying
questions.
Priyanka: Firstly, I would like to clarify my understanding of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a

networking platform which allows individuals to connect with other working
professionals and grow their network. We can also find career opportunities and
apply to jobs directly through LinkedIn. It also offers online learning platform –
LinkedIn Learning where one can find different courses to enhance their skills.
65
LinkedIn operates on a premium subscription model which offers additional services

like access to exclusive content, sending unlimited InMail etc.
Interviewer: Yes, that is well-defined.
Priyanka: Since LinkedIn’s mission is to connect professionals and help them build
their network so the features it provides should be able people to do that
successfully.
Interviewer: True
Priyanka: Now let us discuss what endorse is. As far as I understand, endorse is a
feature in the Skills section which allows individuals to get validation from people in
their network about certain skills they possess. For example – If I have good data
analysis skills and the senior data scientist in my team endorses me for the same, it
helps build trust and affirmation with other individuals that I possess the skill.
Interviewer: I can relate to the example.
Priyanka: Here, Improvement can be of several types –

● Acquisition & Discoverability - Improving the discoverability of the
endorsed feature or getting more users to utilise the feature
● Adoption & Engagement - Nudging more individuals to start adopting
the feature and keep them engaged
● Retention - Retaining the already existing users.
As of now, LinkedIn is not able to make users adopt the feature as there are not
able to derive value from it. So, I would like to work with the team on improving
Adoption & Engagement.
Interviewer: Sounds interesting.
Priyanka: Is there a specific platform – Web, Mobile app etc. where we want to
focus first. I believe we can first focus on the mobile app version as it has more
users.
Interviewer: Okay, go ahead.
help me prioritise things later.
Interviewer: Yes, we are targeting to improve the feature this year (2023) and
grow adoption by 1.5x.
66
Priyanka: To recap what we have discussed till now, we would like to improve the
adoption & engagement of the LinkedIn endorse feature for the mobile app by
2023.
Priyanka: Okay, the way I would like to structure this is we will discuss the
different user segments and then focus on a specific one. We will discuss the
problems they face with endorsed feature. Then we will find out ways in which we
can solve them. Finally, we will talk about the metrics to track to see if the adoption
& engagement with the endorsed feature is improving or not. Are we aligned on
this?
Interviewer: Yes, excited to discuss how we can solve those.
User persona:
Priyanka: Since LinkedIn has a platform with different players like job seekers, job
recruiters and advertisers so we should look at all the perspectives:
1. Job Hunters: Who are looking for jobs, actively applying through
LinkedIn and connecting with recruiters etc.
2. Networkers: Who are on the platform primarily to build a strong network
and connect with colleagues Knowledge Seekers: Who are the on the
platform to learn. They engage with a lot of content.
3. Influencers: Who are on the platform to share their own knowledge and
build community. They write posts or comment on others posts.
2. Job Recruiters: Who post job and actively hire candidates.
3. Advertisers: Who want to build awareness of their brands through
targeted LinkedIn ads.
Prioritisation of User Persona:

While we need both the seekers and the recruiters to adopt the feature, the same
might not be useful for advertiser. It is important that the job hunters first start
adopting the feature only then can recruiter have enough rich insights to effectively
gauge skills through the endorse feature.We will look at job hunters first.
User Journey of Job Hunter:

Create Account -> List Experiences/Skills -> Get endorsement from network ->
Apply for jobs -> Take Interviews -> Selected/Rejected
Pain Points:
67
1. As a job hunter, I do not remember or give enough importance to updating

my skills on LinkedIn
2. As a job hunter, I do not know if the skills are good/relevant enough to list
them in my profile
3. As a job hunter, I am not comfortable in reaching out to folks who can
endorse me for the skills
4. As a job hunter, I do not realise the value of endorsements as I have not
seen them get noticed in any way
Prioritisation of Pain Points:

Priyanka: While prioritising the pain points, I would like to keep our main goal in
mind. While updating or listing skills are important, even if we solve pain points 1
and 2, it does not guarantee that engagement for endorsement will improve.
However, if a job seeker finds value in getting them endorsed, they will start getting
their existing skills endorsed.
I want to prioritise pain points #3 and #4. Are we aligned on this?
Solutions:
I. Immediate Notifications: When we update our skills, LinkedIn can send
a notification to our network so that they can endorse them. One
downside is that it can spam others, hence we can send notifications to
relevant folks. For example, If I am working in my current job as a
manager, LinkedIn can send notifications to my connections who work in
the same company and nudge them to endorse me.
II. Request Endorsement: LinkedIn can allow users to send request for
endorsement. In the request, they can write a one-liner stating when they
displayed the skill and ask senior folks in their network to endorse them.
This will help in building credibility.
III. Suggest whom to reach out for endorsement: LinkedIn’s algorithm
should be to recognise and suggest connections whom individuals can
reach out for endorsement at a click of a button. This will push users to
engage with the feature.
IV. Make endorsement valuable: LinkedIn can notify users by saying that
recruiters are noticing their skills and the ones which are endorsed are
68
more likely to be focused on. This will push the job seekers to constantly
engage with the feature.
V. Provide badge for endorsed skills: Once a user crosses a certain set of
endorsement thresholds for a specific skill, LinkedIn can provide them
with a badge to make them feel special and help them showcase the skill.
For example, if my SQL skills get endorsed by 25 connections, LinkedIn
can provide me with a silver badge, and I can share the same in a post.
VI. Increase relevance while job searching: LinkedIn can match
endorsed skills with the Job description skills to help candidates find
relevant jobs. After the job application has been submitted, LinkedIn can
also let the recruiters how many endorsed skills are matching with
required skills. This will push the candidates to get their skills endorsed as
they have higher chances of being shortlisted. A potential downfall is that
it can bias the job recruiters as few users can take undue advantage of
this and get fake endorsements.
Metrics:
To gauge whether the adoption & engagement of the feature has improved or not,
we can track the following metrics:
● No of skills endorsed per day.
● MoM growth in endorsement requested.
Priyanka: To summarise, we discussed what is LinkedIn and its endorsement

feature.
● We narrowed down our problem statement by saying we will improve
adoption & engagement of the feature.
● We focused on creating relevance of the feature for job seekers.
● We discussed their user journey and identified reasons as to why they don't
find relevance in the feature.
● We brainstormed on potential solutions to make it easy to get endorsement
and increase its value while job searching.
● Lastly, we identified metrics that will help us track whether we have
accomplish our goal or not.
Interviewer: It was an insightful discussion. Thank you, for putting it succinctly.
Have a good day.
Question 6: How would you improve WhatsApp ?

Interviewer: How would you improve WhatsApp?
69
Shailesh: Okay, before I solve this problem, I would like to clarify my

understanding of WhatsApp. WhatsApp is an instant messaging platform where
people can chat, video call, voice call, send images, documents, voice notes etc.
WhatsApp has payment features as well. This may not be a complete list of all the
features, but this is the broad functionality of WhatsApp. Should I proceed with this,
or do you want to add something?
Interviewer: You can go ahead with this.
Shailesh: Alright! I have some questions which I want to get clarified. WhatsApp
currently has two different products: WhatsApp and the other is WhatsApp for
business, so which one are we focusing on.
Interviewer: Regular WhatsApp
Shailesh: Since improvement can be of different types like improvement in

monetisation, engagement, user experience, or acquiring more users. So, what is
the objective of this improvement? According to my, we can think of improvement
in engagement since WhatsApp is in a growing phase. What do you think?
Interviewer: Okay, go ahead with engagement.
Shailesh: WhatsApp is present for both desktop and mobile, and the usage of
WhatsApp web is continuously rising, so is there any specific platform which we are
trying to improve or both. According to my, we can first try improvement on the
mobile application, then seeing the success, we can launch the feature for the
desktop as well. Is it okay?
Interviewer: Okay, we can do that.
Shailesh: One last question, do we have any time or resource constraints that I
should be aware of? I am asking this because this can play an important role in
prioritising the features. Also, I am assuming that we want to improve the
engagement globally.
Interviewer: No, we don’t have any time or resource constraints.
Shailesh: Alright, let me lay down the broad goal of the problem. We want to
increase the engagement of the WhatsApp mobile application globally.
Interviewer: Perfect.
Shailesh: Okay, sure, the way I would like to approach it is, first will see different
customer segment and their user journey. With the help of that, we can see their
pain point; we will try to think of solutions for the pain points. We will also see the
70
metrics to track whether our Solution is working fine. At last, we can think of the
future of the features or some trade off if we have. Does it sound okay?
User Segment/User Personas

Shailesh: Let me think of the user personas
1. People who are very focused in terms of WhatsApp use. They generally don’t
use WhatsApp that much, and if they do, it’s only for chat. E.g. — mid-age
people, homemakers etc.
2. People who are very active on WhatsApp in terms of chats, status etc. They
are part of different groups, and they are our power users. But they are also
using other applications like Telegram, Snapchat and they can easily migrate
from one to another. E.g. — college students, young professionals etc.
3. People who are medium in terms of usage of WhatsApp. They are part of a
lot of groups but aren’t very active in group chats, but they sometimes do
send documents, links etc. They want quick updates from all the chats,
groups etc. E.g. — Busy Professionals
4. People who are using WhatsApp for advertising purposes like selling their
products. E.g. — Small business owners
Although all can be a potential target customer, segment #1 are too focused,
customer #2 are already very active on WhatsApp and customer #4 has set agenda
of selling things and advertising, so I think I would like to target people who are
medium in term of WhatsApp usage (Customer segment #3). What do you think?
Interviewer: I think it is a fair assumption.
Pain Points/Frustrations
Shailesh: Okay let’s look at the potential pain points of customer segment #3
1. As a user, I am not able to send messages, documents, images etc., without
adding the contact number. For example, if the delivery guy is not able to
locate my house and wants me to send my location through WhatsApp, I
can’t send the location without adding his number. I may not be very
comfortable adding strangers on WhatsApp.
2. While working on a project, we tend to send important links and documents
to the WhatsApp project group. It becomes very difficult to track which link
corresponds to which document, and we end up downloading all the
documents.
3. In the WhatsApp group, it is generally very difficult to have focused and
collaborative discussions around some topic.
71
4. The textual reaction is time-consuming; for example, if I am a part of some

group, as a busy user, it becomes a real pain to react to the photo via text
message.
5. Being a part of any group on WhatsApp becomes really annoying sometimes
because there is a huge influx of images and my phone gets flooded with
garbage.
6. Communication with people from different backgrounds is a problem.
Sometimes people in the group chat posted something in their regional
language, which makes a person feels left out.
Solutions/Features
Shailesh: Okay now let’s see some of the potential solutions.
1. While transferring money to some other person, we just need the mobile
number, and we are able to send money to that particular individual.
Likewise, WhatsApp can have a similar feature in which a person can send
messages without saving the contact number. [Solution to pain point #1]
2. WhatsApp can have one feature in which users should be able to hyperlink a
particular text with a URL and this text can be searchable in the links
searching section. Also, we should be able to see the preview of the doc
before downloading that document. [Solution to pain point #2]
3. WhatsApp can have its own mini browser so that whenever a person clicks on
the link/URL, he doesn’t need to migrate to some other browser like Google
Chrome, Safari etc. This will retain the user into WhatsApp and will increase
the user engagement on the platform. [Solution to pain point #2]
4. WhatsApp can have features like polls, forms etc. which can help in quick
discussion around some topics and people's opinions can be easily gauged.
[Solution to pain point #3]
5. Facebook can extend the reaction feature to WhatsApp as well; this will help
people to react to the images and the texts. [Solution to pain point #4]
6. WhatsApp can have a group story type of features in which, rather than
sending a lot of photos to the group, people can add pictures as a story and
stories should also be visible on the group icon in the chat window, just like
Instagram. There is no need to migrate to the status section of the app.
[Solution to pain point #5]
7. WhatsApp can have inbuilt text translation; if someone has sent the text in
some regional language, then we should be able to translate it. [Solution to
pain point #6]
72
8. WhatsApp stored starred messages in random order, which may not be very
useful while we are looking for a conversation. There can be a feature in
which the user is able to bookmark the conversation and refer to it whenever
he wants to visit it.
9. WhatsApp can have more personalised GIFs and stickers. For example, if I
want to send good morning to someone, it can create a gif in which the other
person to whom I am sending a message and I should be present in Avatar
form. This Avatar form will depend on the person's profile photo to whom we
are sending the message. WhatsApp can also use VR and can also send a
dynamic 3D avatar of ours to the other person in the chat. This will definitely
enhance the quality of conversation because personalized emotions can
communicate a lot more than text. [Moonshot]
Prioritization
Let’s prioritize the Solution, and we also know that we don’t have any resource and
time constraints.
● [High Impact] [High Effort] — #4, #9
● [High Impact] [Medium Effort] — #1, #2, #5
● [Medium Impact] [High Effort] — #3
● [Medium Impact] [Medium Effort] — #7, #8
Initially, I would like to have features #1, #2, #5 to be in MVP. In future, we can
leverage technology like AR to have dynamic and personalized avatars, so feature
#9 can be on our future road map and the same thing for #4. We won’t be
implementing #3 because it has a strategically different positioning from the
mission and vision of WhatsApp.
Success Metrics
Now let’s see the success metrics
● Average number of reactions a picture/text receives per day.
● Increase in average amount of time the target user spends on WhatsApp per
day.
● Increase in the average number of WhatsApp sessions the targeted user is
having per day.
● Ratio of Average number of documents getting previewed to the total number
of documents shared on WhatsApp.
● Bounce rate.
● Average number of links sent through WhatsApp with attached text per day.
Interview: Thank you
73
Question 7: How will you improve Amazon ?

Interviewer: How would you improve Amazon?
Shailesh: Okay, before I jump onto the solution, I want to clarify my

understanding of Amazon. Amazon has different business verticals like Amazon
marketplace, Amazon AWS, Amazon Prime, Firestick etc. This is not an exhaustive
list, but these are the broad business verticals. Do you want to add something to it,
or is it good?
Interviewer: Yes, it is okay.
Shailesh: I have some questions that I want to clarify; since Amazon has different
business verticals, which vertical are we trying to improve, or can I decide as I go
ahead with the problem?
Interviewer: You can decide.
Shailesh: Okay, for this, I am assuming that we are trying to improve the Amazon
marketplace. Since improvement can be of different types like acquisition,
engagement or monetisation, what kind of improvement are we focusing on? As per
my understanding, we should target engagement because Amazon is currently in a
growth phase and rapidly expanding in developing countries like India.
Interviewer: Yes, you can go ahead with the engagement.
Shailesh: Alright, so for this improvement, are we targeting any specific

demography, geography, or devices (desktop or mobile)?
Interviewer: We want to improve the Amazon marketplace globally; you can
consider mobile devices for now.
Shailesh: Okay, let me reiterate the goal of our problem; we want to improve the
engagement of the Amazon marketplace globally.
Interviewer: Perfect, please go ahead.
Shailesh: Okay, sure, the way I would like to approach is, first will see different
pain points, and we will try to think of solutions for the pain points. We will also see
the metrics to track whether our solution is working fine. At last, we can think of
the future of the features or some trade-off if we have. Does this sound correct?
74
Customer Segment/User Personas

Shailesh: Let me think of the user personas
1. People who know exactly what they are going to buy from the platform.
2. People who know what to buy but are unsure about the brand or type.
They compare a lot of brands, reviews etc.
3. People who don’t even know what to buy just do window shopping, and if
they like something, they might buy.
4. Advertisers
5. Sellers
Since customer segment #1 is too focused, they know exactly what they want. As
soon as they get the item, they will leave the platform. So, it makes sense to target
the people (segment #2) who know what to buy but are not sure of the brand and
type. Since these are the users whose number is larger than any other customer
persona, the data we get from this customer segment can help us in the future
value proposition. I want to focus on the second customer segment. What do you
think?
User Journey
Shailesh: Let’s see their user journey to assess their pain points
1. They feel the need for something; they try different e-commerce
platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart etc.
2. They select the item and compare it with different brands.
3. They share the items with their close friends, buddies and families to
seek approval or guidance. They also search on the internet.
4. Finally, they add the item to the cart and apply different coupon codes
available with them.
5. They select the address and place the order.
6. They track the item and check if it is according to their expectations after
it gets delivered.
7. If it isn’t according to their expectation or damaged item, they call for
support or place a return request.
Pain Points
Now let’s see the different pain points
1. Comparing the items from the different brands is painful. For example, if
I buy a mobile phone, I need to go through different blogs and YouTube
75
comparison videos to understand which one is the best. This is simply a

waste of time.
2. It is painful to find a person who has bought a similar item because
sometimes reviews are not very helpful. Trusting random reviews can
sometimes prove disastrous. It is very unlikely to find reviews for the
new products as well.
3. Seeking validation is one of the human traits. So, getting validation from
family and friends can be painful. Currently, we generally take a
screenshot and send it to our friends. There is a lot of trash that is
generated on the phone.
4. Sometimes I want to buy some product which is out of my budget. In
that case, I feel disheartened and search for an alternative product.
Solutions/Features
1. Amazon can have something like “Amazon Social” where we can follow our
friends. So, whenever we buy a product, we can reach out to our friends who
have already bought it. We can chat with them and seek guidance from
them.
2. Socialising is something that we have missed a lot in the pandemic era.
Amazon can have features like virtual “Amazon Shopping Rooms”, where we
can shop from Amazon along with our friends. [MoonShot]
3. There can be a feature like Customization Comparison in which we can
compare the product in a similar category. For example, if we are confused
between Samsung and OnePlus, we can add both phones to the
customisation comparison. This will also provide a summary of the point of
difference and points of similarity between the product.
4. There can be Amazon in-house blog where we can find blogs or review videos
from the experts. Here we can search for the product we want to purchase.
Currently, such reviews are present on YouTube, so users have to switch
between apps.
5. We can have features like “Chat with expert” from whom we can take
guidance about a particular product, usability and they can suggest us the
suitable product. This can be part of Amazon's premium subscription.
6. There can be a feature where we can chat with people who have posted
reviews for some product. Here we can integrate the gamification feature; for
example, if we want to buy something and none of our friends has bought it,
in that case, we can chat with the person who has posted a review for that
76
product. If we find their advice useful, they will earn some Amazon points,
which can be redeemed in the future.
7. A feature like alternative suggester can use AI to suggest an alternative
product with similar functionality and use cases.
Prioritisation
Now I want to prioritise the solution depending on their impact and effort.
● Must-Have — #3, #4, #5, #7
● Should have — #6
● Could have — #1, #2
Success Metrics
Now let’s look at some of the success metrics for the features we have defined.
● Average number of product comparisons per day.
● Average watch time or reading time on the blog by a user in a month/week.
● Average number of people who chat with an expert per day.
● Ratio of the product which is suggested by alternative suggester and bought
by the user to the total number of suggestions made by suggester.
Interviewer: Yes, we can do that. Thank you.
Question 8: How would you improve LinkedIn ?

Interviewer: How would you improve LinkedIn?
Shailesh: Alright, before answering this question, I would like to clarify my

understanding of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a professional social networking website. It
has several verticals like networking, Newsfeed, Job search, LinkedIn Learning etc.
LinkedIn is operating on the freemium business model. Is this correct, or do you
want to add some more things?
Interviewer: Yes, this is correct.
Shailesh: Okay, now talking about the improvement of LinkedIn, improvement can
be of different types like improvement in the acquisition of new users, engagement
of users or it can be related to monetisation. Since LinkedIn is in a growing phase,
it would be good to focus on improving the engagement part. What do you think?
Interviewer: Engagement sounds good. Please go ahead.
Shailesh: Do we have any resource or time constraints that I should be aware of? I
am asking this because this might play a role in prioritising the product roadmap.
77
Interviewer: Yes, you may assume that we have to release the first cut of the
improvement in 3 months.
Shailesh: Okay, sure, the way I would like to approach is, first will see different
pain points; we will try to think of solutions for the pain points. We will also see the
metrics to track whether our solution is working fine. At last, we can think of the
future of the features or some tradeoff if we have. Sounds okay?
Interviewer: Sounds great, go ahead.
User Personas
Shailesh: These can be the different customer segments I can think of.
1. A job seeker who is actively looking for a job or job switch.
2. Job recruiter/HR who posts jobs on the platform
3. A content consumer who silently consumes content.
4. A content producer who posts content a lot.
5. Someone interested in building his network and sends requests, check
out other profiles etc.
6. Advertisers who want to do some sort of promotion of their organisation
These are the broad personas. Do you want me to focus on a specific persona?
Interviewer: I would like you to focus on the “job” vertical on LinkedIn.
User Journey
Shailesh: Alright, talking about the job vertical, I would like to focus on job seeker.
Let’s see their user journey so that we can think of their pain points. The broad user
journey of any job seeker would look like this.
1. Search for the job according to some preference
2. Apply to the job with a resume and wait for the communication from the
HR
3. Prepare for the interview, if shortlisted
4. Wait for the results
5. Improve on the feedback if not selected. If selected, then focus on
onboarding and document verification.
Pain Points
Let’s see what the different pain points for the job seekers are:
1. As a job seeker, I find it hard to comprehend the job requirement and
even more difficult to assess the culture from the job description.
78
2. As a job seeker, I find it painful to be unaware of the status of my

application, and this becomes even worse when my application gets
rejected at any stage, and I am not aware of the same.
3. Even if I get shortlisted, I need to connect with different people working
in the same company through LinkedIn to have some guidance about the
interview preparation.
4. When my application gets rejected, I am not able to get proper feedback
about how can I improve in future.
5. As a job seeker, I need to take care of different communication channels
like Zoom for a video interview, Gmail for tracking mail and LinkedIn for
application.
6. Even though I have an updated LinkedIn profile, I need to go through
the entire background screening process again.
Solutions/Features
Now let’s see some of the solutions for the same problems
1. LinkedIn can have video Job Description, which will give a small glimpse
of the requirements in the role, the company’s cultures and values. Video
has a longer-lasting effect than the textual Job description.
2. LinkedIn can have a proper Recruitment funnel which will be updated by
the person who has posted the job. The funnel will have different stages
like resume submission, shortlist for telephonic interview, shortlist for an
onsite interview, job offer etc. The candidate can track the status of the
application, and it will reduce anxiety.
3. There should be a feature that will tell how likely you will get a shortlist if
you apply to that job using AI.
4. After applying for the job, LinkedIn should smartly recommend the
sample question that is likely to be asked in the interview. The AI engine
should automatically tell the resources available on LinkedIn Learning
that can help to ace the interview.
5. LinkedIn can have something like “Guidance over a coffee”, where the
industry experts can hold the sessions in their respective fields about
career and interview guidance.
6. If my profile gets rejected, LinkedIn can provide a summary of why my
profile got rejected and at what stage it was rejected. LinkedIn should
also give me a summary of all those profiles which got shortlisted for the
further round, which will help me assess and improve.
79
7. LinkedIn can be the standalone integrated channel for all the

communication, like email, interviews and offer confirmation. E2e
8. LinkedIn can also leverage VR technology to have a conversation with
the candidate, so that it feels like a live conversation.
Prioritisation
Keeping in mind that we need to deliver the first cut of the solution in 3 months, I
would like to have the following recommendation for prioritising the solution.
● Must have: #2, #1
● Should have: #3, #4, #6
● Could have — #7, #5
● Wouldn’t have — #8
Success Metrics
Now let’s see the success metrics for the solutions
1. Number of visits to application tracking window per day
2. The average number of job description videos watched by a user
3. An average number of times a user replays a job description video.
4. The ratio of the number of people who got shortlisted to the number of
people who applied and having a cutoff score of above a certain
threshold recommended by the AI engine.
5. Average time spent by a user on the recommended material(LinkedIn
Learning) for interview preparation.
Interviewer: Thank You. It was a good discussion.
Question 9: How would you improve Netflix ?

Interviewer: How would you improve Netflix?
Shailesh: Thanks for the questions; let me tell you my understanding of Netflix so
that we are on the same page. Netflix is a video streaming platform that provides
content like TV shows, movies, documentaries etc. One of the main features of
Netflix is its personalized recommendation of content. Is that correct?
Interviewer: Yes, that’s correct.
Shailesh: Before I start stating my solution, I have some questions which I want to
get clarified. Since improvement can be of different types like the acquisition of
untapped market, user experience, user engagement or monetization, what is our
goal. From my point of view, acquisition and engagement both are good options
80
now for Netflix; however, I would like to continue with improving user engagement
which will lead to future options to get more revenue. What do you think?
Interviewer: Okay, you can go ahead, but I have one question if you want to
acquire an untapped market, what customer segment you would focus on?
Shailesh: Great question; if I had to acquire more customers, I would look into
Netflix for senior citizens. Since Netflix kids have already been there and in old age,
you have a lot of free time to spend. Old people generally feel marginalized and
unsociable because of a lack of information, but by this, we can give them the kind
of content that can be entertaining and informative.
Interviewer: Okay, go ahead with improving user engagement.
Shailesh: Do you want me to take into account particular geography, demography

or the device option, or I can decide as I go ahead with the problem.
Interviewer: You can assume we have to increase the engagement globally.
Shailesh: Alright, do we have any resource or time constraints that I should be

aware of? I am asking this question because it may play an important role while
prioritizing our feature set for MVP.
Interviewer: You are not bound by anything.
Shailesh: Cool, the way I would like to approach this problem is, first will see our
the pain points. After prioritising the pain points, we can see some potential
solutions in priority and corresponding success metrics. At last, we can think of
some of the potential tradeoffs or some future aspects of the Solution. Sounds
okay?
Interviewer: Sounds great; please go ahead.
Shailesh: I would like to put the users of Netflix into two broad buckets one is a
content consumer, and another is a content producer. For this, I want to focus on
content consumers primary because they are in huge numbers. There can be
multiple user personas for content consumers, but if I have to put them in a more
MECE way, I would like to have the following personas:
User Personas
1. Focused content consumers: People who know what they are going to
watch are kind of an introvert and generally don’t like to watch what s
81
recommended by other people. They are very particular about their

personalised recommendation and don’t want to spoil them.
2. Content discoverer: They are the ones who want to discover the different
movies, shows etc. They are open to anything and everything. They want
some socialising experience; they want to express their opinions about what
they watched.
3. Occasional Watchers: They are those individuals who don’t spend time on
Netflix or any other OTT platform because they are busy individuals who
don’t like watching content. They watch 1 or 2 highly famous movies either
with their friends or alone.
Prioritisation Of Customer Persona

Shailesh: If I have to prioritise the customer persona, I would like to focus on the
one user persona, “Content Discoverer”. They are the ones who want to explore,
and their number is greater than the other two personas. So, improving their
engagement can lead us to more business options to monetise. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, you can go ahead.
Shailesh: Let’s form the goal of the problem; we have to increase the user
engagement of content discoverers on the Netflix platform globally. I think this is
aligned with the broad goal of Netflix as well.
Interviewer: Okay!
Shailesh: Now, let’s see some of the pain points of the selected customer persona.
Pain Point Of Customer Segment #1
1. They got bored of all the recommendations on Netflix; they want it to be
more of a fun way to discover content.
2. In this pandemic, they miss the kind of socialization feeling that they had
in the theatre. They are also very sceptical of going out now as well.
3. Because they watch a lot of content, sometimes they feel lost in some
sci-fi series. Also, now the TV series has a lot of seasons, so it becomes
frustrating when we don’t remember what happened till earlier seasons.
4. Sometimes they look out for unique content which can be fun and
exciting at the same time.
Shailesh: To summarise what we have discussed till now, we have discussed the
problems and explored the different personas. We picked the content explorer
persona and looked into their pain points. Now I am pausing for a while if you have
82
any questions, suggestions etc.

Prioritization Of Pain Points

Shailesh: Now, let’s prioritise the different pain points; I will take two things into
account while prioritizing the pain points. First is how chronic the pain point is and
how frequently it is occurring. By this, we will be able to see the depth and breadth
of the pain point. Pain points #3 and #4 are something that doesn’t occur daily,
while pain points #1 and #2 are something that has a high frequency. I want to
prioritise pain points #1 and #2. Are you aligned with this?
Interviewer: Yes, it makes sense.
Shailesh: Now, let’s look at different solutions for the pain points.
Solutions/Features
Solutions to pain point #1
1. We can have a geofencing kind of feature in which a user will "spin a
wheel", and the user will be recommended with some suggestions of
videos/TV series depending on the content being watched in their
neighbourhood. We can integrate a leaderboard kind of feature to this.
For example, if Netflix recommends videos you are watching and other
people in your neighbourhood like them, you will get some reward
points. Netflix can now expand its business model by opening its
marketplace and letting users buy merchandised shirts or snacks for a
good movie experience. [Medium Effort][High Impact]
2. “Netflix Metaverse” is my second solution in which you can watch the
movies in a full and immersive way. [Super High Effort][High
Impact]
3. “Netflix Subconscious” is my third feature in which, depending on
your retina movement on the Netflix screen, Netflix can recommend you
a playlist of videos, tv-series etc. [Super High Effort][Medium
Impact]

1. “Netflix Social” is my first solution because Netflix doesn’t have
followers and following culture. Netflix can prompt users to log in via
Facebook and leverage the advantage of a vast network of friends and
acquittances. On Netflix social where they can post reviews, comments,
experiences etc. [High Effort][High Impact]
83
2. “Netflix Meta Social” is my second feature in which not only they can
watch the movies in an immersive way but also they watch like this with
their friends and family remotely as well. [Super High Effort][High
Impact]
3. “Netflix Story” is my third feature in which people can put the story of
the video they are watching. People who follow you can react and
comment on the story like Instagram. It will increase the engagement,
and sometimes people also want to express themselves in the form of
movie dialogue, so with this feature, they will be able to do that. [High

1. Netflix can have recap videos, and people can also opt for WhatsApp
updates from Netflix. So let’s say if someone has left the TV series in
between, they can have 2–3 reminders sent on WhatsApp about the
content. Push notifications are good, but WhatsApp notifications may
have a greater impact as people open their WhatsApp multiple times.
[Medium effort][Medium Impact]

1. Netflix can have “Behind the Scene” content that is new, and people
are generally curious to watch this type of content. [Medium
2. Netflix can partner with some pro-gamers who can put their live gaming
content on Netflix. [Medium Effort][High Impact]
Since Meta technology is currently evolving, what I would like to have currently is
the “Geofencing feature”, “Netflix Social”, and “Netflix Story” features.
Success Metrics
Shailesh: Now, let’s see some of the success metrics for the features which we have
proposed.
1. Ratio of the number of content watched or liked to the total number of
content recommended.
2. Average time spent by a user on Netflix Social.
3. Average reviews/comments posted by an individual on Netflix social per
month.
4. The average number of reactions done on Netflix Story.
84
Question 10: Improve Facebook News Feed.

Interviewer: How would you increase engagement on Facebook News Feed?
Shailesh: Thanks for the question but before that let me clarify my understanding
of Facebook Newsfeed so that we are aligned on it. Facebook newsfeed is one of the
core functionality of Facebook other than messaging, video calling, following profiles
of friends etc. Facebook news feed lets you to know current happening around you
or let people know or express opinions about things that you care about. This is
completely aligned with the Facebook mission of connecting people and expressing
themselves. Is my understanding regarding the Facebook newsfeed clear or do you
want me to focus on some other functionality that I missed probably?
Interviewer: Now this understanding is good to go.
Shailesh: I have some questions that I want to clarify since improvement can be of
different types if I tied it to the business objective. It can be of increasing revenue,
increasing engagement on the feed, or we are going to acquire more and more
users? what is the objective of the improvement? According to my, Newsfeed is a
place that has infinite scrolling, Facebook puts a lot of advertisement there and
facebook’s revenue model revolve around advertisement, so it would make sense
for me to think about increasing engagement, what do you think?
Interviewer: Yeah the assumption seems okay, we are also seeing people are
scrolling news feeds but not reacting to the same. So we want to make it more
engaging.
Shailesh: Okay, but when you say that people are not reacting, they are not
commenting on pictures or they aren’t even reacting to them, because the reaction
feature may cannibalise the commenting one. So what is exactly we are looking at?
Are we looking at improving overall engagement on the picture?
Interviewer: Yeah we are looking at overall engagement on the Facebook
newsfeed.
Shailesh: Are we looking for improvement on specific platforms like desktop or

mobile or any particular geography?
Interviewer: No we want to increase the engagement globally.
Shailesh: One last question I have is, do we have any time or resource constraints
or we are not bound by this.
85
Interviewer: No, we don’t have any resources constraint, but we want to see the
improved result in 1 quarter or 2.
Shailesh: Alright, let me quickly form the objective of the problem from whatever
we have discussed till now. The main objective of the problem is to increase the
overall engagement on the Facebook newsfeed and we are not bound by anything.
Interviewer: Perfect, please go ahead.
the pain points. After prioritizing the pain points, we can see potential solutions and
corresponding success metrics. At last, we can think of some of the potential
tradeoffs or some future aspects of the Solution. Sounds okay?
Interviewer: Sounds Great, please go ahead.
Shailesh: There can be different user persona of people who are using Facebook
broadly there can be 3groups which are content creators, content consumers and
advertisers. Here we can assume that 10% of people are content creators and 90%
are content consumers so I would go ahead a focus more on content consumers
because they are driving the engagement on the Facebook Newsfeed. So if I have
to put the user persona in a more MECE way we would be having the following user
personas.
User Persona
● FB Explorers: They are our power users, they are young, tech-savvy and
want to explore different videos, photos, posts on Facebook. They spend
quite a lot of time on Facebook and exploring different things.
● FB Focused Users: They are the ones who are our medium users, they may
be young professionals who don’t get much time in their day to explore all
this stuff. They also comprised introverted people who silently consume
content.
● FB Casual Users: They are the ones who are not very interested in
Facebook, they don’t spend much time on the platform. They open Facebook
like once or twice a week.
Shailesh: I will stop for a while if you have any questions on this?
Interviewer: No this is good, you can go ahead with this.
86
Persona Prioritisation
Shailesh: Okay now let me prioritise the user persona, so I would like to pick the
focused users because they are the ones who are coming onto that platform but
still not making any engagement. The explorers are kind of extroverts on the
platform, they are engaging. So if we have solved the problem for the FB Focused
users, we will be able to solve the problem for the majority of people. Are we
aligned on this?
Interviewer: please go-ahead
Shailesh: Now we will see some of the pain points of the selected User persona.
Pain points
● Spam/Misinformation/Irrelevant Content: One of the painpoint is that
people cannot find relevant, good quality content on the newsfeed. They are
moving away from the feed because they think the kind of information is
based, spam and not relevant to them.
● No personalised engaging content: Even though Facebook uses machine
learning and AI to make the content more dynamic and engaging, people still
got bored from the newsfeed to seeing the same old type of content.
● Shyness: People often don’t want to comment on some pictures and want to
regret 3–4 years later, so they choose not to comment on some photos, they
are kind of shy and don’t want their information to go in public and stay
there forever.
Shailesh: These are the problems that focused FB users can get, so if I have to
prioritise the problem and pain points, I would like to go ahead and see the
intensity and the frequency of the pain. This way we will be ensuring that we are
covering the depth and width of the problem. According to my, all are potential
problems to solve but if I have to tie to the objective of the problem to increase
engagement, I would go ahead and pick pain point #3. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes you can go ahead with this.
Shailesh: Let's look at the different solutions for the pain points

1. Spam Bot Checker: Facebook can have a bot crawler that is crawling on
the different profiles and making sure that the content is not spam.
2. Verified pages: Facebook can have features in which they can hire
content creators and have FB pages for different genes. People will be
87
able to verify the FB owned pages and can follow them according to their
will.

1. 3D Video and Images: Facebook has a lot of data, photos, videos of
places, landscapes, food etc. There are a lot of people who have their
profile public, Facebook can make a 3d images and videos using AI/ML
and people can search for the same. This will be more engaging content.
For example, if I have searched for “Grand Canyon”, Facebook can create
a 3d image or video from all the photos it has and users can watch those
to have a great experience.
2. Meta posts: Facebook has acquired Oculus. Their mission is to provide a
more immersive experience through Meta, so people can know view
photos and videos in a more immersive and real way.
3. Integration with Calendar: Facebook can integrate with the calendar
to give more personalised content and suggestion for an upcoming
events. For example, let’s say I have booked a ticket for Goa, it should
show me the content like favourite places to visit, Selfie points, Pose
which gets maximum likes on Facebook because human being needs
validation and if they know prehand that this post will get maximum
likes, they will try to replicate that.

1. Comment Privately: Facebook can have a feature in which a person
can comment on a photo privately, the comment will be visible to the one
which the commenter wants to know.
2. Comment for 24 hours: People who don't want to let their data or
comment on Facebook for a much longer period of time, can go and
make the comment available for 24 hours. After that, the
thread/comment will automatically delete.
Prioritisation
Shailesh: The features “Comment Privately” & “Comment for 24 hours” are both
very good features for making a person active but we can go ahead with “Comment
for 24 hours” because “Comment Privately” can cannibalise the messengers. We
can also hire content creators to have more FB owned pages. So finally my
recommendation for the near future is to have feature “Comment for 24 hours” and
“FB Owned Pages”. Should I go ahead and define some metrics to track the success.
88
Success Metrics
1. Average time spend by a user per day on News Feed.
2. Average number of sessions of a user on Facebook
3. Average number of comments per post
Question 11: How would you improve Amazon Kindle ?

Interviewer: How would you improve Amazon Kindle?
Shailesh: First let me clarify my understanding of Kindle, Kindle is a device that is

widely used for reading e-books. It is a device where you can purchase books and
read them, it gives the same immersive experience which a user gets while reading
the hardcopy of the book. This is particularly designed for reading purposes without
minimal distraction so that you can’t install much of the applications and the
browser also isn’t that good. This is my broad understanding of the Kindle Device.
It also comes as a digital application that you can install via the play store or apps
store. Is my understanding of the device okay, or do do you want me to focus on
something else?
Interviewer: I think, it is good to proceed with the question.
Shailesh: Alright, I have some questions which I want to get clarified. Since
improvement can be of different type and if I tie it to some business metric, we will
be having improvement in terms of acquisition of more users, improvement in
reading experience for more engagement, or improving monetisation. What do we
explicitly focus on? According to my, we can think of improvement in the reading
experience and bringing more engagement on the device which can be further used
to increase revenue.
Interviewer: Yeah we can go ahead and improve the reading experience on
Kindle.
Shailesh: Okay also I am assuming we are doing improvement on Kindle as a

device not on Kindle as an application since that is that one which derives more
revenue or we can think both as well.
Interviewer: Yes, you can go ahead with both.
Shailesh: One more question which I want to ask is, do we have any resource or
time constraints? I am asking this question because it may play an important role
while prioritising the features.
89
Interviewer: No you aren’t bound by that but make sure that the features don’t
increase the cost of the kindle.
Shailesh: Alright, I have a fair understanding of the problem statement, let me
quickly form an objective of the problem, we want to improve the reading
experience of a reader on a kindle platform while will ultimately derive more
engagement and any constraints don’t bind us. sounds okay?
Interviewer: Yes, that is perfect.
Interviewer: Sounds Great, please go ahead.
Shailesh: There can be multiple personas of users who are using Kindle but if I
have to put them in a more MECE way, we would be having the following personas.
User Persona
1. Avid Readers/Business leaders or executives: They are the ones who
love to read about anything and everything. They read smany books in a
year and are our power users. They want to explore different types of genres
and increase their knowledge. They read around 20+ books in a year.
2. Focused Readers: They are ones who know what they are interested in and
they read book pertaining to that only. They are our medium users, they can
be students or professors. Sometimes they read around 3–4 books in a year.
3. Occasional Readers: They are the ones who read the book occasionally, for
them reading is a boring activity but they want to become avid readers. They
try hard to build the habit of reading but they lose track in between.
4. Fashion Readers: They are the ones who don’t love reading that much but
they bought Kindle because everyone in their circle bought one.
Shailesh: I think we can target the Occasional readers because they are the ones
who wants to inculcate the reading habit and they try hard as well. Avid readers
and focused readers are the ones who in any case will read the books no matter
what difficulty they face. And if we put all the user's persona on a normal curve,
Occasional readers are the ones who will lie in the middle because they are in larger
numbers. So solving problems for them will increase the engagement more. what
90
do you think?
Interviewer: I think this is a fair assumption.
User Journey
Shailesh: Now let’s think of their user journey so that we can think of the potential
pain points. The user journey of the occasional reader can be divided into stages
like “Get recommendation of books to read”, “Buy subscription or e-book”, “Start
reading”, “Get demotivated”, “start again”, “Complete the book or left it” and finally
“Share the experience with people. Are you aligned with this and should I go ahead
and think of the potential pain points to solve?
Interviewer: I think it is okay, please go ahead.
Shailesh: Let’s think of some of the pain points of occasional readers.

Pain Points
1. They got demotivated or bored about reading or completing books.
2. When they return, they don't even know what they have read until now?
3. Sometimes they find it tough to comprehend whatever they read, are
they reading in a proper manner.
4. They sometimes don’t realise how this book will help them in the future?
These are the pain points which I would like to solve, should I go ahead and pick
one of them?
Interviewer: Yes sure
Shailesh: I would like to pick the pain point by seeing the intensity and frequency
of the problem. I will also see if solving this problem is aligned with our broader
objective of the problem. I think the first step is the one is getting motivated to for
habit. First, we need to solve this problem then the further problem will make
sense. I will pause for a while if you have any questions about this and are aligned
on this.
Interviewer: Yes you can go ahead and solve this problem.
Shailesh: Okay there can be the following solutions for the pain points.
Solutions/Features
1. Stickers: Amazon kindle can have a feature of amazing book stickers
which comes with the purchase of book so that the person can put these
stickers on their laptop, screen which reminds them that they have
bought the book and they need to complete it. Amazon can also provide
91
them to have physical stickers which they can put into their rooms, office
desks etc. [low effort][mid impact]
2. Timeline Integration with Calendar: Before starting the book, Kindle
can provide a feature in which the person can set the goal of completing
the book. The goal will be automatically integrated with the calendar and
will provide you with a set of reminders for the goal.[mid effort][high
impact]
3. Gamification: Amazon Kindle can provide the gamification feature in
which if a person has achieved some goal, so he will be earning a
gamification wheel, spinning to which will fetch them offers, discounts,
reward points to buy something from Amazon in future. [high
effort][high impact]
4. Leaderboard: Amazon kindle can provide them a feature of the
leaderboard among friends and acquaintances who are also reading on
Kindle. A human being is inherently very competitive, so they will want
to get on the top of the leaderboard. [mid effort][high impact]
5. Human Tracker: Amazon kindle can have a feature in which you can
opt for a human tracker which will keep track of your goal of reading. He
will also help you to comprehend and discuss interesting points with
them. Human beings have some kind of ego, so they will disappoint
themselves but not disappoint themselves in front of others.[high
effort][high impact]
Shailesh: All of the features can be a potential solution for the problem, but I need
to pick one solution for the same. I would go ahead with the “Timeline integration
with Calendar”. Let me define some metrics for the same
Success Metrics
1. Number of books completed by a users in a month.
2. Average number of reading minutes per user per month.
92
Chapter 7: Product Strategy Interview Cases

Product Strategy Questions
Product Strategy questions are a critical component of Product Management
interviews. They assess your ability to think strategically, align products with
business goals, and make informed decisions about product direction. In this
chapter, we'll dive into Product Strategy questions, explore their essence,
and provide examples to illustrate how to approach them.
Approach to Product Strategy Questions

When tackling Product Strategy questions, use a structured approach to
showcase your strategic thinking:
1. Understand the Context: Begin by fully understanding the scenario
and context presented in the question. Clarify any ambiguities and ask
questions if necessary.
2. Define Business Goals: Identify the primary business objectives or
goals that need to be achieved through the product strategy. This
might include revenue growth, market expansion, customer retention,
or cost reduction.
3. User-Centric Focus: Consider the needs and preferences of your
target audience. How does the proposed strategy benefit users and
align with their expectations?
4. Competitive Landscape: Analyse the competitive landscape. Who
are your competitors, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?
Identify opportunities and threats.
5. Prioritise Initiatives: Determine which product initiatives or features
should be prioritised to achieve the defined business goals. Consider
the impact on users and the company's bottom line.
6. Execution Plan: Outline the steps required to execute the strategy
effectively. This may involve timelines, resource allocation, and
collaboration with cross-functional teams.
93
Question 1: How can Flipkart beat Amazon in India?

Interviewer: How can Flipkart beat Amazon in India?
Priyanka: To understand the problem in a better way, I would like to seek some
clarification.
Interviewer: Yes, please go ahead.
Priyanka: Amazon is the name that represents the Umbrella of services like
Amazon Prime, Amazon shopping, Audible, etc. Similarly, Flipkart has so many
subsidiaries and a ton of services like Amazon. So, I am assuming we are talking
about the competition between Amazon and Flipkart for Shopping.
Interviewer: Yes, you can go ahead with this assumption.
Priyanka: When we are talking about “beating Amazon”, is there any particular
metric we are looking at like active customers, active sellers or revenue, etc.? I
think we can focus on increasing the revenue of Flipkart, which implies an increase
in sales on Flipkart.
Interviewer: That’s a fair consideration.
Priyanka: Before we think of increasing revenue, it is important to discuss the

short-term goal and vision of Flipkart so that we know that the strategy we are
discussing is aligned with the goal and vision of the company.
Interviewer: Sure, please proceed.
Priyanka: Currently, Flipkart is in a growing phase. In India, it has already made a

strong position in Tier-I/Tier-II and metropolitan cities where users have a better
understanding of technology. To get its next set of customers, it is imperative for
Flipkart to focus on Tier-III and rural cities where users are less tech-savvy and
have low-end devices. Once Flipkart is able to acquire these customers, it should be
able to increase its revenue.
Interviewer: Sounds correct.
Priyanka: Is there any time/resource constraint I should be aware of?

Interviewer: No, you are not bound by any such constraint.
Priyanka: Okay, I would like to quickly summarise what we have discussed till now.
The goal of the problem is to increase the revenue of Flipkart by targeting
94
customers in Tier-III cities of India and rural areas, and we are not bound by any
time/resource constraint.
Interviewer: What would you do to solve this?
Priyanka: Okay, to start with here, we have finalised our user segment to focus on
a specific user persona. We will go through their journey to see the pain points they
face. Then we will find out solutions corresponding to the most pressing pain points.
After that, we will talk about the metrics to track whether our solution is working or
not. Are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: This is a good structure; please go ahead.
User segment:
Priyanka: Okay, there can be multiple user segments who can use Flipkart in
Tier-III and rural areas in India, but if I have to put them into more of a mutually
exclusive and collectively exhaustive way, then I will come up with these 3 user
segments:
1. Young rural aspirers: who may have low/high ended devices, but they
have the internet on their phones and spend quite a time on their phones
2. Mid age homemakers: who want to buy things that are not present in their
locality
3. People with disabilities: who find it difficult to shop every now and then.
Prioritisation of User segment:

All of the above user segments can be a potential segment to target, but if I have
to pick one user segment, I will go with Young rural aspirers. In the current area,
youngsters have more decisive power in the house than the other family members.
We have finalised the user segment to be young aspirers residing in Tier-III/rural
areas. Although they may have low-end devices, after the arrival of Jio, the internet
penetration has increased, and they are slowly becoming aware of online services.
This segment is definitely worth exploring.
User Journey:
The user journey of a user from Tier-III/rural areas is no different from a normal
user:
Open App -> Explore Products -> Compare Prices -> Add to Cart & Checkout ->
Make payment -> Track Delivery -> Return or refund
Pain Points:
95
1. Lack of trust: Young aspirers from Tier-III/rural areas find it difficult to trust
online services. They are often sceptical about sharing information like card
details. They are unsure how the return process will work and fear that they
might get scammed.
2. Price-sensitive: Users residing in Tier-III/rural are extremely price-sensitive
and want to get the best deals whenever they purchase. They often bargain
and compare prices at local shops before making a purchase.
Lack of personalisation/relatability: Users from non-metropolitan cities
are not able to relate to the products shown on the online platforms. They
are not sure of the usage of the product. Even though they want to make a
purchase, they are not able to identify themselves with the images shown in
the product description.
Pain Point Prioritization:

I would like to prioritise pain points 1 and 3 as safety and relatability are
important for any user on the e-commerce application.
Solutions:
Lack of trust:
1. Onboarding sellers from Tier III/rural cities: Flipkart can onboard
more sellers from the cities that young aspirers trust and often buy from.
Using economies of scale, Flipkart will be able to provide users with better
deals and discounts and make them stick to online platforms. Once people
are hooked to the convenience like doorstep delivery, wider assortment
etc., provided by online services, they will become loyal customers. This
will also promote the business of local sellers as they will be able to reach
out to customers from metropolitan cities who are not within their reach
otherwise. [High Impact] [High Effort]
2. Credits for return: The return policy can get tricky in Tier III/rural cities
where users rely on offline payment methods like cash on delivery. In the
case of cash payments, if a user makes a return, they can get Flipkart
credits which can be used for future purchases. If the user still wants their
money back, they can raise a request for the same. This will enable
trust-building and increase credibility. [High Impact] [Medium Effort]
Lack of personalisation/relatability:
1. Showcasing models that people identify with: Flipkart can partner
with models that people from non-metropolitan cities can relate to better.
96
They can also collaborate with film stars or sportspeople from such areas
to promote their platform. This will make people from Tier III/rural cities
feel more inclusive. [High Impact] [Low Effort]
2. Buyers in Pin code: To give an idea to users as to what is popular in
their area, Flipkart can add a feature where it can portray that “X no. of
users in your pin code have currently purchased this product” or “X no. of
users in your pin code have added the product in their cart”. This will
increase the chance of users buying such products. [Medium
Impact][Medium Effort]
Success Metrics:
● No. of Sales per day from young rural aspirers [North Star Metric]
● No. of monthly active users on boarded from Tier III/rural areas
● No. of sellers on boarded from Tier III/rural areas
● Purchase/Order return ratio by users from Tier III/rural areas
Question 2: Increase the market penetration of Netflix in

developing countries
Interviewer: You are a PM at Netflix. You are given the task to increase market
penetration in developing countries. How would you go about this?
Priyanka: To get a better understanding of the problem, I would like to ask some
clarifying questions.
Priyanka: Firstly, I would like to clarify my understanding of Netflix. It is an OTT

platform that provides a plethora of content like movies, television shows, and
documentaries and has changed the entertainment landscape and the way people
consume content. Netflix follows a subscription-based model where the customers
pay either monthly or yearly fees to access the services. It also offers personalised
lists and recommendations which further enhances the experience.
Interviewer: Yes, that is well-defined.
Priyanka: I am assuming there is enough internet penetration in developing

countries to support live streaming through Netflix.
97
Priyanka: When we say developing countries is there any specific country, we are
focusing on? Can I assume it to be India as it forms a potentially large market with
its varied demography and deep internet penetration after the launch of Jio?
Interviewer: You can focus on India.
Priyanka: I would also like to discuss how we can define market penetration in this
case. So, we can think of increasing the time people use the services or acquiring a
greater number of users on the platform. In my opinion, the latter makes more
sense as Netflix has to ultimately focus on increasing the number of active
subscribers. The average watch time might be a skewed metric as the existing
users might increase their watch time on the platform due to better engagement,
but this will not contribute to revenue. So the goal metric should be to increase the
active subscriber base.
Priyanka: Is there any time/resource constraint should I be wary of?

Interviewer: No, you are not bounded by that.
Priyanka: Just to summarise what we have discussed till now, we would like to
increase the active subscriber base for Netflix in India, and we are not bound by
any time/resource constraints.
Priyanka: Since we are targeting increasing the market penetration for Netflix in
India let us try to understand what the current scenario is. Although India forms a
huge market, there is intense competition due to multiple players providing
different value propositions. For example – Amazon Prime subscription not only
offers entertainment but also enables users to become part of the premium clubs
on Amazon e-commerce and get free and fast delivery.
Additionally, India becomes a tough market for Netflix as the consumers are
price-sensitive in nature. A lot of home-grown names like Zee5, and Alt Balaji are
able to provide content at much cheaper rates.
Interviewer: Agreed, these are a few of the biggest challenges.
Priyanka: Okay, the way I would like to take a shot at this is, we will discuss the
different user segments and then focus on a specific one. We will discuss the pain
points they face. Then we will find out ways in which Netflix can address those pain
points and have a better foothold in the Indian market. Post that, we will talk about
98
the metrics to track whether our goal is being achieved or not. Are we aligned on
this?
Interviewer: Yes
User segment:
Priyanka: Okay, there can be multiple user segments for Netflix in India, but if I
have to put them in a more comprehensive way, then I will come up with these 2
user segments:
● Young rural enthusiasts: who may have low/high-ended devices, but they
have the internet on their devices and spend a lot of time on their phones.
● Mid-age homemakers: who want to seek new ways of entertainment and
are still watching content on non-OTT platforms. They feel that OTT platforms
cater to the needs of Gen Z only.

All the above user segments can be potential targets, but if I were to pick one user
segment; I will go with Mid age homemakers. They have enough spending power.
Nowadays TV also has OTT integration so if Netflix starts catering to their needs,
then we can convert them to users. Although they might be less tech-savvy, after
the increase in smartphone penetration even they are slowly becoming aware of
online services. This segment is worth exploring.

1. As a mid-age homemaker, I am not able to connect myself with the
content I find on Netflix.
2. As a mid-age homemaker, I am more attracted to content which is in my
native language as I relate to it in a better way.
3. As a mid-age homemaker, I enjoy watching a few reality shows and sports
like Cricket, Kabaddi etc. I have been watching cricket since childhood and
still don’t want to miss any match.
Ways to increase market penetration:

1. Focus on regional content: Netflix has been quite focused on originals but
to be able to crack the Indian market it is important for Netflix to focus on
developing regional content which suits the taste of Indians. It is also
important to have subtitles for famous shows in regional languages to attract
a larger audience. Netflix can explore partnerships with local production
houses in India to make this cost-effective.
99
2. Focus on Sports: Cricket is the most popular sport among Indians and
Disney Hotstar has made a strategic move and acquired digital and TV rights
for all ICC competitions till the year 2027. Similarly, Netflix can get exclusive
rights for other popular sports loved by Indians – like football, hockey,
kabaddi etc.
3. Pay per show: Till now Netflix has focused on testing different plans in India
like a Mobile plan or a basic plan to enable watching content on 1 supported
device at a time. Going forward, we can also test plans where users can be
charged based on the shows they want to watch. Amazon Prime has recently
started a renting model where it allows users to rent particular
movies/shows, but the price was over and above the subscription plan which
Netflix can also explore.
Metrics:
For an increase in market penetration, we can track the following metrics:
1. % increase/decrease in the Active subscriber base
2. User stickiness i.e., DAU/MAU
3. % increase/decrease in revenue
Priyanka: To summarise, we discussed what Netflix is and how developing

countries are the potential markets.
1. We narrowed down our problem statement by saying we will focus on India
and discussed the current challenges in the Indian market.
2. We identified the less explored user segment i.e., mid-age homemakers.
3. We discussed ways to satisfy their taste and needs like content localisation,
focus on sports and different pricing models which will help Netflix get a
stronger hold in the Indian market.
4. We identified metrics that will help us track whether we are able to increase
the market penetration of Netflix or not.
Interviewer: That was a great discussion. Thank you.
Question 3: How would you reduce ride cancellations on

Lyft?
Interviewer: How would you reduce ride cancellations on Lyft?
Shailesh: Okay, before I jump onto the solution, I would like to clarify some points
for better understanding. So the ride can be cancelled from both the party's rider
and the driver? Which side are we talking about?
100
Interviewer: We see more cancellations from the driver's side.
Shailesh: From how long have we seen this trend?

Interviewer: You can say from a year ago, we see these cancellations.
Shailesh: Okay, are we seeing these cancellations from particular geography?

Interviewer: Let’s say we see this trend globally.
Shailesh: And are we seeing these cancellations in a particular time like peak
hours, non-peak hours, or midnight?
Interviewer: We are seeing these cancellations almost all day.
Shailesh: Are we seeing these trends for a particular type of people, any specific
demographic of the drivers?
Interviewer: All types of drivers
Shailesh: Since Lyft has both iOS and Android apps, is any specific app on which
we see these cancellations?
Interviewer: No, it’s platform-agnostic; we see it on both the platforms.
Shailesh: Alright, then let’s deep dive into the question. First, let me list the
reasons and pain points for drivers who cancel their rides.
1. It may be the case that the drivers don’t want to have ridden in some
particular direction.
2. It may be the case that the drivers are just leaving for their home and
want to end the day.
3. One of the most important reasons can be that they don’t want shorter
rides.
4. Sometimes the rider takes too long to come to the pickup location.
For these broad reasons, I am going ahead with the possible solutions.
1. Lyft’s goal is to make transportation readily available for all, don’t quote me
in words, but it should be their broad objective. In case the driver doesn’t
want to go in a particular direction, we can impose a penalty on the driver
because frequent cancellations will have a poor user experience for the rider,
ultimately impacting Lyft’s brand equity. In this case, Lyft can allow 1/2
cancellations per day, after which the driver has to bear a penalty for the
same. The driver should also prompt that it will affect his rating.
101
2. In case the driver wants to go home and end the day, the Lyft algorithm can
work such that in the next 4–5 minutes of switching off, it can search for the
new ride near to the driver’s home if it can find the ride, connect it, if not
switch off the day for the driver.
3. In case the reason is that they don’t want shorter rides, Algorithm can be
adjusted in such a way that if the demand is soaring high, then connect the
rider with varying distances like one long ride after two short rides, or we can
incentivise the driver for completing a particular number of short rides like a
bonus for a driver for every five short rides.
4. If the rider is taking too long to come to the pickup location, the rider should
be prompt that the driver has arrived at the location. If he isn’t making up to
the location within 5 minutes of the cab's arrival, he will be charged, and his
rating will be affected.
We can try these solutions in a particular region for A/B testing and can track the
following metrics:
1. Reduction in % cancellation of the rides from the driver's side
2. Increase in the number of rides in the 5 minutes of switching off mode
3. % increase in the shorter rides
Question 4: How will you identify fake reviews on Flipkart?

Interviewer: How will you identify fake reviews on Flipkart?
Priyanka: To get a better understanding of the problem, I would like to seek some
clarification.
Priyanka: Firstly I would like to clarify my understanding of Flipkart, it is an

e-commerce platform where sellers interact with users and sell their products
through the platform. Flipkart gets a commission from each sale made through its
platform. It offers other services like travel booking, grocery etc.
Interviewer: Yes.
Priyanka: Now talking about fake reviews. Reviews are users’ opinions for a
particular product which help other shoppers get a better understanding of the
product. It usually contains text and might contain images also. For example — If a
user buys a dress from Flipkart and finds it good they post a picture of the dress
and write a review to describe their experience. With e-commerce growing in
102
popularity a lot of users rely on reviews of the product posted on the platform.
Reviews are meant to build trust in the product and provide a first-hand experience
for users.
Fake reviews are information stated by a user to falsely say a product is good or
bad. Fake reviews can lead to a loss of trust in the product and reduce its sales. It
can damage a brand’s reputation and create a negative image. It can be used to
sabotage the competition.
Interviewer: Yes, that’s well defined.
Priyanka: It is important to mention that fake reviews can be positive, neutral, or

negative. For example — A positive review about a bad product can make a buyer
lose trust in the Flipkart platform whereas a negative review about a good product
can reduce its sales.
Interviewer: That's a good observation.
Priyanka: As we know Flipkart has a lot of categories like electronics, accessories,

home décor, personal care, etc. is there any particular category where we are facing
this issue?
Interviewer: Yes, we are facing an issue in the electronics category.
Priyanka: Is there any particular metric that we are observing is getting impacted
due to this? What I can think of is that if people see good reviews about a product
they might purchase it but if it doesn’t meet their expectations, then they will
return the product.
Interviewer: Yes, the return rate is high.
Priyanka: To ensure we are on the same page I would like to summarise what we
have discussed till now. We talked about what fake reviews are, how they harm the
platform and why it is important to do away with fake reviews. We have narrowed
down our problem statement by identifying that there is an increase in fake reviews
on Flipkart in the electronics category. Now we will discuss what we can do to solve
this issue.
Interviewer: That’s well summarised.
Priyanka: Talking about the user journey of a buyer who would post review
post-purchase:
User Journey
103
Open App -> Explore Products -> Compare Prices -> Add to Cart & Checkout ->
Make payment -> Complete Purchase -> Receive/Use product ->Post Review ->
Review is moderated -> Review Posted
Ways to handle fake reviews

1. Rule-based Classification using Machine Learning:
We can create a classification engine with if/else rules from heuristics to help us
identify fake reviews.
● Fake reviews might post links to other products
● Fake reviews have either excellent or poor grammar
● Fake reviews have extremely negative or positive emotion
● Fake reviews arise from users who have not purchased the product.
Currently, Flipkart does not allow users who have not purchased the product
to post reviews about the product.
2. Human moderation:
The moderation team will audit the reviews before they are posted on the platform.
The reviews should not violate the policy laid down by the platform. Additionally,
there should not be any derogatory remarks. Accounts that have previously shown
some dubious behaviour will be kept in check.
Human moderation will also come into play when reviews are erroneously removed
by ML algorithms due to bias present in the model.
3. Review Analysis using machine learning:
We can build a machine learning model to classify reviews into fake and non-fake
by giving a probability likelihood of each review.
● Cleaning data: First we have to clean the data by removing any duplicate
reviews or outliers. Duplicate reviews can be reviews posted from two
different user IDs on the same product or exactly the same review posted by
a user on two different products. Outlier reviews can be thought of as those
whose rating deviates a lot from the average product rating.
● Feature selection: We will take into account some of the important
information related to the review like who is the reviewer, what is the
content, and what is the product that is being reviewed.
● Model building: As we need to classify the reviews into fake and genuine,
so we can use logistic regression. We can set a probability score to reflect the
likelihood of the review being fake/non-fake. We will use metrics like
accuracy or sensitivity vs specificity to track the performance of our model.
To compare our logistic regression model, we can also build a decision tree
model and see which one is performing better. If we have imbalanced data
104
i.e. the ratio of fake vs non-fake reviews is not balanced, we should perform
upsampling to balance the dataset. We can use a combination of human
moderation and machine learning to obtain the best results and remove bias
arising out of machine learning models.
Metrics
After implementing the techniques that we discussed, we can track the following
metrics:
● % increase/decrease on the returns made by a user
● % increase/decrease in the periodic sales for the products where fake
reviews were identified
● % increase/decrease in average revenue per user
To summarise, we discussed what fake reviews are and how they impact the
Flipkart platform.
● We narrowed down our problem statement by saying that the fake reviews
have increased on the Flipkart platform in the electronics category leading to
an increase in the return rate.
● We discussed techniques like rule-based classification, human moderation
and review analysis to solve the problem.
● We identified metrics that will help us track the impact on the platform once
the fake reviews have decreased.
Interviewer: That was a great discussion. Thank you.
Question 5: How would you expand Airbnb?

Interviewer: You are a PM at Airbnb. You are given the task to expand Airbnb.
How would you go about this?
Priyanka: To get a better understanding of the problem, I would like to ask few
clarifying questions.
Priyanka: Firstly, I would like to clarify my understanding of Airbnb. It started its

services with room renting and soon adopted a marketplace model where hosts can
list their properties and guests can book the properties. Airbnb earns commissions
for each of the bookings made in exchange for the value provided to both hosts and
guests. Airbnb operates on an asset light model and does not own any of the
properties listed on their platform. Airbnb has also started virtual tourism by
105
providing online experiences or a new way of travel where people can tour a place
virtually.
Interviewer: Yes, that is well defined.
Priyanka: When we think of expansion, it could either be expanding to new

geographies or product expansion or creating a new business vertical. I would like
to understand what the goal of expansion is.
Interviewer: The idea of expansion is to increase the revenue for our company,
and we can think of expanding to new business verticals.
Priyanka: Covid-19 had taken a toll on the hospitality industry and tourism was
really down. Airbnb also faced severe losses and now with tourism going back to
normality, Airbnb has started recovering but having new use cases will definitely
give our company room to grow further.
Interviewer: That is true.
Priyanka: Since we are targeting increasing the market expansion for Airbnb
through new business verticals let us try to understand potential use cases. As work
from home had become a norm during the pandemic, a lot of companies had sold
their office spaces which they had leased/rented. With employees returning to
work, companies need office spaces. However, a lot of companies do not ask
employees to come to work every day and are looking for more flexible options.
This can be a potentially powerful use case which Airbnb can explore.
Interviewer: Sounds interesting
Priyanka: I wanted to understand, are we planning to design a separate app or use

the existing Airbnb app? In my opinion, we should integrate new use cases in the
existing app as we can leverage the existing user base.
Interviewer: We can continue with the existing app.
Priyanka: Is there any specific geography where we are planning to expand our
new business vertical?
Interviewer: We can focus on global expansion.
help me in prioritising our features later.
Interviewer: Yes, we want to have the features rolled out by end of 2023.
106
Priyanka: Just to recap what we have discussed till now; we would like to increase
the market penetration for Airbnb globally by introducing new business verticals.
We identified it to be office space renting as it is in a related industry as that of
Airbnb. We plan to integrate the use case in the existing Airbnb app by the end of
2023.
Priyanka: Okay, the way I would like to structure this is, we will discuss the
different user segment and then focus on a specific one. We will discuss the pain
points they face. Then we will find out ways in which Airbnb can address those pain
points and have a better positioning. Post that, we will talk about the metrics to
track whether our goal is being achieved or not. Are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: Yes
User segment:
Priyanka: Since Airbnb has a marketplace model with both hosts and guests so we
should look at both the perspective:
1. Owners: who may have extra space available for renting or these could be
companies whose office space are underutilised as they have not shifted back
to full-fledged work from office model, or they work from office only on
specific days. This can also be an additional source of money for them.
2. Office who would rent the space: These could be any small-sized
companies like start-ups or freelancers who want to work along with their
colleagues and have some in person interaction.

While we need both the user segment for our model to work, it makes more sense
to start onboarding the owners on the platform first and thereby build a strong
supply. Then we can launch marketing campaigns for our new features to attract
the companies who need to rent office space.
User Journey of Owner:

Create Account -> List Property -> Find someone willing to rent/share space ->
Create lease/rent agreement -> Close the deal

● As an owner, I want to easily find people who are willing to rent the extra
office space and showcase them the space that I have
107
● As an owner, I want to earn a fair price for my property

● As an owner, I find it cumbersome to manage documentation or agreement
for my rented property
● As an owner, I am worried about the security of the place
Prioritisation of Pain Points:

Priyanka: Now, let’s prioritise the different pain points. Here I will like to analyse
how intense and frequent the pain point is.
Pain points #3 and #4 doesn’t occur daily, while pain points #1 and #2 have a high
frequency. I want to prioritise pain points #1 and #2.
Are we aligned on this?
Solutions:
● Inbuilt Video calling: We can provide owners with a video calling feature
through which they can display videos of the office property and give other
details
● 3-D Virtual tour: As an owner, it is convenient if I can put a 3-D virtual tour
of my space so that people can watch the video and get an idea of how the
place looks like. People can gauge whether the space suffices their
requirements or not and check out the amenities as well.
● Chatbot assistant: There can be a chatbot assistant which can answer basic
questions related to the property like locality, no. of rooms, conference
rooms, seating capacity, amenities etc. The owner can input all this
information and rather than the owner himself answering every query the
chatbot can handle them.
● Rent estimator AI tool: Airbnb already has a rich set of data on properties
along with their prices. It can build a price estimator ML (Machine Learning)
model which can define the rent an owner can set for their property basis
parameters like amenities, floor area, locality, dimensions, etc. It can
consider factors like seasonality also and suggest fluctuation in prices
accordingly.
● Easy documentation: Airbnb can partner with third-party like Adobe sign or
Docusign through which it can help the owners handle the lease agreement
with ease. This will ensure that all the agreements are documented on time
108
in a hassle-free manner without both parties meeting physically.The cost can

be borne by the owners or renters, but it will make the process of rental
agreement hassle-free for them. In the long run, Airbnb can develop an
in-house tool to support easy rental agreements which can be an additional
source of income for the company.
● Insurance: Owners can sign up for insurance against any damage done to
the property. Airbnb can partner with insurance companies and provide
insurance to owners. While this might be an existing feature for Airbnb, we
will have to integrate this for the office space renting LOB also.
Metrics:
To gauge the success of our feature, we can track the following metrics:
● % increase/decrease in revenue
● # New owners onboarded on the platform
● MoM growth in properties listed on the platform
● % Owners using the rent-estimator tool
To summarise, we discussed what Airbnb is and how Airbnb can diversify itself.
- We narrowed down our problem statement by saying we will focus on
creating a new business vertical - office rental space and established how it is
a beneficial use case in the post-pandemic world.
- We focused on creating a strong supply on the platform and hence prioritised
owners who have extra office space to rent.
- We discussed the user journey of the owners and identified problems faced
by them. We brainstormed on potential solutions.
- Lastly, we identified metrics that will help us track whether we accomplish
our goal or not as well as increase the adoption of our features.
Interviewer: I really like the features you defined, and it is well-summarised.
Thank you.
Additional Business Strategy questions.
Question 6: Why a retail store like Nordstom offer free

Wi-Fi?
We know that Starbucks offer free Wi-Fi so that people can have meeting their, can
work there and sip coffee. In 2012 a retailer started offering free Wi-Fi in stores,
and this smart strategy increases their profit.
109
When we turn on your Wi-Fi, our phone sends out a radio signal to find out the
nearby router or Wi-Fi spot. These radio signals from the phone contain a unique
code that is embedded in the phone called MAC address. So whoever owns the
hotspot can use the MAC address to identify your phone, whenever it connects to a
hotspot.
In 2012 Nordstrom realized that they can use their Wi-Fi router to get the location
of their customers inside the store. But the question now arise is how could
Nordstrom get the exact location of the customer inside the store? The technique is
called triangularization, the store has multiple hotspot, so when you are connected
with the WIFI, with the strength of the signal they can measure the exact distance
of you in the store. Each hotspot will measure the strength of the radio signal from
your phone to the hotspot to calculate how far your phone is from the hotspot; the
farther away you are, the weaker the radio signal. They use this information in
multiple ways.
1. They were able to know the busiest time and busiest place of the day and
employee more sales person there.
2. They know which section is getting more traction and which isn’t, and adjust
the inventory according to it.
3. They also use a Wi-Fi authentication mechanism in which they get the email
id of the person and targeted advertisement and offers increases the profit.
Question 7: Why does Amazon offer free shipping with

prime membership even though it still make them lose
money?
There are several reasons which can attribute to the answer to this question. In
recent times, Amazon focus more on increasing revenue than increasing profit, it
reinvested back the money it earned rather than giving a large chunk to
shareholders. Their idea is to grow their business as quickly as possible to maximise
the long term growth.
Now let us look at the different ways in which Prime helps Amazon increase
revenue:
1. Prime is a loyalty program which gets customers to spend more and more on
their platform. A study shows that the prime member spends as much as 5
times the non-prime members.
2. Everyone wants quick delivery, this is where Amazon hurts their competitors
more. Prime has conditioned their customers to expect 2-day delivery.
110
3. It is clear that Amazon wants more and more people to onboard on their
prime platform, so they started aggregating more and more benefits into the
prime platform like free movies, music streaming etc.
Question 8: Why did Microsoft acquire LinkedIn?

Microsoft’s traditional business of Windows and devices is getting stagnated and so
it realized the future of enterprise business. The following reasons can attribute to
the acquisition of the LinkedIn by Microsoft.
1. Centre of Business Person’s world: Acquiring LinkedIn helps Microsoft
becomes the Centre of the business person’s world, just like Facebook and
Instagram are the Centre of social life.
2. Data: By the social graph of LinkedIn, Microsoft gets a lot of data which can
be used to improve the existing enterprise offerings.
Question 9: Why did Facebook acquire Instagram?

In 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram for $1B. At that point in time, Instagram had
zero revenue, and it didn’t have any plan to make revenue, but still Facebook
acquired Instagram. There can be potential reasons for that.
1. Mobile is the future: Long ago, Facebook, which started as a desktop
application had realised the power of handheld devices that is mobile. Till
that time, Facebook hasn’t figured out how to monetize the mobile at all. The
Facebook mobile app was also accused of being cluttered and long page load
time.
2. Photos are the future: Facebook realized the power of images over text, and
people find the photo-sharing experience of Instagram to be more convenient
and easier. Facebook realised that Instagram was doing a better job at
mobile photos, which gave them a strong reason to acquire it.
Question 10: How do Self-Driving cars work?

First, we need to understand how a self-driving car works. Self-driving cars use a
lot of cameras, sensors, computer and cloud servers.
1. First, the car needs to understand where it is since GPS can’t be perfectly
accurate, so it uses an internal navigation system that is very fine-grained
and accurate.
2. The car uses a bunch of sensors like a speedometer and compasses to know
how fast it is moving and in which direction it is moving.
3. Once the car understands where it is, the direction of movement and the
speed of movement, then the car needs to understand what is going around
it. Car needs a hyper-detailed map which is not something like Google Maps.
111
4. Still car needs to understand the distance of any object from it. The car uses
a moving laser mounted on the top called LIDAR, which helps the car build a
3D model of the surrounding. Radar sensors help the car to figure out the
distance from it.
5. The 3D model is great, but still, the car needs a basic understanding like a
green light, people moving around if a bicyclist is extending its arms 90* to
turn around etc. So this is done by machine learning; the car learns from the
previous labelled training data and gives predictions depending on that.
112
Chapter 8: Product Metric Interview Cases

Product Metric interview questions are a crucial part of the Product
Management interview process, assessing your ability to analyze complex
problems, make data-driven decisions and communicate effectively.
Product Metric Interview Practice problems assess your problem-solving

skills, technical knowledge, and analytical thinking. These questions often
involve real-world scenarios and require you to apply concepts like data
analysis, business metrics, and technical acumen to propose solutions. Your
responses should showcase your ability to approach complex challenges
methodically.
Product Management Metrics are the real backbone of a product life cycle.
Let's explore an exhaustive list of product management metrics that will
include both business and product metrics.
Business metrics can be further divided into three different categories:

1. Revenue Metrics
2. Customer Metrics
3. Financial Management Metrics
Revenue Metrics
● Revenue Run Rate: Revenue run rate is used to forecast the annual
revenue based on the revenue generated over a small period, for example
projecting the monthly revenue to annual revenue.
Revenue Run Rate = (Revenue in a period / Number of days in a period) *
Number of days in a year.
● Annual Recurring Revenue: Annual Recurring Revenue is used to calculate
expected revenue from all active subscriptions over a year.
Annual Recurring Revenue(ARR) = Beginning ARR + (New ARR — Churn
ARR) + (Upgrades ARR — Downgrades ARR)
● Average Revenue Per User: This is used to estimate the average revenue
per user.
113
Average Revenue Per User(ARPU) = Total Revenue in a period / Total Users

in that period
● Customer Life Time Value: The present value of the future cash flow from
a customer in its entire journey with the company.
Customer Life Time Value(CLTV) = Average Revenue Per User per month *
Average Lifetime of a customer (In Months) OR
Customer Life Time Value(CLTV) = Average Revenue Per User per month /
Churn Rate (in months)
Customer Metrics
● Conversion Rate: This is used to estimate the % of total customers who are
turning into real customer
Conversion Rate = Number of Users who do purchase / Total number of
Users
● Customer Growth: This is used to estimate the rate at which customers are
growing
Customer Growth(Monthly) = Number of customers this month / Number of a
customer last month
● Customer Acquisition Cost: This is used to calculate the expense of
acquiring a new customer
Customer Acquisition Cost = Cost of marketing & Sales / Total Number of
Users
● User Stickiness: Daily Active Users(DAU)/ Monthly Active Users(MAU)
● Churn Rate: Average rate at which the customers are ending the
relationship with the company.
Churn Rate(Monthly) = Total Number of customers lost in month / Total
Number of Customer
Financial Metrics
● Burn Rate: The rate at which a company is burning the cash

Burn Rate(Monthly) = (Cash at starting — Cash at ending) / Total Number of
Months
● Cash Runway: Total Number of months you can run your business with
existing cash
Cash Runway(Months) = Total Cash/ Monthly Burn Rate
114
Product Metrics
1. Total Number of Downloads/Install of an application
2. Total Number of Registration/Profile Completion in an application
3. Average Amount of time spent by a User per session in the app
4. Average Amount of sessions per user per week.
5. Number of Screens per session per user.
6. Average Rating on the play store
7. Referral Rate
There are several product metrics which depend on the specific functionality of the
application. We can use HEART & AARRR frameworks to define metrics.
North Star Metric: There is one North Star metric that is tracked by all the teams
in the company. It is that one metric that gives clarity on how well the company is
performing. Let’s understand by having different examples.
1. Facebook, LinkedIn — Monthly Active Users
2. WhatsApp — Number of Messages Send per day
3. Amazon — Number of Purchase per month
4. Airbnb — Number of Bookings per day
5. Lyft — Number of rides booked per day
6. Slack — Daily Active Users
7. Spotify — Time spend listening to music
Growth Hacking: Growth hacking is the technique used by the early-stage

startups who don’t have many resources, and their aim is to maximise the
Acquisition, Activation, Engagement, Referral, Revenue as much as they can.
Following techniques can be used for growth hacking:

1. Referral Hack: Referral hack is the technique in which the company give
incentive if you have invited other people on their platform. For example,
Google Pay started by giving INR 50 for every successful referral.
2. Gamification: Gamification is a technique which can increase the required
engagement. Since human beings are competitive by nature, they try to
maximise their ranks, score, points etc.
3. Social Media: Create your own channel on social media like Instagram,
Facebook etc. and try posting content regularly
Approach to Product Metric Interview Practice Problems
115
When approaching Product Metric Interview Practice problems, follow a

structured approach to effectively dissect the problem and propose a
solution:
1. Problem Analysis:
● Carefully read the problem statement to understand its scope and
objectives.
● Identify the key data points, metrics, and any relevant context
provided.
2. Data Analysis:
● If the problem involves data, begin by cleaning and exploring the data.
Visualize data using graphs or charts to identify trends and anomalies.
3. Problem Decomposition:
● Break down the problem into manageable components. Create a
structured approach or framework to solve it.
4. Root Cause Analysis:
● Identify the root causes of the problem by analyzing data and
considering potential factors contributing to the issue.
5. Hypothesis Generation:
● Formulate hypotheses or potential solutions based on your analysis.
These should be data-driven and address the root causes you
identified.
6. Data Validation:
● Test your hypotheses using data analysis. Provide evidence to support
your proposed solutions.
7. Recommendations:
● Clearly present your recommendations, explaining the rationale behind
each one.
● Consider the potential impact, feasibility, and scalability of your
recommendations.
8. Implementation Plan:
● Outline a plan for implementing your recommendations. Consider
resource allocation, timelines, and any challenges that may arise.
116
Question 1: Ola pickups at the airport have dropped by

10%.What will you do?
Interviewer: Ola pickups at the airport have dropped by 10%.What will you do?
Shailesh: Before we proceed, I would like to clarify my understanding of Ola. Ola is

a technology-enabled platform that connects drivers with users who need a ride.
The passengers can request a ride on the platform, and the driver can fulfil the
demand by dropping them at the desired location. Ola acts as a facilitator between
the two and takes a commission for each ride that is booked via its platform. Is my
understanding correct?
Interviewer: Yes.
Shailesh: Is it fair to assume that there has been no change in the metric
calculation in the near time? Also, is the BI tool for tracking metrics showing the
metric correctly?
Interviewer: Yes, there hasn’t been any change in metric calculation and the BI
tool is also working fine.
Shailesh: Alright, I would like to ask some clarifying questions to understand the
problem better. For how long have we observed this problem? Is this issue gradual
or sudden?
Interviewer: There has been a gradual dip and we have been facing this problem
for the last two months.
Shailesh: Is there any particular geography where we are observing this?

Interviewer: You can focus on India as of now.
Shailesh: Is there any particular device type — Android vs iOS where we are
observing this problem?
Interviewer: Across both devices.
Shailesh: Do we observe this issue during any particular time of the day?
Interviewer: Not much information is available.
Shailesh: Alright to summarise what we have discussed until now — There has been
a gradual decrease in airport pickups by 10% in the last two months in India. Can I
proceed with this?
117
Shailesh: The way I would like to go about this is, first I will look into the internal
factors, then I will touch upon external factors. If we discover some potential
problems, we will mark them. At last, we will dig deeper into them and explore the
solutions.
Internal Factors:
Shailesh: Has there been any code changes due to which we are observing this
problem?
Interviewer: There are some UI fixes we have made but none of them seems to
cause the issue we are discussing.
User journey of rider

Login/Sign Up -> Book Ride -> Get picked up -> Get dropped off -> Make payment
Shailesh: Let’s try to analyse the user journey for our riders. Is there any
particular stage of the user journey funnel — Log in, Booking, Payments etc. where
we see a drop?
Interviewer: The customers at the airport are not considering Ola for rides. Some
check prices but they are not booking rides through our platform. I don’t think this
is an internal problem, you can try exploring the external factors.
External Factors:
Government Regulations
Shailesh: Has there been any change in toll levied at airport road due to which our
fares have risen?
Interviewer: There has been no such change in the last few months.
Legal Issues
Shailesh: Has there been any strike by the union representing drivers which might
have led to a shortage of drivers at the airport?
Interviewer: We haven’t observed any strikes in the last two months.
Public Relations (PR)
118
Shailesh: Has there been any kind of negative publicity related to Ola due to which
people at airports are not using our app?
Interviewer: There have been no such events that have hampered our image.
Competition
Shailesh: Have our competitors started some offers or discounts specially for
pickups at the airport, due to which our customers have shifted to a different app?
Interviewer: Yes, 2–3 months back a new local player in India namely BluSmart
have started offering huge discounts so we see a competition here.
Shailesh: Okay, this seems like a plausible problem. I believe this becomes even
more important in the Indian geography where users are extremely price-sensitive.
Interviewer: What do you think we can do to solve this issue?
Shailesh: In India, it is difficult to win the cut-throat price wars and it is

unsustainable for Ola in the long run because Indian customers being extremely
price-sensitive switch brands easily. Moreover, it leads to a lot of cash burn for us.
It is tough for one player to dominate the market. We can explore other untapped
problems which can help us increase the market share.
User Segments:
● Business travellers: People who travel from one state to another for
business purposes. They are usually tech-savvy.
● Leisure travellers: People who travel to different places for leisure, holidays
and meeting friends or family. They might not be tech-savvy.
Shailesh: I would like to focus on people travelling for leisure purposes as business
travellers are usually less price-sensitive and their rides are taken care of by their
companies.
Problem:
● As a traveller, I might not have the Ola app installed on my phone as Ola
doesn’t operate in my hometown.
● As a traveller, I might not be enough tech-savvy to use a ride-hailing app. At
the airport, I will find it inconvenient to download the app, sign up and set up
payment.
Solution:
119
Kiosk setup — Ola can set up a touch screen kiosk where customers can directly
book a ride without installing the Ola app. There will be a simple QR scan and book
system. The receipt will be generated, and the rider can take the first Ola cab
available at the airport. The payment can be made through a QR scan before/after
the trip.
Challenges:
● Easy for competitors to copy
● Less tech-savvy people find it difficult to trust the kiosk system
Success Metrics:
● Number of rides completed which originate from the airport
● Number of issues reported by riders at the kiosk
● Customer satisfaction score(CSAT) at the kiosk
Question 2: Zomato conversion is down, how would you go

about it?
Interviewer: The conversion rate of Zomato is down. How would you go about it?
Shailesh: Okay, before I jump on to the solution, First, let me clarify my

understanding of Zomato so that we are on the same page. Zomato is a platform
where one can order food online and book a table in restaurants; It’s a one-stop for
the one who is looking to have some food.
Interviewer: Okay.
Shailesh: I have some questions which I want to get clarified; my first question is
what does it mean by conversion rate? As per my understanding, it is the ratio of
the number of people ordering the food to the number of people opening the
Zomato. What is your take on this?
Interviewer: Yes, correct, many users are not ordering the food; some are even
adding to the cart but not ordering.
Shailesh: Okay, I am assuming that we haven’t changed the metric calculation in

the near time. Also, the BI tool we are using for tracking metrics is showing the
metric correctly.
Interviewer: Yes, the BI tool is working fine.We haven’t changed any calculations.
120
Shailesh: For how long do we see this issue? Do we see some tend or seasonality?
Interviewer: We have been seeing this for the last one week. It is a gradual
change, and we see this trend at lunchtime.
Shailesh: Alright, I am assuming that we do not see this kind of issue while
ordering dinner or breakfast.
Interviewer: No, we are only observing this issue during lunchtime.
Shailesh: Is there any particular geography and demography in which we see this
trend?
Interviewer: We see this issue primarily in young people.
Shailesh: Okay, the way I would like to go about it is, first I will look into internal
factors, look into external factors and lastly will see if there is any shift in consumer
behaviour. If we find some potential issue will mark it; at last, we will dig deeper
into the potential problem.
Internal Factors
Shailesh: Have we seen this kind of fall in conversion in any specific device like
Desktop or mobile (Android vs iOS)?
Interviewer: We have seen this kind of fall across all the devices.
Shailesh: Is there any kind of server issue, which is unlikely to be the case
because the conversion rate only falls at lunchtime. I am just asking this question
for a sanity check.
Interviewer: No, our servers are on the cloud, and the infrastructure is scalable.
Shailesh: Have we released any new features or done some UI changes? Because
it may happen that due to new UI change, they may find it a bit inconvenient to
order.
Interviewer: We haven’t shipped any feature to production in recent time.
Shailesh: At what stage of the user funnel, i.e. cart page, payment page etc., we
are seeing users dropping off?
Interviewer: The majority of the people are not even ordering the food; some of
them add items to their cart but don’t order.
121
Shailesh: I am assuming that there is no disparity among the coupon

codes/discount at breakfast, lunch and dinner time?
Interviewer: No, there is nothing like this.
External Factors
Shailesh: Alright, let me look at some external factors. Since many offices are
opening, the traffic in the city is rising, which may cause a rise in the ETA, which
may be one reason.
Interviewer: Yes, the ETA is slightly higher at lunchtime, but the conversion rate is
below Pre-COVID era.
Shailesh: Have we changed the delivery policy or something like taking a higher
commission from the delivery executives at lunchtime?
Interviewer: No, we haven’t changed any delivery policy.
Shailesh: Is our competitor running some deep discount on food at lunchtime, so

our users are shifting to our competitor?
Interviewer: Discounts are always there on every platform, but we haven’t seen
this low conversion rate.
Consumer Behaviour
Shailesh: Okay, now let’s see the consumer behaviour; I think young professionals
are the ones who are mostly the driver of ordering food at lunchtime. The ones who
are working in corporate offices. Since many offices are reopening and people have
started going to the office. They may get bored of ordering food from Zomato while
working from home and may want to socialise while eating. Socialising is the one
thing everyone has missed, like eating together at the same table with colleagues.
Many tech parks also have a policy; they have currently operated on restricted
entry. So even if a person orders food from Zomato, they will have to walk to the
exit of the tech park to get the food parcel which may be a bit convenient.
I would like to measure two metrics to get assured.
Metric-1: Conversion rate on weekdays

Metric-2: Conversion rate at weekends.
So if the conversion rate at weekends is much higher than at weekends, this can be
the likely issue.
122
Interviewer: Yeah, we have seen a similar trend as well. You have identified the
correct problem. But how will you give a solution to it?
Solutions
Shailesh: Since getting an order at the same time is the real pain, we can think of
the following pain points
1. We can run corporate offers on some good restaurants so that all people can
order from the same restaurant at a much cheaper rate.
2. We can establish Zomato owned outlet for selected items in the cafeteria of a
particular company.
3. We can have a cloud kitchen installed in the tech parks. This cloud kitchen
will be an umbrella for some famous brands that aren’t present in the tech
parks.
4. We can have a “Make your Vending machine”, where you can make your
food. For example, you can select Pizza; the vending machine will
automatically make Pizza and give it to you. You just have to scan the
barcode on the vending machine from the Zomato, and all discount coupon
codes will be applicable there.
I think solutions #2, #3 and #4 have a significant impact but the initial cost
required to implement them is also high. We can now run the corporate bulk
discounts or corporate packages, and in the long run, we can think of having a
cloud kitchen in the tech park or tie-up with some company to set up a stall in the
cafeteria.
Interviewer: Yes, we can do that, thank you.
Question 3: Daily active users of a mobile app by a service

provider company has gone down by 7%? How would you
go about it?
Interviewer: Daily active users of a mobile app by a service provider company
have gone down by 7%? How would you go about it?
Shailesh: Thanks for the question; before I jump onto the solution, I want to
clarify some questions. What kind of service provider company are we talking
about?
Interviewer: We are a home services provider company; we have an app where
users can book their services.
123
Shailesh: Basically, we are a platform company that connects the users to the one
who provides services like home cleaning, AC maintenance, grooming services etc.
Through our app, the user can search for the services he wants and book the same.
Interviewer: Exactly
Shailesh: I want to know more about the metrics; what do Daily active users
mean? Is it the one who just opens the mobile app and searches for some services,
or the one who books the service?
Interviewer: We define daily active users as those who book the service.
Shailesh: Alright, from how long do we see this dip? Is this a seasonal or gradual
dip?
Interviewer: We are seeing this for the last one week, and the dip has been
gradual
Shailesh: I am assuming that we haven't changed the metric calculation, and the
BI tool showing this number is working fine.
Interviewer: Yes, we haven't changed any metric calculation, and the BI tool is
working fine.
Shailesh: Is there any particular geography or demography where we see this kind
of dip, or do we see this globally?
Interviewer: We have observed this globally.
Shailesh: I have gotten fair amount of information; let me summarise whatever we

have discussed till now. We are a home service provider company, and we are
observing our daily active users (who book our services) gradually going down by
7% over the last week globally.
Interviewer: Yes
Shailesh: The way I would like to go about it is to divide the diagnosis into three
parts: internal diagnosis, external diagnosis, and consumer behaviour. We will go
through each one and mark the potential reasons. At last, we will dig deeper into
what we have labelled as likely reasons.
Internal Diagnosis
124
Shailesh: Let's first make an internal diagnosis. Do we see this issue in the mobile
app (android or iOS) or desktop app?
Interviewer: We don't have a desktop application, but we see this issue across all
the mobile applications.
Shailesh: Is there any server-side or infrastructure issue that may cause the
application's frequent crashing and make it inaccessible to the user.
Interviewer: We have checked with the team, but there is nothing like this.
Shailesh: Did we push some code into production, which has some buggy code,
making our application crash Or some UI/UX related changes which our user may
not be able to understand? Or we have released some new features that may lead
to cannibalisation?
Interviewer: Yes, we pushed some UI changes in the production last week.
External Diagnosis
Shailesh: Okay, so I am marking this; we will come back to this and dig deeper.
Now let's move into the external diagnosis. Did we recently have some labour law
changes made by the government, which has led to distress among service
providers? Or some covid related rules and regulations?
Interviewer: Yes, the residential societies have restricted the entry of service
providers due to Covid.
Shailesh: Okay, I am marking this as a potential cause. Have we increased the

charges of our platform so there is some kind of revolt or disinterest by service
providers, which is why they are keeping themselves unavailable.
Interviewer: Nothing that I can relate to.
Shailesh: Okay, is our competitor running some promotional campaign or discounts

due to which users have shifted to the competitors?
Interviewer: I don't think that happened last week.
Shailesh: One last question, is there anything that happened in the last week
which may have led to negative sentiments in the users?
Interviewer: Nothing I am aware of.
Consumer Behaviour
125
Shailesh: Okay, now we will think about consumer behaviour. Is there any massive
shift or misinformation regarding something floating in the consumer mind that has,
in general, shifted the consumer mindset from availing of these kinds of services?
Interviewer: If there is some kind of shift, how will you measure it?
Shailesh: We will try to track some metrics as the ratio of the number of people
who have opened the app but not completed the transaction to the total number of
people who have installed it. We will also look at the total number of people who
haven't opened the app to the total number of people who have installed it. If the
second metric is going up rapidly, people are not at all willing/thinking about
availing these services. This can be a good proxy for the shift in the consumer's
behaviour.
Interviewer: Yeah, that will help
Shailesh: Now that we are done with the diagnosis, it's time to get deep into the
issues which we have shortlisted. The first issue which we diagnosed was UI/UX
change. I will go deep down through the funnel to check if there has been
something wrong.
Interviewer: Sure
Shailesh: The funnel looks like this, the user first lands on the discovery page
where the different services are bucketed into different categories like in personal
care there can be a salon, grooming etc. In-home decor and maintenance, there
can be different services. From there, the user can land to the specific service that
he wants. He can view the ratings, reviews, price and then choose the timing to
book a slot. He can go to the payment page and select the relevant option to pay.
These will be the broad funnel. Have we changed something on the discovery page,
like making different categories by offers, trending categories, and fast-paced
categories, which may mislead the user?
Interviewer: No, we haven't made changes to this window.
Shailesh: Now move on to the specific category, where the user sees the price, and
rating and chooses the date to book a slot. Have we changed something there?
Interviewer: Yes, we have made some changes to this window. Now users can add
reviews that can be long text answers. Also, the service providers can add photos
and videos. The application can also help them with this if they want.
126
Shailesh: Okay, I would like to focus on this part of the funnel because this is
where we have made recent changes. In such cases, when we give liberty to other
users/service provider to add content on their profile pages, this may cause some
clickable buttons to shift, and users may not be able to access them. For example,
if the users have added a long comment in that window and the booking button is
floatable, it will shift to the bottom, and users have to scroll down a lot to make the
booking. This can be a possible scenario. So the people who are familiar with the
older design may not find it feasible to use. Have you made the changes something
like this?
Interviewer: Yes, we made this change.
Shailesh: This can be the cause; let's also look at the payment page's next
window. Have we changed the payment page, like removing the trusted seal or
adding a different UI, which may cause trust issues in customers?
Interviewer: We haven't made changes to that page. You have identified the
correct problem.
Question 4: There is 50% increase in the uninstall rate of a

mobile banking app. What would you do ?
Interviewer: There is a 50% increase in the uninstall rate of the mobile app of a
private bank. How would you go about it?
Shailesh: Thanks for the questions; before I jump on to the solution, let me clarify
about the bank and its products. As far as I understand, the bank has it's own app
for mobile banking and other banking activities like updating address, transaction,
checking balance etc. Is there any additional functionality or service offering should
I be aware of? Also, how old is our bank? Is it a domestic bank or an international
bank?
Interviewer: Yes, the bank has its own app for digital transactions, net banking
etc. As far as the bank is considered, it is ten years old and rapidly expanding its
footprints in the digital space.
Shailesh: Alright, I want to clarify my understanding of this metric. So How do you

measure these metrics? Is this uninstall of the people who have done at least one
transaction or uninstall of the people without doing any activation or creating profile
etc., or do you take into account all kind of uninstall?
127
Interviewer: We have this metric, which takes care of the overall uninstall.
Shailesh: Okay, are there any recent changes in how we measure this metric or is
the business analytics tool showing this metric to be not working properly?
Interviewer: There is nothing as such which I am aware of.
Shailesh: For how long have we observed this issue? Is it gradual or abrupt or
seasonal?
Interviewer: No, it is a gradual change which we have seen in the last ten days.
Shailesh: One last question, is this uninstall rate associated with a particular set of
people, some specific geography or specific demography.
Interviewer: No we are seeing this across all the demography and geography.
So let’s see what we have discussed till now; we have a banking app whose
uninstall rate has been soaring high for the last ten days, and this change can be
seen across all the demography and geography.
I would like to structure this problem by dividing my thought process into three
different categories: Internal effects, external effects, and consumer
behaviour.
Interviewer: Go ahead
Internal Effects
Shailesh: For the internal effects, I would like to analyse some of the aspects. So
are we observing some server related issues, like server crashes, so our app
becomes not responsive?
Interviewer: No, our server is on the cloud, and there is nothing like a resource
problem.
Shailesh: Alright, so this uninstall, which we see, is on iOS or Android or both?

Interviewer: It is existent across all the platforms.
Shailesh: Have we pushed some latest code into production? Like feature
upgrades, or some UI changes etc., some features which may be buggy or hurt the
user? Also, is there any change in the size of the app?
Interviewer: Yes, we did launch an update, but there is nothing much; that’s only
a UI change.
128
Shailesh: Alright, I am marking this, and we can come back here later after
complete diagnosis.
Interviewer: Sure.
External Effects
Shailesh: Let’s see the external factors. Are there any recent changes in
government laws regarding the banking industry or mobile banking per se which
can cause this kind of problem?
Interviewer: No, no such updates from our end.
Shailesh: In past few days, is there any negative sentiment regarding this bank
which is trending? Something related to data leaks or privacy issues related to the
consumer?
Interviewer: No, we are good from this aspect.
Shailesh: Have any competitors recently launched some new feature or campaign
like giving some referrals or installing incentives etc.?
Interviewer: Yes, Google pay has come up with this idea. They are giving
everyone Rs. 50 for new users and referrals.
Shailesh: Okay, I am also noting this down as a potential reason.

Interviewer: Please proceed.
Consumer Behaviour
Shailesh: Now we can see consumer behaviour. Recently there has been a shift in
the behaviour of people. The number of UPI transactions is increasing very
frequently. People are using UPI/Digital Wallets instead of net banking. They are
heavily inclined towards the offers and cash back, not caring much about brand
loyalty. Since the uninstall has been high for the last ten days, which is kind of
abrupt, so we can safely neglect the shift in consumer behaviour as a potential
reason.
Interviewer: Yes, that is a fair assumption.
Shailesh: So now let’s see the two potential causes which we have shortlisted. As
you have mentioned that the application update has only UI changes, a potential
campaign from another competitor can be the plausible reason. But still, I would
like to bring this point out that it is improbable that people whose account has been
129
there with the bank for a pretty long time will uninstall the application for just a
referral campaign. I would like to dissect the metrics into two parts.
1. The ratio of people who have uninstalled the application vs the number of
people who have installed the app but haven’t done any transactions.
2. The ratio of the number of people who have uninstalled the application vs the
number of people who have done at least 2–3 transactions.
After seeing these two metrics, an increase in the first metric wouldn’t raise much
concern but the increase in the second metric is something that we need to take
care of.
Interviewer: Thank you!
Question 5: Our cart conversion rate on Amazon is down.

How will you go about it?
Interviewer: Our cart conversion rate on Amazon is down. How will you go about
it?
This is a typical product diagnostic question.

We need to think of the complete product funnel and the external factors when
answering this question. There is no set framework to solve this kind of problem,
but still, we will approach it in a structured manner.
You can divide the problem into external and internal issues; internal issues can be
further broken down into infrastructure or product issues.
After going through it, we can pinpoint the exact problem and suggest some
recommendation.
These can be the following external issues.

1. The issue can occur in particular geography due to some political or civil
unrest.
For example, hypothetically, there is political and civil unrest in the UK due to
Brexit, and the recession hit the country. The purchasing power of the people
went down, they will refrain from buying stuff and will do window shopping
on the platform.
2. The issue can occur in a particular section of the demographic as well.
For example, if the interviewer asked you to diagnose a mobile app rating,
that demography can play an important role. Indian youth has brought down
the rating of Tik-Tok from 4.4 to 2.9 for 3 months.
130
There can be several internal (infrastructure) issues as well.

1. If we have shipped some buggy code to production
2. If the server infrastructure is not proper, it reaches its limit at a certain
period
3. Traffic from a particular source is not coming properly (Direct, Social Media,
IM/Email etc.)
There can be several internal (product issues)

1. The average app load time has increased.
2. The payment gateway is broken
3. The placement of too many advertisements has brought down the customer
experience
4. Promoted content of the eCommerce platform doesn’t have good quality
5. Reviews are not available for a particular set of categories of products
However, this is not an exhaustive list of the issues, but you can structure your
answer in this way. After diagnosis, you can suggest some improvements that you
can think about.
Interviewer: Our cart conversion rate on Amazon is down. How will you go about
it?
Shailesh: Okay, as I understand this question, the Amazon shopping cart

conversion is down as in people are adding stuff into their cart but not buying it.
Interviewer: Yes
Shailesh: For how long do we see this kind of issue? Or if we see a trend for quite
some time, is the trend predictable, is it continuously decreasing, or does it
decrease at a particular time of the day?
Interviewer: Yes, it has been decreasing steadily for the last three months.
Shailesh: okay, the way I would like to diagnose this problem is, first I will see the
external factor, then the internal factor till the time I have completely diagnosed the
problem, then try to give some of the suggestions.
Shailesh: Let me start with the external factor. Do we see this issue in a particular
geographical location? I am asking this question because there may be several
factors like civil unrest, riots, and political instability, which can affect people’s
131
purchasing power and ultimately affect the buying rate for a person. The person can
still do window shopping, or are we seeing this issue globally?
Interviewer: We are seeing this issue globally.
Shailesh: Do we see this issue for a particular category or segment like electric
appliances, clothes, etc., or demography?
Interviewer: We are seeing this trend across all categories, mostly in Indian
demography.
Shailesh: Okay, let me now focus on internal issues, shopping items can be
searched directly from the platform, and they can come from different traffic like
google search, social media or paid advertisement? So have we seen a decline from
any other channel?
Interviewer: No, we haven’t seen a significant difference in traffic sources.
Shailesh: Have we released any feature or shipped code to production in the last
3–4 months?
Interviewer: yes doesn’t ship the feature, but we have a shipping code to improve
the Recommendation algorithm.
Shailesh: okay, so does the app crashes on the product page? Or app load time
has increased?
Interviewer: No, the app is not crashing, and we are good on the server-side.
Shailesh: Alright, now I would want to measure some of the metrics

1. % increase in the number of product page visits per session by a
user while buying a product: I want to track these metrics because it may
happen that the person is feeling lost and search hard for the product he/she
is buying, not able to find it.
2. The ratio of the number of product pages visited by a user directly
from search vs via recommendation given on the cart page: In
continuation of metric #1, I want to track if a customer has added some
product in the cart, and despite going to the payment page, he got fascinated
with the recommendation of products given by amazon on cart pages and
want on to explore them and eventually get confused.
3. % increase in the average amount of time a user spends on the
payment page: I want to track this because the payment link can be
132
broken. The person may feel dissatisfied due to some hidden charges and
finally abandon the cart.
4. The ratio of several users abandoning the cart after visiting the
delivery preference page: I want to track this because, as I understand,
the majority of the people ordering stuff from Amazon are professionals who
may have returned to their offices after covid and may not find a suitable
delivery slot to get their package delivered in their tech park.
Interviewer: We see that metric #4 (cart abandonment after visiting the delivery
page) is increasing.
Shailesh: Okay, so we will need more data to drill down the analysis. But for this
problem, I am assuming that the cart abandonment rate is higher after visiting the
delivery page in professionals.
This is because most of the people were at their homes last year, so they had the
flexibility of getting their packages delivered at any time. But since offices have
been gradually opening over the last 4–5 months, they may not be able to find that
convenient time because of unexpected meetings and other commitments.
Interviewer: Interesting, so how would you solve this problem?
Shailesh: I can come up with two solutions

- Kiosk platform at tech park: We can install a Kiosk platform in the tech
park; the person would be notified when his/her order gets delivered to the
Kiosk desk. He/she can get the order at his convenient time while going to
the office or returning home. He needs to scan the mobile QR code and pay if
it isn’t a pre-paid order.
- The preferred delivery slot at a premium: On the delivery page, we can
give the option to the user to choose a particular delivery slot like 11:00 AM
to 11:30 AM, depending on his feasibility.
Interviewer: Yes, we can do that. Thank you.
Question 6: What metrics will you use to measure the

success of Lyft?
Interviewer: What metrics will you use to measure the success of Lyft?
Shailesh: I would like to ask some clarifying questions to understand the problem
in a better way.
Interviewer: Sure.
133
Shailesh: Let me first clarify my understanding of Lyft’s ride-hailing business. Lyft

aims to provide reliable and convenient transportation to everyone around the
world through its platform. Since it is a two-sided market place it has both driver
and rider and Lyft acts as a facilitator between the two.
Shailesh: The way I would like to go about this is first we will discuss the broad
goal of Lyft. We will talk about its current stage of growth and who the major
stakeholders are. Then we will discuss the actions that are necessary for
stakeholders of Lyft to help it align with its goals and we will define the metrics that
represent those actions. Further, we will evaluate our metrics to check whether they
are working or not and if there are some drawbacks to the defined metrics.
Interviewer: Perfect, go ahead.
Goal/Vision:
Shailesh: Since Lyft is in the rapid growth phase of the business lifecycle, its goal is
to expand globally and bring its services to different cities. Its focus is to become
the most preferred ride-sharing app in all the countries it operates and expand its
market reach. In this phase, the major challenges they face are increasing market
competition, expanding existing business and venturing into new markets.
Stakeholders:
Lyft follows a platform-business model. The two primary segments that Lyft serves
are drivers and customers. Customers request rides, drivers fulfil their demands,
and Lyft acts as an aggregator between the two.
Value proposition for customers:

● Convenient booking
● Live tracking and easy location sharing
● Online/offline mode of payments
● Multiple type of rides to choose from etc.
Value proposition for drivers:

● Flexible working hours
● Low idle time
● Good source of income
● Transparency in payment
134
User journey of driver:
Action by a driver:
● Accept more rides
● Reject/Cancel fewer rides
● Ensure better driver rating by improving service
User journey of rider:
Action by a rider:
● Book more rides through the app.
● Cancel fewer rides
● Provide feedback and rating of the driver
These are prominent actions by riders and drivers.
Metrics:
Interviewer: Ok, so what metrics should we focus on?
Shailesh: There are a lot of metrics that a product manager can track. As we
discussed Lyft is in the growth and expansion phase, so we should focus on metrics
that are related to activation and user retention.
We will define metrics that will capture the actions we discussed above. We will
discuss the North star metric and 3–4 supporting metrics.
North star metric: One single metric that Lyft needs to focus on to measure
success. If the north star metric is improving, it means all the other metrics will fall
in place.
135
North star metric for Lyft: No of rides successfully completed per day
We will talk about the supporting metrics under the following subheadings–
1. Retention metrics: This information denotes the retention rate of the app. If
the business is able to retain long-lasting connections with its customers they
become loyal to the brand and help in word of mouth promotions.
User stickiness: Ratio of daily active users to monthly active users. Here it makes
more sense to use a period of 15 days instead of a month. This will allow us to
track how likely users are to return to the platform.
Daily Sessions Per Daily Active User: Ratio of no of daily sessions and the
number of daily active users.
2. Business metrics: This information signifies the effectiveness of the business in

getting customers to realize value from the service offered.
Return on Investment: The average money spent by the business to convert
every single user, this can also be thought of as the cost of conversion.
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): The amount of revenue an average user
generates at a given point in time.
3. Performance metrics: This information denotes the health and technical

performance of the app.
No. of app crashes reported: App crash is the abrupt shutting down of an app
which can lead to users churning from the application. The app should be free from
crashes.
Average App Store rating: This plays an important role in app growth as it serves
as social proof to indicate the app’s quality of service. It is measured out of 5 and
the higher the better.
Average Load Time Per Session: This indicates the amount of time it takes for
the application to become fully accessible to the user after they have started the
session.
Evaluation:
Shailesh: Now, let’s talk about some of the potential trade-offs which we might
face with the metrics we just discussed.
Daily sessions per daily active user might not give us a complete picture as even
though a user might log in and try to book a ride he might not be able to
successfully find a ride. Even after booking the ride, the driver might cancel the
ride. So a high daily session might not be a positive indicator.
136
To understand the broad view, Lyft needs to keep track of the No. of cancellations
per day.
Interviewer: It was a great discussion. Thank you.
Question 7: How would you increase DAU (Daily Active

Users) for a food delivery app ?
Interviewer: How would you increase DAU (Daily Active Users) for a food delivery
app?
Priyanka: To get a better understanding of the problem, I would like to understand

the business context and the underlying metrics better.
Priyanka: Should we consider only the food delivery space as a food delivery app
also provide other services like grocery delivery, restaurant booking & table
reservations, etc.
Interviewer: As of now lets focus only into food delivery.
Priyanka: As I understand, Daily active users mean the unique users who
open/interact with the app daily.
Interviewer: Yes, that’s correct.
Priyanka: I am thinking of why it should be important for a food delivery app. If

our application or platform has more DAUs, it means that users are engaging with
our app. An increase in engagement would help us get more conversions on the
platform.
Interviewer: Yes, that’s what we desire.
Priyanka: I would like to understand in which geography are we operating?

Interviewer: We serve across the Top-tier cities in India.
Priyanka: Is this the only metric that the food delivery app is focused on?
Interviewer: For your analysis, you can consider this to be the primary metric we
are focused on.
Priyanka: Quickly summarising, We are a food delivery app serving across Top-tier
cities in India and focused on improving the DAUs.
Interviewer: How would you go about it now?
137
Priyanka: I would start by looking at the end-to-end journey of a user right from
signing up on the platform to making a successful food order.
1. Install the application from the app store.
2. Sign up by creating an account on the app.
3. Explore restaurants & different options available on the platform
4. Add desired food to the cart
5. In between the user can also move to comparing the prices on competitive
platforms
6. Confirm and place the order on the checkout page
7. Add different payment options & check for available coupons or promotions
8. Confirm delivery address and place the order
9. Track the order
10. Engage with the delivery person
11. Reach out to Support & Help, if the order is delayed.
12. Collect the parcel from the delivery person
13. Provide ratings & reviews based on their experience.
Interviewer: This looks quite comprehensive.
Priyanka: Now I will analyze how we can influence the users to engage with our
platform more often.
1. Organic: Here I would like to explore ways in which we can attract users to
engage more with our application.
2. Inorganic: Here I would discuss ways in which we can nudge our existing
users and reach out to them to increase their engagement.
Interviewer: Please start with inorganic ways followed by organic.
Priyanka:
Inorganic ways to increase user engagement:
1. Reminders: There are several phases of the user journey where we can
nudge the users. For example – If the user added something to the cart and
left it unordered, we can send them reminders to complete their order. If
there is a special deal going on for some items that are left in the cart, we
can also remind them and create an urgency here.
2. Push notifications: We can nudge our users by sending enticing
notifications on limited-time deals, festive discounts, new restaurants, etc.
We can also strategize our push notifications during the time of the day when
the user usually interacts with our app. For example, there are people who
138
tend to order late at night. So, we can send them notifications during that
time of the day.
3. Personalisation: Everyone loves getting personalized messages or special
treatment on their special days. We can send special discounts/offers on
occasions like birthdays, anniversaries etc. We can also nudge users about
their favorite restaurants basis their order history.
4. Influencer marketing: We can collaborate with influencers, food bloggers,
and connoisseurs to review and promote our app. We can leverage paid
partnerships with them to increase our visibility and their followers can get
exclusive deals to sign up on our app and make their first order.
Organic ways to increase user engagement:

1. Engagement through social feed: We can create a social feed where users
can post their experience, review restaurants, add pictures, and engage with
other people who have already visited restaurants they are looking forward
to visiting. Users can like, comment, and share the content. The platform can
also build a follower-following culture which allows people to engage with
people who have similar tastes and preferences. Creating a social feed would
help users in seeking social validation and encourage them to open the app
more frequently to see what their friends and community are doing.
2. Gamification: Gamification lets food delivery applications integrate features
like loyalty points. We can implement ideas like Spin the wheel and get x%
off. We can have a simple quiz that will ask users a set of questions to help
them decide on their next order. We can engage users through a weekly
leaderboard where people get some points for answering some questions.
The winners get certain points which can be redeemed on the app.
3. Exclusive access: We can create an exclusive experience by introducing a
subscription-based service. Through the subscription, the users will get
access to special deals, free delivery, customized menus, better packaging,
invitations to special events like restaurant openings, food tasting etc. We
can also offer them priority support to improve their experience. An exclusive
access or subscription program will also prevent our users from switching to
another platform and will help us engage and retain them better.
All the above pointers that we discussed focus on the food delivery segment. I
would also like to discuss different segments through which we can grow the DAUs.
Interviewer: Sure, let us discuss that and do a quick feasibility analysis here.
139
Priyanka: The different segments that we can explore:

1. Home-Cooked Food Delivery: There is a segment of users who live in
Tier-I cities and crave home-cooked food. They usually don’t know how to
cook and mostly eat outside. Due to increasing health awareness, a lot of
these users are looking for home-cooked food. We can explore this segment
and onboard sellers who are ready to provide home food. Users can sign up
for a weekly/monthly subscription, they can choose from a range of menus,
and get limited customizations. We can facilitate the delivery and tracking of
the same. Since this is a daily requirement, it is most likely to increase the
DAUs.
Impact vs. Feasibility Analysis: Home-cooked meals are appealing and
resonate with users.There is a segment of users who crave this, but the
market size might not be too large. Also, maintaining a good quality supply
of those willing to provide home-cooked food on the platform can be
tough.There can challenges in terms of ensuring quality checks.
2. Restaurant booking & experience: There are individuals who prefer to go
to restaurants by booking a table beforehand. We can integrate this service
into their application. This would let users pre-book tables, and read reviews
about restaurants. Our app can also facilitate payment through their platform
and provide certain discounts to the users. To facilitate this smoothly, our
platform can charge a small commission from the restaurant.
Impact vs. Feasibility Analysis: Adding the restaurant reservation options
makes both the ordering experience plus the dining out experience available
on the platform. This will lead to higher engagement from the users and
make them open the app more frequently. The feasibility will depend on the
willingness of the restaurants to participate and smooth technology
integration. For example – If a restaurant confirms the table on the
application, the user should be able to get the table upon visiting the
restaurant.
3. Grocery delivery: We can explore additional value-added services like
grocery delivery. Firstly, grocery delivery is a daily requirement. Secondly, we
can explore the synergies like cross utilization of delivery fleet, knowledge of
maps & route optimization, etc.
Impact vs. Feasibility Analysis: Grocery delivery service can increase the
user’s stickiness on the platform. This will also increase the app opening
frequency. We can extend subscription benefits to grocery users as well.
However, grocery delivery requires a separate infrastructure like dark stores
with better storage, demand analytics, robust delivery network.
140
The options that we discussed above have their own pros and cons. Before
launching or delving into any of the segments, we should gauge the external
scenario, perform extensive market research, and define a clear strategy.
Interview: Thanks, we can close the discussion now.
141
Chapter 9: Technical Interview Preparation

System Design Concepts
1. What is a Load Balancer?
Load Balancer: Load Balancer is a common term used widely when you are
working on an application that serves enormous traffic. Let’s understand with an
example:
Assume that Netflix has deployed several servers to handle the number of client
requests. When we hit “Netflix.com”, how does Netflix know which server it has
routed my request to? This is where the load balancer comes into the picture; load
Balancers distribute the incoming traffic from the client efficiently across different
servers and make sure that no server is getting overheated or overloaded.
Reliability and availability are maintained by redirecting the incoming request to the
available servers.
142
Load Balancing Algorithms

The load balancer can be broadly classified into two categories: application-level
load balancing and network-level load balancing. Application-level load balancing
resides on layer seven which is the application layer and is supported by a protocol
like HTTP or HTTPS. Another kind of load balancer is the network-level load
balancing, which resides on layer four, the Transport layer (If you cannot
understand this, please look at the different network layers) and is supported by
TCP/UDP.
Now let’s see the different algorithms for load balancing, in which the load balancer
decides which server your request should route to.
1. Round Robin Algorithm: It is a simple algorithm in which the load balancer
route the request to the server in a round-robin fashion to the next available
server.
2. Least Connection: This is an algorithm in which the load balancer checks
out of all the server nodes which node has the least number of connections
and then routes the request to that particular node.
3. IP hashing: In this algorithm, we use hashing technique to generate a
sequence using the client's IP address. It may also use other factors like
source port, destination IP address, protocol etc.
2. What does it mean by Caching?

The cache is a hardware and software component that helps serve the data, which
is either frequently requested or expensive to compute on, so the cache stores the
computed response and helps to reduce the cost of computation. Let’s understand
by example.
Suppose a client has requested an image from the server; the server will fetch the
image from the Database and respond to the client. Suppose millions request the
same image of users, so the server won’t fetch multiple times from the Database;
in this case, we can cache the image on the server-side or cache the image on the
client side.
Cache invalidation
In the Cache, data doesn’t remain there forever; the process of removing the old
value from the Cache and updating the new value is called cache invalidation. So
now the question arises how do we know that the Cache needs to be updated with
the new data and the old one has to be deleted. We can have cache expiry time
143
which decides the life cycle of the cached data, and this cache expiry time is
decided depending on the use case.
Cache Eviction
One question always comes, “why can’t we store everything in Cache?” Cache
memory is more costly than the other memory; if we overload our cache memory,
the computation cost will be as bad as the original memory. So although Cache
makes it fast for any request at the same time, it is costly.
So let’s assume we have set the expiry limit to the cache entry and our Cache is
operating at its peak limit; now a new request has to be put into Cache; what
should we do?
In such cases, any old cache data will be evicted so that the new cache data can go
there. This is called cache eviction. There are multiple ways by which we can do
cache eviction like “First in, First Out”, “Least Recently Used”, “Least
Frequently Used”, etc.
Cache Pattern
When we have to use the Cache in the real-world application, there are different
cache patterns available that we can use to leverage the power of Cache.
● Cache Aside Pattern: This is the cache pattern in which Cache always
talks to the application but never talks to the Database. So whenever a
client request comes, the application checks it in the Cache; if it is not
available(Cache miss), it will get the data from DB. The advantage is that
Cache is not the single point of failure; it acts as a decoupled system. But
their problem occurs when there is an update to the DB, and the data which
is getting updated is also residing in the Cache. Two update operations have
to be performed, one in Cache and one in Database.
144
● Read/Write Through Pattern: This is the cache pattern in which the Cache
sits between the application and the Database. In this case, the application
server always talks with the case, never with the DB. When the first request
comes, there is always a cache miss, and the Cache fetches the data from
DB.
● Write Around Pattern: In this Cache pattern, the Cache sits between the
application and the Database, but the application can talk with the Cache,
and the application can talk with the DB.
145
It also depends on the requirement we will choose the cache pattern like heavy
ready operation, a heavy write operation or avoid single point of failure.
3. What is database Sharding?

Let’s start with an example, assume that you are a software engineer who is
building a product for user management. You have to store the data of millions of
users in your database. You have already realized that your user base is increasing
rapidly; what you will do?
First, you will try to increase the capacity of the Database; increasing the capacity
of the database make the search query to be slow. Then you realize that you need
to do a partition of the data and query the database according to the request.
Database Sharding is the process of breaking up the large data into smaller
chunks called shards; a shard is a horizontal data partition that contains a subset of
the total data set.
Horizontal Vs Vertical partitioning

Let’s assume that you have 1 million user data in the database. The data is in the
format of the table and have the following columns like Name, city, Phone number
and income.
- If we partition the data into four parts such that in one data, we have
information about 1 million names; in another data, we have 1 million cities
and so on. These are logically connected via the primary key. Such type of
partition is known as vertical partitioning.
- If we partition the data into four parts such that each data contains 0.25
millions of user data and combining all the data, we get the original 1 million
data; this is known as horizontal partitioning, which is also known as
Sharding. Sharding is a widely used technique for the scalability and
availability of data.
Conceptually Sharding in the SQL and NoSQL databases remains the same, but
since the structure of the data is different, so we need different strategies
Logical Shards vs Physical Shards

We have understood that the shard is nothing but a subset of the data. To
understand the architecture of the data Sharding, we need to understand the term
logical and physical shards.
146
So let’s say we have 4 million users, and we have partitioned them into four parts,
each one with 1 million users. These shards(subset) are known as logical shards,
and the database or the machine on which it resides are known as physical shards.
Algorithmic Sharding vs Dynamic Sharding

- Algorithmic Sharding: Let’s say we have an application that wants to
request data from the server; how will it know from which shard it has to
fetch the data? In case there is a function on the client-side which takes
some attributes of the data and decides which shard it has to go into, then it
is known as algorithmic Sharding.
- Dynamic Sharding: In Dynamic Sharding, there is a separate service that
tells which shard the query (Read/Write) should route to. In Dynamic
Sharding, the server-client talks to the service and the service will then route
it to the correct place. Here we can add more shards if we want to expand
into them; that’s why it is called Dynamic Sharding.
Advantages of Sharding
1. Speed of the queries in the databases increases because we know in
which logical partition we need to search. So, reducing latency, query
optimization, and better performance are some of the advantages of
Sharding
2. We can put different shards into different locations, which can sometimes
be very useful. In some applications, we can put the users into different
shards depending on their location, which can play an important role in a
search query, for example, Tinder.
3. By Data Sharding, we can mitigate the risk of a single point of failure.
Let’s say out of 4 shards on the server, if one of the servers goes down,
in that case, we can still serve 75% of the users.
Disadvantages of Sharding
1. Sharding is a complex technique, so if you haven’t done it correctly, in
that case, it will put an unequal amount of data in shards.
2. Once you have done Sharding, it is very difficult to combine the sharded
data.
3. Queries in which you have to search from the entire data then it
becomes expensive operation because, in that case, it will go to all the
shards, perform the operation and then combine the result from each
shard and give back to the client.
147
4. Database Index - What are indexes?

The index is the data structure of the table of content which points us to the
location where actual data resides; this works in a similar fashion like any table of
content of the document works. It helps to increase the speed of the data retrieval.
The indexing can be done in an ordered way called ordered indexing or can be done
using hashing called hash indexing.
5. Proxy Server
Some websites are blocked for students to access in college and many educational
institutions. There you must have heard loosely about words like “use proxy” to
bypass those rules. What does it mean by proxy?
Proxy servers are the intermediary between the client and the server; let’s say if
the client doesn’t want / can’t talk to the server, then it can use a proxy server on
his behalf.
- Forward Proxy: In the client-server architecture, if the proxy server sits on
the client-side and talks to the server on the client’s behalf, then it is known
as a forward proxy. It has multiple use cases like caching the data on the
client-side or blocking access to some websites.
- Reverse Proxy: In the client-server architecture, if the proxy server sits on
the server-side and talks to the client on the server’s behalf, then it is known
as a reverse proxy. It has multiple use cases like caching the data on the
server-side or blocking access to some websites. It can be used for traffic
control and load balancing where the client doesn’t know the IP of the server
but knows the IP for the proxy server.
Technical Concepts
1. Basics of an Application
There are different App Types:
● Native Apps: Native apps are those which are developed for only one
platform. For example, if we have developed a native app for android, it will
not work on iOS. Native apps are faster but costly. They are safer in terms of
security — for Example, WhatsApp, Spotify etc.
● Web Apps: Web apps are those which can be accessed through the mobile
phone’s web browser, and to access that, we don’t need to download the app.
Example - Starbucks.
● Hybrid Apps: Hybrid apps are those which combines elements of both native
and web apps. It is installed like a native app and can use some device
148
features, but basically, it is a web app running on the mobile browser.

Example Gmail, Uber.
2. App Architecture
Application has two sides. One is client-side, and the other is server-side. The
client-side comprises the User’s phone, application, and browser, whereas the
server-side comprises the operating system, servers, and Databases.What
Users see and interact with is called frontend.
Let’s understand this with an example. You want to know the capital of
Rajasthan, you go to the browser (Google Chrome) and open the application
(google search) and search for the capital of Rajasthan. Your request will go
to web servers, and then the server will fetch the data for you from the
Database. When the server get the data, it will send the response to the
browser in HTML. The browser then will render the HTML.
3. Database
A database is the organized collection of structured information typically
stored in a computer system. The Database management system controls the
Database.
Centralized Database vs Distributed Database
- A centralized database is located, stored, and maintained in a single
location and accessible from multiple locations. It may face issues
during high traffic and server failures.
- Distributed Database is a collection of integrated databases spread
across various locations and communicates via a computer network.
Relational Database vs Non-Relational Database

- Relational databases use relational models to store data which is in the
form of rows and columns. The tables are interrelated, and their
relationship is defined through the primary key. SQL is used to query,
modifying and store the data. Example MySQL
- Non-Relational Database stores unstructured or semi-structured data
in the form of key-value pairs or JSON documents. Example MongoDB
4. Application Architecture
There are broadly four types of application architecture.
149
- Client-Server Architecture: In a client-server architecture, we have two

parties; one is the client, and another is the server. The server provides
services to multiple clients components, and the client components request
services provided by the server. The server continues to listen for any
request from the client component. For example, Email service
- N-tier Architecture: In an N-tier architecture, different layers are abstract
to provide unique functionality. Each layer has some programs written and
which do a specific subtask. The output of one layer goes into another layer
as an input.
The most common layers in the N-tier architecture are following:
a. Presentation Layer: The is the topmost layer that provides the UI
functionality.
b. Application Layer: This is the service layer that provides a specific
service.
c. Business Logic Layer: This is the business layer in which the underlying
code for any service is written.
d. Data Access Layer: The data access layer is closely linked to the core
data or database.
- Microservices Architecture: In Microservice architecture, your application
is composed of loosely coupled services that provide specific functionality.
These Microservices talk to other services using API. The advantage of
Microservice architecture is that they can be developed independently. If
there are bugs or issues, they can be tracked and solved without touching
the overall application as such.
- Model-View-Controller Architecture: As the name suggests, this
architecture is composed of 3 parts Model, View and Architecture.
a. Model: Model has all the core functionality, data access and business
logic written in it.
b. View: View is where from which the user sees the information.
c. Controller: Controller which handles the input from the user.
4+1 Architectural View Model

4+1 Architectural View Model is used to describe the architecture of software
systems. The views are used to describe the architecture from the viewpoint
of different stakeholders such as end-users, developers, managers etc.
1. Logical View: Logical View is for system architects. This view tells us
about the different components, packages, interfaces etc.
150
2. Developmental View: Developmental View is for developers; it tells

the developers who build the different functionality. It is subsystem
decomposition.
3. Process view: Process view is for system architects as well. It is a
runtime description, and it tells about the different activity that will
take place.
4. Physical View: Physical view is for the system engineering team; it
depicts how to deploy a particular software or application.
5. Use Case View: Use Case view is for the end-users. It is a scenario
diagram that tells us about who the application will work.
5. Computer Networks
Computer networks are a set of interconnected devices which are capable of
sending and receiving data. The network devices are called nodes, and the
links connecting the nodes are called communication channels. A node in the
user application that participates as a server is called the host.
Network Data Transmission: Data is transferred from different layers from

the uppermost layer (Application Layer) to the lowest layer (Physical layer).
The user data from the application layer goes to the transport layer, where
the data is attached to the port number, which is also called TCP header. The
TCP header, along with the data (TCP data array), goes to the network layer
in which the data gets attached with the IP header. The IP header and the
data (IP data array) go to the data layer, where it gets attached to the
Ethernet Header. Then this data is ready for transmission as packets from the
port.
Internet Protocol Address: In computer Networks, nodes(devices) are

connected; they can send the data from one node to another node. But to
transfer the data, we need the node’s address to identify where we want to
send the data; this address is known as IP address. An IP address is a unique
address that identifies a device on the Internet or a local network. IP stands
for “Internet Protocol,” which is the rules governing the format of data sent
via the Internet or local network. An IP address is of two types.
1. IPV4: IPV4 consists of four numbers separated with dots, and each
number can range from 0–255 since computers understand binary
language. So each IPV4 is a 32-bit address, so 2³² ~4B devices can be
connected with IPV4 address.
151
2. IPV6: Since in IPV4, we can only connect ~4B devices, so we are

moving towards IPV6, which is a 128-bit address, and a total of 2¹²⁸
devices can be connected to the Internet
Domain Name System(DNS): In networking, computers don’t go by names
like humans do; they go by numbers because that’s who different computer
devices talk to each other. But humans are accustomed to using names
instead of numbers when talking to a person. So to bridge this gap, we build
DNS, which is a mapping of Domain Names to IP addresses. For example,
when you type “www.google.com" in the browser, it converts to the ugly
looking IP address because that’s who computers can communicate with. We
will be getting the same result if we type in IP address instead of the domain
name system, but we are not accustomed to numbers; we opt for this route.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol: HTTP is the foundation of any data exchange

on the web. It is a client-server protocol for encoding and transporting the
information between a client and web server.
This is how the Internet works:
6. Cloud Computing
Cloud computing delivers computing services like servers, databases,
networking, analytics over the Internet. These are the following different
benefits of cloud services.
1. Cost-Effectiveness: Cloud computing eliminates the cost of buying
the hardware, software, and maintenance.
2. Flexibility: It can scale in terms of storage, bandwidth etc.
3. Reliability: It has made data backup and disaster recovery easy.
4. Security: Cloud providers provide security technology and controls.
Hacking Concepts
1. How can criminals hold your computer for Ransomware?
152
Ransomware is a type of malware that can damage your computer; it is a piece of

software code that locks or encrypts your important files until you pay the amount
demanded by hackers. This type of malware comes via email or as an attachment
to download. It exploits a flaw in the operating system and runs malicious code on
your computer. Once this runs on your computer, it locks all your files and gets
decrypted only when you pay the amount.
They take money in bitcoins through a specialized wallet that doesn’t store any kind
of information. This ensures that their information is hidden from the government.
How can you prevent ransomware?

One of the most effective ways to protect from this kind of malware is to have
high-security encryption in the operating system. Large organizations like hospitals,
governments etc., are at high risk, so they should spend a great amount of money
on their IT infrastructure. Another solution is to do a backup of your files to always
restore the recent version.
2. How do people sell drugs online? What does it mean by dark web?
In 2013, the US government banned a website called Silkroad because it is a kind
of amazon for illegal things like drugs, fake passports, guns etc. So how do these
markets work? We are going to explore this.
Deep and Dark Web

People who are on the platform are anonymous because if police or government
know their association with these things, then there are high chances of getting
caught. But this is not enough; Computer’s unique IP address is also sufficient to
track them down. So they use it with the help of the deep web.
The deep web includes information on the internet that you cannot find using
google search. The deep web is 1000 times bigger than the clear web. The dark
web is the subset of the Deep web that you can’t access without special software to
encrypt all the information and anonymize your IP address.
Accessing the Dark Web

As mentioned, you need to have special software to use the dark web, one of the
most commonly used software to visit the dark web is TOR (commonly known as
The Onion Router). TOR wraps your information and communication in layers of
encryption and bounces it around through different servers. Each of which knows
153
only information like where it is coming from and where it is going, which makes it
difficult to track. Marketplaces that are on the Dark web use Bitcoins as a currency.
How can public Wi-Fi steal your money?

Let’s take an example that while working, you go to Starbucks and realize that you
need to connect to the Wi-Fi to send some email or see your bank statement. You
see a public Wi-Fi and connect to the public Wi-Fi, boom your account got debited.
Hackers often set up phony Wi-Fi which is designed to look like legitimate networks
and try to dupe people into connecting to them. If you connect to a hacker’s
network, that hacker’s route sits between you and every website you want to
connect to, so it can read every bit of information being sent back and forth.
You might be wondering what about HTTPS? Doesn’t it encrypt

communication?
Yes, it does, but hackers nowadays can use SSLStrip, which can fool your computer
into talking with a server with HTTP instead of HTTPS. If you request a bank
statement via net banking, then a hacker might steal your password and username
and can use it to steal the money. So don’t blindly connect to the Public Wi-Fi.
Instead of this, you can use a VPN server which can turn the public Wi-Fi into a
private one by encrypting all the information.
To summarize, how could a public Wi-Fi network help someone steal your identity?
Well, if a hacker got you to connect to their network and used SSLStrip, they could
make a man-in-the-middle attack to get your passwords and other identifying
information. That way, they could steal your identity without you even knowing! As
we mentioned in this last section, the best way to fight back against these
man-in-the-middle attacks is to use a VPN.
How does WhatsApp encrypt your message so thoroughly that even it can’t
read them?
WhatsApp is being praised a lot for its end-to-end encryption, such that the
message is only seen to the sender and receiver; even WhatsApp can’t read it. Let’s
see how does the end-to-end encryption of WhatsApp works. To understand this,
let’s assume you have to send a package to your friend through a postal service,
but your postal service always sees the thing you are sending to your friend. Since
you have no alternative other than opting for a postal service, you have to come up
with some smart techniques.
154
You create a key and hundreds of locks that can be opened with that key. You kept
the key with you and distributed the lock around the country so that anyone could
have this lock. So, when anyone wants to send you a message, he uses the lock
which the key at your home can open. This way you have secured the system and
it’s so clever that anyone can send any a stuff worrying about anything, and you
can only encrypt the message because you have the key.
This is how end to end encryption works; every user is given a “public key” (which,
in our example, is a lock) and a “private key” (which is a private key in our
example). Every message is encrypted using the recipient’s public key and can only
be decrypted using their private key and some math. All the encryption and
decryption is done on users’ devices, so the app makers can’t decrypt messages.
UX Design Concepts
UX Design is the process of designing a product that is attractive, easy to use and
delightful to interact with. UX Design involves UX artefacts and UX Design
Principles.
Critical Elements of UX Design
1. Visual Design: How does it look like?
2. Usability: How easy it is to use the product.
3. Information Architecture: Does its structure make sense?
4. Interaction Design: How do we interact with it?
5. Wireframing: How does its prototype look like?
155
Layers of UX Design
1. Strategy: Strategy is where it all begins; what do we want to get out of our
product? What does our user want? It is closely related to the user persona
and customer journey map etc.
2. Scope: Scope transforms strategy to requirement, where the feature lists
and story map come into the picture.
3. Structure: Structure is the one that gives shape to the scope. It is closely
linked to the user flow diagram or the site map.
4. Skeleton: Skeleton makes the structure complete; it is what the wireframe
is all about.
5. Surface: The surface brings all the things together, and it is how the finished
product looks. .i.e. prototypes.
UX Design Principles
Gestalt’s Principles
1. Law of Similarity: Visually similar Elements will be perceived as related and
likely to share a common meaning and functionality. So when we are
designing, we should make sure that the navigation/links should be visually
differentiated from the text and words.
2. Law of Common Region: The items within a boundary are perceived as a
group and assumed to share common characteristics and functionality.
3. Law of Proximity: The law of proximity states that the elements close
together tend to be perceived as a unified group. Proximities help users to
understand the information more easily and intuitively.
Aesthetic-Usability Effect
In general, people find the aesthetically pleasing design to be more useful. People
are tolerant of minor usability issues if they find the design to be quite aesthetically
pleasing.
Peak-End Rule
People generally judge the experience depending on how they felt at its peak and
its end, rather than the total sum or average of the experiences. So while
designing, we should pay close attention to the peak and the end of the experience
in the customer journey. People tend to recall negative experiences more than
positive ones.
Serial Position Effect
In general, people tend to vividly recall the first and last item in the journey. So
while designing, we can tend to put the least important items in the middle of the
list.
156
Goal Gradient Effect

The goal gradient effect states that as soon people get closer to the goal, they tend
to accelerate their behaviour towards the goal. For example, a mobile application
uses the profile completion bar at the top, and as your progress towards completing
the profile, the profile bar will get filled.
Hick’s Law
Hick’s law states that the time to make a decision increases with the number of
choices and their complexity. While designing, we should be aware that we should
decrease the number of choices when the response time is critical to increase the
decision time.
Von Restorff Effect
Von Restorff's effect states that when multiple objects are present, the one that
differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. While designing, we should
make sure that the most important information or the key action should be visually
distinctive.
Jacob’s usability Heuristics
1. Visibility of System Status: When we are designing, we should keep the
user updated on what is going on by timely feedback or with the help of
visual cues.
2. Match between system and the real world: The system should speak the
language of the user rather than system-oriented terms and jargon.
3. User Control and Freedom: Most likely, users perform actions by mistake,
so they should be given a clear option like an emergency exit to get out of
the unwanted action.
4. Consistency of standards: We should be consistent while designing; users
should not wonder if different words, actions or situations mean the same
thing. For example, the check-in counters are located at the front of the
hotels, which meets the expectations.
5. Error prevention: Good error messages are okay, but fabulous design
carefully prevents the problems from occurring in the first place. For
example, we have railing guards on curving mountain roads to prevent the
driver from falling off the cliff.
6. Recognition rather than recall: Minimizing the user’s memory load by
making elements, actions and options visible.
7. Aesthetics and Minimalist Design: Interface shouldn’t contain irrelevant
information. Every extra unit of information we place should be complete
with the relevant unit of information.
157
8. Recognise, Diagnose and recover from error: Error messages should be

expressed in plain language. It should precisely indicate the problem and
constructively suggest the solution.
Design a URL shortener? — System Design for Product

Managers
URL shortener is the way by which we can reduce the size of the big URL into a
smaller one and clicking on the smaller URL will take you the original one. The
smaller URL is easy to share and doesn’t occupy much space. It is very useful while
doing some tweets.
Design Requirement
Functional Requirement
● URL shortener should be able to shorten any URL given to it, and it should be
unique alias of it.
● When the user clicks on the shortened link, the user should get directed to
the original link.
● The user should be able to define the time till which it is available.
Non Functional Requirement

● The availability of the system should be high because if our system goes
down, then all the URLs will start failing.
● URL should be available in minimal time; minimum latency should be there.
● The URL shouldn’t be predictable.
Capacity Estimation
We can assume that for every URL shortening service, there would be 100 reads.
So basically, there would be a 100:1 read/write ratio to the system.
Assume that our URL shortening service is handling 500M requests for shortening.
We need to retain every URL shortening request and shortened URL for around 5
Years.
Traffic Estimation
Since every month, 500M request comes and read/write ~ 100, so there would be
around 500*100M ~50000M or 50B redirections per month. Assuming 30 days,
No. of shortening requests per second ~ 200URLs/sec
No. of reads to shortened URL per second ~ 20K URLs/sec
Storage Estimation
158
Assuming that size required to store the shortened URL and the requested URL is ~
0.5KB
Storage estimate ~ 0.5*5*12*500M ~ 15TB
Bandwidth estimation
● For a write request, there is around 200 Requests per second, so required
bandwidth is ~ 200*0.5KB = ~100KB/sec
● For a read request, there is around 20K Requests per second, so the required
bandwidth is ~ 20K*0.5 = ~10MB/sec
Memory Estimation
Since we want to store some hot URLs in Cache, we will be using the 80–20 rule.
80% of the traffic comes from 20% of the URL, so we want to cache those URLs.
Total cache memory = 0.2*20K*3600*24*0.5 ~ 170GB
Since there will be a lot of duplicates in the read request, so the actual Cache
memory required will be much lesser than 170GB.
API Interface
● String getURL(String URL, String Time, String UserID): This function will take
the original URL as a string and give the shortened URL.
● Void deleteURL(String URL_KEY): If the user wants to delete the URL, in that
case, the person can select the URL he wants to delete, so this function takes
the URL_KEY and delete it.
Database Design
Since we need to store billions of records and it is read-heavy, so we should use the
NoSQL database, which will be easy to scale.
System Design and Algorithm

When a client request for URL shortening service, we can compute the unique hash
key of the requested URL. Since we need to store around 50M*12*5 ~ 3B URLs,
they need to be unique. We can use Base64, length of 6 or length of 8. In the case
of a length of 6, we will be able to have 64⁶ (68 Billion) unique URLs, and in the
case of a length of 8, we will be having 64⁸(380 Trillion) unique URLs. So we can go
ahead and have Base 64 of length 6 URLs.
159
Chapter 10: Google Interview Questions [Bonus]

Question 1: Design YouTube for Senior Citizens.
Interviewer: Design YouTube for senior citizens.
Shailesh: That’s a great question, but before that, let me clarify some questions
before moving on to the solution. Do we need to design this on YouTube itself, or it
will be a separate application altogether?
Shailesh: YouTube already has a vast customer base, so is there any particular
goal/vision for designing this?
Interviewer: Our customer base has a negligible proportion of senior citizens, so
we want to acquire them.
Shailesh: Alright! Since we are developing this for senior citizens, they generally
have disabilities ranging from minute to large. In general, at the older stage of life,
we have a lower vision; we can consider that as well; what do you think?
Interviewer: You decide.
Shailesh: One more question, any resource or time constraint that I should be
aware of because it may play a role in prioritizing the features and putting them
into the product roadmap?
Interviewer: There is no resource constraint, and you can assume that we have to
deliver it in a year.
Shailesh: Great! Okay, so now let me reiterate our goal based on what we have
discussed. We need to build YouTube for senior citizens on the same platform, and
the goal is to onboard as many senior citizens as we can.
Interviewer: Yes
Shailesh: With that said, let me give an overview of how I would approach this
problem. First, we will see different users and will prioritize them based on our goal.
Then we can see the user journey of the selected user to understand their pain
points. From there, we can go and think of some of the solutions and prioritize
160
them. We can see some metrics to track the success of our solution and can see
potential tradeoffs and future technologies.
User Persona
1. X: A person aged 55 is tech-savvy, a power user who loves to watch
videos/news on different OTT platforms. He is the one who watches videos
daily.
2. Y: A person aged 60 who occasionally watches videos like movies, cricket
matches, etc.
3. Z: A person aged 65 who doesn’t know about YouTube at all.
I would like to focus on Y, who occasionally watches movies, cricket matches, etc. I
am focusing on this segment because this segment has a more significant total
addressable market; the availability of high-speed internet is increasing day by day
and penetrating rural areas. I don’t want to focus on Z because they may not drive
the required engagement, and we have to spend a lot in acquiring those customers.
They may be happy with other activities like socializing with friends and families
and not think to spend time on YouTube. Solving the problem for Y will also solve it
for X.
User Journey of Y
1. Got to know about some movies/matches through friends or social groups
2. They switch on the TV or ask somebody to open OTT platforms like Hotstar,
Netflix, etc.
3. They watch the match and sometimes try to change the channel or explore
the OTT platform.
4. Either they see the complete movie in one go or leave it in between.
5. Some other day they come to watch the same video or a new one.
6. Try to recall the movie till the time they have watched it.
7. Complete the movie and talk about the movie in their social group etc.
Pain Points
1. Getting to know about upcoming matches and movies is a pain; it frustrates
them if they miss an important cricket match.
2. They might feel the pain of handling the YouTube platform, such as signing
in, searching the content, etc.
161
3. They might get overwhelmed and confused about what they should watch
because of the plethora of options.
4. They may leave something in between due to some work, and when they
come back, they may not recall.
5. Sometimes they may find it difficult to understand the accent, and the
caption may be very small to read.
6. After finishing the series, they may get confused about what to do next.
7. They may find it difficult to share with their social group if they find anything
interesting.
For the solution, I assume that we are building a mobile application because the
mobile penetration is huge, and not many people have laptops and computers, so
we should go for the mobile application. Senior people can carry their mobile
anywhere anytime and can start watching whatever they want.
Solutions/Features:
1. On YouTube, we can have a separate mode for senior people like we have
Kids mode. We can use an AI recommendation engine to curate the content
based on watching history and preference while onboarding onto the
platform.
2. The voice searching option will be there so that they don’t have to type to
search any content; the voice assistant can do the job for them.
3. We can give push notifications on their mobile for upcoming matches.
4. Since many people are using WhatsApp, we can integrate WhatsApp into
their YouTube accounts so that senior citizens can get reminders from
WhatsApp as a chat for any upcoming movies or matches.
5. Senior citizens can have disabilities like low eyesight; we can have the
provision of setting font size as much as we want. They will also be able to
increase the font size of the video's subtitles.
6. Socialisation is an important trait of human behavior, which becomes even
more important at an older age. YouTube hasn’t leveraged the power of
socialization as the culture of following your friends isn’t there. We can have
a YouTube Social where senior people can follow their friends, and they will
get a notification if their friends have suggested something to watch. Senior
people can also post videos if they have come across something very
interesting. One-tap sharing with friends will also increase engagement on
the platform. Privacy of individuals is very important, so people will not be
162
able to see the view history of their friends, as it won’t alter the video
recommendation for individuals.
7. If they have left some video in between, we can give push or WhatsApp chat
notifications. In addition to that, we can also have a recap of every video
assisted with a skip. After seeing the recap videos, they may be able to recall
whatever they have seen earlier.
8. After completing any movie/video, YouTube can ask if they like it or not, and
depending on that, it will be able to suggest future content.
The above solutions may have some trade-offs, like people may not be very willing
to give their WhatsApp number to have a WhatsApp chat notification. In that case,
push notifications can be used.
Feature prioritization
● Must-have: Features #1, #2, #3, and #5 are must-have features as they
address the basic requirements of any senior citizen.
● Should have: Features #7, #8, and #4 are should have features.
● Nice to have: Feature #6 is nice to have features as people can now talk
about their seen videos or share their videos with friends via WhatsApp.
Success Metrics.
1. Increase in the #senior citizens on the platform
2. Increase in the Average number of push notifications clicked by senior
citizens in a week.
3. Increase in the average #voice search by a senior citizen in a week.
4. Increase in the average number of videos watched by senior citizens in a day
5. Increase in the average #session by a senior citizen in a day
6. Increase in the average session length by a senior citizen.
7. Ratio of the number of videos watched by a senior citizen using search/voice
search or AI recommendation.
Question 2: How would you improve Google Pay?

Interviewer: How would you improve Google Pay?
Shailesh: Sure, that’s a great question, give me a minute so that I can structure
my thoughts
Interviewer: Sure
163
Shailesh: Before jumping on to the solution, I want to first understand the

question in detail. Can I ask some clarification questions about the problem?
Interviewer: Sure, let’s go ahead.
Shailesh: First I want to clarify my understanding of Google Pay, Google Pay is an

online payment service app where you can transfer money to your friends and
acquaintances, you can pay your utility bills etc. You connect your bank with Google
Pay and pay via UPI. Google Pay earn money via commission and targeted
advertisement. Also, a lot of other applications like Amazon, have an option of
in-app payment via Google Pay as well. Is my understanding okay or do you want
to add anything?
Interviewer: Yes this is it, you can go ahead with this.
Shailesh: Sure, the next thing I want to do is to narrow down the scope of the
problem because making improvements on Google Pay is very broad. What exactly
do we want to improve? As I understand there can be multiple things to improve on
like the Improvement in experience of New user onboarding, Improvement in
Customer Retention, Improvement in Customer Acquisition, Monetisation,
Improvement in Payment experience or overall user experience. All of them are
great things to improve upon, I would like to improve the payment experience on
Google Pay. Do you have anything else in mind?
Interviewer: Sure, for now, let’s go ahead with the payment experience and if
time permits we will focus on how Google Pay can improve monetisation.
Shailesh: Perfect, let’s focus on improving the payment experience and if time
permits let’s focus on improving the monetisation as well.
Interviewer: Sure
Shailesh: Do we have any kind of constraint in terms of bandwidth, resources,

time etc.? I am asking this question because it will play an important role in
prioritisation and coming up with a GTM plan.
Interviewer: No you are not bounded by any such constraints.
Shailesh: That’s great, so the way I would like to go about this problem is first we
will see why it is important to improve the payment experience on Google Pay, then
we will drill down onto the customers, their pain points in terms of payment
experience on the google pay, the solutions and then finally some metrics to track if
we launch the feature in A/B. I hope you are with me.
164
Interviewer: Yes that’s on point.
Shailesh: Okay so why it is important for Google to improve the payment

experience of Google Pay Because in India there are other competitor players as
well like PhonePe, Paytm, Amazon Pay, Whatsapp Pay and other players are now
coming with UPI payment options and people have kind of low switching cost. So if
Google Pay provide a suboptimal payment experience in that case, people will churn
out from Google pe which will eventually hit Google Pay’s transactions and revenue.
So Google Pay has to deliver a good experience to retain their customers.
Interviewer: Yes that is true.
User Persona for Google Pay

Shailesh: Coming onto the customers segment, there are two broad customer
segments users (who pay) and Merchants (who receive). We will focus on the
customer segment who use Google Pay for sending money. In that segment, there
can be Following personas:
1. Students: They are the ones who are tech-savvy, they have high internet
and they have started using online payment for all their Needs. Their
transaction value is not so high, also they don’t do very frequent transactions
or recurring transactions. They use online payment for their small day-to-day
chores. They are not very financially independent and they rely on their
parents for money. They also don’t have good knowledge about how to
manage your money.
2. Professionals: They are the ones who are also tech savvy but they are
using UPI payment almost for all their needs. They are using UPI for utility
bill payments, rent payments etc. They are doing large value transactions
and also recurring transactions like rent payments at the end of the month.
3. Homemakers/Non-Techies: They are the one who has just started using
UPI after their children have taught them to use it. They are always afraid of
losing money online, they generally don’t trust easily and do very selective
transactions. They also find it difficult to navigate apps, so they are always in
some anxiety while using them. Although a very small number of them use
mobile apps for transactions.
I think We should prioritise the User persona “Professionals” as they are the
ones who are very high in number in using Google Pay and their worth value of
transaction will also be very high. This will not only retain them in Google Pay but
also add more revenue to the company. What do you think?
165
Interviewer: Good point, We primarily focus on value-worth transactions rather

than the number of transactions. Go ahead.
Shailesh: Sure now we have finalised the user persona to target, What we can do
is lay down the user journey to get into the user’s shoes which will eventually help
in finding pain points while making payment using Google Pay.
Interviewer: Okay
User Journey for Google Pay

Shailesh: The typical user journey would be something like this
1. Open Google Pay using face Recognition etc
2. Lands on the Google Pay Homepage
3. Scan the QR code or Search for Contact
4. Enter the amount to be paid and the bank
5. Enter the Pin and wait for Successful Transaction
6. Review/Share the Payment Receipt
7. See/Redeem the rewards unlocked
I think this is it, please let me know if we have missed anything.
Interviewer: This is a comprehensive user journey.
User Pain Points and Frustrations

Shailesh: Now let’s see the different pain points for the users
1. Visibility of unwanted Contacts upfront on Homepage: As a user, I am
not able to find my favourite contacts to whom I do the transactions regularly
which increases my efforts to always search for them. Although on the
homepage, there are contacts listed they are the recent contacts, not the
bookmarked ones. [Medium Intensity] [High Frequency]
2. Frequent Transaction Failure: As a user, I feel anxious every time my
transaction fails as I don't have any alternative. I see more transaction
failures in Google Pay in comparison to any other online payment app. [High
Intensity] [High Frequency]
3. Inadequate Rewards System: As a user, I feel that the rewards which got
unlocked are useless and inadequate. I am not able to discover it when in
need or while making payment to others, it always goes wasted. [Low
Intensity] [High Frequency]
4. Poor Payment Expense Management: As a user, I am not able to track
and manage my payment expenses which leads to poor financial
management. [Low Intensity] [Low Frequency]
166
Now if I have to prioritise the pain point in terms of frequency and intensity of the
pain, I would certainly prioritise #2 and then #1. I think #3 and #4 are pain points
but the intensity is not that high.
Solutions to the Pain Points

Solution to the pain point 1
● Favourites Contact / Frequent — The user should be able to have frequent
contacts or favourite contacts which help the user to pay via Upi with less
effort
● Pin Contact - The user can also pin contacts that they frequently interact with
Solution to the pain point 2
● Gpay Wallet — Gpay can introduce a wallet which can be recharged on a
periodic basis or can auto maintain the minimum balance to pay in the offline
mode or with low internet bandwidth.
Success Metrics
North Star Metric : Number of Value worth Transaction per day
Primary Metrics:
- User Retention — DAU/7-DAU
- Number of Transaction Failures per Day
Question 3: What is your favourite Google product, and

how would you improve it?
Interviewer: What is your favourite Google product, and how would you improve
it?
Shailesh: Alright, before that, let me clarify; I have to give the Google product,
which I like the most, irrespective of how it is currently performing in the market, is
it a market leader or not. Also, I need to justify why it is my favourite product and
suggest some improvements.
Interviewer: Perfect
Shailesh: Okay, the way I would like to go about it is, first, I will explain what
qualities a good product should have and how my favourite Google product has all
those qualities. From there, we can think of some of the scopes of improvements.
Interviewer: Please go ahead
167
Shailesh: For me, a good product is the one which should have the following
qualities:
● It should solve the user problem.
● It should be intuitive/easy to use.
● It should be aesthetically pleasing. It should have good UI/UX.
My favourite Google product is Google Maps, so to be on the same page, let me

explain what it is all about. It is a product which provides a map of the entire world
including different views like terrain, street view etc. It assists users in navigation
from points A and B, including navigation for two-wheelers, four-wheelers and
pedestrians. Also, it helps users to explore nearby restaurants, petrol pumps, ATMs
etc.
Now let me explain my pain points and how Google maps have addressed them
seamlessly, making it my favourite product.
Pain points :
● Earlier it was a pain finding the navigation/ searching the destination
place. It was even more challenging when I used to travel to new places.
● Getting detailed information about public transport was a real challenge.
Once the user knew the navigation, it was a challenge to find out how to
get there within budget.
● While going to an outstation, getting track of essential places like Gas
stations and ATMs was one of the most significant pain points.
How has Google Maps addressed all these pain points?

● Google Maps have a very intuitive interface in which you can search for
destination and source (it can be your location as well). It will show you
the distance between the source and destination and prompt you to
navigate from start to destination. You can listen to the audible
instruction to reach the destination if you are driving.
● After selecting the source and destination, it gives information in detail
about the public transport like the metro number, Bus number, where to
change, how much time will it take to get there etc.
● It has one explore nearby section where you can search for the nearest
ATMs, banks, gas stations, restaurants, etc.
Truly Google Maps is my favourite google product, but every product has some
scope for improvement. Before that, let me clarify some questions. Since Google
168
Map is a fantastic product, it has many features like Navigation, Maps, and Nearby,
so are we looking to improve any specific functionality?
Shailesh: Also, improvement can be of different types like improvement in user

acquisition, user engagement or monetisation. I assume that most people use
Google Maps, so acquisition shouldn’t be an issue, so I would like to focus on
engagement. Is it okay to proceed?
Interviewer: Yes, please
Shailesh: Let’s see different Customer segments who use Google Maps
● Commuters (bikers, four-wheelers)
● Drivers/ Delivery people in ride-hailing
● Pedestrians
● Travellers/Tourists who are travelling to a new place
● Explorers who just want to search for different places
● Blind people using the Audible feature of Google maps
Almost all people use Google Maps, and all have great total addressable markets. I
would want to focus on explorers. Other people may have a specific motive in mind
while using google maps.
Pain points of explorers

1. Sometimes it gets confusing while choosing from a plethora of information
given by Google, like Best restaurants near me. It provides a lot of
restaurants and their ratings, which makes a person indecisive.
2. It is painful to get directions in big shopping malls, theme parks, stadiums
etc. Not able to see which floor has which outlet and how to get there.
3. For a person who has to go to multiple places in a day, getting the perfect
itinerary can be a real challenge, so he takes minimum time to go and come
back.
4. Friends deciding remotely which place they should meet is another painful
activity.
Prioritisation
I would want to prioritise pain points 1,3,2,4 in that order. Since many shopping
malls/Theme parks have infographics, that kind of solves users’ pain. While going to
a different location in one day, a person may have a specific preference for the
place, like visiting the bank early in the day and then going to other sites. But pain
169
point #1 of deciding the best place to eat and the ideal shop to see is still a
challenge. So I would like to solve pain point #1.
Solutions
1. We can have the “Next place you should try/go” feature, which will take
different inputs like your recent previous google search, previous user visit,
user behaviour of exploration or exploitation of the choices, reviews etc.
Depending on all this, we can have a smart, personalized AI feature that will
narrow down the suggestion to the top 3 places which a person should go. To
improve the AI engine, we can ask the User some questions after the visit.
2. Another solution can be giving Users personalized recommendations like
geofencing. For example, if a person searched for the best burger outlet a
week ago, and he has just passed a good burger outlet (.i.e. “Truffles”), he
should get a notification like “Would you love to try Truffle’s bestseller all
American cheeseburger at 40% discount exclusively for you”. This can act as
another source of revenue for Google partnering with brands and giving
personalised recommendations to Users depending on its geolocation.
3. Alternately there can be a “Gamification” solution that may increase
customer engagement. The delayed gratification of the reward of the game
will improve the user's stickiness. For example, giving a review after visiting
someplace will earn the User a spin of the gaming wheel, giving rewards like
30% off on shoes at a Nike outlet near him.
4. People love their childhood superheroes; Google can leverage this customer
behaviour by using augmented reality. When the user is navigating to one
place, a superhero can be running and assisting/escorting the person instead
of the navigation arrow.
The above solutions show that 1 and 2 have a more significant impact on
engagement than 3 and 4, but the gamification feature can increase engagement
without much effort. There can be a potential hindrance in solution two, like
partnering with brands which may take time. So we can go ahead and have feature
one on the product roadmap. We can do beta testing of the features in different
areas of the world and track the following metrics for the success of the features.
Success Metrics
● % increase in the rating of the place that Google has suggested to the User.
● % increase in the review posted by the User of a particular location.
● % increase in the customer screen time in Google Maps.
● # of spins of the gamification wheel.
170
Question 4: How would you improve Gmail?

Interviewer: How would you improve Gmail?
Shailesh: Thanks for the question, first let me clarify my understanding of Gmail.
Gmail is a free mailing service by Google through which you can send emails to
anybody. It has features which segregate different types of emails and
autocompletion of texts in mails. Is my wholistic understanding of Gmail is okay or
do you want me to think about any specific section of Gmail?
Interviewer: No this is good.
Shailesh: Okay, I have some questions that I want to clarifyquestions that I want
to clarify before going ahead. My first question is what’s the goal of improvement or
if I tie it to the business objective, is it an improvement in acquisition, engagement
or revenue part? I think almost all people use Gmail either in a personal way or
professional way, so engagement and revenue both can be a good thing worth
exploring. Do you have any preference for anything?
Interviewer: I want you to go more on the engagement aspect.
Shailesh: Alright, increasing engagement can also help us get a different revenue
streams for money in future. One more thing, are we considering increasing
engagement on any specific platform like desktop or mobile? or any preferred
geography.
Interviewer: You can go ahead with the desktop application and we want to
increase the engagement globally.
Shailesh: My last question, do we have any resource or time constraints for this? I
am asking this question because it may play an important role in prioritising the
features.
Interviewer: No you are not bound by that.
Shailesh: Let me quickly reiterate the goal from what we have discussed till now,
we want to increase the engagement on web Gmail globally and any resource and
time constraint do not bind usany resource and time constraint do not bind us.
171

Interviewer: Sounds great. Please go ahead.
Shailesh: There can be different user persona of people who are using Gmail like
students, teachers, working professionals or for personal use but if I have to put
the customer persona in a more MECE way, I would list down the following
User Persona
1. Power Users: They are the ones who heavily rely on the Gmail like
working professionals, students/teachers in college having Gmail as the
mail mailing service. They compose and receives tons of messages daily.
2. Regular Users: They are the ones who uses Gmail for their personal
use, they have subscribed to quite a lot of channels or newsletters, so
they want to read through them.
3. Casual Users: They are the ones who generally doesn;t use Gmail
much, they only use the service for a few purposes like filing a complaint
to customer care, writing bank applications etc.
Shailesh: Since our target is to increase engagement on the platform,, I would like
to focus on the power users because increasing engagement for them would
increase engagement at a greater level.
Let’s think of the customer journey of the prioritised user so that we can think of
their pain points.
Customer Journey
1. Users receive an email in their inbox, either they opened the mail and
read it or if they don’t open it gets accumulated in the inbox.
2. They want to refer to the previously received email, so they search for it.
3. They want to reply to some email or send an email to a completely
unknown person for the first time, so they start composing it and and
attach the file if they need to.
4. After composing the mail, they do the sanity check for the same, if they
have done anything wrong or tone is correct or not.
5. They send the email and wait for the reply if it is kind of urgent.
Shailesh: Depending on that, let’s think of the potential pain points.
Pain Points
1. Composing and sanity checking an email take a very long time.
172
2. Reading a long mail chain in which you have been added lately is painful.
3. People incorporate get so many emails and are not able to filter out
which ones should be looking at first priority and which are not useful as
in (email in which people add another person by just appending +1)
I think all of the painpoints are worth exploring if I have to choose one I would like
to choose the pain point #1 and #2 because the intensity and frequency associated
with this is quite high, are we aligned on this?
Interviewer: Yes you can go ahead with this.
Shailesh: Now let’s look for the solutions for pain points #1 and #2.
Solutions
Solution for pain point #1
1. Gmail can have a feature “Tone detector” which can detect the tone of
the message and make it more contextually relevant and tailored to the
audiences type. [High Effort][High Impact]
2. Gmail can have a feature “Mail composer” which can compose the
message by the help of the audio. [High Effort][High Impact]
Solution for pain point #2
1. Gmail can have a feature “Mail Summariser” which will help you to
comprehend the summary of the long chain thread of some email. [High
2. Gmail can have feature “Mail Reminder” which can help the person to
remind the deadlines, for example let’s say we have a mail in which the
deadline is set till end of the day, in this case the deadline to reply should
be automatically set in the calendar. [High Effort][High Impact]
Shailesh: Let us think of the success metrics

Success Metrics
1. Average number of changes done to from the suggestion given by “Tone
Detector” per month
2. Average number of words dicted using voice assistant while composing
mail per month
3. Average number of time Mail summariser is used per month
173
Question 5: Number of Queries answered by Google per

second? [Guesstimate]
Interviewer: Estimate the number of search query answered by Google per
second ?
Shailesh: Okay Before I jump onto the solution, I have some questions which I
want to get clarified. When we are estimating the number of search query, are we
also taking care about search query for Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps or is it for
Google search only?
Interviewer: For now you can focus only on the Google search.
Shailesh: Are we estimating the search query from a particular device like mobile
or desktop or total number of search queries?
Interviewer: Across all the devices.
Shailesh: Are we focusing on a particular geography or globally ?

Interviewer: Globally.
Shailesh: Alright! let me iterate the goal of the problem. We want to estimate the
number of search query per second answered by the Google search across all the
devices globally.
Interviewer: Perfect
Shailesh: Okay let me give the overall structure of how would I approach the
problem.
Overall Approach for the Problem

1. Global Population ~ 7.5 Billion, Internet penetration ~ 70% and Google
market share is around ~80%.
2. Since people can’t use Google in China and some countries like Russia where
Google isn’t very popular. So I would want to take account that as well. Total
population which we can eliminate ~ 1.5 Billion
3. I would like to use 80–20 rule. The 80% of the google search will come by
top 20% of the Users. I think myself to be in the top 20 percentile, on an
average I do around 15–20 google search per day.
So keeping this into account, we can calculate the Total number of Google search
queries.
174
Solution
~ 140,000 Google search queries per second
Question 6: Estimate the bandwidth consumed by YouTube

Daily [Guesstimate]
Interviewer: Estimate the bandwidth consumed by YouTube Daily.
Shailesh: Okay! Before I answer the question, I have some questions which I want
to get clarified. My first question is are we talking about specific geography or
global consumption?
Interviewer: Globally
Shailesh: Do we want to calculate the bandwidth for specific device like Desktop or
Mobile?
Interviewer: Across all the platform.
Shailesh: Videos on YouTube can be played with 240p, 480p 720p etc. So are we
going to calculate the bandwidth for any specific category or across all the
categories?
Interviewer: Across all the categories
Shailesh: Let me reiterate the goal of the problem. We want to calculate the Total
bandwidth consumed by YouTube per day across all the platform globally.
175
Shailesh: Okay let me give the overall structure of the solution.
Overall Approach for the Problem

1. Global Population ~ 7.5 Billion and YouTube is blocked in China (~1.5B), so
we will calculate the total number of potential users to whom YouTube is
available.
2. Assuming that kids and senior citizens don’t use YouTube, so I will take the
60% as the number who watches YouTube to the total Population to whom
YouTube is available.
3. We will divide the country in 3 categories like Developed countries (20%)
having 100% internet penetration, Developing countries (50%) having 70%
internet penetration and Under developed countries(30%) having 25%
internet penetration.
4. From this I will calculate the total video consumption.
Bandwidth calculations for Developed countries
Bandwidth calculations for Developing countries
Bandwidth calculations for Underdeveloped countries
Solution
~ Total Bandwidth Consumed = 1800 petabyte
176
Question 7: Estimate the number of users of Google

Drive?[Guesstimate]
Clarification Questions
Shailesh: I would like to clarify my understanding of Google Drive. Google Drive is

a cloud-based file storage service developed by Google. It provides users with the
ability to store files, documents, photos, and other digital assets securely in the
cloud, making them accessible from virtually anywhere with an internet connection.
Interviewer: Yes that is correct.
Shailesh: Are we looking for personal users or enterprise users or overall users?
Interviewer: Both
Shailesh: Are we looking for a particular geography or globally?

Interviewer: Global
Shailesh: Are we looking for daily users or monthly users, or yearly users.
Interviewer: Daily users
Overall Approach
1. Total world population ~ 7.5 billion but there are some countries where
google services are not allowed like Chine and some part of russia, so we can
eliminate around 1.5 billion people from our set.
2. We are looking around 5 billion people and approximately people above 15
and less than 60 will be the one who are potential Google services users. So
we are looking at around 60% of 5 billion that is ~ 3 billion people.
3. We can also think about the internet penetration around the globe, that is
around 60%, so it will be ~ 1.8 billion people.
4. Since there are other services as well, like onedrive, dropbox etc. so we can
assume the market share to be 70%, so around ~1.25 billion users of Google
Drive
Solution
~ Total users of Google Drive = ~1.25 billion users
177
Question 8: Estimate the market size for driverless cars in

the USA by 2030.[Guesstimate]
Interviewer: Estimate the market size for driverless cars in the USA by 2030.
Shailesh: Ok, before I start solving, I would like to seek some clarification. When
we are talking about market sizing, will it be by revenue or by the total no of users
of the product?
Interviewer: You can assume it to be market sizing by no. of users.
Shailesh: Ok, Since we are talking about 2030, is it safe to assume that the
technological advancements and legalities related to driverless cars will be ready by
then?
Interviewer: Yes, that’s a fair assumption.
Shailesh: When we talk about driverless cars, will they be fully automatic or
semi-automatic?
Interviewer: You can assume it to be fully automatic.
Shailesh: Also, I am assuming the driverless cars will be utilised for personal use
and not commercial use?
Interviewer: Yes.
Shailesh: I will iterate the goal of the problem. We want to estimate the market
size based on the no. of users for fully automatic driverless cars in the USA by
2030, which are meant for personal use.
Now, talking about the approach, I will use to solve the problem.
- Firstly, from the population of the USA, we will find the no. of households
who can afford luxury cars. We will calculate how many of these would be
fully automatic driverless cars from the luxury car owners.
- Using the average lifetime value of a driverless car, we will find no. of such
cars purchased every year.
- Then we will project the no. of driverless cars for 2030 using the data on the
growth rate for driverless cars.
USA’s population: ~ 330 Million
Average household size: 4
No of households in the USA: 330 Million/4 = ~ 80 Million
178
To afford fully automatic cars, people should belong to the high-income and
upper-middle groups.
Distribution of Luxury cars owned by USA households:

● High-income(10%) can afford 2 luxury cars on an average
● Upper-middle-class income(20%) can afford 0.5 luxury cars on an average
● Lower middle-class income(30%) cannot afford luxury cars
● Low income(40%) cannot afford luxury cars
High-income households = 10% of 80 Million = 8 Million

No of luxury cars owned by High-income households = 2*8 Million = 16 Million
Upper-middle-class income households = 20% of 80 Million = 16 Million
No of luxury cars owned by Upper-middle-class households = 0.5*16 Million = 8
Million
Total no. of luxury cars in the USA = 16 Million + 8 Million = 24 Million
I am assuming that out of every 1000 luxury cars, 1 would be a fully automatic
driverless car due to lack of safety and trust in the driverless car technology.
Total no. of driverless cars in the USA currently = 24Million/1000 = 24,000

We are currently in 2022. Assuming that the growth rate of driverless cars will be
20% every year and the average lifetime value for driverless cars = 5 years
Total number of driverless cars in the USA/average lifetime value = 24,000/5 =
4800 = ~5000
Total no. of driverless cars in the USA in 2030 = (1.2)⁸*5000 = ~ 20,000

~ 20,000 driverless cars in the USA in 2030
Interviewer: Thank you.
179
Chapter 11: Conclusion and Next Steps

As we near the end of the Product Management Interview Preparation Guide,
it's essential to reflect on your journey and consider what comes after the
interview process. This chapter serves as a conclusion to your preparation,
offering insights on what to expect and how to proceed.
Reflecting on Your Interview Preparation

Congratulations on reaching this point in your interview preparation journey.
You've delved into the intricacies of Product Management, from
understanding the role to acing interviews with confidence. It's time to
reflect on what you've learned and how you've grown:
- You've gained a deep understanding of Product Management, its core
responsibilities, and the skills required to excel in the role.
- You've explored the intricacies of the interview process, from behavioral
and technical interviews to case studies and product design challenges.
- You've honed your problem-solving skills, analytical thinking, and ability to
communicate your ideas effectively.
What Comes After the Interview?

Your journey doesn't end with the interview. Whether you secure the
position you desire or continue your job search, here are some essential
next steps:
1. Interview Debrief: After each interview, take time to reflect on your
performance. What went well, and where could you improve? Consider
seeking feedback from interviewers if it's offered.
2. Continuous Learning: Product Management is an evolving field. Keep
learning and staying updated on industry trends, new technologies, and best
practices.
3. Networking: Building a strong professional network is invaluable. Attend
industry events, join online communities, and connect with colleagues and
mentors.
180
4. Set Career Goals: Define your short-term and long-term career goals.
What kind of impact do you want to make in Product Management? Use your
interviews as a stepping stone to achieve those goals.
5. Stay Agile: Agile methodologies are often used in Product Management.
Apply agile principles to your career by staying adaptable and open to
change.
6. Mentorship: Consider finding a mentor in the field who can provide
guidance, insights, and career advice.
7. Skill Development: Continuously develop your skills in areas like data
analysis, user research, project management, and communication.
8. Document Your Journey: Keep a record of your achievements, projects,
and learnings. This can be a valuable resource for future job applications and
interviews.
9. Leverage Your Experience: Even if you don't land your dream job right
away, every interview experience is a learning opportunity. Use your
experience to refine your approach and be even better prepared next time.
10. Keep Applying: Persistence is key. If you don't succeed in your first
interview, keep applying and interviewing until you find the right fit.
11. Stay Positive: Job searching can be challenging, but maintaining a
positive outlook and confidence in your abilities is essential. You have the
skills and potential to excel in Product Management.
Remember that Product Management is a dynamic and rewarding field, and

your journey to success may take different paths. Embrace the process,
continue learning, and stay committed to your career goals. Your preparation
has equipped you to take on any challenge that comes your way.
Good luck, and may your Product Management journey be filled with growth
and accomplishment.
181

DOC-20240612-WA0000_240618_085727

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

DOC-20240612-WA0000_240618_085727

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

DOC-20240612-WA0000_240618_085727

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Product

A Practical Industry-Level Guide to

In today's competitive job market, the role of a Product Manager has

This book is designed to be your trusted companion on your journey to

Chapter 1: Introduction to Product Management

The Rising Demand for Product Managers

Skills Required for Success

● Market Insight: Being aware of market trends, competition, and

As we progress through this guide, each of these interview formats will be

In conclusion, the demand for Product Managers is on the rise, driven by

Chapter 2: The Role of a Product Manager

The Crucial Role of a Product Manager

● User-Centric Focus: Keeping the user at the centre of

Challenges Faced by Product Managers

Impact of a Product Manager

● Drive Innovation: PMs are the catalysts for innovation, constantly

In conclusion, the role of a Product Manager is multifaceted, demanding a

Chapter 3: Understanding the Interview Process

The Stages of the Product Management Interview Process

Preparing for the Interview Process

In conclusion, the Product Management interview process is multifaceted,

Additionally, cultural fit plays a vital role, so be prepared to demonstrate

Chapter 4:Case Interviews: Cracking the Product

What Are Case Interviews?

In the context of Product Management, case interviews present a

The Structure of a Case Interview

● Recommendations: Based on your analysis, you provide

Strategies for Cracking the Product Management Case

Preparing for these interviews involves understanding the structure,

Common Mistakes to avoid in Product Management Interview

In conclusion, case interviews are a distinctive and important part of Product

Chapter 5: Product Design Interviews Cases

Product Design Questions

Understanding Product Design Questions

Approach to Product Design Questions

Question 1: Design Lyft for Kids.

Priyanka: Before we proceed, I would like to clarify my understanding of Lyft. So,

Priyanka: Is there any time or resource constraint should I be acquainted with?

Priyanka: Let’s discuss the different user segments

Pain points/Use Cases:

3. As a working parent, I want to ensure my kid is traveling with a trusted

Solutions for the pain points #3:

Prioritization (Impact vs Effort):

Question 2: Design a product that improves the experience

Customer Segments/ Persona

Prioritization of Pain Points

Solutions to Pain points #1

Solution to Pain Points #2

3. Average number of listing of houses by owners per week.

Question 3: Design a library for the future.

User Segment/User Personas

1. As a user, I would want to check beforehand about the availability of

Question 4: Design a Digital shop.

Shailesh: Is this a desktop application or a mobile application? Also, is this a single

User Journey for a Shopkeeper

Question 5: Design Lyft for specially-abled people.

1. Wants to go to a certain location, request some relatives, family members or

Prioritization (Impact vs Effort)

● Solution #2 [High Impact] [Low effort]