Top 100 Product Strategy Questions

w/ Solutions
I am Malay Krishna, director of product management at Vyapar, India's
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List of Questions
1. Should Google enter into the online furniture-selling market?
Clarification questions:
1. What do you mean by online furniture-selling market?
2. Why would google want to do it?
3. Why does google want to do it now?
4. Where does google want to launch it?
Let me make the assumptions answering above questions:

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 1. It is like google flights, say we call it google furnitures, where it organizes,
curates furniture information to the users and then refers to the seller website
instead of selling furniture directly to the consumer like amazon, walmart,
wayfairs of the world do.
2. Google wants to add additional channel to generate revenues through referral
fees and advertisements.
3. Google sees that other brands have become strong brands and users have
started to go to those brands directly and searching for furnitures that may
hurt google search traffic.
4. Google wants to start in the US.
Based on those assumptions:
Let us move ahead and lay out the structure for the answer.
1. Understand product, company, and industry goals
2. Understand the landscape
3. Layout the decision making heuristics
4. Make a decision
5. Evaluate tradeoffs, risks, and alternatives.
6. Google's mission is to organize world's information, make it universally
accessible and useful. So it has products in its portfolio that strengthens that
mission. Google generates revenue through advertisements and referrals.
1. It's strength is to organize the information for the user. For example, it
organizes the internet, emails, videos, flights, apps, and more. If it were
to add furnitures, it can leverage it's current strength.
2. It's weakness has historically been around products that involve
atoms(physical) instead of bits ( digital). I think Google has e-commerce
business. I can't find that in the list of google products. So, it's best to
avoid selling directly.
3. Landscape
1. Let us talk about Porter's five to understand the landscape:
1. Buyers: Consumers buy from the internet. It's known behavior. The
problem for users can be paradox of choices or discovery tool to get
what they want that fits to their budget and taste.

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 2. Suppliers: Google already has an inventor of ads for furnitures that
means google already has acquired the sellers and do business the
sellers. It can be a great value add for the sellers to select directly
using google's portfolio product instead of other third party.
3. New Entrant: Google will be the new entrant in the online furniture
selling world.
4. Competitors: If google were to sell physical furnitures then the
competition would have been really stiff. But it is about curating the
furniture information, all the competitions can become collaborators.
5. Threat of substitution: As already hinted above, if the search is not
strong and not curated, as the brands such as amazon, walmart,
wayfair becomes stronger, google can loose the search volume.
10. Heuristics 2. Let us talk about heuristics 1. Mission Alignment -> Yes 2. Goal
Alignment -> Yes 3. TAM -> TAM is huge in the US alone. 4. Key Values -> For
both users and sellers can be high because google solves discovery
problems for users in a much organized way and for sellers solves customer
acquisition problem. 5. Scalable -> It's a digital product so it's infinitely
scalable to all over the world. Hence it expands the TAM exponentially. 6.
Margin -> Ad is a high margin business. Referral fee can have higher margin
than ads. 7. Risks -> Low; Because it leverages strength and reduces risk
because of threats 8. Costs -> Low; Can be build on top of current
infrastructure 9. Confidence -> High; Very less unknown 10. Flywheel -> It
can create a flywheel effect for other google products such as google pay(
collecting payments using google pay) etc.
11. Decision 3. From the above heuristics it looks like Google should enter the on
line furniture market in a capacity of information organizer and curator not as
in the seller.
12. Let us evaluate the decision.
1. Let us look at the situation when it won't be a good idea to enter or inject
risks:
1. Bad Actor: One bad actor giving a wrong information or fraudulent
information can jeopardize entire business because showing curated
information for the purpose of selling brings additional accountability
than just showing information and ads. It can mitigated using fraud
detection policies and tools.

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 2. Bad User Experience: Indeed, a lot depends upon the user
experience of the product. As furnitures have various types at various
prices, it needs to show the right products that meets users budget,
tastes, and timeline. It can be challenging to create that user
experience. Obviously, google has strengths but not take users for
granted.
3. Mitigate risk through experimentation: Although it may sound a great
business or not, we can't be 100% certain unless we test it. I
recommend running a test. Targeting the segment of the market and
if we can get significant furniture orders ( order rates needs to be
better than conversion from ads rates) to make it viable for sellers.
Google must have the ads rates for each seller and using that as
bench mark order conversion through the google furnitures is
multiple fold better than simply ads then it will be a success.
In summary, Yes, google should enter online furniture market by creating a product
like google flights for furnitures.

2. Should LinkedIn acquire Discord?

Solution: Professionals mainly use LinkedIn to find jobs. Companies list their job
openings to which individuals reply. Discord is on similar lines but not used by
professionals. It is majorly conceived as a gaming platform. It has features like free
text/audio/video calls. Both platforms are used for connecting people. Source of
Revenue for LinkedIn: Job postings & premium. Premium users can send messages
an unlimited number of times to companies. Companies are charged for posting
jobs on Linkedln. Acquiring discord can be beneficial. Companies can be charged
for interviewing the candidates on LinkedIn using discord channels. Each company
can have its channel personalized channel enabling easier management. It is more
convenient for users to maintain different company discord channel links for job
interviews than Zoom links. The perception of discord is very different compared to
LinkedIn. Discord's cash cows are its nitro subscription packages & developers
self-publishing games. These are the clash of interests. Companies may be
hesitant to adapt to this. The UI of Discord can also be complicated for new users.
If linked acquires discord it should not indulge in brand extension.
3. Should Google go into the ridesharing market?

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I have 3 reasons why Google should not get into ridesharing business at this point
and a exception.
Reason 1: Current market
With major players like Uber and Lyft occupying around 90% of the market, current
ridesharing business market is already crowded. These companies have been
around for 6-7 years and users already formed the user habit of using either Uber
or Lyft when they need a car to go somewhere. If Google enters the market now,
new user acquisition may require Google to run lots of subsidy on the rides, which
may makes the ROI not looking promising.
Reason 2: Alphabet investment
I believe Alphabet, Google's parent company, has investments on both Uber and
Lyft thru GV and CapitalG investment. Google has gained quite a lot through these
investments. Given that, it is less incentive to Google to get into Ridesharing
business, unless Google can innovate the business model significantly.
Google's Mission
Google's mission is to organize world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful. High level speaking, this is not quite the same as what
ridesharing does.
Exception: Google/Alphabet can consider do some exploratory work on ridesharing
business by Waymo, formerly Google Self-driving car project.
Taking rideshare car or taxi using a self-driving car is essentially changing the
current uber/lyft business model. Current business model involves drivers as
independent contractors and uber/lyft takes money from user and pay some
portion of it to drivers. Using self-driving cars essentially cut the cost from the
driver side. But this new model also involves new cost like hardware maintenance
and CapEx, etc.
4. How would you increase the number of users on Youtube?
Clarifying question:
When you say users, what specific metric are we talking about? Answer: we want
to increase # of daily active users. Assume active users are logged in users.

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Is there a region that we have in mind for this increase? Assume no, we want to
think about globally
Is there a specific device (mobile vs desktop) ? Assume no
Approach: I want to first think about Youtube, its mission and current business at a
high level. . Then I want to think about the current ecosystem on video streaming
and understand competitive forces. Then I’ll think about use cases of video
streaming and determine a specific segment to target. I’ll talk about their pain
points, and based on those, come up with possible solutions.
Mission and Current Business : Youtube's mission is "to give everyone a voice and
show them the world. We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that
the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our
stories”. Youtube has been very successful: currently over 2 Billion logged in users
visit YouTube each month. Youtube has global presence and has local versions in
more than 100 countries.
Ecosystem
When I think about all the video streaming content in Youtube there, I can think of
the following use cases
Entertainment (movies, music, concerts, live entertainment, comedy)
Education
Gaming
News
Hobbies (cooking, etc)
Shopping
In each of these, areas, there are various competitors to Youtube. Some examples
are: Entertainment (netflix, amazon prime, hulu). Gaming (twitch). But when it
comes to content created by individuals or small businesses, youtube is the leader.

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At a high level, 3 strategies for increasing the # of users could be
find untapped markets in the world and launch YouTube local in those markets.
This will bring more users.
Note: given that it’s already launched in 100 countries, doesn’t look like there’s a
huge additional potential there.
find new types of content that current users are interested in and offer them in
Youtube.
Note: I can’t think of any content that isn’t represented in Youtube. Maybe there
are a few areas but doesn’t seem big gap.
find ways to bring current users to Youtube more often, increase engagement.
Note: The approach here would be making the content more engaging so more
users return
I’d like to focus on the 3rd strategy here: " find ways to increase engagement of the
existing users".
When I think about youtube’s mission of “...show them the world” and I think about
the use cases we talked about, I see a lot of synergy and also an unmet need in the
“Education” use case.
The other use cases like entertainment, gaming, news have a lot of competition
and as a user, you can find this content easily.
Youtube does a good job on hobbies, and any hobbies can go and find content on
YouTube.
Same with shopping: if you want to buy anything there are tons of reviews on
youtube you can watch.
But when I think of Education, I think of a structured way of learning something
new that you didn’t know. Youtube has tremendous content where people teach
others how to do things. When was the last time you heard the statement “I
learned it on youtube”? I bet it was very recent. Everyday people go to youtube

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for learning a skill. There are a lot of people who also teach skills, think about all
the cooking, knitting, instrument playing vidoes you have seen.
But there are pain points that are associated with this experience. If, as a user, I’m
looking to learn how to do something here are my pain points:
I don’t know which content I can trust to learn the skill. I have to watch multiple
videos and find the one that “makes sense to me”. I have no idea if it’s going to
work or not.
If I want to learn a skill that is going to take a few months, I don’t know where to go.
I want to learn something that is comprehensive. (let’s say I want to learn Thai
cooking, where do I start?)
If I find something good, and I start learning it, if I have questions, it’s hard to ask
the creator, because it will be lost in the comments and i may not get an answer.
I can’t keep track of my progress easily.
Solution ideas
Give tools and templates to the content creators to make their videos more
education oriented. The creators can create a “Youtube Class” and organize their
content into chapters. For each chapter, they can define learning goals, the pre
requisites or tools needed. This will be a lightweight way of creating a “class” on
youtube.
Live chat experience between content creator and consumer: The educational
content creators can have "office hours” and can connect with their students in a
live chat environment where they can answer any questions.
A class rating mechanism where users can rate the class in several dimensions
“Knowledge of instructor”, “Ease of understanding”, etc. This will help users to find
classes that they can trust that will have high quality content.
Recommended classes: based on people’s interest, Youtube can curate a list of
recommended classes for them and send them information about it. These will be
from trusted educators who have received high ratings.

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Reminders: tracking where people left off a class and sending them reminders to
come back to finish the class.
In terms of priority, I’d prioritize solution 1 as the first thing that would have to be
built as a foundation. After that, based on pain points and level of effort, I’d
prioritize 3, 2, 5, 4 in this sequence.
Tradeoffs:
we need to make sure the tools for creators aren’t too confusing and be a barrier.
to eliminate any spam, we may need to require people to "subscribe to class” and
only after that make the videos available. (can always show a preview before
subscribing)
we need to make sure the live chats are monitored and only attended by the
subscribers of the class
5. You are a PM for Gmail. How would you react to a competing product?
Few clarifying questions here
Is the competitor a service and does it have other offerings as well? Is it
charging $5 for a service or only email?
Is it for a specific platform here? Or does it include all platforms?
Does the competitor have a huge market share/or is it a small company?
Let's assume it's only for email's
The structure I would want to layout for knowing what to do next for Gmail
would be the following - Mission, Goals, Google's revenue model, Customer
Profiles using Gmail, Solution in terms of what Gmail can do & success
metrics.
Mission :

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The mission of Google is to organize the world's information and make it
universally accessible and useful.
Goals :
To make email simple and intuitive.
To provide a seamlessly integrated experience across Google Services.
Google's Revenue Model :
When we look at Google's revenue model almost 60%+ revenue comes
across from online ads.
Currently, online ads are a part of Gmail, and given that 1.5 Billion active users
use it we do generate a lot of revenue from the same.
Customer Profile :
Enterprise User's - This set of user's pay a certain amount ($25 upwards
depends on the size of the company) to use Google Services. This includes
Gmail as well.
Free User's - This set of users don't pay to use Gmail, they can use Gmail but
get ads while using the experience.
Solutions :
I would like to focus on the free user's here as enterprise users are already
paying an amount to use the service.
Acquiring more users - This is a golden opportunity to acquire more users. I
would definitely go forward and make targeted ads to poach users from the
other service to Gmail.
Acquiring more users - Once we have more users we can make a higher
revenue automatically as more ads impressions and clicks as we will have a
higher user base (DAU/MAU/WAU).
Improving ads - As mentioned earlier as Google makes most of its revenue
through online ads, I will be sticking to keep Gmail free. As Gmail has over
1.5B users we can definitely work on getting our ads better and personalized.

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 Improving ads - Even if the CTR and impressions go up by 10% we can make
a lot of money. Improving ads can happen over UX/Technology in terms of
how it's represented to a user.
Improving ads - We can also integrate ads in Gmail's search box to ensure if
people search tickets/shopping we can show them more relevant links on
that.
Personalized Bots- By introducing personalized bots on the Google hangout
chats for more personalized services through which users can get more
informed about services they desire to use.
Personalized Bots - They can also be used to book cab services/shopping
from aggregators like Uber/lyft/amazon and we will charge a small referral fee
for doing this.
All of the above solutions nicely tie down to our goals and we will still keep
the service free.
Tradeoffs :
I would like to start off with acquiring users first this is going to be extremely
beneficial in the long run to gain market share and become the leader in this
segment.
The flip side to this is users might see this as opportunistic and might think of
it is as negative PR and we might lose users.
On the second solution of improving ads, I feel we can definitely get more
clicks if the UX and personalization are even made better. As a result more $$
per user.
The flip side is to personalize ads we need more data and we need to be able
to have a fine balance between how much data we ask from the user.
Bots are a new concept and will be much faster to execute any task as we can
define preset recommendations.
The downside is discoverability and how many people use it.
Success Metrics
DAU/WAU/MAU increase QoQ/YoY
$$ increase per user.
CTR for ads
Impression for ads.

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6. If you were the CEO of Microsoft, how would you increase usage for
Internet Explorer?
Clarification questions:
7. What does an increase in usage mean? Microsoft wants to grow its market
share in the browser segment
8. Why do you want to increase the usage? Increase in IE usage would increase
Bing advertising revenue
9. Are you targeting any specific platforms to increase usage in? You tell me
10. Are there any geo's of specific interest? worldwide
11. Would it be fair to assume that the increase in usage is represented with an
increase in the metrics - "Increase in no. of requests" and "Avg.frequency of
usage" Yes
Platforms: There are three major platforms: Desktop/laptops/tablets, mobile, other
internet-enabled devices (smartwatches, cars, tv etc)
Of the available platforms I would pick desktop/laptops/tablets for two reasons:
7. >80% of them have windows software installed, IE is available by default -
ease of access is high
8. Mobile is crowded and fiercely dominated by safari and chrome - not a great
market to venture into
9. The segment TAM though growing in low single digits, it is significant
Users: I want to segment the users and focus on a specific segment
I would like to segment the users based on age into Millennials, Gen X, Baby
Boomers. I would like to focus on baby boomers as they are more likely to use the
desktop/laptop platform and use the defaults available.
Re-framing the question: Increase the no. of requests and avg. frequency of usage
of IE on desktops/laptops/tablets worldwide in the baby boomers segment ->
Become a leader in this segment.
SWOT analysis of Microsoft in this segment:

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Strength:
7. Default browser - no necessity to download
8. Competitive parity with other browsers for this segment use cases
Weakness:
7. No differentiation - no compelling reason to use or stick to IE
8. low switching costs
Opportunity:
7. The large initial user base
Threat:
7. Users moving to mobile platforms
From SWOT analysis - creating product differentiation could be the highest impact
on IE usage
User pain points/needs:
7. Baby Boomers stay by themselves or in senior communities - desire to
communicate with others as they feel lonely at times
8. Not technology-savvy - need things to be very intuitive
9. Have poor eyesight - cannot stare at the screen for long and prefer the larger
font size
10. Have a few vital activities in a day - taking medication, minimum exercise,
meals
IE today does not solve any of these problems and if we can solve these problems
through IE, it would provide a differentiation and long-term strategic advantage in
this segment. The trade-off is that educating the non-tech savvy segment about
product benefits is a challenge.
Solutions:

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 7. Voice operated Browser & Content reader: IE to have a voice to text and text
to voice conversion mechanism inbuilt into the browser, a big icon, just beside
the favorites, Baby boomers instead of typing can use voice commands to
navigate to websites, or other searches. The same feature to be used to read
out the article on the web page, easing the strain on eyes.
8. Social share: voice based sharing - "send this to Tara" - the browser
automatically sends the article as an email to Tara. Tara can have the article
read out to her if she is using IE.
9. Entertain me - An AI-powered feature that is tuned to personal interests and
can open and read relevant content from the web. Imagine an assistant that
will read only certain articles (sports, movies, local news) from selected
websites.
Prioritize solutions and develop a robust GTM plan in geography. Test the feature
with a significant impact on usage and roll out the feature worldwide.
In addition to the product features, there should be significant investment in
marketing through the right channels, and key partnerships to reach the users.

7. What's the biggest threat to YouTube?

YT threats →. Let's define threat - activities that reduce actual or growth rate for
user base / watch time / $
7. User - what impacts user base, users’ watch time (why would users not use
YT anymore?)
1. Competition - all apps that compete for users' time spent on digital
entertainment (VOD, social media apps like tiktok, vMVPDs)
2. Safety, trust, privacy, digital well being
3. No relevant content
4. Distribution - platform bans, distribution deals falling through (eg smart
TVs)
5. New tech trends eg metaverse resulting in lower time spent on media
apps
12. Creators - what impact content created on YT → impacts watch time (why
would creators not add more content, or leave YT)

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 1. Competition - better incentives provided by competing apps, comptt
making it easier to create content, creators (esp large ones) creating their
own apps
2. Financial reasons (Revenue sharing)
3. Small creators not growing
10. Advertisers -- what reduces ads expenditure by advertisers → reduced
revenue (why would advertisers leave YT)
1. Competition
2. Low ROI
3. Brand safety
10. Regulatory
What helps YT / strengths?
7. Moat - user base + UGC that exists on platform, evergreen, difficult to
replicate
8. Achieved network effects / flywheel for new content
9. Innovation - shorts, stories, TV
10. Focus on user safety, trust
8. Amazon is launching free storage for photos. If you're a Google PM for
Photos, what would you do?
7. Clarifying questions,
What customer segment is Amazon launching the new photos feature? is it
for prime members only or anyone? are there overlaps between the two target
segments?
What market? what is the price point ?
What is included in the plan?
What is the schedule for this launch?
Perform a SWOT analysis for this ?
How does Amazon benefit from this new service?
7. Perform competitive analysis to gather the details. Here's what I found
Amazon is launching this product to existing and new prime members
Amazon is using this service as value add for prime subscription, which helps
to attract and retain prime members. Amazon is not a direct threat, but could
hurt the Google photos growth
Amazon has included 5 GB Free storage for media

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 7. Compare and contrast G photos with Amazon photos, to identify any
advantage/gaps across feature, pricing
8. Estimate the revenue impact from launch of the new service - Loss of LTV
due to increase in churn among existing customers, Increase in CAC for new
customers
9. Assuming the LTV impact high enough to consider counter strategies
6 Consider 4-P strategies,
Product strategy: Create stickiness - Increase the storage level for all existing and
new member, well above the amazon level - Additional product bundle - superb
editor, photo organization feature etc. - Enhance product - incorporate AI in image
processing, classification and cataloging
Pricing strategy - Consider matching the price (if the threat is significant)
Promotion strategy - Promotional discounts for new & existing customers (E.g. $1
per month for first 3 months) - 'Amazon Prime' member specific promotional
discount
Positioning strategy: - Google Photos is meant for everyone and not only for
Amazon users. Continue to place to product on the lines of organizing world
information and accessible for everyone - Work the product analyst and
influencers to tout the benefits of G Photos of Amazon
7. Define product strategy and product roadmap to execute plan
8. What does success look like?
Retain existing customers and maintain the new customer acquisition
rate, post Amazon photos launch
9. Risk
By overestimating the competition from Amazon, we might be incurring
additional marketing and operation cost
Amazon prime customers would still find the Amazon Photos feature
appealing, due all-in-one solution perception
Amazon has deep pockets and may compete heavily to gain market
share, if Amazon Photos is critical piece to their overall business strategy
9. How should Google enter the streaming space?

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Clarifying questions: · Is this movie streaming space like Netflix or a sports
streaming place like FuboTV? · Since its new market entry is it safe to assume user
acquisition or user engagement as a goal?
Assumption: Google is not getting into Cloud game streaming since they recently
discontinued Stadia.
The plan: Here is how I would structure my answer, I will talk for a bit about
Google’s Vision and context and then talk a bit about Streaming Industry while
talking about competition in this space as a whole, then talk about the users and
the strategic advantages and risks Google has to get into Streaming space.
Vision and Mission: Google is world’s largest data aggregator 90% of their
business comes from ad revenues from Search, YouTube, and Programmatic ads
as per their SEC filings. Another key strategic advantage that Google has over
other tech companies is, they own Android which is the OS of choice for several
hardware vendors that include the largest mobile phone manufacturer Samsung to
Motorola’s and Nokia’s. 75 % of worlds mobile operating system is Google’s
android. Google is a true leader in the ad tech industry driving ad revenues from a
suite of ad products like Search, Display programmatic ads.
Industry and Competition The streaming industry is an extremely competitive
industry with technically zero barriers for entry for competition, substitutes, i.e.,
any tech company could come up with a streaming service these days due to the
development of CDNs with points of access across the globe. Streaming charges
have comedown drastically in the recent decade too, hence a decade ago, what
Netflix has perfected is now available with Amazon (Prime), Hulu, HBO, Disney
Plus, Apple TV, Peacock TV etc. This industry is primarily driven by two factors. ·
The ability to have great content · The ability to entertain and retain users on the
platform One of the key recent trends is, providers like Netflix are also losing out
on subscribers and Netflix recently had to offer a lower price version that would run
ads. Another major problem this industry faces is password sharing which leads to
loss in revenue generating users. The primary revenue model still is subscription
price added with ad revenue.
What we covered so far: We spoke about Google and its mission and the Streaming
Industry and context around it in the current world. It would be good to cover now

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where consumers are with respect to entertainment and what key strategic
advantages google has to enter into Streaming business.
Consumers Consumers today use a variety of channels for entertainment, an
average consumer probably has at least 4 subscriptions that they take. Companies
like Netflix and Amazon are always trying to get good shows and provide timely
notifications to consumers to make them spend more time on their platforms
because every minute spent on a competitor’s platform is a minute loss of our
platforms. In addition to this consumer also have Social media video platforms like
TikTok and Instagram reels where they spend a ton of time. With the above
context, consumers still see YouTube not as a short form video platform but as a
platform that provides mid-tier videos, i.e., videos that are not of production high
quality at the same time videos that are not as short as TikTok’s. Consumers come
to YouTube to not just get entertained but get educated watch news shows,
cooking videos, make up, fitness videos etc.
Strategic Advantages One of the major advantages google has is they already have
a video product in their family (YouTube) that is generating $30 billion in ad
revenue each year. Another strategic advantage they have is the product is
available for free on 85% of mobile phones on the globe. In addition to that
YouTube is slowly launching different variants of products like YouTube music to
compete with products like Spotify, YouTube for Kids for education. Although
Google had a misstep with Stadia the online game streaming service, in the video
streaming space Google has some great strategic advantages with respect to
availability of technical infrastructure and talent.
Restating the problem We must determine how should google enter the streaming
business and acquire users?
Solutions: Here are two options that Google could opt for to get into streaming
business.
Solution 1: · Partner with other smaller streaming services and offer them as part of
YouTube premium. This is a low-risk item that could be experimented in a limited
launch to see how successful YouTube is to get users to spend time on its platform
to watch long form high production value content. Goal to measure: o Increase in
Signups for YouTube premium after declaring partnerships. o Time spent on
partners shows. Solution 2: · Partner with studios for getting exclusive rights for

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content and spin up “YouTube Next Gen” as a platform for high production value
content like shows and movies with a small subscription price for being ad free.
This is a bigger risk item considering there is development effort needed to spin up
a separate platform and there is also considerable effort to acquire exclusive
content rights. At the end of the day this may switch some users from Netflix and
other platforms to our service. Goal to measure: o MAU’s on “YouTube Next Gen” o
Time spent on YouTube Next Gen.
Proposal: Considering the low risk of Solution 1 and the ability to still generate
subscription revenues and ad revenues, and the possibility of user switch in
Solution 2 might be minimal since these days a lot of consumers have more than
one subscription. I believe Solution 1 is the right way to go

10. Should Samsung enter the gaming console market?

Clarifying Questions: Does a "console" require new hardware or can we leverage
existing tech? (I'll let you decide). Is there a specific geography we are targeting?
(You can decide).
OK, first I'll talk about the market segments in terms of users and the various
products they have adopted. Next, I'll discuss Samsungs strengths and
weaknesses, market trends as a whole, then competitors. I'll extract a series of
insights from this set of information and make a yes/no recommendation, and a
GTM plan if we get there.
The market breaks down in to what I think are three areas
7. Casual single player gamers, who occasionally may play online. They might
range from children to young adults.
8. Professional or highly competitive gamers.
9. "Social gamers" - gamers who specifically aim to play to play with friends,
whether they be friends in real life or via gaming community.
2 is the smallest but with the highest levels of engagement per user. 1 is the
largest, but 2 is specifically gaining ground due to social freemium gaming like
Clash of Clans or social media gaming like Roblox.

19
Next, there are a series of products that address this. I will try to break them down
in a mutually exclusive and exhaustive manner similar to the user segments.
1- Handheld gaming: Nintendo Switch, phone app gaming 2- A/R gaming -
Facebook Oculus, as well as headware for phones that support VR gaming. This is
technically part of "handheld/mobile" (as there are no products for console
gaming) 3- Consoles: Think playstation 5 and xbox One. Hooked up to a seperate
screen and generally stationary. Arcade games could be another product but we
will exclude that for now.
Now we know our markets and products. Let's talk about Samsung specifically.
Samsung Strengths: 1- Either heavily integrated or easily influenced supply chain.
Samsungs has many hardware product lines and either owns manufacturing or
likely has a high degree of bargaining power with whatever third party
manufacturers they do use. 2- Samsung already has huge market reach via
phones, televisions, and other tools with their strong product lines Samsung
Weaknesses 1- Console development requires hardware specialization. 2- Gaming
ecosystem can require a network effect to delight some users in some market
segments 3 - Game development requires willing and able game development
studios or costly in house efforts or acquisitions.
Market Strenghts 1- Tailwind for pandemic induced "new gamers" or reactivated
gamers 2- Mobile + AR/VR gaming are in various stages of hypergrowth. Mobile is
later on the time scale and AR/VR could follow a similar pattern. Competitors 1-
Nintendo has specifically pivoted into the handheld market and generally targets
casual gamers as far as I know. Certainly not professional gamers. (DOTA,
Battlefield, Halo are typical candidates for this) 2- Facebook has specifically
targeted the AR/VR market. They have a handheld console specific to gaming. 3-
Apple has a huge app store with many games. Key to mention that Samsung has
successfully targeted a larger, less-luxury-apt market segment than Apple who
targets an upmarket audienece 4 - Sony/XBOX - Hugely successful console games
to the point there are virtually no competitors and they essentially define "next-
gen" when they want. 5 - PC gaming and PC vendors
I will extract key insights and make a statement on the most attractive market
segment for samsung, he AR/VR market is nascent but exploding. There is one
major player (FB, Oculus) in the market that is targeting a segment of users who

20
are willing to buy a seperate device for gaming. The barrier to entry into this
market is high. See Samsung weaknesses, there is a cost associated with hardware
developement and a third-party ecosystem that needs to thrive (gaming studios)
OR an additional cost to stand those up on our own. Because of this, lets
decompose our previous market segments from AR/VR into 1) AR/VR console and
2) AR/VR mobile gaming. Lets target the latter. Now, Samsung is strong here
because of 1) a captive ecosystem of app developers, 2) a captive market segment
when compared to its competitor (AAPL - as discussed above, targets a different
segment), and 3) influence on the supply chain.
Therefore, Samsung can build a phone that more readily supports AR/VR mobile
gaming by optimizing cost via supply chain, and leveraging captive app developers
and will continue to sell to Samsung phone buyers. The problem then of course
becomes activation and gaming adoption rather than "consoles sold".
The new gaming landscape will break out like:
FB will target console-specific upmarket AR/VR buyers. AAPL COULD target non-
console specific upmarket AR/VR mobile buyer SAM will target non-console
specific upmarket AR/VR mobile buyer XBOX/PS5 will continue dominating true
console space.
So no competitors doing what we are specifically doing. Good!
Users Pro Gamers - likely use PS5/XBOX and PC Casual Gamers - will break out
equally across all available products (requires more breakdown) Social Gamers -
will continue using online gaming avail. on XBOX/PS5, or social gaming apps.
Notes 1- Risk of AR/VR not taking off 2- User segmentation could be more helpful
upon reflection, social and casual gamers sort of break out equally across all
segments. Could analyze more, but I don't believe it changes the recommendation
of NO GO into console market (and go into AR enabled phone for new AR gaming
apps)

11. How would you monetise Facebook Dating?

Facebook Dating

21
 Sign up for a dating profile if you have FB account
You see profiles of others who signed up
It’s presented in a form browse cards
Like or Not like profile
Like + Like = Match = Unlocks to exchange messages
Meetup + Date
Facebook Dating - Helping people meet to date -> potential connections or long-
term partner or marriage
Users
Just to date / meet new people
Look for a meaningful relationship
Look for marriage or partnership
Exchange conversation with interesting people
Focus: love / meaningful relationship / long-term partner / marriage
Needs / Pain Points:
Delight customers and monetise
Psychological support
Life coach
Dating coach
Confidence Boost
Personality Coaching
Dating advice or tips
Fashion Makeover
Need Inspiration on What to Do on Dates
Restaurants
Attraction
Safety
The person is not a serial killer
They want to impress their date
Sending flowers

22
 Romantic gestures through gifts
Send a serenade that person
Brainstorm Ideas
7. Partner with Life Coaches or Dating Coaches (Provide their services online -
Have 1:1 video call for a fee to get advice) - Charge a commission
1. Facebook Pay - easily facilitate
2. Video Messenger - tool to have conversation
9. Partner with Fashion Consultants - they can offer their services (setup an
appointment with fashion consultant) - charge a commission
1. Facebook Pay
2. Video Messenger
9. Provide a gateway for businesses to sell their products services (Book
restaurant, buying movie tickets, zoo tickets)
1. Commission based
2. Targeted ads
9. Provide gateway for shops (Commission based)
1. Have flowers delivered to somebody
2. Purchase gifts
9. Facebook can verify if users have no police record (Background check badge)
1. Verified Badge for a Fee
Recommendation
7. Allow for businesses or coaches to post ads in Facebook Dating (Ad Revenue)
8. Life coaches / Fashion consults (commission charging)
9. Sell tickets (commission)
10. Deliver goods, gifts flowers (commission)
11. Verified User Badge - increase their chance securing a meetup
Measure Success
Leading Metrics:
7. Impressions on Ads
8. Clicks on Ads (Providing relevant services/content)
9. Bookings/Purchases

23
Watch Out For:
7. Retention (1 week)
8. Match Rate
Lagging Metric:
7. Total revenue
Pitfalls:
7. To ensure that the ads doesn’t discourage users to come back in the platform
8. They may opt to pay outside Facebook
1. Agreement with merchants /businesses to give services at a discounted
price
2. Facebook Dating reward points - future purchase
12. Why is Android strategic for Google?
Google’s Mission:
Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible.
Google offers perhaps the most consequential set services available on the
internet today - Search, Maps, Gmail, Drive, Docs, etc. These services reach
billions of users across the world and they are all available for free. Google is able
to give away these services for free because of how their business model works.
Google’s Business Model:
Google makes money from Ads. They offer perhaps the most sophisticated ad
targeting available in the market today. The Ads business generates ~$100B in
revenue per year. They are able to do this because they track user behavior on the
web and are able to build behavior models that predict buying patterns. The more
people use Google products, the better the behavior pattern predictors become.

24
This type of information is incredibly valuable to advertisers. This entire business
model is contingent on people increasing their usage of Google products and
Google being able to track user behavior.
Market Trends:
Since the launch of smartphones, most internet consumption has moved to mobile.
Everything from browsing, messaging, email (work and personal), etc is
predominantly done on mobile. Internet commerce is also on a dramatic rise -
some analysts predict that it will overtake web-based e-commerce in the next few
years. Advertisers are seeing these trends and increasingly allocating their ad-
spend dollars toward mobile-based ads.
Before Android, the smartphone market was predominantly controlled by Apple,
RIM, and Nokia. The phones offered by these three companies were expensive and
a large portion of the global market could not benefit from the smartphone
revolution. This is where Google completely changed the game. They partnered
with device manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Huawei, etc. and offered the Android
OS for free. Due to this, the device manufacturers could offer phones at a
significantly less price than those of Apple, RIM, and Nokia.
Android saw rapid adoption in the lower end smartphone market and today
controls ~60% of the global smartphone market.
So why is Android Important to Google?
Android did quite a few things for Google’s mission and business model:
Brought on billions of new users into the Google ecosystem
Google is now able to track users on mobile and build better Ad targeting
Led to new products like location contextual ads
Gave google an entry into third world countries
Most people in third world countries could not afford a computer
But a lot of people in these countries can afford a $50 Android phone
Revenue sharing with Device Manufacturers
Android unlocked an additional revenue stream for google via their
partnership with device manufacturers
Google Play

25
 This attracted millions of developers plugging into the google ecosystem
Each app pays Google a 30% cut of its app revenues; another revenue
stream****
Summary:
Android gives google insight into how people are using the web on mobile. This
makes for better Ad targeting and makes the existing business model more robust.
Since Google makes more money, they can offer even more services to even more
people across the world.

14. Why is Google well positioned for emerging markets?

First of all, I’d like to identify what is Google’s business model and Google’s
presence in the emerging market. I can categorize 3 main buckets. Consumer,
developer, enterprise business.
Google mainly offers a free Android OS platform and several services; such as
Gmail, Google Map, Youtube, and Search engine for consumers business. The
consumer can use those free services in exchange for providing data. That is the
main hook for the ads revenues.
For the developer’s segment, Google provides free tools and supporting libraries.
The more Android platform is penetrating, the more the developer gets attracted to
produce applications/services on Google’s platform.
Google offers several services for the enterprise segment. Google Cloud, Google G
Suite, etc. It is still behind Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure. Google start investing
more heavily in this area to catch up with competitors.
Since the main revenue is from Ads revenue, let’s focused on consumer business
at this time.
At the emerging market, the majority of consumer needs affordable low cost / no
cost goods and services due to low income. Google’s free offers match what
customers need in the emerging market.

26
Of course, Google is not winning all the competition. For example, SNS, payment is
the weak points. However, since Google is winning Mobile OS platform penetration,
Google has a strong position in the emerging markets.
Let’s break down a more detailed analysis.
Competiton:
Platform: Android OS vs iOS, macOS, MS, others.
Browser: Chrome vs IE, Firefox, Safari, etc.
Search engine: Google Search vs Microsoft Bing, Yahoo Search, etc.
Email service: Gmail vs Outlook(Hotmail), Yahoo email, etc.
Video: YouTube vs Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, etc.
Social Media: Google + vs Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Twitter, TikTok, and
other
SWOT Analysis
Strength:
It used to be browser war. Google used to compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer
since Microsoft Windows OS dominate the platform. Currently, the smartphone is
taking over the OS platform ecosystem. The free Android OS with affordable
devices starts penetrating emerging markets rapidly competing with luxury iOS
devices.
The consumer uses the Android OS, with free services including the Chrome
browser, Gmail, Google Map, Google Docs, YouTube, etc, Google is winning the
majority area of the competitions.
Weakness:
Google+ failed to build a Social Network. Facebook, Twitter, other social network
services platforms is a strong presence not only in an emerging market but also in
developed countries too. Google will miss the ads revenue opportunities for those
wall-guarded social networks.

27
Another weakness is physical presence. Microsoft has windows, offices, and
Surface devices, and the Xbox game console. Apple has iPhone, iPad, Macbook.
However, Google does not have a strong branding image with physical devices.
Opportunities:
Smartphone penetration in emerging markets is still growing. For example, it still
around 50% of smartphone penetration in India. Also, since the high-speed
internet infrastructure is not well developed, 5G will be a huge opportunity to
expand the emerging market.
Threat:
Since Google failed in the China market for search, email, youtube, the Chinese
Android device manufacturers start copying & modifying Android OS and App
marketplace. If those manufacturers start pushing their own OS with affordable
devices to the rest of the emerging market, they might take over the Android OS
platform, GooglePlay Appstore.
Summary:
Since Google dominates the smartphone OS/platform market share in the
emerging market, its core business, ads revenue will be growing. Also, more
developers will attract on the largest platform to develop great apps/services. That
creates a great ecosystem. The threat is in Chinese smartphone vendors create
their own OS and start selling to those emerging markets. However, competing
with Google’s security support, developer’s support, cutting edge new technology,
it’s not easy to copy by Chinese manufacturers and win consumer’s trust.
The weakness is Social Network. There are new SNS born every year and its high
competition. The consumers might not stick with one platform longer. Even though
Google+ failed SNS presence, the Google search engine dominates the market
since it’s built-in Android OS platform. The main revenue from the advertisement is
well guarded with the platform.
Therefore, Google is well-positioned in the emerging market.

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15. Imagine you're the PM for WhatsApp. What would you prioritize for the
upcoming quarter?
Before diving into answering this, I would like to ask some clarifying questions -
7. High Level - What is the mission, goal, target for this year for WhatsApp?
1. Assumption answer - 10X growth in users
8. Do we have any road map where we can see it with more details?
1. Yes we wish, it is kind of all over the place
8. Do you know how far we have come from the start of the year to achieve that
target?
1. Yeah we have done some progress but not much
8. Which quarter are we in?
1. Q2
8. And can I assume if I am the PM of the entire WhatsApp? or a feature or a
team?
1. The entire WhatsApp
Okay just to summarise I am the PM of the entire WhatsApp, this year we are
targeting 10X new users to be added, we are in Q2, and in Q1 we have not done
much in terms of growth towards the target.
I want to know more why could not we achieve in Q1
7. What was decided for Q1
1. Oh it was basically fixing bugs
8. Were they user-oriented or tech debt?
1. Tech Debt
8. Are now better placed in terms of scalability - what exactly debt we have
taken off
1. Yes it was scalability focus tech debt
Okay great
Let's look at the current areas where we can grow and grab the opportunities. Let's
look at the users, their pain points and find the market op there
User Segmentation by usage

29
 7. Individual
1. Group
8. Business
I believe we already give alot of features to Individual users, but if we can come up
with enhanced Business features, we can bring alot of users to interact with
Whatsapp as their premium Business Interactive medium.
Pain Points
7. Whatsapp for business is still pretty much a chat feature
8. It either does not or has a very limited chatbot or auto-reply functionality
9. You do not have a business listing in WhatsApp
Prioritization
If I think from a development perspective, 3 months = 6 sprints at max an MVP +
Ver 1 if we can pull it off. So I would choose an option of solution with Effort and
Value weighted value the max.
Solutions
7. Integrate FB page business listings
1. Bring in minimum info acc to the WhatsApp UI
2. Should be readily available and shareable
9. Business's own chat bot
1. Ask them min questions to start with
2. As the chats go along with user and business, detect standard questions
and use the moment to prompt business to turn into auto reply
9. Use FB geolocation search for whatsapp to find businesses and chat with
them
10. Add these features to Whatsapp for Business API
Solutions ordered by priority
7. Business's own chat bot
8. Integerate FB page business listing as per Whatsapp UI

30
 9. Features to API
10. FB geolocation - discovery
MVP - 3 Months
7. Business's own chat bot
Metrics
7. DAU interacting with Businesses via whatsapp
8. Businesses using Chatbot
9. Businesses adding new questions into their library
10. Suggestions by AI
11. Suggestions accepted to add answers in library by businesses
12. Conversations done on the AI questions
13. Feedback of the chatbot from User and Businesses
14. Users dropout without replying to the first answer
16. If you were a PM at Google Cloud, what's the one product you would
prioritize building?
Form what I know I would state the following two points:
Only 20% of google's $180B revenue comes from non-ad revenue sources.
Google Cloud is a big part of Google's revenue diversification efforts. Google
cloud at $13B is still under 10% of total revenue.
Google cloud is at position 3 compared after Amazon AWS and Microsoft
Azure. Typically only top 2 platforms take majority of stake in a lot of
businesses.
Google Cloud's Goal: Become one of the top two Cloud platforms in the world by
deeply understanding and addressing customer needs as world gets digitised and
contribute significant revenue to Google.
And then I start by asking the following questions What are Google Clouds existing
offerings?
Google Compute

31
 Google Storage
Google AI & ML
What are customer pain points with Compute? What are customer pain points with
Storage? What are customer pain points with AI&ML?
Google AI& ML is the best out there and very effectively competes are outdoes the
competition in that space. So if I have to prioritise only one product in GC, I would
not look here immediately.
I then categorise Pain points in Compute & Storage as follows
Compute
Gaps in the ability to address customer use cases
Implementation Problems / Time to Value
Ongoing Maintenance (Simple vs Complex)
Ability to expand without issues into multiple business lines as customers go
digital across the enterprise
Storage
Object storage
File storage and ease of access
Data Archival needs
Data processing & Access Technologies
I would check if there are any obvious gaps / pain points in the above areas. With
the above enquiry I will understand if there is a need to build a product /solution in
the basic set of capabilities needed to become one of the top 2 cloud platforms in
the world.
Next, I would go to following two points, Success in the big cloud business
depends on
Ability to Migrate customers from other clouds to Google Cloud
Ability to work along with other clouds in Hybrid Cloud scenario.

32
I don't see Google Cloud Migrate as a separate offering, so if there are any gaps
there, I would pick that as a potential product to prioritise.
Then I would check if there are any Gaps in the Google Cloud offering for Hybrid
Cloud Scenario.
Form the above I would pick one, based on where Google Cloud business is right
now and what creates maximum impact in its journey to one to two cloud
platforms.
Any further refinement of the answer needs a lot of knowledge on existing Google
Cloud offerings and a quick check tells me there are 100+ of them!

17. How would you grow the number of paid users for Youtube Music?
By increasing the number of paid users, I assume we mean that we want to
increase the % of DAUs who pay for YT Music.
First, we need to understand the Youtube Music play here.
Youtube Music was carved out of Youtube because Spotify and Apple Music were
getting popular. Users were listening to music on Spotify instead of on Youtube,
threatening ad revenue for Youtube. Therefore, Youtube Music was born as a
standalone app, where users could listen to the music ad free from anywhere
anytime.
Increasing the number of paid users is to increase the overall Youtube revenue.
We can increase the paid users in the following ways:
7. Entering new markets: Emerging markets such as India provide a good target
market because of the sheer population and internet penetration. However,
Youtube Music comes with videos, which could take up internet bandwidth
for users when they stream music. Youtube Music could build a video free,
low bandwidth requiring app, which is optimised for emerging markets.

33
 8. Value for existing customer segments: Youtube has two users: users and
music creators. If users see more value in Youtube Music, more users may
subscribe. Music fans want to interact with music creators, and there is no
way to do that today. YT Music can provide a way to request for
call/interactions with their music idols, and music idols can be be provided
compensation for their time ( per hour basis) by users. Given that creators
have official channels on YT, YT is in the best position to do so. Risks include
harassment for creators. YT Music could provide an option for creators to
report such users.
9. Partnerships: YT Music can be the default app for music on Android phones.
10. New platform support: YT Music can also be developed as a TV app for Roku
and other Smart TVs.
11. Promotions: With Google Nest devices/google hub purchase, users could get
extended free trial for YT Music
Prioritisation:
3 and 5 options are attractive because of ease of implementation
Between 1, 2 and 4: 2 can have the biggest impact given other competitors dont
offer such an experience, so would prioritise 2.
Metrics:
Measure whether paid subscribers are increasing: % of DAUs who are paid
subscribers
Measure whether users are signing up for idol interaction: % of all paid subscribers
that are requesting for interactions
Measure whether users are able to personally interact with idols after signing up:
% of all user initiated requests that get fulfilled
Measure the reporting calls: % of all interactions that end up getting reported

18. How do you decide to launch additional reactions for Instagram?

34
CQ:
My understanding of reactions are emoji like stickers/responses that allow
users express themselves beyond "likes" without having to speak or type a
word. These are meant to be quick and convenient to promote interaction
between people. Correct? [Sure]
Based on my usage/understanding of Instagram (IG), I believe there are two
types of reactions on IG: 1) Reactions in Stories (limited to 6 without ability for
users to customize), 2) Reactions in DMs (unlimited/customizable via a + by
double tapping the message). So are we intending to launch additional
reactions in the Stories or DMs? Do we know how many additional we want to
launch or is it up to me to decide? Did I miss any other use cases?
Interviewer: Assume we need to launch additional reactions for Stories.
You decide on the number.
Ok, great.
Provide Framework: Ok now that I have a fair understanding of the product
functionalities/scope of the ask, I want to quickly touch on the Goals of this
feature in the context of the product and the overall ecosystem and how it
benefits the users and all parties in the ecosystem. From there I would like to
build hypothesis on how enabling additional reactions can impact our product
goal, target users, etc. I will also touch on the core metrics, user related
metrics, and recommend solutions with some trade-offs in mind.
Business Goal:
Instagram overall mission is to capture and share world's moments, which
aligns with the overall Meta vision on empowering people to build
community and bring the world closer together.
Product/Feature Goal:
Reactions provides a convenient way to enable interaction (and therefore
engagement) between parties; making it easier and faster for people to
interact and engage with the content they love which then spins the
content engagement flywheel. Easier reaction > prompt more user to
engage> more engagement with creator content > more creators are
encouraged to create.
Hypothesis:
By adding additional reactions we will positively impact engagement
because we will provide more options to people to express their feelings
beyond current offerings

35
 Potential Risk: While this might help user quick interact with Stories, it
might negatively impact deeper engagement with stories (i.e., comment,
and back and forth messaging that is prompted by viewing the stories in
the absence of wider selection of quick reactions. I will park this for now
and revisit while thinking about counter metrics.
User Segments:
Content Creators
Goals/Why reactions matter to them? Get more engagement with
their content, get a sense of what their viewers like/dislike
Content Consumer/Viewers
Goals/Why reactions matter to them?: Explore/Discover more relevant
content, make it easier to connect with people they love and content
they enjoy
Metrics (topline):
# of active users with >1 engagement with reactions in stories weekly
This metric matters because it shows a healthy balance between
content creator and content consumer
I chose weekly because every day user may not necessarily post
content daily or be active on Instagram on a daily basis.
Breakdown of Metrics by Users and How I would prioritize what
(Build a table)
User
Metrics
Why It matters
Content Creator
7. # active creators per week/weekly active people
1. Tells me what % of people creating content, helps us ensure healthy
supply
8. Avg # of stories posted/creator/week
1. Tells me how often creators are posting since we expect this to increase
if engagement is increasing
8. # active creators who received >1 reactions
1. This metric is important because it will help me understand the impact to
their overall engagement
Content Consumer

36
 7. # of stories watched
1. Input to the following metric
8. # of stories with >1 reactions per week
1. More videos watched means more opportunities to engage with the
content
Platform (Insta)
7. Avg time spent on IG/Weekly active users
1. Tells us how long people are spending time on IG and we improve certain
products the time should go up
8. Weekly Active Users (WAU)
1. If we make the product better we would like see this metrics go up
In the next section, I am going to identify and list Hypotheses Impact on the Key
Metrics discussed above. This will allow me to define success criteria before
running an A/B test. Hypothesis Impact on Key Metrics I will narrow down metrics
from above and prioritizing the one that are important to track in A/B testing (Build
a table) Metric Impact Why?
7. # of stories with >1 reactions per week
1. Increase
2. Since we add additional reactions, people have more options to quickly
react to the stories; therefore the engagement will go up
9. # of active users with >1 engagement with reactions in stories weekly
1. Increase
2. More activity since people have more options to choose from
9. Weekly Active Users (WAU)
1. Increase
2. Overall activity can go up since more choices for reactions are available
9. # of deep engagement (impact to conversations initiated from stories)
1. ? Decrease
2. People may choose quick reactions over conversation if they find a
relevant reaction emoji (ex: baby angel face emoji is faster to send than
typing "he/she is an angel" in response to baby story content.
Variations:

37
 Based on the above criteria, I will design an option where creator can choose
the reactions between 6 to 9** but default to one pending test results
** Caveat: I will work with VUI designer and data scientists to determine the right
number for additional reactions. I could also do a usability to see what numbers
can become overwhelming to users. For now, I chose 9 based on the aspect ratio
of stories , I don’t want that the emjois to completely block the screen or become
too crowded/confusing to choose from. A/B tests:
Control: Keep reactions limited to 6 with no option to customize or change
quantity
Treatment 1: Stories will have 9 reactions to stories
Treatment 2: Stories will have 9 reactions with option to change to 6
reactions
Ship, No Ship, Retest Decision Ship:
Whichever option optimizes the four metrics mentioned above
No Ship:
If any or all of the key 4 metrics impacted negatively
If there are major regressions
Retest:
If no statistical significance. Inconclusive
Overall, I will continue to monitor the performance on primary and secondary
metrics as well as counter metrics to ensure we are not cannibalizing other areas
of the product. Additionally, I will work with GTM team to propose a stepwise roll
out plans across devices, geographies to minimize the risk of disengagement.

19. There is an emerging market and Google is considering entering the

market with YouTube or Maps. Which would you choose?

38
Google mission is to organize worlds information and make it universally accessible
and useful.
Keeping that in mind will focus on what should be the solve for emerging market.
Clarification: Any specific country Google is thinking about ?
Answer: lets say Ghana it has come often as one of the fast emerging markets and
untapped
Clarification: Goal is monetization or growth
Answer: We are entering the market so growth
Based on the clarification above I will think about user segments, pain points,
evaluate pro / cons , recommend an approach.
Users:
A: Youngsters: Like most emerging markets the population skews towards
youngsters who are hungry to learn more, do more..
B: Young Adults to Middle Age: The segments that has not been able to do
much due to constraints of infrastructure, bandwidth etc. and is used to
doing business the old fashioned way but is eager to learn and do more.
C: Older Generation: Is out of touch of technology, trends and while agreeing
with the advancements may be slow to adopt newer solutions.
Market:
Since market is evolving its ripe for both video revolution and cultural change. At
the same time social economic change is driving new business models that will
drive people towards jobs, financial security and faster growth.
Given the models such as delivery , e-commerce have done really well in
developed countries this market is ripe for "has worked in that market can work for
this market too" .
Constraints:

39
One of the constraints highlighted above in assumption is bandwidth which
severally constraints the video solutions. Considerations:
YouTube:
Maybe support only low res videos
download and watch offline
uploads limited to certain size and fidelity
Live stream not supported
Google Maps:
Cannot support high fidelity maps
Reduce layers of information supported (support basic information
destination based)
Product Market Fit:
Keeping the above constraints and market in mind, Google Maps seems to be
a better fit.
Given the constraints above we cannot launch Google Maps in the current
shape and form, will have to come up with a Google Maps Lite version which
is text based.
Google Maps lite will reach the user segment A and B.
Product: Google Maps Lite (prioritize)
7. Works on desktop / mobile phone
8. Gives navigation / direction to / from in steps (step 1 : , step 2: )
9. If color maps become a constraint explore low fidelity maps.
10. Support offline maps
11. Optimize travel (ML) reduce time
1 & 2 MVP
Go to Market Plan:
launch on maps.google.ghana

40
 launch on mobile browsers and wap apps on mobile devices (work with
telecom operators)
integrate with other google products available in the market (search, gmail...)
Advertise to raise adoptions
Goals:
Increase growth of users by 20% on a quarterly basis (year 1)
KPI's:
DAU/ MAU's (growth)
Trips started
Trips completed
Metrics:
Search queries
Reviews
20. You’re the CEO of Shopify, what should we focus on next?
I will interpret the question as "focus on the next 5 years". I will also give a
high-level helicopter view since I’m supposed to imagine I’m CEO of Shopify.
The mission of Shopify has always been to enable merchants and lessen the
frictions in conducting commerce. Shopify is not an eCommerce company
like Amazon, but a Tools and Infrastructure company like Stripe. Building tools
and services for merchants are our core competencies.
When we think about the main problems that Merchants have in Commerce,
it’s split into 3 core areas: 1. Sales, 2. Distribution, 3. Sourcing. For the
previous 10 years, we’ve come a long way to solving the Sales problems by
building easy to use online CMS, payment checkouts, store themes,
marketing tools, and the Shopify App platform for Merchants of all kinds to
sell and market their products to their customers. We’ve even built Sales
Channels to connect to other platforms such as Etsy, Amazon, and Walmart
marketplace. We’re doing great here so far and should keep optimizing.

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Problem area #3 is Sourcing. Sourcing can definitely by a lot easier, but
Chinese manufacturers and Alibaba have a huge monopoly in this area and
although we can build tools to make communications easier between
manufacturers and merchants, there’s not much value Shopify can add here
yet. So we save this one for 2025-2030.
This leaves #2 Distribution. There are 2 parts of every commerce transaction.
First, the merchant must sell the product to a customer, then the merchant
has to get the product into the hands of the customer to complete the
transaction. As CEO of Shopify, we should focus the next 5 years on making
Distribution as frictionless as possible for all merchants on the Shopify
platform. This is essential to ensure commerce remains free and open for all
merchants and no single retail platform outcompetes the rest. We need to
offer fulfillment and distribution as a service without selling any products
ourselves. Merchants have a huge need for this as they feel the pressure from
retail platforms who are both their "landlords" and competitors.
There are 2 paths to achieving this. #1 is to build our own fulfillment centers
in high volume areas which we know from our merchant sales data. The #2
option is to partner with 3rd party fulfillment and distribution centers for
areas where it’s not financially feasible to build our own centers. We’d want to
have distribution centers across the US with the goal of reaching any address
within 1-day shipping. If a customer orders in the morning, they should get it
before 9 PM the same day if merchants store their products within Shopify’s
distribution network. The engineering effort involves building infrastructure to
network orders and shipments between Shopify’s merchants and fulfillment
centers. It would also involve Machine Learning and AI to predict the demand
of individual products so Shopify can pre-ship the products to a close
distribution center in real-time. It might even involve creating software to
coordinate last-mile delivery and routing optimization. Solving the distribution
problem completes the transaction loop and is crucial if Shopify wants to
enable commerce for merchants everywhere both locally and globally. By
being the technology foundation of merchants Sales and Distribution
channels without directly competing with the same merchants, Shopify will
ensure a strong moat against competitors.
Metrics we want to track here include "time between order completion and
packaged delivered", and "merchant's revenue"

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 A side note on vision: The big paradigm shift here is Direct to Consumer. But
D2C is not a new concept. For thousands of years “makers of products” have
marketed and sold their own creations in town centers and roadsides (think
Roman bakers or Tang dynasty knife smith). It’s only since the industrial
revolution and the last 200 years that “retail platforms and distributors” have
aggregated supply and commoditized product brands shifting the balance of
power towards platforms. The return back to D2C enabled by technology,
eliminating middle-men is what Shopify is ultimately about. Anything that
accelerates this is our focus.
21. If you had unlimited resources at Google, what would you build and why?
I will start with discussing the Google mission statement, which is to organize the
world's information and make it easily accessible to everyone to help them get
things done, and make their day a bit easier.
I will think about building something that will leapfrog this mission.
Google has already organized all of the world's public digital information in the
current state. There are opportunities to get more information into a digital form.
But there are also significant improvements in making it "accessible", especially to
the people who haven't had internet access yet.
Also, there are significant improvements that can be done around making you get
things done and making your day a bit easier.
So given that we established that there are huge opportunities in making Google
"accessible" to the remaining 4 billion people and making the day easy for all of the
7 billion people, I will look at which of these will be a higher ROI.
I will focus on the "accessibility" part. The reason being this will provide the
opportunity to 2X the impact Google made so far and also increases it's enterprise
value significantly.
The challenges for getting this population access to internet include
7. Lack of internet infrastructure.

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 8. Lack of financial resources to access the internet (getting devices below
$100 price point, and paying to get internet)
9. Lack of knowledge, primarily because of illiteracy.
10. Physical and mental disabilities - that might require a different form factor.
I will focus on improving each of these factors.
7. Build cheaper internet infrastructure across the globe
8. partner with public and NGOs to make the internet accessible like any other
necessity like electricity etc.
9. Literacy programs
10. Accessibility programs.
From a time-frame perspective, I need to prioritize the programs that might have
the highest ROI and fastest impact. I would do a more comprehensive prioritization
exercise based on market size, confidence in execution to pick one or more of
these areas and then deep dive into solutions for them.

22. Should Facebook consolidate its messaging apps?

Clarifying Questions: · What does consolidation mean? Is it consolidating the back-
end code bases or is it making one-app in places of three separate apps. · If it is
consolidating the UI, does this live as a standalone app or will this be still
integrated into Facebook Messenger and Instagram Chat separately while the app
lives by itself like WhatsApp. · What is the end goal we are trying to achieve? Is this
reduce workforce by making it more a single application or is there an additional
revenue opportunity here? Or if there is any other end goal?
Assumption: The request is coming from Zuckerberg to evaluate this proposal to
integrate chat apps to see if there is any efficiencies we could achieve, up to me to
decide what how a proposed consolidation may look like and if at all a
consolidation is needed.
Goal: Improve efficiencies with releases and any other perceived benefits Here is
the plan. I want to look at Facebook and its vision and how do chatting apps fit into
this vision. I will talk a bit about the messaging apps as a whole and spend some
time analyzing Facebook Chat apps and user engagement fact involved and the

44
context around how this generates revenue to Facebook. and finally, I want to look
at some technical and privacy aspects of this before making a final call on this.
Vision: Facebooks vision is to bring people closer together and make meaningful
connections between people and enrich the connection experience. While
Facebook and Instagram provide the one-to-many communication platform for
consumers chat applications fill a key gap of one-on-one communication for
Facebook.
Chat Apps Industry: Be it Snap Chats ephemeral chats or WhatsApp or iMessage,
chat applications grew in popularity across the globe, organizations started
offering chat to support consumers and chat became one of the largest support
channels surpassing email around 2017/2018. It is the only way consumers want to
interact with brands in some cases. It is for this reason Facebook also acquired
WhatsApp a stand-alone one-one chat application for $50 Billion where WhatsApp
has over 2 billion users on the platform. Of course, WhatsApp is expanding now on
creating group chats with limited people now.
Detail about Facebooks Chat Apps: Facebook has three different chat applications
each on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. While Facebook and Instagram
provide users to seamlessly share things via chat while staying on the platform
itself, WhatsApp provides more a one-one communication with Friends and family.
Anecdotally, I use what’s app every day to talk to my mom who lives in India, I use it
to text friends to let them know I am in the mall, or I will be late. This is more
convenient than opening Instagram or Facebook and then opening a chat and
messaging a friend. Primarily all these apps are existing to increase user
engagement. Instagram and Facebook Messenger make people stay more time on
the platforms and any updates on WhatsApp are meant to keep the 2 billion users
engaged. While increasing the user engagement on platform Facebook tries to
monetize this by enabling business to provide right support to consumers via this
channel since as an industry chat support is growing rampantly. To support this
vision, Facebook is also starting to roll out automated bots on Messenger and
Instagram chats to help businesses to support their consumers while still staying
on the app. Recently Facebook also launched a huge initiative of ordering groceries
with WhatsApp in India which is the largest market for WhatsApp.
What did we establish so far: Chats are extremely popular among consumers; due
to this reason business want to stay on them and Facebook wants to monetize this

45
situation by providing better engaging features for consumers while providing
automated bots to deploy on messaging apps for businesses. Effectively I want to
rephrase our question a bit from, “Should we consolidate our messaging apps” to
“Will consolidation impact consumers and businesses positively?” ultimately
Facebook is a for profit company and does not want to break any bridges
especially when Meta is losing revenue rampantly. Next let’s propose two solutions
and see if they will have any impact on Consumers or businesses.
Solutions, Technology and Privacy: There are two possible solutions for
consolidation
Solution 1: Consolidating UI and Backend to create one chat app, and still making
sure Instagram and Facebook have can seamlessly integrate this app into their
platforms while the app stays as a standalone app like WhatsApp. As previously
discussed these chats have a unique purpose so inspite of consolidating into one
App, we need to integrate the standalone app back into the original platforms
Instagram and Facebook.
Solution 2: Consolidating advertising products for chat-apps, i.e., if an advertiser
creates a bot for FB messenger ensuring it also works on Instagram and
WhatsApp. This means no matter where consumers reach out the businesses can
help. At a 10,000-foot level this question itself is purely a technical and privacy
related question. Although both the above solutions are technically feasible to
implement, Solution 1 needs more time and technical staff to implement and a
redesign of pretty much a whole lot of API’s, whereas Solution 2 might be a less of
an effort. Additionally, Solution 1 has heavy privacy implications with respect to
GDPR since WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook all have different privacy policies
pertaining to user data.
Consumers Impact: Although consumers today use all these apps they use them
for different purposes, i.e., WhatsApp is not used to share Instagram stories while
Instagram is not used to text your wife asking her what to get from grocery. Due to
this reason Solution 1 technically will have net zero impact, i.e., if UI is implemented
well consumers will start using the applications. A slight risk associated might be
with new single UI across all platforms there may be a slight dip in User
engagement temporarily. Solution 2 is a bit more useful to consumers since now
they can reach out to businesses on their platform of choice with bots available
everywhere to support them.

46
Business Impact: Solution 1, integrating these apps does not provide any added
benefit to businesses, they will still stay on any app that Facebook creates that has
consumers on it. Solution 2 will make businesses life a bit easier because they
need not develop the chat app multiple times for different chat platforms.
Proposal: Considering the little gain consumers and business will have from a true
consolidation i.e., Solution 1, I would stick to evaluating solution 2 which is
consolidating bot deployments over these apps, which is a better solution that
helps both businesses to save time and provide consumers a choice to reach out
to business on platform of their choice.
Trade Off: If deploying new features to three chat apps is enormously gigantic
technical effort and Facebook is intending to reduce staff, then those aspects are
not really considered here.

24. You're the PM of the CoinBase consumer app and you need to add new
tokens. Walk me through your process.
Before jumping in to answer, I want us to be on the same page regarding a few
things:
7. I am the PM for Coinbase app; not for coinbase pro or wallet etc.
8. The very fact that a token will list on Coinbase increases the price / market
activity around the token. We want to create a process which takes this into
consideration.
9. Users trust coinbase. Therefore, the assets listed on coinbase need
significant vetting before they can be put on the system.
10. Technology integrations - How much work is needed to add the new
integrations
Thinking through the lifecycle of adding new tokens
I would like to divide the process into 3 stages:
7. PRE - Steps needed to be taken before adding a new token

47
 8. DURING - Technology decisions, marketing decisions while the token is
added
9. POST - What are the success metrics?
PRE Before a token can be added, we need to think through the following:
7. What is the mechanism through which crypto token companies / DAO apply
to get listed on Coinbase?
8. Some tokens will be considered worthy of addition. Others will get rejected.
As outlined before, token prices can change significantly if they are accepted
or rejected. Therefore, Tokens under consideration should be kept top secret.
9. Vetting - What is our vetting process? Who does it?
DURING
7. Confidentiality is important - don't want the news out unofficially.
8. Technological Challenges - New blockchains may take longer to integrate
than new tokens on existing chains. Get an estimate of the effort.
9. Regulations - Ex. Certain coins may not be added for New York users. Is there
anything within the regulation that could stop us?
POST
7. What is the trading activity? How does it compare to similar tokens at a
similar point in time.
8. Any technical glitches? For ex. are trades taking longer to execute / settle?
9. Any increase in number of customer service complaints?
SOLUTION - The process of adding a new coin
7. Coinbase needs to setup an example for regulators and show that it takes
insider trading very seriously. Therefore, a strict NDA with companies that
apply for listing and strict NDAs with employees who work in this area are
essential.
8. Identify major Blockers like Regulatory analysis / KYC / AML - are the
companies that are applying for listing based in iran, North Korea etc.? If so,
deny.

48
 9. Analysis of technological complexity - How much time and effort will be
needed? Are we forecasting more tokens built on the chain? If so, it may make
more sense to put in effort on the base token.
10. Business analysis of the company applying for token listing - Is it a legit
company?
Prioritization criteria - If we have many tokens that have applied for listing, we need
to have a criteria on which one to prioritize. Some metrics we could use are : a.
Could this spur development on the chain. How does this listing help in creating an
open financial ecosystem? b. First token on the chain or nth token on an existing
chain c. History of founders, business case for the token etc. d. Expected revenue
in commissions
FLOWS & USERS
7. Companies that apply to be listed - Create application forms which ask to
provide technical information, business use case
8. Flow to identify any regulatory concerns
9. Flows for vetting team - Make it mechanical for the vetting team to tick boxes
10. Flows for engineers / architects to assess the technical complexity
11. Dashboard for PM to have a grading on several dimensions like regulatory
concerns, business use case, technical complexity etc. Create a score for the
PM to make decision making easy.
Prioritization
7. Regulatory concerns - this needs to be top notch as industry is plagued with
scammers and coinbase needs to be a trusted party
8. Company application form - Structured collection of information can make
rest of steps easier
9. Flows for vetting team
10. Flows for engineers
11. PM Dashboard
Recommendation: A solid process for vetting new coins and adding them to
coinbase involves multiple parties. We need to prioritize the flows mentioned above
to help coinbase in creating a new & open financial system.

49
25. Google wants to launch a refrigerator. Design it and estimate how many
people will buy it in the first year.
Me: First, let's design our product and then we will calculate the estimated amount
of units sold. Before we begin, is there anything specific about this refrigerator, is
this a 'smart refrigerator'?
Interviewer: Yes, you can consider this is a smart refrigerator but the overall design
is up to you.
Me: Thank you, one more question, do we have a specific user in mind? Younger
people? Retirees?
Interviewer: No, you can select the user base based on your prioritization, but
theoretically it could be a refrigerator for everyone.
Me: Perfect, sounds good. So, the way I want to approach this problem is: first, I
want to take a look in a category of users, second, after prioritizing a user base, I
will talk about the pain points of current refrigerators and smart refrigerators. Then,
after prioritizing the pain points we can talk about the product vision and its
features and we will continue from there, is that ok?
Interviewer: Ok, sounds good.
(users)
Me: Ok, so I can think about four categories of users:
7. family households with 3+ people that are usually composed by a couple and
at least a son
8. single people who share apartments
9. single people who live alone
10. retirees
Given that categories 2 and 3 are mostly composed of people with that are more
tech-savvy and willing to spend money in novel products, I will focus on them,
specifically category 3, who are usually composed of busy singles that would
usually have higher disposable income.

50
(pain points)
For single people who live alone, I have a few pain points that I can describe:
7. single people usually don't track well when they are running out of a specific
product, and usually, only realize that once it's almost over
8. given that they live alone, they usually don't stock groceries and whatever is
in the refrigerator it is their stock for the week or every two weeks depending
on the frequency they go do groceries or order groceries online
9. singles often forget when they put the product in the refrigerator and when
they first opened it, which can lead to food spoil
10. on the flip side of that, sometimes a single buy a too large of a product (like
large milk) and it spoils because it's not consumed in time
(vision)
While I do believe that all the pain points are valid and should be addressed by a
smart refrigerator, I want to prioritize the first two. For that, let's come up with a
product vision: imagine a smart refrigerator that replenishes its products
automatically by understanding the consumer habits of its user and the products
he/she uses while recommending new ones to try. This product would have the
following features:
(features)
7. it would identify the products when the user first puts them in the refrigerator
and would be able to calculate how much of it was already consumed on a
given time
8. through ML algorithms, it would learn the consumption habits of the user and
based on that would automatically order replenishment from a local grocery
store
9. by identifying the products, it would often suggest other products similar to
those that are better/premium or that have a better cost/benefit based on
settings defined by the user
While this product would be a success for busy professionals, there are some
trade-offs we should think about:

51
(trade-offs)
7. the products would have to be identified and likely placed in a pre-defined
area in the refrigerator to track its usage, which can be a bit time-consuming
8. we are assuming that the users do not change habits very frequently in order
to keep replenishing and offering similar products, for example: if I got a milk
chocolate today, am I going to keep ordering it every week or I am going to
change it to orange juice? While a user's habits could be learned through ML,
initially one would need to change that in the refrigerator configs and this
might cause a decline in 'productivity gain' that is the product's value add.
(metrics)
Finally, I would try to evaluate a few metrics in the product to make sure that our
value adds thesis hold true:
7. how often our product recommendations are working?
8. is there any churn rate on automatic replenishment after X number of weeks?
Now that we have a product, we can estimate its market size, is that ok?
Interviewer: Sure! But can you give me a summary before we move on to make sure
we're on the same page?
Me: Definitely. We just created a smart refrigerator targeting busy singles that is
able to learn its users' consumer habits and products in order to be able to 1)
provide recommendations on similar products and 2) automatically order from local
stores so that the user never runs out of the product.
Interviewer: Sounds good, now let's move on to the estimation part.
Me: Ok, so to estimate our market let's first calculate the population of busy
singles in the US that could buy our smart refrigerator, then we calculate the ones
that would effectively buy it at some point and finally we would select the 'early
birds' who would be keen to buy it in the first year, how does that sound?
Interviewer: Sounds like a good plan.

52
Me: Cool, so let's consider the population of the US as 320 Million and we have
four segments with roughly the same amount of people: 0-20, 20-40, 40-60, 60-
80. For the sake of this estimation, I am going to consider that only people on the
20-40 segment are going to buy our refrigerator, while I do believe some people on
the other segments would buy it, I think that 20-40 would be the largest segment
given our target audience (busy singles).
That said, we have 80 million people in that segment. I also believe that around
50% of that segment is still single, so that would make the number down to 40
million.
Next, let's calculate who can effectively buy the refrigerator - given that this is
going to be a refrigerator more on the higher-end, I believe that only middle class
and upper-class people will buy it initially in different proportions, and based on
common sense I would think that about 10% of those singles could be considered
upper class while 60% could be considered middle class. So we would have:
Upper-class - 4 million singles
Middle-class - 24 million singles
Now, let's calculate who of those are likely going to purchase a smart refrigerator
over the next few years, and I believe that the proportion is higher on the upper-
class segment - 80%, and a bit lower on the middle-class segment - 30%. We now
have:
People who will buy smart refrigerators over the next years:
Upper-class - 3.2 million singles
Middle-class - 7.2 million singles
Finally, we need to calculate how many of those will buy our refrigerator when it's
launched in the market during the first year and I believe the proportion will be
considerably higher on the upper-class segment (10%) compared to the middle-
class segment (1%):

53
Upper-class - 320K
Middle-class - 72K
Total sold the first year: 392K
Though I don't know about the refrigerator's market on an annual basis, this
number seems to be small. Now, let's evaluate some of these numbers:
7. the first thing that comes to mind is that we are only considering the busy
singles segment, and even though our product is targeted to them, very likely
we are going to have a considerable number of people from other segments
buying our refrigerator as well.
8. perhaps given the novelty and leveraging the Google brand, likely that more
people are going to be purchasing the product, so the proportion of early
birds that I assumed is probably in the lower-end.
9. finally, we are assuming that only a part of the population are going to be
purchasing smart refrigerators over the next few years. Very likely that those
are going to become the norm like smart TVs and comprise the large majority
of the market if not all of it.
26. Design an onboarding flow for a business that just moved to using the
Google Cloud Platform.
Assumption #1: the deal is signed and the customer now will being the process of
moving to GCP Assumption #2 : the deal includes Iaas as well as Paas (App Engine)
- moving apps from on prem to cloud
Objective : Design a product that will help the customer onboard and successfully
plan the move to GCP. Customer is using on premise and is new to cloud.
Lets assume the tool should include the roadmap planning too ie decisions such as
moving all vs some applications etc . As in any onboarding tool, the product should
have almost a workflow or checklists to ensure necessary activities are completed.
Possible features :
(1) Application inventory:

54
 Feature allowing you to create an Inventory of current on prem applications.
Allowing classification of risk of migration : High/medium/ low - this is of
course dependent on user input
Indicate whether the application should be : lift and shift, change before
moving to make architecture cloud friendly etc
Application migration roadmap - visual
(2) Data inventory
Data inventory associated with the apps
Data classification
Migration strategy
Data security
Whether data needs to be replicated
ETL needed
(3) Security set up
Security needed : compliance considerations
Access controls : Access to GCP folders/ projects /Data / apps
Access to increase/ decrease use of cloud resources
(4) Cost management
Cost centers that will be impacted
Org/ department costs
Who has access to spending alerts , billing alerts
Dashboard that show this data ( is there an API from google for this)?
(6) Project tools
Capacity planning
Task tracking
Ganntt chart
May be useful to consider whether building an API to existing Project tools is
a better idea
Project costing and budgeting

55
28.Imagine you’re PM at Bing. What would you do to take over 5% of Google
Search market share?
Grow market share of Bing by 5% Clarification: Are we focusing on a certain
geography or Region where market share has to be increased? – Assume - All
Regions
Are we focusing on a particular device or platform? – Like Desktop/Laptops,
Mobiles/Tablets, IOS/Android – Assuming all
What is the Goal of increasing Market Share? – Assuming new users and driving
usage among existing users.
Do we have any user segment in mind or am I free to choose? – Assume you can
choose
Microsoft’s Mission is to empower every person and every organization on the
planet to achieve more and make them productive. Bing is a Web search engine
Owned by Microsoft which allows a user to perform search queries related to
diverse topics.
Next, I would like to do some SWOT analysis
Google Strengths: · Default search engine set via chrome for Android Mobile
Devices · Diverse and efficient set of products like Gmail, Photos, Maps etc ·
currently dominates the market share in search engines with approx. 90%
Weakness: · Too much dependency on Ad as source of revenue · Too many Ads
can be annoying to end users
Microsoft Strengths: · Trusted and a famous IT brand · Other products like Office
365 which dominates the market share · Have tie-ups with Laptop manufacturers
which comes with office 365 preinstalled · Revenue comes from multiple sources
and not just Ads
Weakness · Bing is not used extensively as compared to Google Search · Bing does
not come bundled with chrome as the default search engine in most of the mobile
devices and this can be a threat where the mobile world is evolving.

56
Strategic Choices
7. Microsoft can tie up with Laptop and mobile manufacturers and can get Bing
preinstalled and set as the default search engine as part of the office 365
installation. They can come up with discounted pricing on such devices and
this can lead to more adoption
8. Make a Conversational AI/Bot feature to power the search with Bing as part of
Office 365 Suite. For example, if a user wants to search the internet while
preparing a PowerPoint (PPT) or a word doc, there can be a conversational AI
BOT which opens in respective office tools and directs the search /provides
appropriate results from BING inline.
9. Microsoft can do something on educational lines like providing Books feature
(preview / full view) and Scholarly Literature, Store Class notes and provide
recommendations on books and articles related to class notes/subjects for
students. Make Bing more user friendly for Students and a single point to
search & access any educational content
Evaluation: If I must choose 1 from the above, I would be inclined towards 3 as
students also represent a major part of the market and if we make Bing a one-stop
solution for any educational content or query, it should help us to achieve that
additional 5% market share in the market.
Metrics to measure post-launch (In case the strategy is finalized and agreed upon
by all stakeholders): · Number of Books searched/viewed through Bing (existing
and new users) · Number of educational queries/ contents searched etc. (existing
and new users)
Retention: How many users continue to use Bing WoW , MoM

29. Would you consider Amazon and Intuit to be competitors?

Clarification:
Are we talking of Amazon as an entity in whole (or) Amazon E-commerce ?
I would like to use overlap across following buckets with emphasis

57
 on current product & markets, Future adjacencies and expansions, strengths
barrier to entry in the markets either way Amazon <==> Intuit
7. Products - Considering Amazon as a whole - Devices - AWS - E-Commerce -
Music - Video - E-Books - All other services, currently there is no overlap
between the use-cases and services offered by Amazon and Intuit. Intuit
products/services are in accounting/tax/SMB-E/Real-Estate use-
cases/solutions, credit reporting through credit karma. Intuit currently doesnt
play in devices, cloud computing, video, music, e-books segment and the
barrier to entry is high in terms of the scale, adoption across any of the
services. On the contrary the barrier to entry is relatively lower for amazon for
entering the domain of intuit.
8. Markets, Geographies: Amazon operates in 20 countries while Intuit operates
in North America alone. High barrier to entry to enter into any of the
segments and also lot more tax and legal laws apply to expansion for intuit.
9. Data: Amazon has access to purchase history etc. with the credit karma
acquisition Intuit has access to a richer and more contextual information.
Intuit can leverage this data to provide recommendation sources that might
be leaning towards amazon's competitor if it wants to
Adjacencies & New Markets
7. Banking & Financial Industry: Intuit has the upper hand here with more
skills/talent and expertise with its credit karma partnerships, years worth of
tax knowledge. Amazon already lends $ to its sellers and might expand to
financial sector and here Intuit has more contextual data and can be a
competitor if it also expands
Amazon has more financial strength, talent & expertise, scale, diversification to
face off a competition from Intuit.
Having said that I believe within the current markets and geos both of them are not
competing against each other.

30. Should Apple go into modular phones?

Apple Strengths

58
 7. Branding and high quality
8. Tech Quality is the best
9. Innovation RnD is best in class
10. Customer loyalty - they would be open to try
11. the LTV of Apple phone generally 2-3 years, people will be open to buy new
modular phone - Condition the rate is general same
Landscape:
7. There is likely hood that many users may not be a pro modular user, I would
do a research if users would like a "Modular Phone"
8. This may have a new cost to enter compared to existing partnership in
building modular phone.
9. Apple will have to invest in research and design of modeler phone and plan
where it needs to be bult.
Apple may rather invest on new cutting edge innovation rather than simulating
something other phone provides can come up once and if they launch.
Conclusion: Do not propose

31. Should Google build a game feature for Google Home?

Clarifying questions
Just want to make sure that Google Home you are indicating the display
version of Google Home e.g. Nest Hub.
Do we have specific timeframe in mind - short-term
What's the motivation for google? Is it to increase revenue or expand user
base?
Are there constraints we need to meete.g. gaming feature - i.e. controller-
based or touch-screen-based
Structure of response
Grasp the needs and desires of gamers, analyze the market, understand the
competitive landscape, and conduct SWOT analysis to decide whether
Google should build a game feature.

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Needs & desires of gamers
Gamers have flocked to different form factors to play games with different
capabilities. The gaming could be saved in console, PC, laptop and mobile.
The mobile made gaming accessibility to a wide range of users including who
couldn’t have afford it earlier. It also allowed gaming to be portable. However,
it has restricted the ability of multi-player gaming due to either larger display
or no “killer app”.
Gamers also need to have responsive and sleek experience without any
lagging performance as it is very interactive.
The controller or body gesture recognistion expands the library of gaming
applications.
Market
The market of gaming is sizeable, somewhere in the millions of gamers. Most
of growth took place in mobile gaming in the Asia-Pacific market while the
console-based gaming continue to grow marginally.
The need for entertainment through gaming still remains popular and the
trend is not dying. What could be said true, going by the trend of mobile
gaming is that more form factors bring in more gamers. As long as some killer
app appears, the movement begins.
If the killer app is happen to be produced by the competitor, there is a
significant risk of gaming on Google’s smart display to be unappealing.
In this high inflationary macro environment, the families or user bases we
would be targeting needs to have either gaming feature offered freely via
advertisement or at reasonable pricing.
Competitive landscape
While the traditional form of gaming continues and emerging VR trend
remains the threat of substitute for gaming, except the mobile, there isn’t any
form factor that could offer portable gaming experience.
In smart display market, the barrier to entry to enable gaming is not high as
the competitors such as Samsung, Facebook, and Apple who have expertise
building gaming platforms, could easily enter into the market.
Always the possibility of smaller players such as Roblox to enter this market
or through partnership who has built a respectable user base.
SWOT analysis

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 Strengths - loyal user base, proven record to offer new innovative devices &
services, cloud computing if needed for cloud-based gaming, a reputable
brand to forge partnership with content producers
Weakness - no presence in content production, government regulation due to
FTC or parental or societal pressure about addictiveness,
Threats - other players in display and tablet market could easily offer these
services either or through partnership with gaming content developers such
as epic games,
Opportunities - another venue to put in-gaming advertising, the trend toward
portable, easy-to-use gaming for non-traditional gamers among elderly offers
opportunity to sell these displays to them
Let’s also explore a couple of what ifs
If Google doesn’t offer gaming in display, the competitor such as Samsung,
Amazon could offer such features in, attracting our intended target audience
to their ecosystem.
If not, could Google offer gaming experience in dockable tablets as some
early signs are appearing with Facebook sunsetting Portal displays that it isn’t
getting enough traction?
In summary, I would recommend pursuing gaming on display as there are
opportunities to sell more displays/tablets which could also assist Google’s
advertising business, expanding more user base which meets the original
motivation of exploring this question. Before we deep-dive, we have some caveats
that we conducted user research, validating the need of elderly using , wanting
bigger display and whether they would. Secondly, does the tablet owners finding.
On the other end, we conducted gaming research to understand if the multi-player
games found in console gaming could be attractive to users if they are made
available on portable devices such as tablet or display. We should also see the
traction of VR gaming as it could attract more users and more user engagement
due to its novelty experience whereby the investment in gaming on display/tablet
may not make sense.

34. Airbnb wants to get into furniture space. Should they do it?
Clarifying questions:

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 What is the motivation for Airbnb to consider entering furniture space?
Assumption: Data suggests the quality & type of furniture has a direct impact on
guests’ Airbnb experience. Many hosts are also converting their Airbnb’s into full-
time businesses, so there is a revenue opportunity here while improving the
experience.
Is Airbnb looking to feature furniture listings on Airbnb.com?
It’s still TBD. We want to know if it’s a good idea first.
Are there any other goals than determining if Airbnb should enter the space
or not? For eg what they should do instead?
No. Only a yes or no answer.
Airbnb has captured a significant percentage of the travel stay market in the past
few years, and they continue to grow like clockwork year after year. If I look at my
own data, over the last 1 year I stayed at an Airbnb 3 out of 5 trips I made. That’s
60%. It used to be around 20% a few years ago. I can see why Airbnb is looking at
adjacent business opportunities. It is also planning to go public soon so I’m
assuming they need to show growth opportunities in multiple areas.
To answer this question I will look at the following areas:
Customer: How does it impact Airbnb’s current customers?
Company: What are Airbnb’s strengths to play in the furniture space?
Furniture market: How big is the market, who are the big players, etc
Airbnb the product: Does furniture fit the overall narrative well?
Customer:
Airbnb has three types of customers today
Guests who book stays on properties and local experiences
Hosts who list their properties

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 Individuals who provide creative experiences such as photography tours,
cooking classes, pottery making, etc
Out of the three, I think hosts seem to be natural customers for such an offering
because creatives don’t have anything to do with furniture and guests don’t have
much control over the furniture inside a property. Maybe guests who book long
term stay want more control over what type of furniture is available at a property.
That said, hosts definitely have more control and usually take care of guests' needs
well.
There is a world where guests may want to purchase a piece of furniture they liked
during their stay. Such needs can be easily met by either contacting the host or
searching for the furniture online so I don’t think there is a strong play here.
Coming to hosts, they may be interested in purchasing furniture that works best for
Airbnb experiences. Seeing how some hosts are evolving into businesses, there is
a need for furniture that is trendy and not necessarily of the highest quality.
Something that can be bought cheap and does the job.
Within hosts, there are super hosts who are a special type of customer for Airbnb.
Superhosts have more to lose with a bad experience and therefore want to make
sure everything they’re providing is perfect. While they may buy furniture via
Airbnb it’s not going to be a big business for Airbnb. For it to be a business at
scale, it will have to cater to the regular hosts.
Company:
Airbnb, of course, has customers in the form of hosts who will buy furniture.
The company naturally does not have any experience with manufacturing or selling
furniture.
They can look into partnering with Ikea or online furniture selling companies like
Wayfair. Going straight to the manufacturer is more advantageous because Airbnb
can influence the designs, own major parts of the transaction and scale easily.
Airbnb’s biggest strength in this area is the property data. They can easily
determine what type of furniture is needed by analyzing property photos and make

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accurate recommendations to the hosts.
Having said that, I think what makes Airbnb truly unique is the non-standardized
experiences guests have at different properties. The whole point of choosing an
Airbnb over hotels is being able to experience cities differently.
Furniture market:
Buying furniture is not as complicated as it used to be before. Many companies
have replicated Ikea style “build your own” furniture which makes it easy to ship
pieces for companies and reduce overall costs.
There are major players in the market such as Ikea, Wayfair, Overstock and of
course Amazon. Amongst all these companies, there is a huge selection available
for hosts to choose from.
Furniture is usually replaced every 3 to 10 years which makes it an even more
difficult market to compete in.
Airbnb.com:
Airbnb can leverage its host portal to display the furniture selection. I believe this
will be the first time Airbnb will integrate with an outside party. Such integration will
open up future options for Airbnb to integrate with other services such as cleaning
services.
Marketing wise I think they can market to hosts without affecting their guests'
booking experience.
For new hosts, it can be embedded into the onboarding by suggesting furniture
options when they upload pictures.
To summarize, Airbnb does have a direct customer base who they can sell furniture
to. They even have relevant data that can be leveraged to design specific furniture,
make accurate recommendations and leverage economies of scale. However, I
think there is a risk of losing its differentiator if furniture becomes standardized at
Airbnbs. It will take the charm away from the unique experience guests expect. It’s

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better for Airbnb to continue influencing hosts from an industry thought leader
perspective rather than having opinions about which furniture to buy.
Furthermore, since furniture is replaced once every 3 to 10 years, and the market is
crowded with so many players currently, the market dynamics do not seem very
promising. If AR/VR was at play here, then Airbnb could’ve had bigger leverage
because it has a lot of property data but as we know Wayfair has been trying to
include AR/VR technology but has not been successful.
I think Airbnb should not enter the furniture space with current market conditions.

35. Imagine you're the PM for one of your favourite products. What is your
strategy for the next year?
My favourite product is YouTube Music. Let's see on what its strategy should be for
next year.
Clarifying questions
No clarifying questions on this as I will be working with my favourite products. I will
have few assumptions which I will state out before we proceed.
Assumptions
Assuming that we need to come up with strategy for YouTube Music app - not
considering YouTube as a whole as part of this.
I am considering overall audio streaming as the space to come up with the
strategy and not limiting it to music streaming only.
In terms of focus areas, I am considering on increasing retention and
engagement side of things - YouTube Music has been in market for sometime
now and I will not be focusing on the acquisition & activation aspects of the
users.
What metrics we would like to work on:
Listen time (in hours) per user per month
Number of users upgrading from free to premium per month /
Number of total users on YouTube Music
About the business

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 YouTube Music is in the business of music streaming -> It has two plans
currently:
Free plan with advertisement
Premium plan bundled with YouTube premium
Company, product & its vision
Google is the parent company -> Vision to organise world's info & make it
easily accessible
YouTube -> Perfectly aligned with the vision & organises the world's video
content
YouTube Music is their bet on this vision & to take it a step ahead with audio &
music content
Strength and weakness
YouTube Music's strength
Clubbed with YouTube premium plan -> Very lucrative pricing for a user
as they get premium access to both platforms
Excellent songs recommendation - based on years of data from the user
-> clubbed with the signals from YouTube as well
User experience and features completing real use cases:
Offline songs - automatically downloads the top songs of the last 7
days for user to access on the go (eg. during a flight)
Seamless switching between audio & video of a song
YouTube Music's weakness
Considering overall audio streaming services, YouTube Music doesn't has
a strong presence in podcast and audio books.
Market landscape
Directionally, the market is moving on the following themes:
Podcast space -> Lot of increased user activity and content creation in this
space.

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 Shorts as a format is at an all time high - we should think if this impacts the
user's listen time on YouTube Music & if there is an opportunity here for
YouTube Music to try something
Competitors
Spotify -> Leading competitor in the audio streaming service - for both music
& podcast
Has invested heavily in Spotify originals a lot to create engagement with
the users consistently with the content - Joe Rogan's 100 million deal is
an example.
Amazon -> Competing with Prime Music in music streaming and with Audible
in audio books.
I don't see that as a business, this is a big priority for Amazon.
Considering Spotify as the main competition for the scope of this problem.
Synergies with other products in the company
Google has multiple products in its portfolio which can work with YouTube Music. I
will think about specific examples in the plan below.
Strategy for the next 1 year
Looking at all the aspects we have seen above, I think as YouTube Music, we
should work on the following themes for the next year:
7. Extending YouTube Originals to YouTube Music -> YouTube already has a
team working on YouTube Originals -> Extending this to music with artists
across the industry would be a great way to create content which is
exclusively on YouTube Music for users to discover. As an industry
benchmark, we can look at the data from industry such as Spotify Exclusives
& how that is panning out. This also gives YouTube Music to start competing
in the podcast space by getting few exclusive podcasts on YouTube Music
and build their library. This initiative helps us in moving both metrics:
1. This helps in increasing the listen time per user.
2. This also helps in increasing the premium subscriber base - for users to
get access to this exclusive content.

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 9. Enabling users discover music in newer ways
1. Currently, users discover music only with the charts option or specifically
searching for it - also, if a user discovers a song, Given that one of the big
trends in media consumption from the users is on the shorts -> YouTube
can enable discovery of music via shorts-format -> play the best 10-15s
of a song as a preview and then users can listen in to the full song or add
songs to a playlist to listen to them later. This will make the music
discovery easy & more engaging for the users -> also, once the user
discovers a song, overall time they spend on the platform will also
increase, resulting in increase in the time of YouTube Music app.
2. Most listened playlists / curated playlists of celebrities -> Currently, the
playlist curation is done by algorithm based on user's listening
experience and trending songs. As a user, I would love to see curated
playlists by celebrities - eg. Virat's pre-match playlist before a match ->
This is something which would be really engaging for the users, enable
them to discover new songs and feel connected with their fav celebrities
or artists. This can also be a feature accessible only to premium users ->
driving an increase in subscription.
9. Enabling user to use their musical preference across other Google products
1. Google Photos create albums from user's pictures with generic songs ->
Instead, Google Photos can pick the songs from the user's preference
which will make it a very delightful experience for the user.
Risks/Pitfalls
7. The above proposed strategies don't just need the work to be done by
product, design & engineering teams. This also needs a lot of focus from
partnerships team, business team etc to do various contracts for YouTube
Music, onboarding artists or celebrities to share their playlists over YouTube
Music etc.
8. We should check in with legal team whether Google Photos can use user's
preferred songs in the album creation - there are a lot of copyright issues
when it comes to using songs.
Summary
YouTube Music should invest in increasing engagement of users on the app and
convert more users to premium users. I would love to execute the strategies above

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to make delightful experience for the users.

37. Amazon shares increased dramatically in the order of millions of

subscribers between 2008 – 2009 when Prime was available. What do you
think accounted for this?
Clarification:
What does "share" imply? is it the action of sharing the app or website ? My
assumption here we are not talking about stock market share :P, other factors
come into play there.
Diving-in:
I would like to classify the questions into 2 buckets
7. Internal
1. Do we have data on which platform the shares increases and split up by
Mobile and if mobile via app or via browser, split by apple/android, split
via desktop, tablet . Essentially source of the shares. What this will tell me
is around that time smartphone was launched in 07, and adoption of
smartphones were exponential. The app store had just been launched a
year back and Amazon had put their app in the app store for iphone.
Android hadnt taken off at that point
2. Do we have data on the geography of the increase in the shares? What
this data will tell me is if we had launched in other geographies and
continents where adoption was massive
3. Data on timing - do we have data on months/seasonality/timeline?. What
this data will tell me is combining points a and b any seasonality
correlation in play.
4. New Launches - Did we launch any new products/service/categories
within the amazon e-commerce page or music/video launches? What this
data will tell me is if any particular feature caused massive adoption.
5. New/Existing user split - Were all the shares skewed towards new/existing
users?
6. Price changes if any - Any price reductions that caused lot of prime users
to sign-in (or) launch of prime student etc.

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 7. Mktg campaigns
8. New seller program
15. External:
1. Any competition that stopped selling or shut shop?
2. Legal/Tax changes that gave incentives to sellers on amazon e-
commerce
3. Partnerships/collaborations ?
If i get data from above I can paint the hypothesis of why shares increased

38. How would you launch a standalone Amazon restaurant food delivery
app?
Clarification on goals:
Is it to increase user-base and eventually adding more prime-users?
Is it to provide another platform for restaurant owners and individuals and
convert them to prime users if not?
Increase revenue?
The first launch is in USA
Different user personas (Buyers) that find use of food delivery
Busy professionals (Single, living together, married, w or w.o kids)
University students - Order food during exams or homework sessions or a
break from cafeteria
Elderly people - who either live alone or together but don't want to cook
Different user personas (Sellers)
Restaurants - Small, Medium, Big
individuals - Catering etc.
Picking the persona of busy professional & pain points
Have disposable income, want to eat different cuisines but don't have the
time,

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 eat healthy,
want to know the in-places to eat etc.
Also prefers to cook at home sometimes but doesn't have the time to
research and experiment
The Industry:
Competitive industry with little differentiation
Commission, fee based revenue for players
Switching costs are negligible
The Solution:
This is a 3 way marketplace - Buyers, sellers and delivery mechanism/drivers.
7. Sellers:
1. To bring sellers into the eco-system - discounts from whole foods
2. Works with you to auto order and deliver raw materials
3. Only Organic and local sourcing of ingredients
10. Buyers:
1. Preferences generator - Based on a profile suggest places to order from,
cuisines, variety
2. Budget friendly - maintains weekly/monthly budget of eating out
3. Health quotient - Suggest dishes to order by taking into account
nutritional value. Only organic and local sourcing
4. Schedule maker - Either through input from Alexa or Ring, knows what
time you eat and pre-orders for you and food arrives just after you get
home.
5. Prepares list of what you could cook with videos and ingredients ready to
order as soon as you say yes. Checks with you during the day and makes
sure the ingredients arrive when you need it.
12. Delivery:
1. Uses current drivers on the path if the order is ready and not too much of
detour
2. Uses incentive digital and other promotions to entice normal drivers to
deliver food
Prioritization & Metrics (Buyer)

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I can go into seller/delivery if time permits
For some reason, all the things i typed has gone missing>
Pricing:
Penetration pricing
Building barrier to entry by tying in other services of amazon

39. How would you increase Gmail ads revenue by 20%?

I made up how Gmail Ads work
A: Do you mind if I clarify a few things about this question? G: Sure! A: I would like
to understand what Gmail ads is and how it works? G: Gmail ads are interactive ads
that show in the Promotions and Social tabs of your inbox. A: I know there can be
other emails under Promotions or Social tab such as different brands sending
promotional emails. G: Gmail ads look different and are labeled as "ads by gmail"
A: Great. And how does Gmail ads make revenue? G: If an ad is clicked, then the
advertiser is charged based on the predetermined price per click. A: Just to clarify
does click have to take to advertiser page or we just charge for clicking on ads and
opening. G: Just per click A: Is this goal over what time period? G: Next year. A:
Finally, are we expected to provide qualitative or quantitative answer? G: I will leave
it up to you. A: Ok, can I take a few seconds to think?
......
A: Here is how I would like to approach this problem: 1) I would like to think about
possible ways to increase the revenue 2) then I'm going to brainstorm and come up
with solutions that will help increase ads revenue 3) lastly, I'm going to discuss
these solutions and trade offs. Does that sound like a plan?
G: Go for it.
A: [Creates the Funnel]:

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 7. Advertiser pushes ads > 2. Recipient receives ads > 3. Recipient clicks ads >
4. Recipient navigates to advertiser's page/external page > 5. Recipient
Conversion (purchase/sign up/enroll/vote/etc.)
[Says loudly]: As you can see from the funnel, our add revenue is dependent on #3
(Recipient clicks ads). In other words (as we clarified above) {# of Clicks x Cost per
Click} = Revenue
[Comes up with 2 approaches]:
7. If we increase the number of Clicks, we can achieve our Revenue increase
goal.
8. If we increase the CPC, that might also help increase Revenue. While it seems
logical to increase price, it might be hard to negotiate the pre-determined
price. Also, increase in price might have other downsides (such as decrease
in number of ads, potential competition take over etc.). But if we could show
the value of the price increase to advertisers, then we can capture some of
that value.
Just to note, I'm not proposing to use either/or, both can be done to improve ads
revenue. [Continues...]
I would like to think about possible solutions for each of the above approaches:
Draws a table with 2 columns: one for Increase Clicks, another Increase CPC. Now,
I'm going to list a few solutions for each of these approaches.
Increase clicks:
7. If we increase the # of advertisers (referring to the funnel), we should get
more ads, and with the same open/click rate, # of clicks should increase. We
can look at our current Gmail Ads customer profile, and see whether we can
add additional advertisers.

73
 8. If we increase recipients, with the current ads volume and clicks, we can
increase our ads revenue. To do so we can look at acquiring more Gmail
users. This might be hard given Gmail is a mature product and 20% is a huge
increment. Another way is that we know that users tend to ignore/block/filter
out ads. There can be many reasons such as relevancy, clutter in the inbox, or
simply a user may be skeptical about the ads coming via Gmail because there
tend to be lots of spam emails (security concern). This can be resolved by
adding a tab called "Deals for you", which will curate ads based on the users
preferences (we will still keep the Promotions tab).
9. Now, lastly we can play with the messaging and layout to increase click rate.
One way is to highlight hot deals with specific keywords ("hot", "ending
soon", "black Friday only") or icons (fire, stopwatch, etc.). This may need
testing to optimize what users tend to react to, but overall idea is to create a
sense of urgency so that users can take advantage of these deals.
I just want to pause here and ask if you have any questions or comments.
G: This is good. Keep going.
A: Now I'm going to do the similar activity for the second approach.
Increase Cost per click: Before jotting down the solutions, looking down the funnel,
we can see that there might be some clicks that will take user to the advertiser's
page. And some clicks may lead to conversion (purchase or whatever that could be
for the advertiser). The latter will be more valuable than the former, so we can
potentially increase the price for clicks with conversion vs. just clicks. We might
need to build a tracking solution to track such clicks and charge for them
respectively. So our solution will be come up with tiered pricing:
CPC - charges just for clicks regardless they are converted or not
CPA - cost per activation (not sure if such metric exists)
Advertisers can chose either strategy or hybrid. E.g. CPC for the first 10k clicks,
then CPA for the rest, and so on. Because, there needs to be balance between the
quantity and quality of ads, this will let Gmail and advertisers also control the
number of ads and quality (relevancy) of ads to keep optimal user experience.

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A: Now I want to discuss each of these solutions and pick the ones that will help us
drive 20% increase in Revenue.
G: Can't wait to see it!
A: At this point, I'm thinking that I might not be able to give a quantitative response
w.r.t how much each of the proposed solutions will contribute towards 20%, but I
can summarize solutions and discuss trade offs based on their relative expected
contribution. Is that OK?
G: Hmm... Can you clarify what do you mean by that?
A: Let's take our solution to add more advertisers. To know how many more
advertisers we can add and how much revenue increase it will lead to we will need
to spend some time to analyze our existing and potential customers. Also, it might
be hard to attract more advertisers without actually improving the ROI in their ads
expenditure. So this solution might not be the best to invest upfront.
G: Ohh... Got it. Sure!
A: Perfect! In order to increase Gmail ads revenue, I will focus on increasing clicks
over price changes as the latter might take longer or backfire. In increasing clicks, I
will focus on the solutions 2 and 3 in the "Increase Clicks" columns. This way we
will be able to actually help the user to make a decision (click or not click) and
improve their experience (by separating under Deals for you). As I mentioned
previously, while increasing advertiser base might seem another solution, I would
assume Gmail always looks for ways to bring more advertisers. Also, I would do so
after optimizing Gmail ads' ROI and then show them the value. Therefore, next I will
focus on providing flexibility to choose CPC/CPA model and improve the pricing
structure to improve advertisers' ROI on ads expenditure. Finally, I will focus on
increasing the advertiser base. G: Sounds good. Thanks for your recommendation.

40. How would you launch a new product recommendation carousel for
Amazon?
Amazon is releasing a product recommendation carousel.

75
Q1. How would we approach this launch with executive leadership?
Q2. How would you obtain the data to find out if you should launch and what
sample size should your testing batch be for an A/B test scenario?
Clarifying Questions
What is the current goal for the product recommendation - Increase sales
How does the current product recommendation view look like on the home
page - A mosaic list view
Are there any existing customer feedback? If so, what are some issues? -
Some internal and external complains about the home page being crowded
Are we looking at this experiment for the US market only? Different markets
have different user behaviors. For example, Asian buyers (China, Taiwan, HK
for instance) prefer the crowded page look similar to shopping in an offline
market bazaar. - US market only
Are we looking at only desktop browsers, mobile app/browsers, or both? -
desktop for now
Hypothesis
We want to learn if product recommendation carousel design increases some
key metrics that are tied to sales such as click-through rate and conversion.
This learning will help us to decide whether to release the new design to all
the users shopping on desktop browsers in the US market.
We want to document our learnings prior to the meeting with the executive
leadership team to discuss our decision and recommendation.
Methodology
We can run an experiment to test out our hypothesis with 2 sets of users
A control group of users to see the current list view of product
recommendations
An experimental group of users to see the carousel view.
For this experiment, we want to limit the number of images to 3-5.
If we are able to prove that the experiment improves sales, we have
the option to run future tests to optimize the number of images.

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 Our goal is to learn if product recommendation carousel will improve key
metrics that will drive our sales goal
To calculate the sample size, here are some clarifying questions/assumptions
What is the current baseline conversion rate
What is the minimum detectable effect - since there is a lot of traffic, I
will pick a small percentage like 5%
Confidence interval - pick 95%
All the guidelines will allow me to figure out the sample size
For this experiment, I will base the experiments on all users based in the US
market on the desktop browser environment.
Metrics
Number of clicks
Click-through rate (CTR) or number of clicks per impressions
Click through probability (CTP) - unique visitors to clicks / unique visitors to
impressions
Sales conversion rate
CTR on other elements on the page
Bounce rate
Dwell time
Segment out by the following:
New vs returning customers
Mobile vs desktop
Referral source
Impact
Once I obtain the data, I want to check if the experiment group result is
performing significantly better
I would prioritize the number of clicks and CTP as the main metrics to
focus on this experiment
I would run the experiment until we reach the minimum sample size
based on the parameters that I discussed earlier
I would also pay attention if users are clicking on the first image of the
carousel more significantly than the other images. I think this would be useful
insight in comparison to just studying the top 2 metrics I mentioned.

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 If I see other metrics such as bounce rate and dwell time increase
significantly, I would try to understand if they are correlated to the CTP and
number of clicks metric.
CTR on the other elements is another metric that could give me some insights
if the users from the experiment group are confused by the new layout.
Once I gain some insights from all these metrics, I would pay attention to the
sales conversion rate.
Trade-offs
If the experiment is successful, I still want to check for some qualitative
trade-offs by conducting user interviews to gain some deeper insights.
If the experiment result is inconclusive, I might consider:
Doing proper user segmentations depending on how conclusive the
results
Gain some post-evaluation qualitative data from user interview
Based on this evaluation, I will decide if we need to spend more time on
the experiment or move forward.
42. How do you create a healthy market dynamics for token trading between
buyers and sellers?
I will start with clarifications:
Q: How do you define "healthy" marketplace? A: When there is a balance in
demand and supply
Q: If we have balance, is it fair to assume, lot of transactions will happen? A: Sure
Q: Also, is it fair to assume well known tokens on the platform already have a
healthy marketplace with enough buyers and sellers. The problem is mainly with
new tokens that will be introduced? A: Thats a fair assumption
Q: Its okay to limit scope for this exercise to the CB retail app, we are talking about
retail investors? A: Yeah
Q: Any constraints? A: No

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Thank you for all those clarifications. To rephrase the problem: how do we drive up
transactions for new tokens introduced on the CB platform to get a healthy market
dynamic
Goal - Increase the number of transacting with the new tokens - this also ties
directly with CB mission to build an open financial system by providing more
options to the users and achieves the business objective - Each transaction is
revenue for CB
So I will approach this by first thinking about the users and which segment we
should target to make the biggest impact. Second I will look at their
needs/painpoints and prioritize the ones we should solve first. Third I will
brainstorm potential solutions and pick one based on its potential for impact to
goal and the cost. Lastly we can talk about measuring success and GTM. Sounds
good? A: Yeah lets dive in
Okay so first lets look at the different user segments based on their experience
with crypto trading
7. Pro-users
8. Occasional users
9. Newbies
Of these, new tokens will be of most interest to the Pro-users, who have lot of
experience in crypto and are on the bleeding edge of this space
Now lets look at their journey for doing a trade with a new token and see where the
painpoints are
7. Find information about new tokens
8. Decide to invest/trade in the token
9. Follow developments to make further trades
10. Monitor portfolio
11. Manage taxes
In the journey above, the painpoints wrt new tokens are
7. Finding information on these new tokens, underlying protocols, backers, etc

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 8. understanding investment risk/volatility about new tokens
9. Keeping track of latest developments wrt the tokens
I will prioritize amongst these based on Depth of pain and frequency. Based on
these, understanding the risk with new tokens is one we should address.
Let me next think of a few solutions to address this
Solutions
7. Knowledge card - Has information that is dynamically updated for the tokens
and helps in research
8. Research bot - The bot can crawls the web, extracts information and provides
answers to users queries for the token
9. Risk/Volatility indicator - Use ML to output a risk/volatility score for a token
based on web activity
10. Earn tokens - Programs like referral/etc that will reward users with new tokens
I will prioritize the solutions based on impact to goal (driving up transactions of
new tokens) and cost
7. Knowledge card - L,M
8. Research Bot - M,H
9. Risk/volatility indicator - H,M
10. Earn tokens - M,M
Based on this I would recommend we build the risk/volatility indicator for tokens.
This will help users gauge the risk and drive up transactions when they feel
comfortable with the risk level.
For measuring success, I will look at the following metrics
7. # users engaging with the indicator - WAUs
8. # transactions of new tokens/ user who engaged with the indicator
9. Overall transaction volume
10. CSAT/Feedback on the indicator
Some trade offs with this solution

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 7. Need to monitor fake news sources so they end up biasing the ML algo and
affect the results of the indicator
43. How would you launch a high-end mineral water bottle in the market?
To start I would ask a few clarifying questions regarding the product and the
company:
7. Does the mineral water have unique health benefits to the consumer?
8. I would ask for details about the bottle packaging - unique design elements,
materials used, and options available
9. Is mineral water in the company's current product catalog?
10. Does the company sell high-end consumer products in the market
I would make certain assumptions for the sake of this question:
The mineral water is naturally filtered and contains unique minerals that
would bring health benefits as well as smooth taste to the consumer.
The product is offered in both still and sparkling form.
The company has experience selling consumer products and also has the
necessary resources to manufacture the mineral water.
Though the company is a consumer product company, they don't have an
established name in the mineral water segment.
In the consumer market, the brand is known for its certain products but
customers may not associate it as a high-end brand
To answer this question I would like to :
Assess the environment by identifying the company's strength, weakness,
opportunities and threats
Identify the target customer segments
Identify the target market
Pricing and marketing
Environmental analysis

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Strength : The company has experience selling consumer products in the market
Weakness:
Lack of brand awareness among consumers
Organization lacks resources and experience to sell high-end products
Opportunities :
The economy is looking good and people are willing to spend on high-end
products that give out a "cool" vibe.
Growing awareness in health, and people are moving away from drinking soda
and water is considered the best alternative.
Threat:
There are several competitors in the market offering high-end mineral water.
Some brands cost upwards of $50 and products offered range from gold
filtered water, to Swiss alps naturally filtered water.
That said, given the number of competitors in the market, and the variety available,
the company does not have the first mover advantage. Hence, the company should
look to gain market share through product and service differentiation.
Consumer Segmentation and Targeting
To segment consumers, I would consider segments that have low price sensitivity.
7. Affluent adults - middle-to-high income families
8. High end restaurants, spas, gyms, and hotels.
9. Business that want to serve high-end products to its clients, maybe with a
customized packaging
For initial launch, the company should target to sell for segment 2 i.e. high end
restaurants, spas, gyms, and hotels. The reason being the customers visiting these
establishments have low price sensitivity and will be willing to buy a water bottle at
a premium price. Also, customers visiting high-end spas and gyms would be
interested in trying out products that would provide a health benefit. This would
also serve to establish the product as a high-end, quality product.

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Market to launch :
The product should be launched in tier 1 cities in US, like New York, SFO,
Chicago. Based on certain market research we understand that the target
markets have an appetite to try new products, has a significant affluent
population and has several high-end restaurants.
Partner with high-end restaurants, spas, gyms to market the product and
create brand awareness. Since the establishments are known for quality,
partnering with them will create a positive image for the product.
Marketing and Pricing :
Bottled water consumers are increasingly adopting new products with health
benefits. Functional water has added functional value in the form of minerals,
oxygen and vitamins. Since consumers prefer to try new tastes and follow the
best of them, the availability of a range of flavors and options in functional
water will boost the market growth.
Innovative packaging of bottled water is the latest trend in the market. The
bottle should be visually pleasing, and sophisticated. The bottle packaging
can be marketed as recyclable and environmentally friendly. The target
customers are conscious of the environment, hence, building a product that
would check all these boxes is necessary.
The high-end premium bottles currently in the market are prices $25 and
above for a 750 ml bottle. Hence, pricing the bottle in a similar range should
be competitive.
Obtain feedback from individual customers and setup a channel to ship the
product to interested customers (i.e customers who tried the product in the
restaurants and would like a supply home)
A more personalized service should be the differentiator.
43. How do you develop your product strategy and roadmap?
Attributes of a good Product strategy:
Good product strategy builds upon the company’s existing advantages
(companion products, distribution channels, partner relationships, etc.).
Good product strategy clearly identifies target customer segments and non-
target segments.

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 Good product strategy identifies leading and lagging indicators of success,
whether they are metrics or milestones.
Take both top down and bottom-up approach to formulate your strategy. Use top
down to bring alignment with company mission and priorities. Use bottom to find
areas of strength, innovation.
Roadmap is the journey your product will take, including a destination (vision),
route (strategy) and maybe the first steps (releases). This focused on the why and
the how (discovery/delivery). A release plan is more detailed talking about the
what, when and how (delivery).

44. How would you decide between showing/not showing ads on Waymo self
driving cars?
Clarification
What does showing ads mean ? Is it showing outside of the car as a mobile
billboard or showing inside of the car on screens? —> Inside of the car /
digital ads
What is our product strategy with Waymo. Do we want to get into the ride
hailing business or license our tech —> To be defined by you
Do we have any near or long term revenue goals for this —> Get wide usage
of Waymo tech and be a key driver in accelerating the adoption of self-driving
cars accessible in the world
Goals with Waymo
With the goal of Google helping accelerate the adoption of self-driving cars in the
world we have two options
Lets considers the two options

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 7. Build our own fleet of self-driving cars —> This requires hardware + software
investments as well as operating a business with vastly different unit
economics (gross margins) that Google is not used to. Further, there are well
entrenched competitors on almost all major markets across the globe that
already own the customer relationship. This would not be a viable option for
Google to get into as it will require a lot of investment and time to unseat
incumbents purely on self-driving tech.
8. License our technology to automobile manufacturers —> This is more aligned
with Google’s approach. More importantly it brings Google’s massive prowess
in machine learning and mapping to the automobile manufacturers. As a car is
being reimagined, in that the occupants will no longer be driving but merely
passengers, the opportunities and possibilities. reimagine user needs inside
of the car while in transit is massive. Google should focus on using Waymo
tech to build a software platform for self-driving cars. This can start with
licensing autonomous software (sensing, perception, navigation, controls) to
the automobile companies and eventually that same software can be use to
launch other services to customers within cars. For instance Google could
launch its own entertainment (video, music) service to customers or they can
open up the platform to other developers to build applications for in-car use.
After cellphones - cars might be the next big platform for the future so
thinking about how google can own the platform and user contacts is
probably a better long term play. We will have a massive number of
hyperconnected individuals and billions of hours of freed up time (from no
driving) from a captive audience.
Reasons to NOT show ads
Google focus with Waymo is licensing its tech to auto companies. Ads can be
an impediment to wide adoption and detract from the core focus and goal./
Auto companies will want to control the experience inside of the car (it is their
physical product) and they are not incentivized by ad-based revenue,
especially the premium car makers
Users can continue using their phones or tablets while in the car - i.e. existing
avenues to show ads still are valid
Reasons to show ads

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 When cars reach L5 (fully autonomous) it will unlock billions of hours. Users
attention can be monetized during the time they are traveling
Ads can help with commerce, drive inshore visits, take people to restaurants,
show gas stations, enable shopping and unlock a lot of location based
discovery items which were previously not possible on this massive scale
Summary
I would not show ads in the car. I would focus on getting Waymo tech widely
adopted and ensuring the largest numbers of autonomous cars are on the ‘Google
platform’. Thereafter the options to make revenue are expansive around streaming,
entertainment, gaming and in general opening up an ecosystem for developers
where google collects tax on all revenue through its car platform.

45. Design a launch strategy for Google Glass.

Google mission==>organize world info and make it accessible to user
Monetize from Ad revenue, enterprise productivity service, Developers
Google glass provides==>smart virtual screen , hands free voice commands
activated glass for for $1000+. Fits in google mission
If google is to launch google glass the key metrics of success would be
7. Number of glasses purchase
8. Usage in term of google search, texts, play video, take picture other activities
performed
Previous pitfalls
7. Not much use cases
8. Expensive for the value it offered
9. Looked and felt weird on the eye
10. Privacy issues****
User segments

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 7. Millennials (tech, doctors, blue collar, cops,)==> Millennials are tech savvy
interested in IOT wearables, prefer cool trendy and branded accessories.
Spends a lot of time indoor on videos games and intermediates in new AR/VR
technology
8. Students==>Some own personal phones, most don't. Parental control on
some of the devices. Digital DNA, like flashy, trendy smart devices
9. Baby boomers Smallest segment, tech familiar but not tech savvy
User Needs and preference
7. Millennials a. Casual purposes Needs to be Cool/trendy, Hands Free
communication, Playing games (holding handsets while using glass to watch)
watching AR/VR videos. Prefers Branded Glasses. Google isn't has a brand
value in glass/fancy/trendy products
b. Specialized purposes==>Doctor can sue while making surgeries Or
checking patient's history while attending patient
8. Students
Parents can give it to students by putting it in students mode and having parental
control. It can work as a smart device, virtual screens for playing games and
watching AR movies. Needs flashy, colorful, trendy look
Militage previous pitfalls
7. Add more value
1. Integrate with AR/VR system
2. Build gaming options and handsets that can work with google glass
3. Add in family account/parental control for students
10. With additional value it may sound worth the price. Study cost data and see if
that could be reduced
11. Need to change the design so it looks more trendy and classy for millenials.
Somewhat colorful doe Students. May partner with Glass brands such as
Prada, Gucci etc. however existing brands are already so expensive. Adding
google glass may only make it more expensive
12. Possible disallow camera options on Glass

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Go To Market strategy
7. Educating use cases
Digital advertising as well as science fares, career fairs, give students/millennials
options to try
7. Marketing
Display advertisement on use cases, youtube, facebook, billboards,
7. Distribution/channels
Using existing patterns and supply chain for Pixel and other HW products
Forecast demand based on previous data and feedback from users
7. Promotion
Student discount, discount on purchasing pixel
7. Place
Online stores amazon, google stores
Physical store, best buy, target, walmart
7. Measure success
# of glass bought
Usages, in terms of search queries and other tasks
Risks
Camera is one of the most consumed apps of smart devices, removing it may
remove the value of the product. With additional integration it may become more
expensive and that again people would stop seeing value in it

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46. How can Google be relevant in the next 10 years?
Clarifying questions
Define relevant? Google should keep progressing in solving customer
usecases / increasing revenue and profitability over next 10 yrs
Since we are discussing about 10 yr period, can i assume that we need not
have any constraints in mind? Yes, do not consider any constraints
Just to be clear this is about Google in specific and not about Alphabet and
various companies within the group. Yes, let's focus on google
Last assumption, can we assume that the overall goal / vision of google as a
company is not going to change in next 10 yrs and we can think of
suggestions within the current realms of operation only? Sure
Google's Mission: To organize world's info and make it easily accessible and useful
for everyone
Google is a global conglomerate with operations in various businesses and
domains. Generated around 200 Bn D revenue but majority of it comes from
advertising business (around 80%). Other sources of revenue are premium
product subscriptions & productivity suite sales, Transactions commissions. Is
quite successful in setting up paltform based business which are generally low
cost and high margin businesses.
Competition: There are various competitors in various fields eg. Microsoft in
productivity , Msft + FB in the ads business, Msft in search, netflix - tiktok in the
video business etc.
Customers: Billions of customer, of different types, different motivations, pain
points etc. But i would like to think in 3 broad terms
Advertisers: Come to advertise to creators and consumers Creators: Create
content Consumers: Consume Content
Goal: To keep relevant should ideally translate to acquiring and engaging
customers over a period of 10 years.

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Line of thinking: If any trend is impacting the three main users, then we have to be
able to tackle that threat
Advertisers: Value
Large user base
Quality of content
Advertising capabilities
Hence if we can take care of the creators and consumers then i think our
advertisers are not going anywhere
Creators and Consumers
Various trends are emerging which are impacting the creators and consumers both
which we can analyze to understand what should be the approach to remain
relevant. I would like to do this in 4 parts
Existing users - Existing JTBD
Objective: To help users in doing their job better
Use cases: Search, entertainment, productivity etc.
Trends like social media, short form video, Accessibility, Ecomm etc. are
impacting our creators and consumers both
Smart Emails, Better search engine
Existing Users - New JTBD
Objective: To make users of various latent needs and keep them engaged
Business: Productivity use cases, Remote working
Trends like metaverse, VR etc. are giving better remote working
experience to users and can impact the retention
New Users - Existing JTBD
Objective: To increase the user base of the existing services
3rd world countries
Lack of internet
Lack of education
Lack of opportunities
New Users - New JTBD

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 To understand the new user base and develop capabilities to target their
newer needs
Millenials and Gen Z
Not into owning assets
More comfortable with innovations like smart speakers, watches,
smart devices
More comfortable with online education as compared to university
based education
Trends:
Data privacy: GDPR, Data storing regulations in india, china shutting down
access to its users
AI n ML
Ar n VR
Driverless electric cars
Blockchain
Will essentially looks to solve for the pain points of the mentioned users and
capitalize on the mentioned trends to stay relevant.

47. Who do you think is the target audience for Amazon Echo?
Clarifying questions:
7. In which environment are we using the AmazonEcho? in mobile devices? Car?
Echo devise at home?
I think the following groups make the best target according to the order
If the Echo is in-home devices:
7. Kids and Teens
8. Elderly
9. Physically Challenged Eg. Blind or Deaf
10. Others

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If the Echo is in a Car/Vehicle:
7. Uber/Lyft or Taxi drivers
8. Long-distance travelers taking road trip
48. How would you monetize Google Assistant?
Google Assistant is the Voice AI which converts Natural Language to
Queries/Instruction , processes it and get the results and again converts it back to
Meaningful Results to the User Currently Google Assistant is Integrated in Multiple
End Points.
7. Phone
8. Google Home
9. Chrome Cast
10. Google Chrome Books
Some of the Use Cases Google Assistant is used is
7. Making Phone Calls/Texting
8. Asking General Queries/Searching for Information
9. Integration with Devices and Turning them On and Off - IOT Devices
This is how Google Asssistant is Integrated Right Now . Voice is beocming a
particular Model for Search right now. To use Google in the previous years - People
Need Access to a device , with a Keyboard and only then they would have been
able to search for it. Now the persona of an educated person searching is changing
to a widespread audience of folks who need not be educated for using Google.
7. Monetization Through Ads - Via Consumers
1. As google Search becomes more voice driven ; there will be an
opportunity to use advertisement to monetize the Google Assistant -
especially when you have voice queries. The Ads will become much more
engaged for example if I am searching for temperature today and its cold
- Google Assistant can recommend buying some clothes/heaters to get
over the cold
8. Getting More focussed on the Enterprise and making a different SKU in
Google DOCS- Moneitization in Enterprise/Government

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 1. Enterprise will be happy to deploy the Google Assistant within their
software applications and Google Assistant can be used to charge a
premium for the google docs in their tenant. Here Google Assistant will
enrich itself with the knowledge of the enterprise and hence it will be a
little different from the Google Assistant in the consumer side
8. Integrations with Devices - Acs, Fridge , TVs / Monetization with OEMS
1. Here Google Assistant will bank on IOT of things and it will bring together
a connected system of devices which will work on Google. If a user has
Google Phone and is a user of Google Assistant - he would want to buy a
Device which work seamlessly with Google Assistant and hence Google
could charge the OEMs a fraction of the price of Sales Value of The
Products
8. Monetization through Upselling
1. Google Assistant can directly be used by Upselling . For example Google
Assistant can be used to prod a user to buy a certain other thing just
because he bought a thing
8. Monetization via Travelling
1. Google Assistant can be used in Travelling - especially in Places where
there is Language , Currency Barrier - Google Assistant Premium
Features which are basically Voice can listen to the person whom you are
conversing [ Who is a foreign Person] and in real time could convert to
your language - hence making the communication seamless and
eliminating the need for translators at a fraction of the Cost. This can also
be used in a vast country like India where politicians in the north do
canvassing in south but there is a huge language barrier and google
assistant converst it
49. How would you prioritize Snapchat's strategy?
Snapchat's mission is to re-create how people use camera to capture their life
moments. Snapchat's user base is comprised of Gen Z and Millenials, capturing
the ~ 12-35 year old age group. Snapchat's goal is to keep these users engaged so
they don't leave for enticing competitors like Tic Toc and Quibi.
Tic Toc and Quibi are major competitors to Snapchat and they seem to compete on
original content. They've partnered with celebrities and media brands to produce
really engaging, high quality content. They also seem to be focusing on making

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users feel like celebrities themselves, providing them with advanced tools to create
fun videos and then share those videos with the world.
I think Snapchat's competitive advantage, something that neither Tic Toc nor Quibi
has, is a connection to your real-world network. Tic Toc and Quibi have great
discovery functionality where users can find fun videos that strangers made,
however users have little interaction with their own real-world social network.
Snapchat could mimic its competitors and invest more in original content and
partnerships with celebrities, but that would be very costly. Instead, I think
Snapchat should double down on what it does best, which is its ability to provide
users with connection to their real-world social network.
Snapchat's core competencies are its social network, filters, and stories.
Messaging is a feature that was added later and it's fairly underused. If Snapchat
could increase use of messaging, it would increase user engagement and thus
users would spend more time in the app. Instead of having to switch from
Snapchat to a messaging app to send a text to a friend, users could natively
message within Snapchat.
Messaging has the potential to be a really big feature and it ties in nicely with
Snapchat's competitive advantage of being a real-world social network; users on
Snapchat interact with their friends, and not with strangers. People love messaging
their friends, so doubling down on messaging has a potentially big upside.
When testing this hypothesis, I would like to understand why is messaging an
underused feature in Snapchat today. Is it because users don't know that it exists?
Is it because users don't want to spend the time typing a message? Are users
simply using other messaging apps out of habit? I would dig into this question
more and then come up with a strategy to address where in the funnel users are
dropping.

51. Should LinkedIn launch a video conferencing platform?

Clarifying Qs:
Question: Would this be a standalone platform, or be integrated into the
existing LinkedIn web application and mobile applications?

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 Answer: Integrated into the existing LinkedIn web application and mobile
applications.
Question: What are the goals of a video conferencing platform for LinkedIn?
Answer: You decide.
Let's think about LinkedIn's mission statement, which is to connect the world's
professionals to make them more productive and successful. LinkedIn's core
functionality includes allowing users to connect with other users, search for new
jobs, and share relevant updates with their network.
Users include professionals looking to build their networks, recruiters looking for
new hires, and companies trying to build their brand.
Because the video conferencing platform would be integrated into the existing
LinkedIn product, we can look into the stages in a user's journey in which video
conferencing would add value related to LinkedIn's mission.
I'll prioritize the job-seeking professional as the target user for a video
conferencing platform, mostly because professionals make up the majority of
LinkedIn's user base and job-seekers are most likely to be actively engaged on
LinkedIn. Does this sound okay? My intuition tells me that job-seeking
professionals are already engaged members of the LinkedIn community, and while I
think that a video conferencing platform would increase engagement, I think we
can actually focus on increasing revenue.
Let's think of where video conferencing could play into the job-seeking
professional's user journey:
In addition to messaging their connections or sending InMail, professionals
could chat through video calls
Professionals could have video calls with recruiters or interviewers on
LinkedIn
Professionals could dial into Q&A information sessions hosted on LinkedIn
A video conferencing platform could further strengthen the connections that
professionals have with both companies and other professionals on LinkedIn. This
would increase the value of Premium subscriptions for both job-seekers and

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recruiters and the value of ad space for companies promoting themselves on
LinkedIn — the means through which LinkedIn generates revenue.
Before moving forward, I want to analyze the competitors and overall climate of the
video conferencing platform space. Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Skype are
already established players in the video conferencing space, and they are already
widely used by professionals. This did not stop Slack, Discord, and Microsoft
Teams from integrating their own native video conferencing tools, though.
Remote recruiting is defaulting to voice and video, especially for forging deeper
and more dynamic connections with job-seekers. However, building a video
conferencing platform would be extremely costly. LinkedIn would have to hire for
expertise outside of its core capabilities and buy additional servers to support the
video conferencing. If we were to compare the number of engineers needed to
competitors, LinkedIn would need hundreds of engineers to support the video
conferencing platform.
I do believe that having video conferencing native on LinkedIn's web application
and mobile application would encourage more productive relationships between
users, following LinkedIn's mission. But, there is a risk that the tool would not be
well-adapted for two reasons. Firstly, LinkedIn supports mainly professional
connections between people who don't communicate with each other on a regular
basis, like they would on a workspace. Secondly, LinkedIn members likely already
hold loyalty to their favorite video conferencing platforms outside of LinkedIn.
As an alternative to building a new video conferencing platform, LinkedIn could
consider partnering with an existing video conferencing tool to promote deeper
relationships between job-seeking professionals.

52. How would you go about pricing a self-driving car?

Clarifying Questions First, let me try to clarify what kind of self-driving car are we
talking about here. Let' say, we have the following top-level assumptions:
7. Fully autonomous
8. Family Sedan Car
9. US Market

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 10. This technology is only available with Google
In a real face-to-face interview would pause to ask the interviewer to correct
assumptions or ask for other features.
Consumer Family - uses the autonomous ability of the car to spend time with kids
while dropping them off to school and let' the parent focus on their work while the
car
Competitors Regular family sedan cars, say costing $25,000 (assumption).
Comparative features and interiors except for autonomous driving.
Pricing 4 major ways to price a product:
Customer' Willingness To Pay
Run conjoint analysis to understand the customer' WTP for an autonomous family
sedan. If running that is not possible, we can look at the next best alternative that
is a regular family sedan.
Competitive' pricing
price = $25,000
Cost-based Pricing
Let' say it costs $20,000 to build the car. We can go the "razor-razor blade" model
to sell the car at cost. All the software updates, car services etc. are where we
charge the customer. This could also be used by Google to gather data on
customers to upsell relevant ads.
Build a demand curve
This can be achieved by experimenting with multiple prices based on that
extrapolate the right price for maximum profit. Given the urgency (assuming) - no
time for experimentation, so can't build a demand curve.

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Google's core business is ads - not making money through cars. So we can go by
the "razor-razor blade" model but since the technology is only available with
Google, it can still charge above cost and not be worried about undercutting. So
Google should sell the car at $25,000 (avg market price of a similar car) and make
more money via targetted ads.

53. How would you launch a newly developed drone?

Me: thanks for the question. Could you tell me what type of drone is it and what is
the user segment?
Interviewer: What you mean by type of drone?
Me: Is it a premium drone with premium features like a camera or it's more on the
cheaper side?
Interviewer: It's a normal drone with basic features, a good camera but nothing
professional and it has the Google brand. The users are amateur drone users.
Me: Awesome, is there anything specific about this drone in relation to others? You
mentioned that it has the Google brand.
Interviewer: Good question, the drone is more integrated with the Google eco-
system, such as easy access to Google Drive and Google Photos environments.
You can also link it to your Gmail and e-mail your videos for instance to your
friends.
Me: Good. Let me take a minute to structure my approach.
Me: I want to begin with a SWOT analysis of our product compared to the
competitors given that this is a competitive space nowadays, and after that, I want
to establish our launch strategy that will be composed by marketing efforts - both
online and offline - and how we are going to be distributing the channel - online
stores and/or physical stores.
For the SWOT analysis we have the following:

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Strengths - you mentioned that our drone has the same features as a 'common'
drone in the market. However, we have 1) the Google brand and 2) the integration
with its ecosystem. We should leverage that and it's likely unique to our product.
Weakness - the biggest weakness is the fact that our hardware is no better than
what's available in the market and we do not have a strong brand in drones and
hardware in general.
Opportunities - We could leverage the data from the environments the people take
the drones to understand even better the users' behaviors and offer them better
services through our ads business.
Threats - Other competitors could 'copy' our seamless integration with the Google
environment, given the openness of our platform and therefore one of our key
leverage points could be hampered.
Now, given the SWOT analysis above, let's come up with our marketing efforts and
the choice of distribution channels.
For marketing efforts, I believe that leveraging our online ads expertise will be
crucial in reaching our best customers across the globe, but it's also important to
have a presence in key technology conferences to show off our product
capabilities so that we can gather an initial momentum. It's important to notice that
we should have a launch date and all this initial momentum coming from ads and
presence in tech conferences should begin a few months prior, for example, 2
months.
Now, let's establish how we want to distribute our product, via online stores and
physical stores. Overall, given the higher margins that we can get from online
stores, I would prioritize those, effectively Google's own store. However, to have a
larger breadth of the target audience, I would also select a few online and physical
partners like Best Buy to carry our product line. In any of those cases, I would
leverage and market the Google Brand and how the drone is seamless integrated
with all other Google's products for the user delight when transferring
videos/photos or even gathering additional context of the place where the drone
flew.

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Finally, I would measure closely the success of the product based on user
feedback and iterate with those data points to understand how we can optimize
the current and next versions of the product. A few of those metrics are:
7. How often the drone users end up using the other Google products, for
example, google drive, photos, maps, search and what is the frequency in
each one.
8. what is the churn rate when using the product, for example, is it common that
after using the drone X times that user stops using it?
54. How would you increase the Pixel marketshare?
Who is the competition ? Apple , Samsung, Huawei, Oneplus
By working on the below -ves:
What are the -ves when compared to the competitors ?
7. Price : Why would people buy similar features for a higher price when
available on a low cost phone ?
8. Design / Looks : Millennials / Alpha generation go by the looks of the phone.
9. Funky colors : Pixel have funky colored phones (+ve and -ve)
10. Performance : One plus performance being better than Pixel
11. UI : Stock Android vs Custom UI
What are the -ves by itself ?
7. Availability : Being available only in a few countries, it is a risk to the buyer as
to why would a person buy a phone in a country where it could not be
repaired
8. Brand name : Users around the world are aware of Google as a software
company, To trust with hardware is a different ball game.
9. Integrations : Integration with Google watch and / or Google earpods.
55. What would you do if your VP of product proposes to launch a separate
LinkedIn messenger app?
Please find below my approach:

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 7. Understand VP's line of thought and goals trying to achieve
8. Understand the assumptions/ Validate the hypothesis
9. Impact on Brand, revenue, engineering cost, customers, and existing
products
10. SWOT
11. Approve or Provide alternative
Question to the VP:
7. What is the objective? - higher engagement? easy to interact, peer-to-peer
communication?
8. Why the need for a separate platform? - to increase the no.of interactions? to
penetrate in low-internet speed countries?
9. Target customers - Targeting Blue-collar workers who find the platform
inhibiting? Targeting people who are non-active on LinkedIn? All segments?
Assumptions and hypothesis testing:
Market/experimentation data to validate or invalidate the below
7. A separate messenger platform will increase engagement in the targeted
segment?
8. Interaction in Low-speed internet countries is through peer-to-peer
messenger apps?
9. Blue-collar workers engage through messenger applications?
Impact on Brand:
7. LinkedIn is a professional networking portal with formal communication
standards and messengers are more informal communication. Adverse
impact on Brand and positioning.
Impact on Revenue:
7. Revenue gain: Opening up messenger to 3rd party platforms for integrations-
for ex. paid chatbots to engage audience etc.
8. Revenue loss: Advertising, paid per view, PPC revenue decline website usage
might drop

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Revenue loss is significant compared to revenue gains.
engineering cost:
7. Cost and time to develop a standalone application after leveraging the
existing messenger capabilities
Existing products:
7. A decrease in interactions on LinkedIn feed and other LinkedIn products
could hamper the network effects and gradually decrease the overall
engagement
1. Check the possible impact through parallels (FB feed vs FB messenger),
samples from own data ( messenger power users cohort engagement on
other LinkedIn products)
Customers:
7. Confusion on when to use what for communication?
8. Value add when compared to teams, fb messenger, whatsapp, imessage,
LinkedIn feed?
SWOT:
Strength:
7. Existing users
Weakness:
7. Competitive market and no clear value-add
8. Space dominated by stalwarts
Opportunity:
7. Penetrate blue-collar market

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Threat:
7. Hamper the overall brand image and positioning
8. Impact on revenue
In summary, after evaluating all the parameters there are other lucrative
alternatives to reach the desired goal when compared to stand-alone messenger.
Messengers is a crowded space and without clear value-add peer-to-peer
communications have short shelf-life. Need to reconsider the proposal.

59. Should Amazon enter the food delivery business?

To clarify the question, we need to know
What portion of “food” are we discussing? All groceries, cold ready-to-heat
meals, meal kits, hot meals, or something else? Finding “something else”
presents the opportunity to invent a new sector of the business that
leverages Amazon’s unique strengths. That’s more likely to be a winner idea,
from Amazon’s perspective and the interviewer’s opinion of you, than copying
some other company’s existing approach. But it’s also possible the
interviewer has a very specific idea in mind, so you need to ask. The field of
“global food delivery” is far too large for even Amazon to tackle in one effort.
Delivering hot food within 30 minutes is a very different business than
delivering shelf-stable food within 2 days or longer.
Assuming we’re talking about hot meals, would the source of the meals be
Amazon-owned, or third-party restaurants?
What has Amazon learned from its previous work in hot-meal delivery? They
did restaurant-sourced delivery in selected US markets before stopping that
experiment. They invested Deliveroo, then sold a portion of that investment
while retaining over 10% ownership. Such learnings are not something I’d
expect an interviewer to provide much information on, but in practice, a
product manager within Amazon would be silly to develop a proposal without
leveraging the institutional knowledge.
What part of the world are we considering?
If the interviewer asks you to figure out which type of meals Amazon should
deliver, that compare/contrast could absorb most or all of the interview, in a good

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way. It reframes the question from a yes/no answer to a more open-ended
question: what’s the BEST WAY to enter the business, assuming Amazon wants to
try something. It’s safe to assume Amazon would want to find SOME WAY to enter
the business, since it already has done so multiple times in the past.
One portion of the answer could involve listing Amazon core competencies and
why they might be especially helpful for this particular business. Unless Amazon
has a few core competencies that it can leverage, any new-business proposal will
fail. We’d also want to explore whether Amazon has long-term disadvantages vs
current and future competitors, for example: Amazon’s large scale requires
operational standardization, which could be a disadvantage for customers who like
being surprised by spur-of-the-moment flourishes made by mom-and-pop, local
restaurants that want to show the owners’ personal care for their customers.
It would be helpful for many potential questions, not just this one, to prepare in
advance with a list of Amazon’s strategic advantages and potential disadvantages
for trying different possible businesses.

60. Would you start accepting cash for Uber rides in certain markets who
prefer it?
I would like to clarify the scope of this question - It is only limited to Uber rides and
not Uber eats. correct? For us to gauge whether Uber should accept cash or not,
lets first understand why would Uber want to do this, a few reasons which come to
mind:
7. Uber wants to acquire more customers (non-digital payment users)
8. Uber wants to provide alternative options to existing users and make it easier
for them to book with Uber
9. Strategic reason - competition has started accepting cash or is planning to in
some markets
For us to drill down ideally we should think of the geography where these problems
exist and could be solved by cash payments. US and EU are big markets for Uber
and are largely digital payment markets. India and is growing market for Uber and
is cash heavy. Brazil is also another big market for Uber and is cash heavy.

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Let's assume we want to target the Indian market. Even for strategic reasons, Uber
wants to compete with Ola and a cash option could be a differentiator here.
I would like to look at the opportunity size for cash payments in India: India has 200
mil internet buyers (on ecommerce) using pay, 600 mil digital payment users.
From amongst, 1.3 billion indian population, 30% is urban - 450mil urban
population 10% of these travel everyday for work - 45 mil 20-30% of these have
salaries above a threshold and have the capacity to travel in Uber - 15-20mil 70%
of these would be willing to pay in cash, if given an option - 10mil cash users
In non-urban, which is 70% of india's population = 750 mil We can look at top 5
cities close to metros which would comprise of 50% of this population = 350mil In
these cities, lets say 10% have to travel daily/weekly = 35mil and 20% of these
have the capacity to pay = 7mil
Total market size would be = 10mil + 5-7mil (rural)
Next we need to understand from the consumer perspective: Pros: Added
convenience for this new set of users To evaluate: Is there willingness to carry and
pay in cash? Cons: Carrying cash and balance/change can be a hassle for them
From the drivers perspective: Pros: They would like the fact that they are receiving
payment upfront and dont have to wait long for Uber to disburse money to them
Cons: They would have to deposit cash every week at an Uber kiosk which is
added friction for them To evaluate: Is carrying cash and manage change a hassle
for them?
We need to asses the cost of this change:
7. Cash management - collecting cash from drivers would mean setting up an
operations process to collect cash at a weekly/monthly frequency. This is
added cost
8. Risks in terms of theft and money laundering from Uber drivers, tax
avoidance
9. Challenge for Uber to account for the cash collected and reconciliation of this
is an expensive accounting process

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Looking at the above risks and the fact that Uber is a listed company and is aiming
to be profitable, the risks and costs of cash management seems to outweigh the
benefit of introducing cash payment. With this in mind, i wouldn't focus on cash
payments.

61. Apply Porter's Five Forces model to a product you've worked on.
Let's apply Porter's Five Forces model to Amazon's business. All of these are my
personal opinions.
7. Industry Rivalry - There's a continuous rivalry in the ecommerce space with
each rival trying to focus on specific aspect's of Amazon's business. Walmart
(price, convenience), Google Shopping (relevancy, search), Shopify (brand
trust, direct buying), eBay (antiques, used, shipping), Facebook Marketplace
(buy from 3P sellers).
8. Threat of new entrants - Amazon continuously faces threats of new entrants
in various verticals that deliver high-quality experiences in a specific domain
(Wayfair=furniture, Chewy = Pets, Shein = Fashion), and then expand into
other areas where Amazon operates. To defend itself against such potential
threats, Amazon used to acquire brands (Zappos, WholeFoods,
Blinl/Ring/Eero) and has continued to defend it's position for its Amazon
Video (MGM). However, the threat continues to exist for Amazon's
fundamental strengths (ecommerce platform) from companies like Shopify,
Adobe (acquired and operated Magento), Google Shopping, Facebook
Marketplace. To respond to these entrants, Amazon may need to launch
something significantly important that increases its presence and make it
harder for its rivals to keep up.
9. Threat of substitutes - The market could decide to shop less online, more in-
store. The imminent threat of recession, and inflation could drive less
shopping. In general, there could be a higher shift towards reuse, and
sustainable living - driving more shopping on rebuy platforms like OfferUp or
Buy nothing groups on Facebook. Finally, this may seem like a stretch, maybe
with the metaverse, all you need is digital goods: furniture, pets, sports
equipment, clothing - all purchased using BTC and NFTs?! Maybe that's the
future in 2030? This could render all of Amazon's warehousing tech and
shipping capabilities useless.

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 10. Bargaining power of Buyers - If consumers start buying all of their items from
low-margin, low-cost chains like Costco, the pricing could become
unsustainable for Amazon - unless it renegotiates with brands or finds
cheaper alternatives. Despite Amazon's billions of dollars invested in
sustainability, customers could falsely perceive it as a low-sustainable way of
shopping (all those boxes, all those trucks!). This may have also led Amazon
to lead the way in being the highest paying employer for its warehouse staff.
11. Buying power of Suppliers - the lack of inventory, challenges in supply chain,
high cost of labor and commodities, could all drive up the cost of goods on
Amazon, and the cost of shipping them. While these costs impact other
retailers, the added cost of fuel could make the total cost of an item more
expensive on Amazon vs driving down to a local store.
62. How would you grow UberEats' user base?
Clarify definition of user base - is user base eater or end consumer only or it also
includes courier aka delivery partner and the restaurant/retail outlet [the supplier of
food / grocery]?
User base [eaters/end consumers ordering on the app] can be increased by either
acquiring new users or resurrecting churned / in active users. This can be done by
increasing the value realized by the user from the Uber eats app. Some features
that can help us accomplish this :
Add option to pick up food directly from the restaurant [this will be offered at
a discount to getting the food delivered by a courier/driver] - this will help
improve the margin to Uber [no payments to courier required] as well as bring
the costs down for the user - a win win
Add option to order grocery by partnering with grocery stores - this will
unlock a new user segment that currently shops on instacart/ amazon fresh
etc.
Offer incentives and discounts to churned / in active users to resurrect them
[they may have left due to high price when self pick up was not available, they
may have left because they do not want to eat outside food but may resurrect
to shop for grocery]
Offer monthly subscriptions that cover x number of deliveries - this will help
lock the user to the uber eats ecosystem as opposed to the same user
shopping on multiple delivery apps [such as those offered by the
competitors]

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Important to ensure that the restaurant / retail outlet finds value in offering Uber
Eats as a channel for their consumers:
Expand the selection of restaurants / retail outlets that people love and are
likely to order from
Maintain the platform by weeding out outlets/ restaurants that are repeat
offenders and have very high dispute rate due to poor quality of products
Reward restaurants / retail partners that have very positive reviews from the
end users
63. If the CEO of YouTube asked you to double the total watch time of the site,
how would you do it?
If the CEO of YouTube asked you to double the total watch time of the site, how
would you do it?
Clarifying: --What: Mobile / Desktop | --Where: Global or some certain market? |
Any customer segment? --When: How long to have this achieved? --Resource
constraints: This is obviously going to come at the expense of something else. How
is this related to YouTube’s other products - Music, Premium, Movies, Originals etc,
or is this across all of them? Can I design a new feature?
How has watchtime been trending so far? Acute vs Chronic? In what areas?
Context:
Highly competitive Youtube is not highly specific Attention span is lowering
More people across the world are getting connected to the internet There are
definitely emerging trends in social media, sharing economy, AR VR etc.
Identify some customer segments who are dropping from the platform and see
their unaddressed needs: (Value to Customer | Segment Size -> S / M / L)
Students (L, L)
Entertainers / Celebrities, (L, M)
Young adults, (L, L)
Old people. (S,S)

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Focus on young adults passing their time: lots of competition, but make it easier for
them to browse on Youtube
Prioritize focus: Above
Sketch out some strategies for stickiness: Critical path: -> Login to Youtube | Home
Screen | Suggestions | Click to watch or Search to watch | Watch | Engage | Watch
another video from recommendation | Repeat | Close the App.
Experiment:
Design new feature ideas: Autoplay, Queues, Smart Downloads, Make Shorts the
default browsing experience, Push notifications,AR world, Language packs.
Improve existing experience: Hide engagement (direct tradeoff), smart search,
categorization and playlisting,
Experiment: A/B / N tests
Evaluate success: North Star: Watchtime per session per MAU Counter Metric:
(Quality of recommendations would be lower) - Churn rate, App store rating,
Pivot:
Evaluate risks: Comes at the risk of engagement, poor customer experience.

65. How would you improve Twitter user growth?

Skeleton:
7. Mission
8. Goals and User segmentation
9. User journey
10. Metrics
11. Pain points and opportunities
12. experimentation
Starting with Twitter's mission, "the power to create and share ideas and
information without barriers", we are looking to empower people to be both

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consumers and creators. However, for the sake of this discussion, I want to focus
on the consumer sides.
As mentioned, our goal is to focus on user growth. But I want to understand if we
are looking to acquire more 1st time users on the platform or are we looking to
grow the amount of engagement of the existing users? Also, are we looking for
global market or US specific users?
I will focus on acquiring new users in US demography for this discussion. User
segmentation young/millenials, adult and elderly. I want to focus on young users
and I would like to identify the area of improvement by comparing our current user
base with other social networks, such as instagram and tiktok.
Pain points : ease of usability, any limitations such as creating videos or posting
longer contents (gt 140 characters).
Metrics: numbers of new users over time, stickiness on the platform, whether fomo
is driving people returning
Experiments: Suppose we want to add a new features, like sending more frequent
notifications from followers. Then run an A/B test

66. Shopify opened its first retail location in LA, what would be your strategy
for future locations?
I will need to understand
7. What are we selling and who is the target customer? Is one retail location per
metro area enough or is the market big enough for multiple stores?
8. What is the goal of future retail locations? Gauge the market for fit or drive
revenue.
If LA market is big enough for multiple stores, then for logistical reasons, I will
prefer to open additional stores in the same geographic region. If LA market is not
large enough, then my second store will be in an a different metro area to get
increase TAM and drive maximum revenue.

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67. What is a company that you're excited about? If you were the CEO, what
would you do differently?
There are many companies I’m excited about, but none captures my heart
and imagination more than Lego. I have great memories of playing with Lego.
I remember the thrill and happiness after completing a set and the excitement
to show it to my family, relatives and friends. From a product standpoint, Lego
offers a myriad of opportunities for growth in today’s context in which
technology is ubiquitous.
Lego has faced several challenges over the years from expanding their user
base, traditionally made up of boys, making their product more appealing to
girls, teenagers and even adults to dealing with the advent of games on
mobile devices that compete for kids’ attention and play time.
I think that the problem of expanding Lego’s user base is an interesting
opportunity that directly ties to the company’s top and bottom lines and if I
were CEO I would tackle it right on. Would that be ok?
Interviewer: Yes, sure, go ahead.
Great. I’d like to go over the key personas of Lego and focus on one for the
sake of time
Interviewer: Ok, sounds reasonable
Perfect. Traditionally, Lego has been extremely popular with boys who love
assembling Lego models and deal well with delayed gratification. For many
years, Lego struggled to create a product line that really resonated with girls.
In the last few years though, the company has finally made some inroads into
this user segment and has gained the attention of parents concerned about
exposing their daughters to STEM. Kids who play with Lego are considered,
rightly or wrongly, to be future engineers and have natural penchant to STEM.
Finally, there are adults who grew up with Lego and still enjoy the Lego
assembling process. This persona represents a minuscule segment of their
current user base.
I’d like to focus on adults of 25-35 years old who played with Lego as kids
because they already have a strong emotional attachment to the brand.
Unlike kids, these users have considerable disposable income and they will
be the brand ambassadors for the new generation of Lego users when they
become parents.
Interviewer: Ok, go ahead.

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 Adult users of Lego have disposable income but they don’t have much free
time to assemble Lego. They are interested in more complex models that
carry some personal significance. While they don’t care about showing their
completed models to family and friends as much as they did when they were
kids, social proof is still important. They are interested in participating in
communities of like-minded Lego users and share experiences.
I thought about 3 possible Lego products for adults
1) Let users snap pictures of objects and upload them to a Lego app. Lego
would build a 3D model of that picture and send the Lego model to the user
to be assembled.
2) Sell pre-built models to adults. They could enjoy a Lego set already
assembled and ready to play with.
3) Create a web platform where users would be able to view videos of how to
assemble Lego sets, interact with other Lego users, organize meet-ups,
display their completed models and gain social recognition for their models.
The option #1 is appealing and innovative, but it could be extremely difficult
to bring it to fruition from a technical perspective. Coming up with 3D models
from a 2D picture is not a simple process. Option #2 would satisfy the fact
that adults don’t have much time to assemble Legos, but it would eliminate
the joy to assembling them. Finally, option #3 could become a platform for
everything Lego. Videos showing how to assemble Legos could help adults
complete the process much more quickly. The ability to share picture and
videos of completed models would provide social rewards to users. Finally,
the interaction with like-minded Lego users would folster a sense of
community reinforce engagement with the brand. For all these reasons, I’d
select the option to build a web platform primarily focus on young adults who
grew up with Lego. It could easily expand to teenagers and kids, bringing the
entire community together.
By focusing on young adults, we expand user adoption, bring Lego to where
these users already are (web and mobile), build a strong community and
finally promote the continuation of the Lego tradition on new generation.
I could estimate the TAM for this user segment. Would you like me to do that?
Interviewer: No, I think we ran out of time. But thank you for offering.
68. Should Google get into alarm clock business?
Goal: Google goal is to organize world information and make is it universally
accessible

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Most of google business are focused on building platforms that facilitate one or
more of the three below
7. Provide data/information Search, Youtube,
8. Generates user data⇒ Maps, Photos,
9. Earn from advertising==> Adsense, Google Shopping, Search
GOAL of Alarm clock is to show time and set/play Alarm
If google wants to get into the alarm clock business the goal should be if it can
facilitate one of more of the above motives of Google.
User needs, interaction with Alarm clock
7. Sees time,
8. Sets/stop alarm
9. Spends like 5-10 at most mins with it currently
10. May be portability, easy to carry
11. Millennials are more used to Alarm clocks in their phone. They are tech savvy
and mostly spend time on their phone, they consume info on phone and
prefer on demand service and remote access and things done from the apps/
digital devices
12. Baby boomers prefer traditional HW Alarm
13. Some millennials also use Google Home that can set alarm.
Features that can help fulfills google’s 3 motives mentioned above
7. Potential display of HW clock can be used to display advertisement
2.Display can be used to provide information/search and other features like video
streaming when user is not checking time
3.SW Apps can monitor some user behavior of setting an alarm for a particular
task, like alarm to catch a bus, wake up early, set cooking timer. This doesn't seem
to add much value to lets focus on above 2 features
Possible options and Solutions

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If google were to enter alarm business it can provide following potential solutions
7. SW APP for Alarm⇒Android device may already have it
8. APP can be available for non-android device
9. Build HW with display. Display can be used for fetching information( feature 1
and 2)
10. Just building a small stand where the phone can attach , Google pixels can be
used as Alarm. Phone display can be sent in clock mode when user is not
using the phone
11. Google Home can set an alarm. Display can show clock when not being used
Impact, ROI
Option1==>Already present
O2⇒ no ROI to Google. Will have to pay to non android device for its app
O3⇒ Additional HW cost of engineers, marketing, distribution. With user hardly
spending time with Alarm clock it's not much useful with any of the googles
motives
O4.=> not much cost. Possibly be used as an accessory for many purposes like if
user wants to watch something on the phone with handsfree. There might be other
companies already building this HW piece. Google being a SW company and that it
doesn't fulfill any of the google motives this doesn't seem to be a suitable option.
Google can build this stand just for its pixels as one of its accessories. Regarding
keeping the phone in clock mode it can be done without much cost. Most
millennials, which is our biggest segment, use phones for watching,texting,reading,
etc. Not much use case of keeping phone in the clock mode considering screen on
will also use battery
O5==>Set/Ring alarm functionality is already present. Google can build in clock
mode on the display that could be useful for a lot of people who already have
google home with display. When not using the display it can act as a clock. Small
investment but good value to the customer. Could be a differentiating factor
compared with other smart home choices

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Recommendation
Go for O5. It wouldn't cost much but add value to its customer who loves to or
used to seeing a display of Clock at homes/rooms

69. Should Google enter into the online furniture-selling market?

Clarification questions:
7. What do you mean by online furniture-selling market?
8. Why would google want to do it?
9. Why does google want to do it now?
10. Where does google want to launch it?
Let me make the assumptions answering above questions:
7. It is like google flights, say we call it google furnitures, where it organizes,
curates furniture information to the users and then refers to the seller website
instead of selling furniture directly to the consumer like amazon, walmart,
wayfairs of the world do.
8. Google wants to add additional channel to generate revenues through referral
fees and advertisements.
9. Google sees that other brands have become strong brands and users have
started to go to those brands directly and searching for furnitures that may
hurt google search traffic.
10. Google wants to start in the US.
Based on those assumptions:
Let us move ahead and lay out the structure for the answer.
7. Understand product, company, and industry goals
8. Understand the landscape
9. Layout the decision making heuristics
10. Make a decision
11. Evaluate tradeoffs, risks, and alternatives.

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12. Google's mission is to organize world's information, make it universally
accessible and useful. So it has products in its portfolio that strengthens that
mission. Google generates revenue through advertisements and referrals.
1. It's strength is to organize the information for the user. For example, it
organizes the internet, emails, videos, flights, apps, and more. If it were
to add furnitures, it can leverage it's current strength.
2. It's weakness has historically been around products that involve
atoms(physical) instead of bits ( digital). I think Google has e-commerce
business. I can't find that in the list of google products. So, it's best to
avoid selling directly.
9. Landscape
1. Let us talk about Porter's five to understand the landscape:
1. Buyers: Consumers buy from the internet. It's known behavior. The
problem for users can be paradox of choices or discovery tool to get
what they want that fits to their budget and taste.
2. Suppliers: Google already has an inventor of ads for furnitures that
means google already has acquired the sellers and do business the
sellers. It can be a great value add for the sellers to select directly
using google's portfolio product instead of other third party.
3. New Entrant: Google will be the new entrant in the online furniture
selling world.
4. Competitors: If google were to sell physical furnitures then the
competition would have been really stiff. But it is about curating the
furniture information, all the competitions can become collaborators.
5. Threat of substitution: As already hinted above, if the search is not
strong and not curated, as the brands such as amazon, walmart,
wayfair becomes stronger, google can loose the search volume.

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 16. Heuristics 2. Let us talk about heuristics 1. Mission Alignment -> Yes 2. Goal
Alignment -> Yes 3. TAM -> TAM is huge in the US alone. 4. Key Values -> For
both users and sellers can be high because google solves discovery
problems for users in a much organized way and for sellers solves customer
acquisition problem. 5. Scalable -> It's a digital product so it's infinitely
scalable to all over the world. Hence it expands the TAM exponentially. 6.
Margin -> Ad is a high margin business. Referral fee can have higher margin
than ads. 7. Risks -> Low; Because it leverages strength and reduces risk
because of threats 8. Costs -> Low; Can be build on top of current
infrastructure 9. Confidence -> High; Very less unknown 10. Flywheel -> It
can create a flywheel effect for other google products such as google pay(
collecting payments using google pay) etc.
17. Decision 3. From the above heuristics it looks like Google should enter the on
line furniture market in a capacity of information organizer and curator not as
in the seller.
18. Let us evaluate the decision.
1. Let us look at the situation when it won't be a good idea to enter or inject
risks:
1. Bad Actor: One bad actor giving a wrong information or fraudulent
information can jeopardize entire business because showing curated
information for the purpose of selling brings additional accountability
than just showing information and ads. It can mitigated using fraud
detection policies and tools.
2. Bad User Experience: Indeed, a lot depends upon the user
experience of the product. As furnitures have various types at various
prices, it needs to show the right products that meets users budget,
tastes, and timeline. It can be challenging to create that user
experience. Obviously, google has strengths but not take users for
granted.
3. Mitigate risk through experimentation: Although it may sound a great
business or not, we can't be 100% certain unless we test it. I
recommend running a test. Targeting the segment of the market and
if we can get significant furniture orders ( order rates needs to be
better than conversion from ads rates) to make it viable for sellers.
Google must have the ads rates for each seller and using that as
bench mark order conversion through the google furnitures is
multiple fold better than simply ads then it will be a success.

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In summary, Yes, google should enter online furniture market by creating a product
like google flights for furnitures.

70. If you have multiple requests sent by different teams, how would you
prioritize?
Although there is no fixed or predefined framework that I follow to prioritize, I do
have a methodical criterion that is suitable to my organization and practices.
13. The business outcome/value proposition of each project/request - try to
quantitative every metric below
1. Number of customers going to be impacted in that product vertical - item
with more customers gets more weight
2. Is this an existing feature or a new feature - existing features get more
weightage especially if this new feature/project is going to enhance
existing feature performance
3. Impact on customer/product experience if any exists - the project that is
impacting the customers gets more weightage, meaning if the project is
directly associated with the existing feature that gets more weightage, if
a feature that is a supporting feature that is going to give some
incremental feature benefit, then that gets a lower weight
4. Is this feature/project directly associated with monetization? - yes gets
more weight
5. Is this project strictly for one team or multiple teams get benefit from it? -
more teams get more weight
6. Other dependencies - how soon I can deliver, what are the dependencies
on other teams, is this technically feasible or are there any other viable
solutions that we can find in alternative ways?
7. Repeat the above quantitative analysis for all the competing features
20.The level of effort it takes and any engineering/technical challenges or are
there any dependencies with other teams in terms of inputs/data?
21. This framework can provide a good level of insight but there could be other
factors as well before I inform and explain these factors to stakeholders
71. How would you 2X the revenue for Google Maps?
Assumption: the revenue is on a yearly basis. Revenue = No. of users x price of
product x frequency of purchase x size of purchase Product of Google Map = Ads

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by the merchants
To double the revenue,
13. Boost the number of merchants by reaching out to them
14. Increase the price of ads (which is not ideal since it will disincentivise some
merchants)
15. Increase the frequency of their purchase in a year (Eg. previously merchants
just put ads in Google Map for 6 years and now we can encourage them to
place their ads for 12 months by giving them a discount for subscribing a
year-long plan)
16. Size of purchase is fixed since ads is operated based on pay per click
Option 2 vs 3: If the merchants are price sensitive, then offering discount (option
3) is more profitable. If merchants are price insensitive, raising the ads price will be
profitable.
Hence, option 1 is surely able to be adopted while option 2 & 3 will be implemented
depending on the price sensitivity of the users.

72. Assume you're the PM at Airbnb. How would you increase bookings?
Great. I'm going to get started by asking clarification questions for (1)
understanding of the gap by assessing current product features for bookings via
platform?, (2) brainstorming possible solutions, (3) how to implement solutions,
and (4) suggesting metrics to validate solutions towards an increase of bookings
Clarification questions & Assumptions:
What is customer segment (family/ group/ individual)? In which market?
(individual & US market)
Should I specifically focus on one of use cases? (trip bookings/ place
bookings/ booking for friends or family etc.) (place bookings)
Is this increasing bookings via smart phone or desktop users? (smart phone
users)
Is there requirement for new or existing customers? (not required)
(1) Understanding the gap.

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 Customer journey: view listing -> click "check" availability -> select dates, #
guests -> click "Reserve" ->(a) "Confirm" option shown (successfully
booked)
->(b) "Request" option shown -> add payment info, review
policies &terms, message the host -> "submit" (successfully
booked)

=> customer's pain points might be: (I) why (a) shows "Confirm" while (b) is
"submit"? Are they the same meaning of "successfully booked"?, (II) Do we need
to go through all of policies &terms? How long can we receive feedback from the
host? what if we need to contact the host before moving?
Usability testing (UI assessment of current platform) to test how the platform
keeps customers in control (accessibility and usability) or understand why
customers are leaving the site at a certain point.
(2) Brainstorming solutions
Consistent use "Confirm" to end booking process in (a) & (b)
Highlight important and essential points related to pre- and post-booking at
the top before letting them going through the page long of policies &terms
(because of limited display on mobile application)
Display at least 02 alternatives to directly contact the host (in-page message,
email, phone if allowed by the host)
Add feature of adding and saving payment method for the first payment as
optional
Add feature of geolocation to keep user in control regarding to account
security and personal info
In-app shares, referral of deals info, bookings via social media (FB, Twitter) to
friends/ family
(3) Implement solutions
Test out solutions on a small user base or roll out a limited prototype through
A/B test

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 Get Customer Feedback** **from social networks, customer support pages,
or surveys to iterate product features
Use analytics tool and funnel analysis to track how users are interacting with
the platform
(4) Metrics
How many users are using developed feature ?
What percent have completed a particular workflow?
What are people saying about the product?
Conversion rate/ churn rate
Are they referring their friends?
Which channels are the most effective in getting users?
73. As a Google PM, what is the next hardware that you will launch? How
would you price it?
Google Glass, first released in 2014, failed spectacularly due to its well-publicized
issues around privacy concerns. Few will forget the term 'glassholes' for those who
use Google Glass ability to record everyday life, potentially without any permission
from those being recorded.
However, Augmented Reality is now much closer to the public imagination.
Augmented reality will go through many iterations. Important for user acceptance
is that the glasses look and feel just like normal glasses. The success of
framemaker Warby Parker shows that glasses an be marketed as a fashion item,
especially those with a thick frame and somewhat 'nerdy' appeal.
AR glasses need to be comfortable, everyday product, initially creating just enough
functionality to create an onramp for more sosphicated solutions. Sports may be
one of the biggest initial applications, for instance cycling glasses that provide GPS
based information, that are already being tracked on a cycle computer or phone
running a device like Strava.
The glasses are an extension of an exiting Bluetooth and interconnected phone
based eco-system. AR glasses become an alternative output device.

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The key is that AR glasses are a product that start to be seen as a natural
extension of the app that a user is running on their mobile device. If they are
walking through their neighborhood , running Zillow or Redfin app on their phone
would enable the home prices of homes they are walking past to be viewable in
their glasses based on where they are looking. If they are out cycling, and have
Strava running in their back pocket, the AR glasses enable speed, % climb,
distance and other data.
If they are walking through a city, Google Maps can show them where they need to
go with simple arrows, distance and time to destination.
Glasses already have a wide range of prices. They also don't last forever, need to
be in a variety of styles, and must be capable of accepting prescription lenses. A
price point of $300 denotes quality but affordability for most consumers.

74. How do you double a new app’s user base in 6 months?

For any App launch, its awareness is the first step towards adoption/Activation. and
the best strategy to make it aware is to tag behind any existing applications. for
example: if Amazon is launching, we could perhaps integrate it with Echo or other
relatable services.
Promotion plays a key role, which Amazon is brilliant at. Advertising via add films,
add engines on other websites (including Amazon), feebies or discounts,
promotions that can align to awareness would be my first step. I would also run a
metrics on all my current users and look into their networks, improve my
recommendation algorithms. Work on SEO to get on top of ranking algorithms

75. You are PM for Instagram. The team is considering investment into
verification badge. How would you decide?
Clarifying questions #1: What does "investment" mean? #2: Verification badge
already exists or not? #3: A verification badge is a special symbol (like a
checkmark), usually displayed next to the username to identify/verify that an
account with this badge is an authentic public figure or brand. It is NOT a way for

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Instagram to endorse the "importance" of verified accounts. Is this accurate?
Anything else I should know of as a PM regarding the definition?
Assumption: Verification badge already exists and we want to decide whether to
put more resources and effort into the development of this feature
High-level direction Instagram's mission is to capture and share the world's
moments. It's a means for people to share their moments with their communities,
including public figures like celebrities to their fans, and brands to their customers.
From the pain points perspective, there is a risk of users creating accounts on
behalf of other people or institutions, and the other users may think these "fake"
accounts are real ones. So it makes a lot of sense to have a "verification badge" to
show which accounts are actually authentic.
In terms of a product goal, a verification badge will serve as an
"engagement/retention" strategy. The hypothesis that I want to test is: verified
badges will allow users to find public figures/brands easily, thus they can follow
them and will start engaging with these accounts more.
User groups There are two main user groups involved in this process: User group 1:
public figures or brands - the one who will get the verification badge, and t User
group 2: the other users who are the followers of the accounts
User journey and metrics involved User group 1: public figures or brands send a
request to be verified > fill out all needed information > awaiting time for Instagram
to verify > get verified (or rejected) Metrics involved: #1: Number of users verified
#2: Acceptance rate #3: Increased in time spent in the app
User group 2: search the user group 1 > see the verified account appear > click the
account > follow the account/observe the account such as scrolling through to see
posts and other media uploaded Metrics involved: #4: CTR of verified accounts in
the search function #5: Increase in the engagement of a verified account like # of
followers, comments, likes, shares, etc.
Conclusion My assumption, the number of users requesting verified accounts will
be high and the acceptance rate will be low. But these numbers don't have
significant relevancy to the product goal. So I will be paying more attention to the

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metrics from user group 2 to see the effectiveness of this feature to contribute to
the product goal.
I would decide to invest more in the feature if I see a significant increase in
engagement with the verified accounts.

77. You are PM for Instagram. The team is considering investment into
verification badge. How would you decide?
Overview
Meta line of products have more than 1 billion users, one of the toughest
challenges for holding such a user base is to maintain unique user accounts and
data privacy for the users. There are number of users which are masked with
original identity, which creates threat for connecting people and building user
communities.
Clarification Questions
Does it mean only for authentication and authorization only
Does it specify only for specific user segment, Brand ambassadors
Do we need to consider demography (USA or others) - USA
Does it mean only for App version or browser version or both
Do its apply only for IOS or Andirod version platform - Both
High-level Mission: Bring people closer by building community
User Segments
Since we choose user segment as Brand ambassadors in Clarification
questions, within that segment, I would like to call-out top three type of
segments
Celebrities - concentrating on this user segments as I started solution
below
Influencer
Political - known figures

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Pain points
Too many fake accounts
Not real data published for good or bad things for those people
Followers poking and social media wars against the celebrities
No organic conversations or user engagements
Verification Badge (Goals)
Some of the measures to generate verification badges
Certify users - validating phone numbers
Number of organic contents published
Number of user engagements organically, retention are rising
Levels of badges
Login
low - 50 organic conversations
moderate - 50-500
super user - 500+
Rephrasing the Clarification questions, to use
Authentication and Authorization
All platforms ( since A&A can go hand-in-hand, across platforms)
Investing on creating badges (Product Strategy)
Creating products
**Creation solutions -**reason IG products, infrastructure and design for
supporting platform already in mature state, prioritizing solution makes more
sense for brand ambassadors
Creation Infrastructure for supporting the platform
Solutioning:
Prioritize the strategy and goal for celebrities
Authentication and Authorization
Multi-factor (Something similar to Microsoft authenticator app)

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 Validating phone
since number of spam calls within USA is increasing, need to think
about additional methods of verification badges
Image and number validation
In general, most celebrities have supporting staff for creating contents
Verification and approval process, may help for multi-phase organic
conversations starter
Metrics Since metrics is more common to solve in Execution type interview, but it
also makes sense to think about number of organic contents created vs organic
user engagements/retention based on verification badges
This way I think we can bring mature state for verification badges based on
tightening the solutions within user segments.

80. You were hired by an airline consortium to improve perception of air

travel. You have 1 year and a budget of 10M. What would you do?
The question given is intentionally very open ended. As the key phrases used are
"air travel" which can encompass all parts of the journey not just the airport or
flight experience & "improve the perception" which doesn't necessarily require
fixing the problem (although you'd hope that was part of the conclusion). In
addition, the constraints of time (1-year) and resources ($10M) means you must be
very prescriptive.
As such I think it'd be important to ask the following clarifying questions given both
the limited time and budget + open ended phrasing:
13. Is there a specific goal we'd like to drive as part of improving "perception"?
Meaning is the goal to win share from alternatives like driving or avoid
additional regulation from the FAA?
14. For the purposes of this discussion can we assume the consortium is US
based air carriers and their goal is to improve perception for domestic travel?
15. If this is an airline consortium can we assume the only areas they can affect
change in are things tied to direct interactions they have with travelers (ie
they can't make TSA go faster or make airports nicer at least not in 1-year)?

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Assumed answers: (1) no specific goal, (2) yes domestic is fine and (3) yes this is
fine.
Given the above and the question is focused on "Perception" there are two key
users to consider:
13. Travelers
14. Media / Influencers (who may or may not travel, but are a magnifier for issues
travelers face)
From here, let's try to segment the traveler group down to understand what can be
affected given the time and budget constraints:
Within travelers you can segment people by a few of dimensions:
Traveler type: Frequent flier vs infrequent flier
Trip type: Business vs Personal
Party size: 1 to N
Using the 80-20 rule, we can assume 80% of our volume comes from the top 20%
of customers - meaning frequent fliers likely doing business travel with a party size
of 1. These users are likely very comfortable with the ever changing travel policies
and have likely done all sorts of optimizations like being TSA Pre or Clear, having
airport lounge access, and airline status which gives them priority when it comes to
checking in baggage or customer service. As such, they likely get the best possible
travel experience and while they are subject to issues like weather or strikes - they
are more likely to roll with the punches as long as the airlines take care of them.
Using the 80-20 rule in reverse we can also assume that the vast majority of
travelers are likely not in the above group and are infrequent travelers, traveling for
personal reasons and in groups of >1. They are likely going to have a much more
variable experience because they are less familiar with the changing rules and
regulations and as a result experience greater stress / anxiety during their trip. This
is also the group that the media likes to write about because their bad experiences
are often much more emotionally compelling and airlines often don't give them the
same treatment that the frequent fliers encounter when issues arise. As a result,
this group is likely the one that has the most negative impact on travel perception.

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In looking at this group and all the touch points they have with the airlines their
journey looks like this:
Book flight
Select Seats
Check in for flight
Check luggage (maybe)
Wait at gate
Board plane (hope their overhead bin space)
Fly (use onboard entertainment & drink / meal service)
Deplane
Get luggage (maybe)
That said, if you look at the TOP airline complaints they are:
13. baggage related issues
14. cancelled flights
If you assume that flight cancellation are a function of weather, plane maintenance,
and union relations (ie no strikes) this is not a problem that can be easily
addressed in 1-year or for $10M.
As a result, the focus should shift towards figuring out what can be done to
improve the baggage related experience for the infrequent personal traveler. That
said, given the time constraints and the size of the industry the reality is you may
only have time to do a pilot program for one or two airlines at one or two airports.
However, being able to tell the story of these successes would still be valuable and
could hopefully be achieved in 1-year.
That said, in unpacking the issue of baggage there are two specific touch points:
Checking in your luggage
Getting your luggage after the flight
Of these two, while waiting in a line to check your luggage may not be pleasant,
unless it causes you to miss your flight its likely not going to be a huge issue. The
bigger issue is lost or damaged luggage and the policies airlines put in place to

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address these situations. As such, the key here would be to quickly focus on the
issues leading to lost or damaged luggage. In some cases they will be airline
related (ie baggage handling policies) and in some cases they will be airport
related (ie older facilities that beat up the luggage or are more likely to have things
"fall off the line". As such, once these issues are quantified at the airport / airline
level and fixes are rolled out the PR team should reach out to the local media to tell
the story of improvements in terms of customers satisfaction as a final step before
rolling out more broadly (as the later will likely exceed the 1-year timeframe).

81. You're the CEO of a healthtech startup that has a technology to detect 20
deadly diseases. How would you approach this?
Questions:
Deadly diseases: new and current
CEO of healthtech startup: adoption phase
Mission: to improve and extend lives
What we do: Research new diseases and connects people to doctors
Structure: Objective -> Macro-Factors -> Company -> Users -> Suggestions
Objective:
Why? Mission to improve and extend lives
How do we inform the world about these 20 deadly diseases we detected?
Macro-Factors(climate/competition)
World events like pandemics - this is a good investment*
A lot of players in the market however would could becomes #1 or #2 in
informing and aiding
Company

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 Falls in line with our mission*
We are in this industry
Users
Consumers, practitioners, doctors, global scale
Everyday person is very health conscious now - would provide value
Suggestions: (distribute, sell it, tech it)
13. App
14. Documentary -> Netflix/other streaming services
15. Partner with the WHO to create a course for healthcare people to take so
information can disperse correctly
82. Decide product-market-fit for sticky post-its.
Target Consumers:
corporate clients - for business meetings
students (in school, college)
aspirants who want to take competitive exams/tests
Identify underserved customer needs:
re-application leads to post-it's not being sticky enough
space crunch so user needs to be precise
post-its need to stick from all 4 corners for it to be readable and so it folds
less
writing with pen, marker gets imprinted on next page
Define Value Proposition: a small piece of paper with concise list of pointers that
can trigger information at you. This piece of paper will stick at from all corners, the
first of its kind and enhance viewability. What's more, your writing does not get
imprinted onto next page.
MVP Feature set and build prototype:

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 better glue, so it sticks after at least 4-5 re-applications. should stick from all
4 corners.
maintain gridlines, so users use the minimum space consciously
quality of paper must be thick and made from some fibrous material
Test MVP with customers in iteration using A/B tests.

83. High performance computing strategy for Google.

Goal: Increase adoption of HPC capabilities offered by Google within enterprise
customer context
Vision: Accelerate high computing needs of enterprise, driven by innovation and
definitive business outcomes
Does this align with Google's vision - YES
Trend Analysis:
Technology:
a. Introduce Intraday liquidity calculations
b. Improve fraud detection using much large volume of data
c. Faster value added risk calculations.
d. Graph analysis for entity linking for large volume of customer and transactional
data
e. Monte Carlo simulations for capital risk
f. Algorithmic trading
Impact to the enterprise include: Incremental revenue, improved business decision
making ability, cost optimization

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Changing customer needs:
13. Adhoc basis HPC cluster requirement
14. Hybrid cloud based structure for HPC
15. Externalizing model calculations from risk models to be run on HPC clusters.
16. Core Banking and Insurance PAS transformation
Analyzing marketplace using 3C framework
Customers: Banking, Insurance brokers, Financial Services, Banking Platform
owners, PAS platform providers
Competitive analysis:
Amazon - Industry leader
IBM - greater on premise mainframe set up with new capability to provide
mainframe CPU on demand from cloud
Azure - Intermittent market leader
Sources of differentiation
13. Anthos led hybrid cloud strategy where they can borrow the HPC for model
execution, while they retain the model design and build internally with their
premise. Similar to the concept where we have proposed externalization of
calculations
14. Run the process and bring the data back to on-premise in much cheaper
fashion (data size is often very big, so export does not take much time) and
automatically deprovision the environment
15. Integrated Hadoop cluster set up for existing data processing, model
development environment (on premise or on cloud)
Decision Matrix to evaluate if we should go ahead with these initiatives:
Alignment with GCP's vision - YES
Synergy with organization's capabilites - YES

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Validated target market - YES
Whats a right time to enter - Immediate
Following are the enhancements proposed:
a. Mainframe workload migration and execution support of COBOL, JCL and other
MF utilities
b. Graph model execution - written in Neo4J or other Graph databases
c. Integration with data (real time, batch) with using Informatica, IBM IIS, Talend etc
d. On demand provisioning and deprovision along with ability to scale up -
horizontally and vertically for COBOL based containers
Go to market:
Revenue Model: Pricing per second billing like GCP
Why is this effective: Focus for enterprises post COVID is cost optimization.
Target market: USA and Canada
Early Adopters (proposed)
13. Mid size banks and insurance firms where they have to run the models
14. Platform providers for banking and insurance
85. How would you bring Waymo to market in five years?
Before answering this question, I am considering some key assumptions and will
include them in my answer. Assumptions:
13. I am assuming that "bring Waymo to market" means the sales of Waymo
autonomous cars in the market in the form of Fleet and retail to customers.
14. I assume that the Federal Vehicle Safety Laws and Governance are already in
place, and Waymo cars are aligned with the law requirements.

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 15. I am assuming that the Autonomous Level-5 capability development and
certification are default and the assumption is that those will be in place.
16. I am not assuming about Autonomous vehicle features. If I start listing those,
my answer will get deviated from the core question related to strategy.
I have divided my strategies into 2 major segments:
Market Strategies: The market strategy is to ensure that Waymo will create enough
demand in the market to scale the production. The suggestions are as below: M1:
My foremost target will be the fleet industry. Create a program for Rental Car
companies to sign up early and be part of the L-5 testing of the vehicles. As early
they get associated with Waymo, the trust-building between both the companies
will be stronger M2: Partnership with Auto Insurance companies to ensure the
insurance cost is under control and based on trust in technology. High insurance
rates could create panic for the buyers
Operational Strategies: The good demand will need not only a quality and scaled
manufacturing, but also a strong after-sales support O1: My foremost focus will be
the vehicle selling mode. I would prefer to go with the traditional Dealership mode
than online shopping from the company portal. Dealers always provide an
additional trust to the customer that there is someone always available to provide
after-sales support O2: I will create a campaign "Building T&C (Trust &
Confidence)" as part of an awareness drive among dealers and customers to help
them adopt the behavioral changes for a new ways of transportation

86. EM of YouTube came to you and suggested developing a tool for the
content creator to generate ideas with scripts automatically added. How
would you evaluate this idea as a YouTube PM?
As a YouTube PM, there are several factors that I would consider when evaluating
the idea of developing a tool for content creators to generate ideas with scripts
automatically added. First, I would assess the potential demand for such a tool
among YouTube content creators. This would involve researching the needs and
challenges of content creators, as well as gathering feedback from content
creators on the value and usefulness of the tool. This would help me understand
whether there is a strong market demand for this type of tool, and whether it would
be a viable product for YouTube to develop. Next, I would assess the potential
competition for this tool in the market. This would involve researching other tools

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or services that offer similar functionality, and evaluating their features, pricing,
and user satisfaction. This would help me understand whether there is already a
well-established market for this type of tool, and whether YouTube's tool would be
able to differentiate itself and offer value to users. Finally, I would evaluate the
technical feasibility and resources required to develop and maintain this tool. This
would involve working with a technical team to assess the complexity and
resources required to build the tool, as well as identifying any potential risks or
challenges that may arise during development. This would help me understand
whether the development of this tool is realistic and feasible for YouTube to
undertake. Overall, by evaluating the potential demand, competition, and feasibility
of this idea, I would be able to determine whether it is a viable product for YouTube
to develop and whether it aligns with the company's overall strategy and goals.
87. Launch a services marketplace to Amazon users.
Vision of Amazon: One stop place for users' buying needs - products and services.
Goal of Amazon: Increase wallet share of users or engagement from users.
Why services: Services would help achieving this goal, as the users would love
using services. And Users need a platform to access services.
Market in consideration: India (it is big enough. I am more familiar with this market)
Current market landscape:
13. Competition: A couple of marketplaces for services. Similar product. Not all
services available. Struggling coz of quality of service offered
14. Users: Buyers (businesses - (B2B) hotels etc. and users B2C) and service
providers
Goal of product launch: Product market fit by ensuring differentiation from existing
players
Pre launch Activities

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 13. Target Users: Adult working professional in tier 1 and metro cities where
amazon already has big segment. This is the segment who would book online
for services. (similar to what happened in product marketplace)
14. Target services: target services which are not present on competitor such as
housekeeping, coaching, phone, laptop repair etc. Quality guarantee for
customer centricity focus
15. Supply onboarding: Onboard suppliers
16. Product: Listing of services/ services providers, check/compare services,
booking of services
17. Pilot program: small pilot among target segments
18. Marketing: Ads on amazon platform, Social buzz using videos etc.
19. Partnerships: exclusive partnerships with top providers, Trainings
20.Define Metrics : No. of bookings, Bookings / user
Launch:
13. Pricing: subsidised pricing
14. Product: Highlighter, services tab
15. Buzz: Press release
Post launch:
13. Monitor metrics for scale up or shut down
14. Gather and Evaluate customer complaints
15. Retention strategy: Launch more services, more service providers
88. What are the biggest trends you see in the security industry?
First of all, there are different industries with different business in security
measures which influence trends in the security industry as information they store
and infrastructure they have are not the same. In this exercise, I'll take a look at the
security industry in general and talk about the biggest trends from the
perspectives of "lines of defense" for software in particular in: identify, data (on
client and server side) and infrastructure. There are several topics associated with
each line of defense.
13. Identify security
1. Authentication: how user identifies are authenticated.
2. Authorization: how users are authorized to do certain action.

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 15. Data security
1. Encryption: how to ensure confidential information to be not
comprehensible in case of access by unauthorized users.
2. Access control: how to granularly control who can access what data.
3. Retention control: how to avoid keeping data longer than needed to
reduce risk of security issues.
16. Infrastructure security
1. Detection: how to quickly detect security breaches before issues become
widespread.
2. Network configuration: how to configure the network that could block
malice access to resources.
With this big picture in mind, i would like to talk about the three biggest trends in
the security industry.
13. Zero trust (Identity security)
1. Zero trust is a new security measure gaining popularity in the enterprise
software. Traditionally, users get to access enterprise resources through
VPN and they are authorized to access resources once VPN access is
established. However, it has security vulnerabilities such that somebody
could hack to establish VPN and access internal resources behind the
firewall without permission. Zero trust literally doesn't trust users at all
and requires authentication and authorization in accessing resources
whether users within a corporate network or accessing resources from
outside of the corporate network.
14. Cell level data access control
1. To realize much finer grained data access control, the cell level data
access control is becoming a new trend. Users used to be granted
access to database or table -- it was difficult to limit access to data in
more detailed way. For example, Finance department could see the entire
sales data but somebody who is working for one category of products
may not need to see the entire sales data as it could cause some issues
such as data leak. To avoid these issues, a data administrator needed to
create as many datasets as access patterns. It caused redundancy of
data and increased costs of managing data. Cell level data access control
is a new trend to achieve security and scale by defining who can access
what data in a dataset.
14. ML based security breach detection

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 1. The security industry is adopting Machine Learning to detect anomalies
on network and infrastructure. Machine Learning is becoming particularly
important for IT administrators who are in charge of making sure security
issues not to happen as the size of infrastructure and the number of
software they manage grow. It's not scalable for them to manually set up
alarms and review logs to find any inkling of potential security breaches.
89. Should Google create a Slack competitor?
1 What is Slack ?
Slack is a basic instant messaging app usually used in the intra office space ,
allowing teams to communicate .Also , it includes video & voice calls . In a nutshell ,
it provides an efficient team communications solutions .
2 Goals of Google/ Position in the market ? To create innovative solutions to
customer problems . The focus is on providing accessible information to everyone .
3 Synergy of such a product with google : Slack allows efficient team
communication . Google in this domain has multiple products which enable this .
These include hangouts , DUO, google meet . All of this is bundled in the Google
Workspace for the business users . The product seems to align with company
strategically & technically .
4 Market position : Google workspace has recently been gaining popularity in the
enterprise domain. Usually google has been perceived as a solution to the mobile
application needs . But in the last few years the products in enterprise have been
able to acquire a large customer base . A product like slack would position us well
in both the enterprise & the mobile ecosystem .
5 Future beholds : As google is constantly putting efforts to increase its acquisition
in the enterprise domain , where Microsoft has a dominant presence . The cloud
solutions google has been building on to compete with AZURE and AWS , presence
of such a product would help the acquisition of GSUIT increase and in future when
we go out with Google's clod solution , we would have a larger customer base to
compete with

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6 Monteization: GSuit being a paid version , adding another feature to the bundle
can either enable the increasing bundled price or new customers . Hence higher
revenues Also the cost of curating the product would not be on a higher side since
google already has solutions individually catering to features in all this domain
Target Addressable Market : Students & Working Professionals.
Conclusion : With a larger target audience and benefits of monetization & future
growth . Google can probably look into expanding into creating efficient
communication solution for the office spaces

90. How would you price the Amazon Kindle upon launch?
Clarifying questions :
13. Which Kindle device are we talking about ? Kindle paper white, Kindle Oasis? ,
Kindle paper white 6.9' , Kindle tabs ? - Kindle oasis
14. Kindle Oasis , what are the metric we are trying to achieve ? users
onboarding? more marketshare? onboard amazon existing customers
Landscape :
13. Competition : In ebook readers, the main competition comes from Kobo,
iPads, tabs. Kindle oasis feature is especially and absolutely for reading
purpose and buying books to read and that is all!
14. Public Opinion : People opinionated that if tabs and iPads can do a lot more
than what kindle does and with more features , why choose kindle at all?
Unique features that kindle only can provide . If a person only wants to read in
a tab, then kindle might be the right choice.
Price : Since iPad is expensive, people might look at tabs provided by android but
since it has less features and functionalities , it can be a little less Pricing Strategy :
13. The number of features are less hence during the launch , we price it lesser
than tabs and iPads
14. release greater versions later and can increase the features and put up a
premium price , so price would be penetration pricing strategy .

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Strengths
13. If people or students or kids just think about reading, then kindle might be a
great way to inculcate reading habit without distraction
91. What's the future of microwave?
Clarifications: Who are we? Google, US context, no constraints, no specific type of
mw, at home or work? home Vision: Enable healthy and happy living through
delicious, healthy and safe food quickly & easily Goal: Engagement (repeated use)
User Segments (JTBD):
Prepare food at home regularly
Prepare food at home occasionally
Make/eat food at home rarely/never
Pain points:
Don’t know how to cook
Don’t have time to get ingredients
Don’t have time to prepare meals
Perception that healthy food tastes bad
Perception that healthy food costs more/Too expensive to shop for organic
ingredients
Solutions:
13. Pantry+fridge+cooktop+microwave+airfryer in one that orders ingredients
itself, and simply ask for your fav dish via voice or app - say “kung pao
chicken and fried rice” - it gives you a equivalent healthy home cooked stir
fried option using, delicious, hot & ready dishes in mins
14. Microwave tied to your fitness device to recommend recipes based on your
calorie/nutrition goals. One click to prepare the dish by mixing ingredients
from the fridge, pantry attached. Keeps track of your past eating habits, and
keeps you on track by recommending a meal plan, shows your progress of
exercise, and meals on display.

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 15. Auto replenish inventory of ingredients by placing orders for things that run
out from cheaper stores through comparison shopping. If you are out of
ingredients - it asks if you’d like to order equivalent healthy options from
doordash/uber eats
Metrics: Primary: Weekly average number of meals served per microwave unit
Counter: Weight/blood pressure/sugar levels become worse; NPS score drops; #
units sold drops

92. How would you launch LinkedIn Learning in a new country?

LinkedIn is a Corporate/Professional Networking platform. We will analyze the
following factors before the launch:
13. How many people of the demography are on LinkedIn
14. I will make sure Learning platform content is approved, verified and required
for interviewing for a specific role in a corporate
15. Create a Learning Community where people who opt for the LinkedIn learning
platform share their experience of the completed course and how it helped
them get an interview opportunity with the companies who have the course
as the basic application requirement
16. Make a premier paid feature for individuals to connect with professionals
more than 2 on the Learning Group, to make it a more lucrative experience.
17. Any membership of 6 months and above have added perks of discounted
price based on the months selected (6/9/12) and connecting with recruiters
and their job postings.
18. Recruiters need to pay a semi-annual or annual membership to be part of the
group and look for the appropriate candidate based on the courses
recommended by the company
At the end creating connections is the whole and sole motive of the Platform

93. How would you improve amazon prime revenue by 20%.

Clarifying Questions -

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Geography - US? All prime apps or only delivery? What is the business goal?
Existing conversions? New Market entry? - Existing businesses
Mission Increase amazon prime’s revenue by 20%
How does amazon prime make money -
Amazon primes currently costs - $14.99/month
This includes 1 day delivery + Amazon Prime Video + Amazon Prime Music + Kindle
etc etc. Main driver of the revenue is the fact that Amazon prime customers order
3x rather than the non prime customers.
The 2-ways that amazon prime can increase revenue -
A) Adding new subscriptions B) Increasing the Average order value for existing
customers + Increasing number of times a customer orders
Diving Deeper
A) Some strategies on adding new Subscriptions -
Pain-points - Existing services not attractive enough
Solution:
13. Targeting a new customer segment - Adding a specific service to the amazon
portfolio such as free gaming, ride share collaborations
14. Converting the existing amazon users - Leveraging free trial, Specific
discounts for customers who are on the verge, notifications targeting
B) Some strategies to increase the Average order value or number of orders/prime
user
Painpoints:
13. Lack of seller trust
14. Friction in purchase decision

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Solutions:
13. Bundle and buy for cheaper price
14. Notifications for cart to checkout - eg last 5 items left buy fast?
15. UI/UX revamp for lower number of clicks for purchase - Such as the one click
purchase on amazon
16. Adding trust ratings with sellers to ensure high quality deliveries
Recommendation I would like to take approach A to move forward as if the platform
is more attractive to new customers can ensure long-term revenue cycle for
Amazon.
Metrics The metrics I would track is
13. Growth in prime subscription rate
14. Average weekly/monthly orders by the new customers
94. You are the owner of a super market. You experience 500 % growth in
Revenue, what will you do?
Clarifying Questions:
Is it a chain of supermarkets? Or just an individual market?
Is the revenue overall or just from one store?
What are the reasons for the revenue growth? Pandemic? New buildings
around? Other?
What does the supermarket sell? Anything specialized? Local goods?
Is there an app/website available to order stuff?
10,000 - 50,000 Vision: Be the most customer centric store Goals:
Able to reach out to as many users as they can.
Increase the user base while keeping the existing customer base happy.
Secondary Goals: Define this?
Do they want to expand? Increase space? Double the quantities?

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Landscape/Competition:
Bigger stores that provide online retail shopping
Amazon/Wholefoods
Walmart
(Safeway, Target) - This is the way to go.
Use Cases
Arrive, pick and purchase groceries
Usually do not stay longer than 20-25 min.
Pay via credits cards, cash etc.
Sometimes stay around longer to check out the newer items on the market
(costco etc)
Strengths
Strong existing customer user base.
Prime location?
Weaknesses
Very strong competition from online retail stores.
Oppurtuinities
Eatery
Partner with additional vendors to bring in different types of goods.
Launch an app.
Plan/Solutions
Venture into new markets - Restaurant, Pick up fresh food, vegan centric
food, Farmer’s market on specfic days.
Increase the space and bring additional goods
Launch an app - account for home delivery personnel, app maintenance
charges etc.

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95. Why did Facebook launch a dating product?
To answer this I'd like to think through Facebook's mission, how a dating app aligns
with that mission, whether or not a dating app would drive towards Facebook's
success as a company, and then the market fit for Facebook moving into the
space.
Mission Facebook's mission is something to the effect of "bringing the world closer
together by giving individuals the tools to build community." Any generic dating
app's mission would be something to the effect of "bringing people together and
forming lasting bonds."
Looking at Facebook's mission and the mission of a dating app we can see really
good synergy so at least at a top-level it makes sense for Facebook to consider the
dating app space.
Facebook's Company Success Important to think about for any new product
launch is how a product drives the company's success. A public company's
success is tied to revenue and while Facebook is diversifying through products like
Oculus and Portal they still derive the majority of their revenue from ads.
If ad revenue is Facebook's success metric we could look at two key drivers: DAU
and time on site. The more time a user is in their app the more ads they can show
them, and the more users that are active each day the more total ads they can
monetize.
User Behavior So if we're considering revenue, DAU, and time on site as key
metrics let's look at common user activities for dating apps:
13. Creating a profile
14. Viewing other's profiles*
15. Checking matches*
16. Messaging others*
17. Going on dates
18. Start dating someone
Looking at the list we have 3 (bolded) activities that would drive a lot of additional
time on site and at a minimum one of them (#3) that could drive an increase in

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number of sessions per user. So it seems like users on a dating app would be an
ideal audience segment for Facebook to grow it's revenue through.
Market Fit While everything looks great so far we should always assess the market
to see if there's a good entry point for us. In this case the dating app world is very
saturated so we should consider the key things Facebook brings to the table:
13. Your profile information - They already almost everything needed to create a
dating profile
14. Massive user base - For new products user acquisition is usually one of the
biggest hurdles, any product Facebook launches will have billions of potential
users immediately
15. Social network - This brings a LOT of advantages over the competition
1. Users can opt-out of matches with friends or friends of friends
2. Facebook knows who you used to date and can use that info to curate
matches
3. Facebook knows who your closest friends are and who they date, that
can be used to curate matches as well
4. Facebook can use inferred information like where you check in to match
you with others who have similar interests (ex: rock climbing) even if it's
not listed in one of your profiles
17. Cost (free) - Facebook has no need to charge or upsell individuals because
the ad revenue alone supports the product
Summary Overall we have a lot of strong reasoning for why Facebook should and
did move into the dating app space:
13. The product mission aligns with their company mission
14. Dating app user behavior supports their company's revenue goals well
15. Facebook has numerous market advantages
Additionally there are other potential benefits such as users finding new friends
through a dating app or further revenue streams opening up.

96. Product manager ready for launch what is good go to market strategy ?

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Clarify - What is the product ? Autonomous driving capability Technology as a
vehicle to drive man driver capability
What is the current stage of project ? Technology is ready
I will start by understanding the Goal, Intention behind this initiative as I am
considering myself new PM joined this team and I have to come up with go to
market strategy.
Goal - More users to adopt and build trust with self driving car capability. Target
user persona End user Businesses -Rideshare service -Food delivery service
Pharmacy etc
Next is I will understand what problem each users have and what factors I will
choose to prioritise
Resource constraint User don't know how to drive Physical problem Comfort/
Convenience Competitor edge
End users Constraints - Budget, Safety concerns etc Hence I will there will be very
less early adopter but these end users have alternate options to solving their
problem by using third party services like Uber , third party delivery service so
hence I think early adaptors will be business Factor I used to evaluate the problem
were Market size , Revenue stream, Ease of adoption based on these factors I think
targeting business owner user personas is advantage at starting point.
In summary , business have build trust and establish relationship with consumer by
targeting business owner first we will give competitive edge to them and show their
strategic presence in market and eventually as it grows we can see future adaption
of self driving capability among consumers too.

97. Why did Apple build the iPhone when everybody wanted a BlackBerry?
Let's define the term "everybody" to start with. I can think of a few things:
business users want it for certain feature Blackberry had

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 consumers (non-business) users want to use or keep using Blackberry for
certain features
Interviewer: Business users wanted it.
Okay. My assumption would be that business users wanted it for the security
features that Blackberry so famously promoted. Here, business users could be the
organization buying the phone (such as HP or Google) or the actual end-users (the
employees). But I'd assume that the employees wouldn't have much say in this
decision and that the organizations are the business users.
Secondly, by "wanted a Blackberry", is it that they actively wanted to buy the
phones or keep using the already bought ones?
Interviewer: Let's say they wanted to keep using them.
Okay, and as far as the geography is concerned, I'm going with US at this point
since, although, Blackberry could have had international buyers, iPhone was
launched initially in the US. So, it'd be good to understand customer psychology in
the US first.
I'm going to look through a couple of important aspects first:
What did the users really want? - Talking about business users, they wanted
something that can keep their data secure. Most employees would continue
their business after office hours through their phone - sending emails, texts,
etc. that are very often of sensitive nature. More than UX, organizations
chose a device that offered better security and Blackberry positioned itself as
one that could offer that.
What did Blackberry want? - Understanding users priorities, Blackberry
focused on making the device more secure. Usability wasn't the central value
proposition of the product. For Blackberry, business users were a huge
market that had demands and Blackberry wanted to supply.
Gaps:

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 Usability: B2B products were seen as separate from consumer products.
Hence, Blackberry met the business demand and in turn, made the users
carry two different devices - one for personal and the other for business use.
Blackberry OS: Blackberry kept a closed environment for its OS for security
reasons, which in turn kept developers away from using it as a platform to
build additional products and services. This wasn't necessarily bad for the
business users but they couldn't foresee the OS (and the device) as a
platform than just an individual device.
Device: The Blackberry device fell in the "phone" category and was not
necessarily set out to disrupt the overall market. It met the basic demands
that a mobile phone should meet, and the had added functionality to meet
the needs of business users (email, browser etc.)
Now, I'll see how Apple addressed these with the iPhone.
Apple and iPhone
Apple saw this as an opportunity to disrupt the market by combining better
usability, design, and privacy.
Usability: iPhones weren't something the users had seen before. The design
was attractive and sleek, the phone had a big touchscreen with a great
display, and it promoted privacy to cater to the business segment.
More than a mobile phone with a browser: Apple created the iPhone in a way
so that it doesn't look like an iteration over the earlier version of the mobile
phone. It let users do what a mobile phone would let them do, it had features
that cater to the business segment, but it also had features that essentially
both the business and consumer segments would enjoy - listening to songs,
taking good photos, etc. This ensured that users wouldn't have to keep two
separate devices at any given time.
Exclusivity: Apple's focus on brand value was in line with its pricing. This
made sure that they are catering to two segments: (1) business (2)
consumers that demanded exclusivity.
App Store and the platform aspect: The App store was later launched to
increase the device's value to the consumer group exponentially. This played
well into the pitch of having one device for all needs.

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The value propositions resonated with the target groups and the device, although
wasn't an immediate hit with the business users, gradually replaced Blackberry.

98. Should Twitter build "Stories?"

Before I begin, I would confirm the idea of Stories as "phone-shot video with light
editing to share a person's current experience in a short form video". I would also
ask if they would be integrated into the current application or a standalone service.
The process I'll use is to think through twitter's mission, outline its current user
personas and how they use twitter. Articulate a rubric framework for stakeholder
needs, and then compare the stories idea against that.
To start off with the mission of Twitter, its "create and share ideas and information
instantly without barriers" to use as a framing for the North Star and reference
point. If we look at a lot of posts, they're often referencing a fact, an intellectual
abstract idea, or post for user entertainment. Twitter has multiple modalities today
like text 280 chars, short video snippets (several minutes limit), and photos. Even
for photo mediums, it's often people sharing written text that's longer form to
share and communicate.
Twitter's users can be generally categorized into two buckets:
Influencers. Their goals include:
Reaching their existing audience
Engage in conversation with followers
Use posts and dialogue to drive additional interest to their profile
Root desire is to collection user attention, and a secondary goal for many is to
monetize in a form (news sites: go to site and subscribe, comedians: watch
their videos/podcasts, celebrities: promote their products, sponsorships)
Consumer (everyday users).
Learn new ideas (see latest research on machine learning papers)
Find the current facts (sports game score and discussion of plays, political
news)

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 Hear opinions (comments from senators on bills)
Entertainment (memes, heated discussions, gossip, lighthearted-discourse)
Evaluation framework
Simplify sharing concepts and ideas - weak (ideas are usually best
communicated by speaker narrating or text, which in the format of a short
video <10s, that becomes hard)
Learn about current news - weak (news is best communicated over text or
video once again, but with the fact that photos can be a medium that can be
leveraged through stories, that is nice to have. It's still not quite taking full
advantage of the video and ephemeral nature)
Entertainment - high (For a short comedy video, skit, or discussion, stories is
a great format)
Expand audience reach - (My first reaction is that stories are nice to have, but
most users come to the platform to share ideas and learn new ideas. To
expand audience reach requires educating users on said new phenomenon
which we analyzed earlier is hard)
Collect and monetize use attention - (Video ads are limited on the Twitter
platform, it's hard to pass benefits to influence if Twitter won't be able to
monetize these well).
I wouldn't recommend stories on Twitter. The user objectives on Twitter versus
what Stories offer in a 10 second format aren't aligned to enough to provide high
user value compare to all visual based platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and
Youtube.

99. How would you internationalise a successful US-based product?

Clarifying questions : 1. What is the product Hardware/software specific ? 2. Any
particular analytics done or should it be covered as a part of the solution ? 3. Any
resource constraints ? 4. Any timeline in particular ?
In order to internationalize a product, the following steps could be done:
13. Identify the market/regions : Based on, say, Google analytics, find the regions
which has the most clicks / attention for our product

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 14. Going wide vs Going deep : Is it a single region that we are targeting or
multiple regions ?
15. Feasibility study :
1. Operational cost involved
2. Regional considerations , if a shopping product, what is the growth of the
country
3. Appetite : What is the appetite for shopping in the country
4. Legal considerations
5. Privacy concerns
18. Choose Translation vs Localization vs Internationalization vs Globalization:
1. Translate : Just translate the text from English to the regional lang
2. Localization : Convert strings, Currencies, date, UI along with text
3. Internationalization : Framework for making the conversion possible
4. Globalization : Marketing/ Sales in addition to i18N
17. Choose the vehicle :
1. Internal changes
2. Free lancers
3. 3rd party companies
4. ML techniques
17. Product Change : This is the exact coding and implementation step
18. Test, measure and Iterate
19. Support systems :
1. Socia Media
2. Customer acquisition
3. Customer engagement
4. Customer support
100. You are working for a retail company that wants to improve the user
engagement on a telemedicine platform by leveraging their retail data.
What's your approach?
Clarifying questions:
13. This is what I understand from a telemedicine platform -> A platform where
users can get advice on medication over the telephone, is this correct?
14. Does the retail company also sell medicines?
15. Is the user aware that the telemedicine platform and the retail company are
connected, and can either of the platforms use his data?

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 16. Is the user engaging with the platform directly, or is there an agent to who he
is speaking to via call/text?
17. Does the platform also allow users to buy medicines directly?
Imagining the user journey on this telemedication platform:
The user comes on the platform
The user communicates his problem via text/phone to the platform
The platform, through an expert on the backend or through intelligence,
suggests some medication to the user
The user takes that recommendation and buys the medicine from or outside
the platform.
Is this a correct understanding?
Objective of the platform -> Enable users to get medication from anywhere
seamlessly.
Objective of exercise-> Improve user engagement on the platform by leveraging
the retail history
What would engagement mean on such a platform:
Coming up to the platform for new problems or spending more time on each
problem
A few pain points that I can think of as a user:
I tend to lose track of medical supplies at my home and generally have to rush
at the last moment to repurchase medicines at the last hour.
Sometimes I need a particular medicine, but it is unavailable at the store; in
such cases, the medical stores ask me to check back in a few days, but that
never happens.
Sometimes due to unawareness, I consume things I should not in a particular
medical condition.
Sometimes I have a medical condition that can be treated with stuff that I
already have, but because of unawareness, I over-order the stuff.

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Solution:
Medicine Supply Tracker
The platform should track 3 things for each user -> medicine purchased
through a retail store, quantity, and treatment period. If the user comes back
on the product in the treatment period, the product can nudge the user to
refill the medicines timely.
The platform can notify users of new medical supplies in case the platform
could not service a request in the recent past and the condition is long-
lasting.
Care 360
If the user reports a medical condition on the platform, we should check his
recent retail shopping history and recommend him that there are certain
things he should not consume. We can also suggest stuff from his kitchen
(basis on the recent purchase history) that can improve his condition.
I would first launch Care 360 for a small set of users; this feature is high on impact
and low on effort. I would monitor the feature's success by understanding how
many users show interest in the feature.

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