Pocket Book PM

Prodman Pocketbook
This document was meticulously crafted to precision by-
1 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Table of Contents
Amazon ............................................................................................................................. 5
Ecommerce Talking points: ......................................................................................................... 5
User persona: ............................................................................................................................. 5
User Flow ................................................................................................................................... 5
Competitor Analysis ................................................................................................................... 5
Pain Points, Features, Metrics..................................................................................................... 6
Questions: .................................................................................................................................. 6
Instagram .......................................................................................................................... 8
About the App ............................................................................................................................ 8
Recent Feature Updates ............................................................................................................. 8
User Needs & Persona ................................................................................................................ 9
Recent Rollouts & Rollbacks: ...................................................................................................... 9
Competitor Analysis ................................................................................................................... 9
User Journey for Content Creator ............................................................................................. 10
Examples of Pain Points for Different Users .............................................................................. 10
Recommendations.................................................................................................................... 11
Microsoft Teams .............................................................................................................. 13
About: ...................................................................................................................................... 13
Competitor analysis: ................................................................................................................. 13
Video conferencing industry: .................................................................................................... 13
Customer Needs and complaints: ............................................................................................. 14
Recommendation and Product Improvements:......................................................................... 14
User Persona: ........................................................................................................................... 15
Business Model Canvas:............................................................................................................ 15
Netflix ............................................................................................................................. 16
User Journey/Case .................................................................................................................... 16
Basic Features .......................................................................................................................... 16
Unique Differentiators – Netflix ................................................................................................ 16
Competitor Analysis ................................................................................................................. 16
Success Metrics ........................................................................................................................ 17
Recommended Features ........................................................................................................... 18
Success-Metrics ........................................................................................................................ 18

Questions ................................................................................................................................. 19
Swiggy ............................................................................................................................ 21
Overview .................................................................................................................................. 21
Swiggy Business Model ............................................................................................................. 21
User Personas ........................................................................................................................... 22
User Journey ............................................................................................................................ 22
Pain Points ............................................................................................................................... 22
Product Features & Success Metrics ......................................................................................... 23
Recommended Features ........................................................................................................... 23
Uber ................................................................................................................................ 25
Overview .................................................................................................................................. 25
User Personas ........................................................................................................................... 25
User Journey ............................................................................................................................ 25
Customer Pain Points ............................................................................................................... 26
Unique Features ....................................................................................................................... 26
Suggested Features................................................................................................................... 26
Metrics to track ........................................................................................................................ 26
Questions ................................................................................................................................. 26
UPSTOX ........................................................................................................................... 30
FINTECH.................................................................................................................................... 30
Skill Sets of Fintech Product Manager ....................................................................................... 30
Tech Stack: ............................................................................................................................... 30
Business Model ........................................................................................................................ 31
App Critique – UPSTOX ............................................................................................................. 31
Microsoft ......................................................................................................................... 34
Komal Prasad – H19085 ............................................................................................................ 34
Utsav Shah – B19045 ................................................................................................................ 35
Anand Deshpande – B19134 ..................................................................................................... 35
Eshan Varma – H19019 ............................................................................................................. 36
Sukul Bagai – B19114 ................................................................................................................ 37
PhonePe .......................................................................................................................... 39
Candidates: .............................................................................................................................. 39
Anurag Sharma – B19028 .......................................................................................................... 39

Santhosh Revuluri – B19098 ..................................................................................................... 40
Amazon MLDP ................................................................................................................. 42
Candidates: .............................................................................................................................. 42
Apoorva Rastogi – B19127 ........................................................................................................ 42
Puja Shankar – B19034 ............................................................................................................. 43
Ankush Kumar – B19007 ........................................................................................................... 44
Unilever (HUL IT) ............................................................................................................. 46
Candidates: .............................................................................................................................. 46
Saransh Kejriwal – B19043 ........................................................................................................ 46
Harshit Jain – B19079 ............................................................................................................... 47
Kriti Chandra – B19024 ............................................................................................................. 48
Media.NET....................................................................................................................... 50

Amazon
Ecommerce Talking points:
• The Indian E-commerce market is expected to grow to US$ 200 billion by 2026 from US$ 38.5
billion as of 2017.
• In India, cash on delivery is the most preferred payment method, accumulating 75% of the e-
retail activities.
• In 2017, the largest e-commerce companies in India were Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon.
• In 2018, Amazon beat Flipkart and was recorded the biggest ecommerce in India in terms of
revenue.
User persona:
Seller Consumer Delivery Executive

• Serious buyers • Part-time delivery executive
(Lower cart abandonment rate) • (can pick a time slot and
• Brands (e.g., Cloudtail) • Casual buyers deliver orders)
• Shop owners • Window shoppers
• Individual dealers/sellers (High cart abandonment rate) • Full-time delivery executive
• Offer seekers (can pick up orders
(High cart abandonment rates) throughout the day)
User Flow
A consumer typically goes through the following

stages:
1. Research/Browse - Surfing the platform to
find the best-suited product
2. Select – Pick an item of your choice after
selecting the brand/colour/size/fit of your
choice
3. Schedule order and select relevant
discount offers if applicable
4. Place order - Make the final payment using
an online payment gateway or choose COD.
Platform – useful, intuitive, innovative
Competitor Analysis

Features Our Product Direct Indirect
Amazon Flipkart Myntra
Customer Service Best Average Good
Flight booking Present Present Absent
Efficient and Efficient and
Brand filters Not user-friendly
user-friendly user-friendly
Timed
Present Absent Absent
discounts/offers
Return/Exchange Non-customizable
Customizable Non-customizable
Date
Pain Points, Features, Metrics
Pain points: Features to remove:

As amazon is only known for shopping,
• Research multiple products before buying we can remove amazon pay section and
• new items do not have a lot of review and ratings. create a new app for it and provide an
• YouTube Reviews or google customer opinions about the integration option.
product.
1. Niche segment for big items
• How do you launch a product with 0 reviews, even when you
2. 2nd hand section
know it's better than competition's?
• Products are found damaged leading to increased returns.
• Lack of proper sorting or filter tool Unique features:
1. Amazon Pay
2. Amazon Prime – early delivery
3. Language compatibility
Metrics: 4. Flash Sales
5. Tile
• North Star metrics - Number of purchases per month
• Acquisition – Cost of Acquiring Customer (CAC), Bounce
New features Suggestions:
Rate 1. Amazon penny store
• Activation - Shopping Cart Abandonment (SCA) or 2. Social Shopping
Abandonment Rate (AR), Time on Page, On-site Searches 3. Shoot unboxing
• Revenue - Conversion Rate (CR), Monthly Recurring Revenue 4. Shopping combos
(MMR), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), Average Order Value 5. Promote reviewers to create
(AOV), Return Rate content on amazon
• Retention - Churn Rate (CR), Retention Cost (RC), Repeat 6. Niche segment for big items
purchase rate 7. 2nd hand section
Questions:

You're a PM at Amazon. You found out on Monday that searches decreased by 10%. What
would you do?
This is a typical question which could be asked for any product. The basic clarifying question
would be:
• Clarify metric: Is the searches number per user or overall? Is this drop compared to last day
or average?
• Location: Is the drop in a specific region or globally?
• Time: Is this a sudden drop or incremental over a span? What is the drop compared to last
Monday or last month?
Possible domains to investigate

• Server issue: Could debugged further by checking the response time or load time.
• Technical bug: Primarily check by increased in issue counts or app store rating, or could be
debugged by funnel approach of how user journey is and where the drop rate has increased
• Cannibalization: Checking if a new feature is launched in product which could have
affected the metric.
• Competitor: Check if app opens or time spent on app has reduced, if there are any updates
in competitors app.
Suggest a new feature for Amazon?
This question could be asked differently to add new feature. Framework to follow: CIRCLES. Eg.
• Goal: Increase revenue/converts (could be acquisition/activation/engagement)
• Customer: Frequent buying young female users interested in fashion and beauty products
• Pain points: Can’t find or visualize perfectly matching products
• Possible Solutions: Club products and offer set (including make kit and jewellery), Create a
customization dashboard to visualize products together.
• Trade-offs: Time spent for buying would increase, cart abandonment rate could go up.
How would you implement new feature for Amazon?
This is generally a follow-up questions after feature recommendation.

Approach:
Pre-launch:
• Check the need and its ROI
• Check if feature is available in market and its impact
• Customer interview to get more insights
Launch:
• Design MVPs (could be a launching page, a blank button or partial implementation)
• Customer training
• A/B testing (decide your focus customer segment as the highly active users)
• Focus on acquisition and activation metrics
Post launch:
• Focus on growth
• Retention, referrals and revenue metrics to be checked

Instagram
About the App
Business Objective: Acquire new users + drive more engagement from existing users + increase
revenue from advertisements
Videos
• Reels - 30 secs: Can be considered TikTok of Instagram → Users can show Creativity
• IGTV - 1 min or more: YouTube of Insta but with vertical orientation → Can be shared to Stories
• Feed Video - upto 1 min: Upload the video as post
Chats:
• Simple messaging
• Form groups to message
• Create video chat rooms(latest feature)
Others:
• Photos
• Stories-Original/Reshare (Stay for 24 hours)
• Close Friends Feature for restricted sharing
• Advertisements (via Business Accounts)
• Live Broadcasts (with Video feed)
Recent Feature Updates
1. Live videos' time extended from 1 hour to 4 hours, owing to the content they have been creating in
the COVID-19 lockdown period.
2. Updates in chat section:
a. Option to change color for different chat windows- allows users to identity chats better.
b. Facebook Messenger and Instagram's DM section merged, for cross-
platform messaging.
c. React to a message with different emojis by long-pressing a particular message.
d. Create selfie stickers and send your personalized stickers to people.
3. Updates in Reels
a. Businesses and creators will be able to tag products when they create Reels. Viewers can
now tap a “View Products” button to either buy, save or learn more about the featured
products.
b. Creators can add a “Branded Content” tag to their Reels to be transparent about when
they’re working with a brand to promote their products, which is a form of paid
promotion.
4. More on other Feature Changes: Click here and Here

User Needs & Persona
**Influencers are sub-category within Content Creators
User Persona Needs

Reach masses for professional purpose- paid
Advertisers/Companies/Shops advertisements, digital events, collect user opinions,
and Stores direct engagement, reach maximum members in
relevant audience
show off creativity, endorse brands,
Influencers share life with community of followers-get likes and
comments
Content Creators Show off creativity
Discuss daily life,
share life with friends via photos and videos - get likes
Normal Users
and comments, messaging directly or in groups, share
posts with
Recent Rollouts & Rollbacks:
• https://www.indiatvnews.com/technology/news-instagram-dm-section-gets-new-features-for-
messages-know-details-660560
• https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/10/instagram-launches-shopping-in-reels-its-tiktok-rival/
• https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/people-are-hating-on-the-new-instagram-update-
which-moved-notifications-and-added-a-major-reels-feature/articleshow/79215255.cms
• https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/17/instagram-expands-new-guides-feature-to-all-users/
Competitor Analysis
Instagram Facebook Snapchat Twitter
Both professional and Both professional and 140 characters- Short and fast-
non-professional
non-professional non-professional paced environment
Doesn’t allow
Tells # of active hours
screenshots-> Sense
for each user
of Privacy
Sharing your best Connecting with

photos/product and friends and family, share ideas, real-time information,
videos with your community for and trending news for example
followers for example can be used can be used to build brand
“interactive for “long-term awareness”
engagement” engagement”
Gives insights from
each Post for Business
Ads more expensive than FB/Insta
Account, Ad Shop
Option
For more on competition : Click Here and Here

User Journey for Content Creator
• Clicking a good picture → Applying filters and editing the pic right → Adding captions and
hashtags → Post → Get likes and comments
• Click a picture/Share a picture → Apply filter & edit → Add
captions/hashtags/polls/questions/location/time/music → Story → Show for 24 hours
• Your ID tagged in a story → Share the story to your profile
• Create/upload a video → Reels for 30 secs (edit 30-second multi-clip videos with audio,
effects and new creative tools) OR IGTV (>1 min & <60 min) OR Feed Video ( Upto 1 min)
Examples of Pain Points for Different Users

1. For Regular Users:
• Pressure to produce witty/likeable captions for all their posts.
• Difficulty to find a particular post on second persons' feed.
2. For Content Creators:

• Difficult to check updates of all followers if a particular follower likes multiple posts
leading to overflowing of timeline with the posts.
For Adoption Rate By demographics, satisfaction with new feature retention

General
Users Frequency of
Monthly Active Users(MAUs) and Daily Active Users(DAUs)
Use
By demographics, size of business, by # of followers, by category of
Adoption Rate
business
Map Find the effect(increase/decrease) on # of engagement

Engagement actions(dm/like/share/website clicks/ad clicks) due to the new feature-
For Numbers assess the long-term value offered
Business Campaign # of return users or first-time users, brand
Accounts Design awareness, marketing expenditure allotted
Cost Per Lead (CPL), Cost Per Acquisition (CPA or CAC), Return-on-Ad-
ROI
Spend (ROAS), Average Order Value (AOV), Customer Lifetime Value (LTV),
Calculations
Lead-to-Close Ratio (LTCR)

Recommendations
Caption Recommendations
Get people to add location and tags

Give users the option to like captions
to their posts and based on the tags,
for posts and allow people adding posts
location, and the image use ML to
to look at the most liked / trending
suggest captions or auto-append
captions to draw inspirations.
relevant hashtags.
Complexity
High
A catalogue of quotes from famous

Quotes to be available on the
people, books, authors, poems and
screen where users are prompted to
making them searchable by tags like
add a caption to the image.
beach, tree, vacation, moods.
Low
Low High
Impact
Reset the Explore Feed (to expose

users to new content when they want
Allow display picture
to refresh feed) since often the feed is
enlargement on click.
saturated with irrelevant content
based only on a couple of searches.
High
Complexity
Activities of friends' tab or curated

posts tab. Can also be designed
as Push notification to people who
have liked or commented on a
person's post or interacted with them
above a threshold in the past.
Low
Low High
Impact

Display picture enlargement Reset the Activities of friends/curated
Explore Feed Button posts tab
For Businesses/Content- Creators
Instagram in the background could

suggest/identify clicked/downloaded
pictures which can be shared on feed.
Use ML/AI to suggest/predict the likes &
comments that the picture can get.
High
Complexity
Give a set of auto-suggested sets of edits

& filters (using AI/ML) that the user can
apply in one tap.
Low
Low High
Impact

Microsoft Teams
About:
Microsoft Teams is a dedicated team chat and collaboration tool that helps teams to stay connected
and share information right away.
Competitor analysis:
Competitor Google Meets Slack Zoom

• Unlike any email inbox, the
conversations in slack are
well-organized and take
place within specialized • Intuitive
• Easy to use interface spaces known as channels. • Extremely easy to
• Intuitive UI • Monopolized most use, no need to be
Pros
• High value for money businesses due to tech-savvy
in premium versions convenience. • Focus on core
• Has a Standard and a Plus functionalities
version (pricing in line with
Teams)
• Inability to handle over

a certain number of • Time limit
• Minimum file storage
users. restrictions
• No video/audio meeting
Cons • Bad optimization for • Fear of Security
feature (Not considered in
video resolution. breach
their business model)
• Grid view is a plug in
and not automatic.
Video conferencing industry:

Customer Needs and complaints:
Delight:
1. High customizability
2. Tightly integrated with other Microsoft Teams apps
3. Plenty of other integration options and tools, especially with Outlook and OneNote
4. Included with Office 365 business account
Complaints:
1. Not fundamentally intuitive
2. Microsoft for education as a teaching platform is difficult to comprehend without a demo
3. Not as friendly to non tech-savvy users
Recommendation and Product Improvements:
• Edit
This feature allows users to edit the content being shared. For example: Students will be able to
make notes in real-time and mark important points as and when shared. Whenever required a user
can download their annotated version of the shared content.
• Download:
Real time download of content being displayed or streamed that enable easy access and use.
• Pause and Play:

Currently, we can pause and play live streams (such as live sports) in real-time. Such a feature
must include caveats on a time limit, a maximum of up to n minutes as set by the admin
• Simpler UI:
Depending on the user login – less cluttered and more sequential/intuitive
User Persona:
Meeting Hopper Organizer Jabber Casualizer

High frequency user, Majorly uses the Inclined towards the chat Recreational use of the
typically a senior level application to store feature and prefers apps that video conferencing app,
manager at a firm. Places and organize offer smooth transition mainly to talk to friends,
special emphasis on documents. Usually between instant messaging family and ex-colleagues.
reminders and notifications, prefers good third-party and simultaneous Low frequency of usage
quality video and audio application (TPA) audio/video appointments. and usually value non-
streaming linkage and seamless Values shortcuts in interruptive meetings
Eg: A 45-year-old senior online editing messaging and good Eg: Any age user who likes
manager handling a Eg: A mid-level repository of emojis and exploring and using
specific product software developer in a creative media usage difference tech platforms
product Eg: Specific, customized
users
Business Model Canvas:

Netflix
User Journey/Case
Let’s start with first understanding what the basic use cases these two products are trying to support
are:
• User wants to watch a show or a movie.
• User needs to have a bunch of options to choose from, and needs some basic info like IMDB
rating and interesting trivia to make a final call.
• User needs to watch a trailer to avoid switching Netflix and go to YouTube.
• User wants to watch ad-free content and a smooth streaming.
• User wants to see what movie/show he was watching earlier to continue from there in future.
Basic Features
• Set up multiple accounts

• Watch multiple shows at the same time
• Parental Control
• Adding shows to your list
• Rating shows
• Turn off auto play
• Skip Intro/show theme
• Limiting your data use | Downloading shows | Wi-fi only downloads
• Watching Ultra HD 4K content, HDR content, Dolby Vision content, virtual reality content
• Language, Subtitle options
Unique Differentiators – Netflix

1. Can Fast Forward movie/show
2. Search option is very smooth and interactive
3. Customised thumbnail according to viewing history
Competitor Analysis
Content Wise:
Prime has Quantity but Netflix has Quality | Prime has 5x content compared to Netflix, but lacks
quality.

Trivia:
Amazon Prime search recommends shows that doesn’t even exist on Prime. Such blunders turn-off the
viewing experience.
Monetization models:
• Ad-supported free content - (Netflix - No, Disney+ - Yes, Prime - No)
• Subscription (monthly & yearly) - (Netflix - Yes, Disney+ - Yes, Prime - Yes)
• Subscription (yearly only) - (Netflix - No, Disney+ - No, Prime - Yes)
Value Wise:
Pricing - Monthly
Type Screens Netflix
Mobile - 480p 1 ₹ 199
Basic - 480p 1 ₹ 499
Standard - 1080p 2 ₹ 649
Premium - 4K+HDR 4 ₹ 799
Amazon Prime :- ₹129 monthly & ₹999 for yearly

Disney+ - VIP plan at ₹399 yearly & Premium plan at ₹1499 yearly
ZEE5 :- ₹99 monthly & ₹999 for yearly
Success Metrics
1. Bit Rate & Play Rate - If a video has a higher than average bit rate, it typically means a higher
resolution (quality) image. This means bit rate helps identify the number of bits of a video that
can be transmitted over a certain period of time. An HDTV typically transmits between a bit rate
of 8–15 Mbps, while for Netflix it’s 6 Mbps.
2. Filling In The Buffer - The time one spends buffering when a video begins is really important. This
helps you understand the duration of time a user waits before a certain video actually starts to
play.
3. Post-Buffer Lag Length - The time you spend while the video buffers until it begins to play is
together known as lag length. This metric helps you understand the users experience when they
begin watching a video.
4. Play Length Of Video - This metric is equally important in understanding and planning out the
infrastructure and capacity intake for streaming. With play length, you can make a rough estimate
of the overall demand for the streamed data.
5. Lag Ratio Of Video - Waiting time is technically called lag ratio, which is measured by calculating
the overall waiting time in the video over the time spent watching the video. The lag ratio is never
zero because the initial buffer fill that comes before the video plays remains, even if there is never
a single buffer through the video. Example- Three minutes of buffer time leads to 2.5 percent lag
ratio.

Recommended Features
1. Let user subscribe to part of Netflix collection (High Impact, Medium Effort)
a. Give user an option to choose and pay only for genres I am interested in.
b. Give user an option to choose languages I am interested in
2. Let user rent/buy a single move/series (Medium Impact, Medium Effort)
3. Trial Option :( Low Impact, Medium Effort)

a. Give user an option to watch one or two episodes before he subscribes for content
4. Also, Give user an option subscribe for their own flexible time (High Impact, Medium Effort)
a. Subscribe for 2 days/7 days.
b. Give user an weekend option (8 days a month i.e. 4 weekends a month).
5. Adopt the new payment methodologies like UPI (pre-paid ) than credit card/debit card
( Medium Impact, Medium Effort)
Success-Metrics
1. Number of paying customers in a month

2. Number of paying customers by different category
3. Paid for part of collection
4. Paid for just one movies (etc)
5. Paid for time based subscription
6. Number of users who used the trial option but did not convert.

Questions
How to increase engagement?
Goal for Improvement : To increase engagement on the platform and make people spend more time
watching content on the platform
Users Persona : -
1. Baby Boomers
2. Millennials
3. Post Millennials
Millennials and Post Millennials are more active on the platform. So I would pick these sets of users.
Behaviours and Pain-points: -

• The millennials and post millennials are more active on social media. They are more used to
social nature of different apps where you share photos and media with other people We can
add this social angle to Netflix to help users discover more content to watch. They are more
likely to trust and watch the movie / show recommendations given by their friends. These users
also like a sense of competition.
• One more behaviour, I can think of is often some users would request someone to share their
recommended list of movies/shows to watch. They share this over messages on WhatsApp or
Facebook. There is no way in Netflix to do this.
Some improvements :
Allow users to connect their Facebook or Google account with Netflix and add friends.
1. Recommend/Share a movie/show to a friend
Now these friends can immediately share or recommend a movie which users can add to their
watch list.
A new section “Recommended by Friends” would appear on the home page. The
recommendation would also appear in the notifications.
2. Video Lists
Users can create video lists based on different criteria : it can be based on genre, movies/shows
to watch with kids, movies/shows to watch alone etc, top rated movies, top rated shows, binge
worthy shows/movies etc. They can make these lists visible to their friends by sharing. The
friends can see these lists and add the whole list or some of the movies to his/her watchlist.
The users can also make these lists public and people can see a new section called “Lists”.
The users can see the lists from their friends and other users.
3. Add the these sections on home page

• Top 10 Shows watched by their friends this week.
• Top 10 Movies watched by their friends this week
We are more likely to watch and like similar content to our friends
4. Points/Badges System
Users would be given different badges based on points they accumulate
• When they watch different movies or shows from different genres.
• When their friends watch a show/movie recommended by them and like it.
• When friends add movies to their list from their lists of movies.
• When other users add movies/shows to their list

I would prioritise as follows based on impact vs effort : -
3>1>2>4
Success Metrics
How to Measure these improvements
1. Number of recommendations per user per week
2. % of this recommended content watched per week
3. Time spent on the platform post launch of this feature
4. Number of lists created and shared per user per week
5. Average minutes of content per list
6. Number of lists browsed per user per week
7. Minutes of content watched from these lists per week
To summarise, We can add the social angle to Netflix by allowing users to connect their Facebook
account or Google Account and adding friends. By making users share content with each other and
creating watch lists, we can help them discover content to watch. By adding badges / points system,
we gamify the experience and make them watch content even more.

Swiggy
Overview
• Founded in 2014, achieved ‘unicorn’ status and is valued at $ 3.6 billion.
• Founders: Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimani.
• Acquisitions: 48East, Suprdaily, Scootsy and Kint.
• Online food delivery market in India is expected to generate a revenue of Rs. 1,335 billion and reach
300 million+ users by 2024 with a CAGR of 30.55% between 2020-2024.
Swiggy Business Model
Customer Segments
Key Partners
• People who love to eat food from their favorite • Restaurants Partners
restaurants but want to get it delivered at home
• Delivery Partners
• People who want to get emergency items delivered
at their doorstep like groceries, stationery etc.
Value Proposition Key Activities
• Fast Delivery: within 1 hour or less • App Maintenance

• Quick Access: users must get items delivered with • Seasonal Promotion
one click and Advertising
• Design: smooth UI, easy to navigate • Growth in diversifying
• Reliability: customers trust and confidence in the business beyond food
brand for their need of the moment and reaching to daily
items
Value Proposition
Key Resources
• Push Notifications
• Email Marketing • Local Food Delivery Boys
• Social Media Marketing • Connection with Restaurants and
• Offering deals and discounts on Stores
special events • An Easy-to-Use Mobile App
• Continuously improves in customer • Large Database of Customers and
engagement and satisfaction Restaurants
Cost Structure
Revenue Streams
1. Fixed Cost
• Advertising
• Payment and Incentives to Delivery • Commission
Partners • Delivery Charges
• Salary to Employees • Affiliate Income
• IT-Development Cost
• Advertising and Marketing Cost
2. Variable Cost
Channels
• Acquisition of Various Companies
• Transportation • Mobile Application
• Returns and Refunds • Website

Competitor Analysis
Swiggy Zomato
60% market share 55% market share
Swiggy Genie (New) Zomato Gold (New)
Partnered with Netflix to show trailers Can view menus, reviews, ratings, pictures, etc.
1.5 million orders / day 1.2 orders / day
User Personas
• Lazy Foodies - Customers who want to explore food but don't want to eat out. Foodie who
wants to experience different cuisines at home/ trending items. Prefers ordering food
• Bachelors - Bachelors who don't have maids to cook food - prefer to order from food delivery
apps
• Socializers - Get together at home and order from app
• Office Lunch time – People during office lunch hours looking for quick meal/ package/ thali/ etc.
• Late night Workers - Working class late from office and don't have time to cook
• Budget - Value customers looking for offers/ discounts
• Specialists - Specific food/ cuisine/ dish lovers (Biryani, Pizza, Desserts, Donuts, Ice Cream,
Shawarma, etc.
User Journey
Logging in
and Selecting
Ideas to Choosing from the Making
providing Order Receiving
order food the menu and the
the tracking the order
restaurant placing the payment
delivery
location order
Pain Points
§ Delivery times get changed (Notifications are sent that the delivery executive is running late, or
the restaurant is running busy).
§ Delivery executives ask for extra money when the wait is longer or the location which you
entered is incorrect.
§ Delivery executives not adhering to COVID-19 precautions.
§ GPS tracking of delivery executive doesn’t update frequently to show the correct location in real
time.
§ The orders are often poorly packaged.
§ Problem of plenty. The choice of a lot of restaurants to order from, at times can confuse the
users.
§ The menu of the restaurants is not well organized and sometimes requires a lot of scrolling to
reach to the preferred items. It lacks any options for filtering.
§ The option to apply coupon does not show the coupons outside and user needs to click on it
to view coupons and apply.

§ For frequent orders, it should also save the instructions for them and suggest them or show
them in the recommendation.
Product Features & Success Metrics
Product Features Success Metrics
• New User Activation

• Resurrection Campaign New & resurrected users
• Subscription Trials
• Recommendations
• Food Cart No. of items per order
• Discount Coupons
• Reminders
• Flash Offers (Special
Occasions) Orders per month per user
• Notifications
• Automated refunds
(full/partial) % of orders where food is
• Customer chat delivered on or before time
• Warehouse & Logistics
Recommended Features
1. Add filters in the menus of the restaurants. When viewing the list of food items for a restaurant,
there can be a basic filter to sort out the items. For eg. A filter than sort items on the basis of
price, servings, etc.
2. Although Swiggy shows the ratings, there is no option to either collect or view ratings for
restaurant. A feature like this can help users in getting more information about the restaurants.
Zomato has both reviews and ratings.
3. Social media feature to see what friends are eating and from where they are ordering. The idea
is to engage more people on the platform. When a user goes to a certain restaurant page, it can
show the name of their friends and their respective ratings for that place. This can help to
increase popularity of some food items as well as some restaurants that will lead to more
orders. Another way can be to have a dedicated social media section where the restaurants as
well as the users can post pictures and updates, in a similar fashion to what Magicpin has done.
4. Swiggy can include gamification in the process and get users to play games and quizzes, for
which they will get discounts or some credit in the form of Swiggy Money.

Swiggy Genie
Swiggy Genie is a section within the Swiggy app that lets you either transfer items between two
locations or deliver items like groceries, flowers, etc. to your home. It competes with Dunzo as well as
traditional players like Grofers, Big Basket, etc. It operates in the hyperlocal delivery space.
For more information, you can view the following articles:

• https://uxplanet.org/a-ux-case-study-on-swiggy-genie-5f463da8aa04
• https://medium.com/swiggydesign/swiggy-genie-the-design-story-e18a763717a1
• https://inc42.com/buzz/swiggy-goes-dunzo-way-expands-grocery-delivery-rebrands-swiggy-
go-to-genie/

Uber
Overview
• Global ride-hailing service market is projected

to reach $126,521.2 million by 2025.
• In India, Ride-Hailing & Taxi segment is
projected to reach US$19,739m in 2020 and
projected to grow at a CAGR of 22.9% between
2020-25, resulting in a projected market volume
of US$55,364 mil by 2025.
• In India, Uber claimed the majority share in Feb
2020, commanding more than 50% of the
market.
• Uber sold its food-delivery division to Zomato
for about 180 million USD, cutting off a cash-burn business
User Personas
• Basic commute – Generic proposition

• Getting more – Convenience (Working moms, After-party travel)
• Treating oneself – Going on a date, need a chauffeur
• Weekend getaways – Renting car for longer periods (one or more days)
• Sharing experiences – Pooling, sharing rides with friends
User Journey
A consumer typically goes through the following stages:

• Set destination – Entering a location or using the pin to mark drop location. Pickup is
assumed to be current GPS location of device, can be changed as per need.
• Select Car type – Picking the car type (Go, Pool, Premier, XL, Lux, etc)
• Schedule trip – Setting pickup time
• Select account and payment method – Choosing Payment method - which is same as what
has been set default for that account or can be changed as per need.
• Request cab – “Confirm” or “Schedule” cab.
• Rate – Leave rating and feedback once the ride is complete.
Competitor Analysis
Uber Ola Lyft

Highest reach globally, growing in High coverage in Indian market Growing rapidly in the US and
India Canada
Global brand – safety and trust No competition in majority of cities, Strong hold of the US market – 40%,
growing consumer base growing investor and investments
Problems in operating under Lacks deep pockets, burnt a lot of Limited geography
different jurisdictions, food-delivery cash already
business tanked in India

Customer Pain Points
• Last ride of the day for the driver should have the destination close to his house
• Have a feature to navigate to nearest essentials for drivers – petrol pump, public toilet,
parking area, affordable eateries – or have own meal fulfilment facilities
• Congruence between drop-off point and the building (or society) of passenger
• Have more reasons listed in the ‘reason for cancellation’
Unique Features
• Calendar Events Feature – Syncing Meetings

• Split Fare Feature – Seamless splitting of fare
• Send Status feature – For letting others follow the ride in real time
Suggested Features
• Auto Connect Wi-Fi

• Uber Pay
• Local Language App for drivers
• 2G Optimization
• Uber Play
Metrics to track
• Installs – serviceable in the areas

• Searches – rider/driver match
• Trips – fair/surge/discounted, start and end times, origin-destination pairs, common paths
• Cancellations – reason/locations
• Churn – Search but not book and why
• Cohorts – User groups that repeat book and their features
• Spots or boundaries – Idle spots (where drivers are mostly idle), ‘walls’ that aren’t booked by
passengers or crossed by drivers
• Drivers – Utilization, requests per hour accepted/rejected, completion rate
• Miscellaneous – Accident prone areas/spots, frauds, other safety hazards, refunds
Questions
Strategy to Improve Uber’s Revenue?
1. Ask clarifying questions:

• Do we want to increase revenues or profits?
• Are we talking about just one vertical of Uber i.e. ride-sharing services or the entire
company?
• Do we have a specific geography/region in mind?
• Is there a time frame in which we need to implement changes?
Assumption : We need to improve the revenues of the entire company in India in 1 year.

2. Prepare a framework: Revenues can be increased by any of the following methods:
• Increasing the number of users on the platform
• Increasing the usages of the app by the existing users
• Increasing the prices of our services
• Diversifying into new verticals
3. Increasing the number of users on the platform: Users can be increased on the platform by
any of the following methods:
• Expanding into new territories
• Target a different set of users
• Decrease the prices to gain share from the competitors. However, care must be taken to
not reduce the prices up to a certain limit.
4. Increasing the usages of the app by the existing users: Usages can be increased on the
platform by any of the following methods:
• Start providing hyperlocal delivery services wherein a user can book an Uber driver to do
regular household chores like
bringing laundry clothes, purchasing "paan" at night, etc.
• Bundle the cab and food delivery services. For example, for a specific number of rides
made on Uber, you get some discount off food orders
Pros Cons
Will require new drivers

Expanding into new territories No need to modify existing features May not be implementable in one
year
Tapping the untapped market will

Works well only if the size of the
Target a different set of users give the first-mover advantage
targeted niche market is sufficient
Easier to implement
Works well only if the revenue lost

due to price cut is lesser than the
Decrease the prices to gain share revenue gained due to the increase
Can eliminate the competition
from the competitors in the number of users
Competitor retaliation can lead to
price wars
Start providing hyperlocal delivery Can use existing infrastructure by May require a considerable initial
services making certain changes investment
A good strategy to increase number Will work only for those customers,
Bundle the cab and food delivery
of food orders as well as cab rides who are potential users of both the
services
Easy to implement services
How would you acquire more users for Uber?
Assumptions: For ridesharing, Uber has 2 main users – the drivers and the riders. For the purpose of
this exercise, let us stick with acquiring more riders. This also seems like the first logical choice
because a higher demand from riders will result in more drivers (to make money) and not the other way
around.

Goal: To acquire more riders on the uber platform.
Users and Use Cases:

• Professionals – who commute daily to work instead of driving or taking public transport
• Students – who shuttle between dorms and class when they are getting late. Example of
groups.
• Young professionals – who like to go out at nights to party without the worry of the
designated driver.
• Airport Commuters – who like to go to and from the airport regularly
Let’s pick the Young professionals who want to party as the user because of the following reasons
• Higher income range – leading to better tipping,
• More likelihood of uber X
• Longer trips (they typically won’t go to the same neighbourhood places and round trip
opportunities – they must come home late when their best option is Uber).
• A large market – if you assume ages between 21-35 and assuming an 80-yr lifespan and
uniform distribution, your market size in the US is (15/80)*320 million = 60 million.
Ideas for increasing users
• Partnerships with Opentable – Uber could tie up with reservation systems to provide discounts
to users going to that location.
• Detect DUIs before they happen: Uber could provide handheld machines at all bars that users
can use for free (or minimal service) before checking out. If a user checks at > $0.08, Uber
should volunteer to provide a car for the user to get home or suggest to the user to wait. It
would be legally impossible to detain or report the user against his or her will. This is easy to
implement – devices are available, generally makes the roads safer and has a clear way of
increasing customers. Since this is at peak time surcharge rules apply allowing for higher
monetization
• Strategic partnerships with Live events: Most live involve large groups of people, space
constraints and parking challenges. For e.g., Uber could partner with the IPL to be the preferred
transport mode for fans to and from the stadiums. This reduces traffic congestion, eliminates
parking problems and allows Uber to demonstrate the value of the product and retain more
customers.
Metrics:
• Uber Rides/ User / Month

• 7 day / 30 day Repeat Users
How would you improve the Uber app?
What is the purpose of Uber?

Ride app- It’s a location based mobile app that lets customers (riders) get rides with a private driver. It
has two types of users – people who need rides and people who drive Uber cars.
• Guaranteed ride – A rider is guaranteed a ride within a predictable time to their desired
destination.

• Tracking – The rider can even track the driver as he/she is en-route to pick the rider.
• Cashless – The rider does not need to pay with cash/credit card. The payment is known up-
front and is the rider’s Uber account is charged after the ride is completed.
• Feedback – Uber lets the rider leave feedback for the driver for driving, cleanliness, behavior
etc so that the experience can be improved over time
• Safe – Uber does background checks of drivers and guarantees the safety of the Uber rider
(this has been in question lately with customers complaining about crimes/assaults during
Uber rides)
High level features for driver

• Crowd-sourced drivers- Anyone can sign up as a driver as long as they have a safe driving
record and no criminal record
• Flexible work hours – A driver can have flexible working hours
• Flexible earning – A driver can make as much money as they want based on hours they drive
and rides they take
What can be done to improve Uber
We might ask the interviewer what the purpose of the improvement should be? If they ask you to
assume, you can say given all the exposure that Uber has come under with customers complaining
about safety issues with Uber, I recommend focusing on the user segment – rider and trying to solve
for their compromised safety perception of Uber
• Enforce use of go-pro cameras in all Uber vehicles

• Create a camera vision model which uses supervised and unsupervised learning (over time) to
learn about suspicious behaviour, unsafe- situations. Use existing police surveillance tapes,
home surveillance tapes (shared by customers) as data input to the model.
• Have real life alerts to cops and Uber customer service when the model detects potential crime
happening. Rider’s cell phone would be called, and the driver’s cell phone would be called
immediately to confirm if something is happening (by Uber’s customer service). The ML algo
would learn and get better with false positives over time.
• Also add a “safety” feedback section in the feedback section of the app for drivers and riders
so that self-reported data can be collected. This data can be prejudiced about if a pattern
emerges with negative feedback about a certain driver/passenger – they can be blacklisted.

UPSTOX
FINTECH
• Financial Technology can apply to any innovation in how people transact business, from the
invention of digital money to double-entry bookkeeping.
• General products in Fintech: Cross-border way to transfer money, a new way for people to file
taxes, send and receive money, dispense credit, buying and selling of financial instruments,
establish credit ratings, payment gateways, POS, Digital Wallets.
• Fintech usually operates on lean margins and allow very narrow margin of error. It is riddled
with strict regulations to be delivered in stringent timelines. The products need to be
accurate, secure and efficient.
Skill Sets of Fintech Product Manager
Empathy:
1. Know customers better than they know themselves
2. Appeal to the emotional needs of a customer.
3. understand the motivation of all stakeholders.
Business Mindset:
1. Go beyond the problem statement and solutions.
2. Understand e2e ramification to the business, legal, finance, compliance risk.
Domain Knowledge:
1. Understand the fintech industry well.
2. Good finance know-how, Understand the key regulation differences globally.
Detailed oriented with zero-error tolerance:

1. Precise an extensive documentation.
2. Secure, efficient an accurate product.
Creativity and Grit:

1. Manage a product with several constraints.
2. High rate of iterating and delivering, never leaving a customer need unexplored or a feature
unpolished.
Tech Stack:
Application and Data
Utilities
Business Tools

Business Model
The Osterwalder’s business model framework is utilized to compare and analyse Upstox platform.
Business Activities Revenue Streams
Trading Platform Commissions

Mutual Fund Investments Sign Up Fees
Value Proposition Customer Segment
Discount Broker Retail Users

Lower Fees Day Traders
Customer Support Investors
Intuitive Deign F&O Traders
Millennials
Business Activities
Channels
Website Maintenance
Employee Salaries Website
Technology Mobile Apps
Alliances
App Critique – UPSTOX
1. Login Page:
The login page takes a lot of time to load, once the details are entered, The time taken on the app
is more as compared to website. Currently the app takes around 5 sec to successfully logon the
user.
2. Trend Analysis View:

The trend analysis window is migrated to the mobile app without real optimisation from the website
version. There is too much information on the phone screen, which hampers the user experience.
The UI needs to be updated to only include the most used features, while disabling the low priority
options to promote user experience.
3. Stock Watchlist:
The watchlist feature needs UI revamp, the current layout does not allow the user to compare
multiple stocks, and in order to purchase a stock it has to be added to the watchlist, which should
be an option ideally. The data points highlighted on the watchlist should be optimised and the user
should be given an option to select the desired ratios.

4. Past Order Calculations:
The past order calculations are not available on the app and on the website. This is an issue from
the consumer perspective and implementing this would help in improving consumer experience
and also increased trust in how the transactions are managed.
5. Learning Academy:
To increase user engagement, and time spent on the website/app, a new section can be introduced
which would have documents and video tutorials for technical and management analysis. This
feature can later be used to sell training modules once we have enough traction on this feature.

2019
SIP Company
Experiences

Microsoft
Candidates:
• Komal Prasad
• Utsav Shah
• Anand Deshpande
• Eshan Verma
• Sukul Bagai
Komal Prasad – H19085
Brief Introduction – Software Engineer, worked as a Product Marketing Manager in a startup

partnered with Workplace by Facebook
Round 1: Written + brief interview

Duration – 1 hour
• We were asked to design an Enterprise Chat Application. Started with need identification for such
an application/interface in any company. Created multiple personas of the company along with the
needs.
• Gave a brief analysis of the existing Enterprise chat applications or platforms and marked what
essential features they are covering and what are the gaps.
• Based on the understanding listed features – which would be necessary to form a robust
application + what features can act as a differentiator (against competitors) along with driving
value for the customers. [Further added that there would be a comprehensive primary and
secondary research involved at this stage and outlined some specifics for them]
• With the suggested list of features, outlined some of their technical nuances and the needs for the
same. For every added feature in the MVP – gave reasons from Consumer, UX and tech
perspective.
• Drew rough wireframes suggesting the possible designs in the mobile and web application.
• Charted the plan for an unbiased UX research with users, to gather their true feedback on the
product and then based on development viability studies, proposed a tentative pipeline for the
features (with stated assumptions in the process)
Questions asked – I was asked questions regarding my MVP creation and how and
why I zeroed on those features. Some questions were asked on my competitor
analysis and sources for citing the information.
Round 2: Interview
Duration – 20 minutes approx.
• I was mostly asked about my previous work experience as it was a PM role. I was asked to narrate
my leadership and team working experiences with the firm and times when I had taken on initiative
single-handedly.
• I was then asked to state as to which app I liked the most with respect to UX and which I disliked.
Had to specify my reasons for the same.
• I was then asked as to how Microsoft can benefit from the LinkedIn acquisition.
• There were some more questions about Edge and Chromium collaboration and what I thought
about the GitHub acquisition.

No further rounds.
Utsav Shah – B19045

Duration – 1 hour
• Design a product to improve education facilities in rural areas

• Started with stakeholders (students, teachers and parents) and the problems that they were facing.
After the problems were identified, tried to prioritize the problems and classify them into categories.
• Gave minimal set of feature set to start with (along with drawn wireframes) and set the future scope
and metrics to measure success.
• We were supposed to explain the thought process to the invigilators for around 5 mins. The shortlist
for the next round was based on this.
Round 2: Interview
• Asked me about my work experience and about a product that I use everyday. Then asked me the
feature set I would add to that product.
• Told about mood analysis of the user and suggesting food items based on the mood that day.
Asked me how I would determine the mood of the user, I said that I would ask him when he opens
the application. It was more of a discussion where he was helping me with the solution
Round 3: Interview
• Asked me that what are the features of LinkedIn that I like and why. Then asked me how I would
increase its traction among people. He was asking me about the features or some other strategy.
My answer was to provide a desktop version along with Windows that should come installed. And
should provide facilities to actually test if a person if he claims that he is good at a particular skill.
• The last question that he asked me was that why Edge is not gaining as much traction as Google
Chrome. I told that maybe because of its similarity with the logo of Internet Explorer.
Round 4: Interview
Duration – 2 minutes
• Asked me “Would you join us for internship? “
Anand Deshpande – B19134
Brief Introduction – Computer Engineer from NIT Nagpur, worked as Senior Software Engineer with a
successful startup

Duration – 1 hour
• As a product manager, design a new product which will help improve the quality of education in
rural India. Explain the product features in detail.

• We were given an hour to think and write. While I was writing, one of the PMs came to my
• desk around 10 mins after the start of the written round and discussed with me the product I had
in my mind, she asked me about the features, and how those'd help in improving the quality of
education. She also asked me to not focus too much on technology (I had thought of the product
tech-stack, integrating the app with MS ecosystem, cross-platform, offline model, etc.) but more on
the purpose and impact that the product would have.
• Around 10 mins before the end time, another PM came to me and discussed my write-up in detail.
He asked me to walk through all the features and asked me how I would determine if the product
is successful after a year of the product launch (KPIs)
Round 2: Interview
• Tell me about yourself

• Short discussion regarding work experience
• Give an example where you demonstrated leadership skills
• How would you leverage LinkedIn with its existing features to build a new revenue generating
product for Microsoft?
• Tell me about an interesting and innovative product feature that you've seen lately. What is the
impact of the feature, what problems does it solve?
No further rounds
Pointers:
• Should have a detailed understanding of the features for 3-5 popular apps. Should be able to talk
about adding/removing features from these apps with ease.
• Showing your familiarity with tech helps, but do not overuse it as it would imply that you’re
compensating your lack of product knowledge with tech skills.
• Always keep the end-user in mind when designing any feature for a product.
Eshan Varma – H19019

Duration – 1 hour
• We were given a problem statement to design a product to “Improve the quality of education in
Rural India”.
• We were given 2 A4 sheets for the task, during the round, 2 Microsoft PMs sat with me and asked
me about what I was building.
• Their focus was on my thought process and my approach of the problem rather than just the
product itself.
• They also suggested to focus on the long-term sales aspect of my design.
• In this round you have complete freedom to design anything you want, an App, a software, a
physical product etc. Focus on showing your problem-solving approach.
Round 2: Interview

• Give an example where you have shown leadership skills

• Microsoft has recently acquired LinkedIn, how can Microsoft leverage LinkedIn in its other
products.
• Tell me about some Product or Feature which you really like and what makes it so special.
Sukul Bagai – B19114
Brief Introduction – SDE at Amazon for 2 years

Duration – 1 hour
• Topic: Design an Enterprise Chat Application

• I had read this principle in one of the books “Decode & Conquer” to follow the CIRCLES method
Comprehend the Situation

Identify the Customer
Report the Customer’s Needs
Cut, Through Prioritization
List Solutions
Evaluate Trade-offs
Summarize Your Recommendation
• And I followed this approach while giving my solution. I first comprehended the situation – I wrote
down what it’ll do, who it is for, why they need it and how they’ll intend to use it.
• Once this picture was clear, I went down to identifying the customer & reporting their needs – I did
this by creating segments and how each user role in the organization would use it, and their primary
purpose would be. This gave a sense of what’s important to each customer so it can be tailored for
them
• Next, based on the needs, I listed down the key features needed and circled common & important
ones, and separated them from the nice-to-have. This gave me a feature set that I wanted to have
for the MVP stage of the product
• Wherever a feature was cut, I wrote alternatives as to how we can achieve that experience for the
customer.
• Then I designed mocks of the chat window, including features in a clean layout from my
understanding
• There were MS people roaming around and going to people to ask how they were doing; my turn
came somewhere towards the end of the hour, so I was mostly done with all this when the
interviewer came to me for my discussion. I discussed in detail why I did what I did, as has been
written above
Round 2: Interview
• This interview was mainly to get to know me and my motivation towards PM role. I told them my
story and why I was motivated to enter PM. That’s all they’re looking for, a keen interest with an
affinity towards understanding how things work
• There was a small discussion on my work projects as well, I was asked about something that didn’t
work out during my job, so I explained how working in an away team was a challenge and how I
overcame it

• One more thing that was asked was how I would improve LinkedIn and link it with existing services.
I chose a target segment and spoke on how it could be integrated with OneDrive & OneNote. The
key again here was identifying what need someone who uses LinkedIn would have – for example
college students would want to show off their presentation skills (LOL) so they can directly
integrate with OneDrive just like SlideShare. Or while scrolling through feed, someone would want
to save something, so you can just press a button and it’ll be added as a note into OneNote.
Key Takeaway
Focus on each individual customer segment, and how you can make little change to make their than
one task infinitely easier. FOCUS on that one flow, do not swing around in all directions. As a PM, the
task at hand is to make big change with small well-researched improvements that strike the right note.

PhonePe
Candidates:
• Anurag Sharma
• Santhosh Revuluri
Anurag Sharma – B19028
Brief Introduction - 2 years of work ex in ML and Analytics
Round 1: Personal Interview

• Rundown of CV, major and interesting points; My CV was focussed on my data analytics work
experience. Questions revolved around data analytics, ML models and business impact
• Asked whether I used PhonePe and what I liked about PhonePe
• Case regarding a problem faced by OLX to reduce fraudulent products being sold on the platform
using technology
• Case went from broad in terms of product categories to Mobile phone categories
• Features that can be added to check the quality of the mobile on the seller’s end
• Priority of the checks and rating of the different features both from seller’s standpoint and
customers standpoint
• The interviewer was quite friendly and cheerful and during the entire duration kept the discussion
informal on reiterated the same to me.
• Jotted my points on a piece of paper and then discussed with him regarding possible solutions and
problems
• Asked how I would develop an MVP and what factors would I consider
• Talked about other interesting apps which I liked and apps which I generally use in normal life
Round 2 – Personal Interview
• Immediately after 1st round, the first interviewer personally took me to the second interviewer
• Case discussion in previous interview complete run down
• Factors which would be critical in implementation and success of the product
• Much more formal discussion and the interviewer was frank about the solutions I was proposing
They announced the results directly to me and were quite chill once the interview was over and asked
if I was interested to work for PhonePe.
Phone Pe PPI
There were two rounds of Interviews for PhonePe PPI, one hour each. One was Problem solving round
and the other was Product thinking round.
Problem Solving Round.
• You are PM at Swiggy, and you have observed that the number of orders received in the last week
have dropped 30% compared to last year. How would you analyze?

• What are the different metrics you would track for this?
• What are different hypothesis you would formulate for this problem?
• How would you confirm your hypothesis?
• What is the CJM on the Swiggy platform? At each stage what might be happening that is leading
to drop in the orders.
• If a customer is coming onto the platform but is not finding what he wants, what metric would give
an initial indication for this case.
Interviewer would drive the discussion based on your answers and expect cross questioning for
whatever you say. I tried to first list down all the factors both on demand and supply side of the platform
and map out the customer journey map. Try to focus on getting as much data as possible from the
interviewer by asking clarifying questions and do not assume anything. They are looking for structure
and not for the end solution.
Product thinking:
• You want to build a learning platform like a MOOC, how would you go about it?
• What are the customer segments you would target and why?
• What should be the MVP?
• How would you decide what goes into MVP?
• How would the features in MVP solve for different problems?
• What is the goal of MVP in this case?
• How would you go about achieving the goal of MVP?
• What are the metrics you would track for this goal?
General observations and Tips:

• Do not assume anything. Ask clarifying questions wherever possible.
• Talk about problem statement and not solutions as much as possible from various angles.
• Frameworks might not work in these interviews as they will keep on interrupting at each step and
delve deep into it. Hence drive the interview to where you are good at.
• List down all the problems and prioritize based on data.
• They do not treat the interview as a PPI but for a full-time position and have a lot of expectations.
Do not be intimidated by it.
• Interviewers will go through your CV thoroughly, hence prepare the CV well.
• Do not expect any questions from your internship project as they will take that feedback from your
manager.
Santhosh Revuluri – B19098
Brief Introduction - Aerospace Engineer from IITM with research projects in DRDO

(No mention of CV at all)

(single interviewer – focus on ‘how’ part of the case)
• Tell me something about yourself

• Jumped straight to the case – What are the problems with ATMs?
• Listed down general problems like cash availability, number of ATMs being less, customers not
knowing location of ATMs sometimes, user interface is bad, tough for uneducated people to use

• Interviewer asked about what I think the biggest problem is – answered about how ATM’s main
function is cash withdrawal for most of the people but that option is buried somewhere deep and
user needs to go through 5-6 screens every time user needs to withdraw cash
• Follow up question – if PhonePe needs to solve these problems, how can it be done?
• Mentioned how POS machines can be used as a cash withdrawing facility by linking up with
merchants of Kirana stores etc
• Was asked to take the interviewer through step by step process in detail – gave explanation on how
maps can be used to show location of cash withdrawal facilities on PhonePe app itself.
• Interviewer was very friendly and made some minor suggestions wherever needed. This round was
more like a discussion with interviewer pointing what problems might arise at each step and asking
what can be done to solve those problems

(single interviewer – focus on ‘why’ part of the case)
• Now, the interview shifted to why PhonePe should take up such a project?
• Was asked to list down advantages and disadvantages of taking it up
• Mentioned how this can be leveraged to improve customer base rather than looking at it purely
from revenue point of view.
• Follow up question – what about the costs involved as PhonePe needs to get merchants on board
beforehand?
• Suggested taking up a pilot project in one of the cities and then scaling it up
• Another question on how it would affect PhonePe’s brand image – as this project will be going in
the opposite direction of increasing digital transactions?
• Interviewer was satisfied at this point and asked to meet HR to know further details about the
internship.

Amazon MLDP
Candidates:
• Apoorva Rastogi
• Puja Shankar
• Ankush Kumar
Apoorva Rastogi – B19127

(Very heavy on CV)
• Tell us something about yourself.

• You have mentioned National Finalists in P&G CEO challenge, tell us something about it.
• You mentioned you increased the efficiency of so and so process by X%, how did you measure
that?
• What kind of impact did you bring in while working as a technology consultant?
• Tell one situation where you faced ambiguity while working, how did you deal with it and what did
you learn from it.
• Follow up question on the situation, wanted to test the technical knowledge as well.
• Explain the business model of the luxury retail client you have mentioned and what pain points did
you address.
• What was your role in the team?
• You proposed solutions to client’s problems as you mentioned, but did you get an opportunity to
identify a problem in client’s business and then solve it?
• Did you ever face a situation when you felt a sub-optimal solution is being implemented, how did
you go about it?
• Did you ever suggest implementation or product level changes to the client, how did that
conversation go about?
• Since you worked on Retail POS, did you interact with the store staff, what were your learnings from
such interactions, were you able to find some of their pain-points and suggest suitable measures
to address them?
• How did you go about implementing and rolling out such huge process changes in the system?
• You mentioned customizing a lot of functionalities for the clients and building new ones as well,
tell us one task you did was the most challenging for you?
• Have you ever faced a situation where in the client has given a requirement
• which wasn’t feasible, how did you go about it? Did you suggest any alternative approach?
• Which ERP and POS solution were you working on?
• Since Microsoft is providing the product, why doesn’t Microsoft go for the implementation, what is
the role of your firm here? (I was working on Microsoft ERP and POS)
• Some follow up questions on the different product offerings by Microsoft in the ERP and POS space
and about the flexibility each option provides.
• Do you have any questions for us? (I explained my understanding of MLDP and then asked for more
insights on it).

(Very conversational)
• Some light-hearted conversation about the process since the interviewers were both XL alumni.
• Ask us any questions you have related to Amazon or the role or our experience.
• What are your thoughts about Amazon?
• Why did you peck MLDP highest?
• Do you have any parting thoughts?
Puja Shankar – B19034

The interview panel consisted of 2 members who laid ground rules before starting the interview. They
told me that they would be hearing my answers and typing in relevant info in their laptop for their
recruitment purpose. They told that they may not be look at me while talking and so it should not
hinder my responses in any way.
• Tell me about yourself (no follow up ques on this)

• They then looked at my CV and started asking me details about each and every point mentioned in
the work ex. The details asked were:
o What were the responsibilities I had undertaken for my role?
o I had worked in and was certified as a Middleware Integration Services. They asked
me to explain the concept in a layman term without using technical words.
• Related to specific points in the CV wherein I had mentioned improving process efficiency by x%,
they asked how you achieved it. They wanted to know more about the thought process rather than
the technical aspect of it.
• They asked me if I had contributed something uniquely to the projects during my workex and if yes,
what?
• Asked me for on overall picture for the projects I had worked on in my work ex.
• In a nutshell, 60% of the interview revolved around work ex wherein they asked me details about
almost each point and cross questioned me as well.
• Now, they moved to Academic Projects wherein I had mentioned two projects:
o Marketing project in term 2
o Undergrad project
• They asked about the basis and concept about both the projects as in what was I trying to achieve
through them and my learnings from the project and something which I found very interesting while
working on the topics.
• For the marketing project, which was related to Indigo, they asked me a lot of cross questions
regarding the logistics and strategies of the airlines. My findings while doing the project and.
• 30% of the interview time was spent in this part. Again, for this, the dived deep into what, how and
why of the points mentioned in my CV.
• Next was the question, “What do you consider as the biggest failure in your life?”. Had a little
conversation on the answer I gave wherein the put their views on it.
• The last question was, “Do you want to ask us anything?”. I asked them about the selection process
in detail as I told I found the simulation game quite interesting and innovative. They then informed
me that sitting there they are donning the hat of Jeff Benzos and looking for candidates who exhibit
the leadership principles of Amazon.

My conclusion:
The interview was very conversational in nature with full focus on CV. They did not ask any out of
context questions. So, knowing in an out of the CV would help and also, if the candidate is ready with
substantial points to backup what they had written in their CV. Only two HR questions were asked to
me. It was a lengthy interview of about 45 minutes. Learn about the 14 leadership principles of
Amazon.

This interview was held next morning. There was only one interviewer. She informed me that I had
successfully completed the first round of interview and was selected for this round.
• She started by asking me about the interview experience held the previous evening and any
suggestions to make it better. She also asked for an overall feedback on the interviewers and the
whole process of recruitment in general.
• Next question was about the MLDP program for which I was being interviewed. She asked me what
I knew about the program. I had read the Job description provided by them and so told that.
• There are different roles in rotation offered under the program. So, she then proceeded to ask me
if I knew about the responsibilities of each role. This I felt needs a little research on the student
behalf and if they come prepared with points different from that mentioned in the JD, that may be
an advantage. This part consisted of a few follow up questions and then she told me to wait outside
and the results would soon be declared.
My conclusion
Have a good knowledge about the role. Read through the job description provided by them thoroughly.
Ankush Kumar – B19007

• Introduce yourself – Focused on Work Experience in OLA

• Run-down of CV: Dug deep into every number in CV for 8-10 minutes.
• What, why and How - Clear analysis expectation
• Then interviewer asked about the analytics quotient work experience and similar drill down of
numbers
• They were mainly focused on the CV points which included numbers or any metrics
• Difference in the work culture of the 2 companies.

• Impact on the end customer of the work mentioned in the CV– customer centric questions
• 2-3 Instances where decision making and stakeholder management in the work experience
• How did you solve conflicts with other teams with opposite goals?
• How do you define common themes across teams to successfully collaborate with one other?
• Very specific about Amazon principles
• Questions on one of the recent features introduced by OLA – Breakdown and design thinking
• Impact of the feature on the users and drivers and what are the metrics used to measure the same

• How did you manage the escalations raised by customers and drivers?
Common Points in both rounds:

No questions from academics/co-circular/ Extra-curricular. No questions related to product
management concepts in general. Interviewers were testing the clarity of the work mentioned in the
CV

Unilever (HUL IT)
Candidates:
• Saransh Kejriwal
• Harshit Jain
• Kriti Chandra
Saransh Kejriwal – B19043
Brief Introduction - Worked for 3 years as a Software Developer at Citi, across multiple programming
languages. Worked on ML, Digital image processing and Computer Vision in college.
Round 1 : Case based GD

Panel – 10-12 students, 2 evaluators from Unilever Time – First half of Day 0
• Harshit and I were in the same panel

• We were given the same case to read. It was essentially on how to optimize sales costs, and a few
pie charts were given, which outlined the costs under various heads, say distribution,
communications and meetings, transport etc. etc.
• Key success factor – Connect all your arguments to the case facts and exhibits. Do not take this
as an opportunity to show off that you know tech buzzwords. For example, Don’t say that “we can
implement blockchain here to optimize the data reliability”, the case doesn’t suggest the need for
it. I simply suggested using a POS system because the data in the exhibits of the case suggested
to me that it could save 15% costs.
• A ProdMan interview of any firm is not just focused on technology, but also whether it makes
business sense or not. Brush up on your ORM-1 as well.
• As important as it is to make your point, a GD is also a demonstration of your listening skills. You’d
be doing a lot of listening during your internship, so it’s best to demonstrate that. Use the points
made by others to create a feasible solution.
Round 2: CV Based PI
Panel – The senior evaluator from Round 1 (Has about 26 years of experience) Time – Second half of
Day 0
• My interview was just after his lunch. When I was asked to enter, his plate was still on the table, so
I asked politely if I’m interrupting his meal (This is a high-risk-high-reward move. Do not try this if it
doesn’t come naturally to you.)
• He asked me to start with a brief walkthrough of my CV. I spoke for 2 minutes. My CV was in front
of him, so he glanced over it and asked specific questions on some of the points, as to “why this
approach?”, “why not that…?”, “what if…?”
• Discussed on my Udemy course for some time – why did I choose Udemy as a platform, why not
anything else etc.
• Key success factor – critically evaluate your own CV and have a high-level reasoning for why you
did what you did.
• Asked a generic case about how a typical general store would survive in an e-commerce world –
Hyperlocal 101. Made recommendations on partnering with ecommerce channels, a moon-shot by
collaborating with other stores, and putting up billboards on how
• to easily reach out to the store etc. (visibility)

• Key success factor – It’s alright to ask questions from the interviewer to understand more about
the context – what is the TAM of the store?, which products are experiencing most
• sales drop? Interviewers expect this is and it helps you build more targeted recommendations.
Doing consult case-interview prep helped a lot here.
Round 3: Final PI
• Time : 4:15am (yes, am)

• Panel – Two people via VC, only my video was on, no idea who they were
•
• Basic TMAY (Tell Me About Yourself)
• Asked my what motivates me to come to FMCG from a Banking sector (I worked at Citi before this).
• Noticed ML projects on my CV and asked how I can implement it at Unilever – gave a few top-of-
mind examples
• Probably a few BQs (memory is a bit sketchy)
• Key success factor – You know, and they know that it’s a really awkward hour, but Keep. The.
Energy. Up. Do not appear exhausted or morose. You are on video
Harshit Jain – B19079

• Me and Saransh were in the same panel

• The case gave us a generic distribution structure that HUL implements, and we were asked to figure
out how technology can be used to optimize the structure and reduce costs. Data on the various
expenditures were given, as well as some other data.
• If I recall correctly, the GD was for about 20 minutes. In my own case, I was unable to get into the
GD at first because the start was slightly chaotic. In such GDs, it is best to mentally gather your
points, and watch keenly for opportunities.
• My own strategy was to expand on some of the buzzwords thrown about in the first 5 minutes, and
provide clear examples on how that can actually be integrated into the distribution structure to
optimize it. I made 3-4 entries throughout the GD that way.
• My $0.02: Don’t throw out buzzwords randomly; that just provides a negative impression to the
evaluators, who can sense how much depth you are putting into your
• statements. Also, listen. You can always gain opportunities to enter the GD by listening keenly, and
taking a moment to either extend that argument, or point out inconsistencies and suggest ways we
can remedy those inconsistencies (never just denigrate another’s argument unless you can provide
a solution).
• Panel – 2 interviewers. The senior evaluator from Round 1 (Has about 26 years of experience) Time
– Around 11am
•
• My interview was at around 11, so the interviewers were quite attentive. Started off with a standard
“Tell me about yourself”. This is important, as it can drive the discussion further, as will be referred
in a future point.

• This was very much a CV-based interview. Both interviewers combed through each point of the CV
and asked questions based on that. For example, my work-ex was at a leading software company
developing an infra-monitoring solution for medium and large enterprises. I was asked a question
on how what approach I would take to sell the solution to him. After an initial hiccup, this led to a
back-and-forth conversation about organizational structure and what leaders look for when
selecting products.
• Note: Feel free to ask questions. If you stumble, don’t worry and don’t start berating yourself – you’ll
have opportunities to pick yourself up.
• I was also quizzed on PORs and academic projects done in undergrad. Ensure that you recall what
you did and why you did it, and if you join any XL committee, what you will be doing.
• I was finally asked why I felt I would be a fit for the HUL IT organization. I was able to justify this by
expanding on HUL IT’s global status, my academic and professional background, as well as my
own global experiences. Ensuring that your initial introduction is strong can help out in such
questions.
Round 3: Final PI
• Time : 5am (yes, am)
• Panel – Two people via VC, only my video was on, no idea who they were
•
• Again, a “Tell me about yourself”
• A quick discussion on work-ex; a small scenario given where I was asked how I would handle a
major severity outage in one of the company’s software solutions.
• Asked me a bit about what I feel is the most interesting thing in technology right now.
• Just ensure you are bright eyed for this interview.
Kriti Chandra – B19024

The case gave us a generic distribution structure that HUL implements, had to answer three
questions: -
1) what would you change in the current process
2) how can you use technology for the proposed changes
3) what key metrics would you use to measure the success of the change
• I remember that the GD started without a structure. So i jumped to try to give a structure. Cannot
remember what structure I had given
• My strategy was to remind people that some problems can be solved without the buzzwords of ML,
AI and blockchain and tried to bring in some simpler but impactful strategies. (Talked about a B2B
ordering app or tele sales sort of thing for the smaller ticket sized customers. One of the main
problems we identified was reduction in sales cost and since the problem was to reduce costs, I
reminded them that all the strategies with hi-fi technologies would actually maybe increase the
immediate costs and to think about those repercussions.
• Remember that it is a group discussion and how the group performs also reflects on you. So if you
see things going completely wayward, bring the discussion back on track. I think it is important to
show that sort of though clarity

Panel – 2 interviewers. The senior evaluator from Round 1 (Has about 26 years of experience)
• Tell me about yourself was the first. Do remember to have a well-practiced tell me about yourself
and also add a sentence or so relevant to the kind of role
• The interview was quite CV based. I had non-coding non tech work experience. So, one of the main
points for me was why do you want to shift to IT. I had a well prepared answer about how I had
liaised with the product team at my company often and really liked that job.
• Do remember to sound excited and happy. I remember clearly that while answering I was actually
thinking about the back and forth I had done with the product team to make sure that my customers’
requirements were being passed on and how I had genuinely enjoyed that and wanted to be on the
other side of the equation
• If you had to design a mobile app for HUL internal users what could be the possible use cases. I
will be honest my answers here were slightly gassy. But I gave myself a few minutes and tried to
think of more things. They were not the happiest with this answer.
• They asked me for my opinion/understanding about Industry 4.0. This I had read a little bit about
so gave some answers trying to list both pros and cons
Round 3: Final PI
Time : 5am (yes, am)
Panel – 1 person, only my video was on, my name in the second shortlist actually Duration – 15
minutes approx.
• Again, a “Tell me about yourself”

• Explain your job/role. Do it in crisp terms.
• Asked me to explain some numbers I had quoted of revenue growth in my CV and how exactly I
achieved that.
• Again asked me why I wanted to shift to IT given ‘how well’ I had done in my previous job. Told them
the same answer as before.
• If you wanted prod man only, why not a tech company like Google or Microsoft: I was honest and
told them that I had of-course applied to those companies as well. However, I had seen how good
internal products can really increase productivity of employees and help the company in achieving
its end goals. Told them that HUL-IT would allow me to be at that confluence.

Media.NET
Before the interviews, a case submission round was held.
Case background
“You’ve been onboarded as a product consultant for AroundYou.com, a product that is similar to
nearbuy.com in terms of set of features and offerings. As a strategic decision maker, you have to
work towards building a USP for your product as well as aim towards growth in revenue.”
Interview Round 1
• Asked some basic info (kind of introduction). Tell me something about yourself questions.
• Brief description about work-ex and role.
• Asked to explain the case submission done - features' details, metrics, revenue, price, user journey.
Asked some clarificatory questions
• Some questions regarding AdTech :
o What are the cookies (Explain to someone in the product team + explain to a 5 year
old)? First and third party? Retargeting?
o What are eye frames? Friendly and unfriendly?
o What is CPM?
o Basic stuff about what happens when website are loaded.
o Some question where cookies can be used to solve the problem
o Something about contextual and non-contextual ads
• Puzzle: Why is the population still growing even when the fertility rate has come down to 2?
• Questions about basic software systems (web browsers, web servers, cookies, completely
walkthrough of a feature, etc.) Just go through these, can be asked. Discussion went on for some
time.
• ‘Nearbuy’ revenues are going down. Why?
• Live project that I worked on (game development) : objective, flow, metrics
• Design a dashboard for Jeff Bezos
• Any questions for us?
Interview Round 2
• Walk me through your CV?

• Case study on Swiggy:
o Revenue of Swiggy is decreasing.( Here I had to come up with an equation for the revenue)
o Problem Identified: More time the user spends on the app, less likely is he to order so now
build an recommendation engine (Come up with all the factors that might be helpful)
o Now that recommendation engine is built how do you test if it working? ( I told we could use
A/B testing but he was looking for A/A/B/B testing)
o Now he asked me how would be replace the top recommendation with an ad
o Lastly, he asked me to come up with a new monetization method for Swiggy
o Price a model similar to Swiggy super and explain the number arrived at for price and how
profitable it can be
• Asked about data analytics and ware housing projects at my past workplace.
• Asked about cookies and XLRI website. Why it takes so much time to load?
• Revenues of Uber are decreasing. Find out why?
• Case on sales of Myntra are decreasing. Probable reasons?

• Asked about favorite app (told Zomato, Spotify). Good and bad parts of it? Asked to propose new
features and new revenue stream for Zomato. Build a recommendation engine
• for the app.(this was a significant part of the discussion). What feature to remove and why? What
feature to add and why? Prepare wireframes for a dashboard for CEO.
• What factors does google look at when deciding which link to show for google AdWords?
• How much would you price Prime for? He asked me to calculate pricing and come up to a number.
• For re-targeting ads on Facebook, what's the maximum amount I would bid to gain that customer
(again wanted a number)
• Which feature would you remove from WhatsApp? Which metrics you'd use to convince your
senior?
• Sort an array of blue, red balls (logic + pseudo code)
• Any question for us?
Guesstimate/problem solving:
• Can ask in either of the rounds. A major part of the discussions focused on guesstimates.
• Not anything outlandish, but the interviewer would try and pose various scenarios and try to gauge
your thinking/approach to the problem.
• Major chunk of the interview
• Guesstimate:
• Number of travelers to and fro Mumbai airport in an year
• No. Of WhatsApp stories per day in Delhi
• Bookings on “bookmyshow”
• footfall on Bangalore airport
• No. of uber rides in a day in a city of your choice
• Size of parking lot outside Mumbai airport

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1 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

2 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

3 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

4 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Seller Consumer Delivery Executive

A consumer typically goes through the following

Platform – useful, intuitive, innovative

5 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Pain Points, Features, Metrics

Pain points: Features to remove:

6 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Possible domains to investigate

Suggest a new feature for Amazon?

How would you implement new feature for Amazon?

This is generally a follow-up questions after feature recommendation.

7 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

About the App

Recent Feature Updates

8 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

**Influencers are sub-category within Content Creators

User Persona Needs

Recent Rollouts & Rollbacks:

Instagram Facebook Snapchat Twitter

Sharing your best Connecting with

9 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Examples of Pain Points for Different Users

2. For Content Creators:

For Adoption Rate By demographics, satisfaction with new feature retention

Map Find the effect(increase/decrease) on # of engagement

10 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Get people to add location and tags

A catalogue of quotes from famous

Reset the Explore Feed (to expose

Activities of friends' tab or curated

11 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

For Businesses/Content- Creators

Instagram in the background could

Give a set of auto-suggested sets of edits

12 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Competitor Google Meets Slack Zoom

• Inability to handle over

Video conferencing industry:

13 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Recommendation and Product Improvements:

14 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Meeting Hopper Organizer Jabber Casualizer

Business Model Canvas:

15 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

• Set up multiple accounts

Unique Differentiators – Netflix

16 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

Amazon Prime :- ₹129 monthly & ₹999 for yearly

17 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

2. Let user rent/buy a single move/series (Medium Impact, Medium Effort)

3. Trial Option :( Low Impact, Medium Effort)

1. Number of paying customers in a month

18 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI

How to increase engagement?

Behaviours and Pain-points: -

3. Add the these sections on home page

19 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI