Product Management Compendium

CONTENT
INTRODUCTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (01-05)
Definition & Scope ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01
Highly Valued Skills for Product Management Roles ---------------------------------------------------------- 01
Difference Among Program Manager, Product Manager
& Product Owner -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01
Day in the life of a Product Manager ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 02
Stakeholder Management--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02
Industry Wise Product Management Scope --------------------------------------------------------------------- 03
What is a Product ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03
Product Lifecycle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04
Product Management Lifecycle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 05

TARGET GROUP --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (06)

Definition ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 06
Example of a Target Scope -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 06

USER PERSONA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (07)

CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP -------------------------------------------------------------------------- (08-09)

PAIN POINTS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (10-11)

Ways to Identify Customer Pain Points --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10

WIREFRAMES/MOCKUPS/PROTOTYPING ------------------------------------------------------- (12-13)

MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT (MVP) -------------------------------------------------------------- (14-17)

METRICS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (18-20)

Metrics to Forecast Business Success of a Product ------------------------------------------------------------- 18
Metrics to Analyze & Grow User Engagement ------------------------------------------------------------------ 19
Metrics to Keep Users Interested ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20
Metrics to Measure Product/Feature Popularity --------------------------------------------------------------- 21
Metrics to Evaluate User Satisfaction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22
THEORITICAL FRAMEWORKS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (24-36)
BUS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24
STAR ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 25
HEART ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26
AARRR ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28
CIRCLES --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30
LEAN Canvas -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31
Waterfall ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32
Agile ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 34

PRODUCT PRICING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (37-39)

Definition of Pricing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 37
What are Pricing Strategies ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 37
Pricing is an Under-utilized Growth Lever ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 37
Top 7 Pricing Strategies ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 38
Pricing Strategy Examples --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39

APP CRITIQUE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (40-61)

Uber ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40
Flipkart --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 43
Zomato --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 48
Udemy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53
Paytm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57

GUESSTIMATES ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (62-70)

PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT CASE -------------------------------------------------------------------- (71-72)
CASE INTERVIEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (73-80)
REFERENCES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (81)
 1

INTRODUCTION
Definition & Scope:
Product management is commonly referred as the intersection of Technology, Business and User
Experience. It is an interdisciplinary role taking holistic responsibility of the product right from the idea
inception to its decline.
A product manager works on multiple things, e.g., something as
small as UI feature or as big as deciding the five-year product
vision. You will have to understand the customer requirements,
translate those into product features and make sure that
development efforts are aligned correctly with customer needs.
A product manager is often called ‘Mini-CEO of the product’ as
the product strategy, success metrices & other critical decision makings are done by the him/her.

Highly Valued Skills for Product Management Role:

• Knowledge of Market/Industry Trends/Customer Behavior
• Seamless Communication with Different Stakeholders
• Strategic Thinking & Decision Making
• Prioritization
• High-Level Understanding of Technology
• Eye for Details and Design
• Data-driven Approach

Difference Among Program Manager, Product Manager & Product Owner:

Program Manager Product Manager Product Owner
• Responsibility includes • CEO of the product who • Generally, a tactical role,
successful execution of strategically drives the aimed at certain product
strategic initiatives after ideation, development, go- feature improvement
identifying the inter- to-market, support & • Can be understood as more
dependencies among improvement of the products technical and engineering-
projects, products & based role
resources • Activities include: Developing
& aligning product strategies • Activities include:
• Activities include: Identifying Managing & prioritizing
with company’s strategic
risks, creating program vision, effective product product backlog, translating
budget, building program positioning, supervising product manager’s
schedules, allocating stages of product lifecycle strategies to tasks for
resources, managing from concept ideation to development, serving as a
stakeholders, creating & product launch liaison between product &
development
managing program budget

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Day in the life of a Product Manager:
• Understanding and translating the user needs
• Defining vision and strategy for the product
• Establishing common stakeholder vision for the product
• Monitoring the market for latest developments relevant to the product
• Working with the design and engineering teams to ensure the product requirements are getting
translated into product functionality

Stakeholder Management:

Product manager is expected to work with cross-functional teams like marketing, sales, development &
strategic leadership. Thus, it is important to understand that how a particular product feature correlate
to other team’s work. It is equally important to understand the time & resources needed for product
launch in order to facilitate end-to-end planning.

To ensure smooth communication among different stakeholders, a product manager can follow the
following techniques:

1. Plan: Having a clear plan in the form of a product roadmap makes it easier to ensure that everyone is
on the same page when it comes to the product strategy and timelines.

2. Listen: Mechanisms to take feedback so that customers or team members can voice their opinions.

3. Understand: It is important for a product manager to understand how each team operates and how
best they can collaborate in the product development.

4. Communicate: Any changes in the scope of the product or timelines should be communicated
clearly to all the concerned teams on time.

Every company has a different organizational structure thus a product manager must closely work
with various teams for different engagements. In general, a product manager must work with the
following teams:

• Design/UX - User experience plays an important role in the success of any product. Design team is
responsible for understanding the user challenges and designing a solution that helps user solve
those. Product managers should work with UX designers to combine their expertise of product design
and usability with the user expectations and business context.

• Engineering - Product managers work with the engineering team during the development phase of
the product. The work includes defining features, estimates resource requirements/work hours,
planning sprints and releases.

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• Finance - Working with this team helps product managers understand the metrics (e.g., customer
acquisition cost, customer lifetime value etc.) and optimize them for maximizing the growth.

• Marketing - Collaboration with the marketing team is necessary for doing tasks such as creating user
personas, deciding go-to-market strategies and timelines, and communicating the new product
features in the right way.

• Sales - Sales team has a direct connection with the end customers. This helps product managers gain
insights into what are the current customer expectations and how our product fits into the same.

• Customer Support - This team understands the user pain points and actively tries to resolve them.
Product managers should communicate new features to them proactively and understand the current
customer challenges from them.

Industry Wise Product Management Scope:

Product manager’s role does not vary significantly across different industries. A few things might be
industry specific like market expectations, end customers, relevant technologies but the uber-level role
requirements and expectations stay very much the same across industries. Stakeholder management,
product knowledge, competition analysis, communication skills remain the core necessary skills as you
switch from product management domain in one industry to another.

Product management scope does change as the organisation grows. Usually, in the early stages, when a
company has just one or a few products, company’s founders often do the product manager’s job
themselves. As the company grows, people are hired specifically for the product manager’s role. With
increasing number of product offerings and expanding business, demand from PM changes and
expands.

What is a Product:

Any item or service that satisfies customer needs can be called a product. A product can be a physical or
a virtual entity. Physical products examples can be found all around us whereas virtual products can be
services or experiences like softwares, education etc.

Product definition can change based on the industry we are looking at. For example, for an internet-based
company, a product can be a combination of functionality, design, content and monetization. For an e-

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commerce company, product definition can include fulfillment, packaging, customer service etc. A person
responsible for managing such a product throughout its lifecycle is the product manager.

Product Lifecycle:

Following are the four stages in a product’s lifecycle:

• Introduction: This is the initial phase in the product life cycle. In this, the focus is on rapid adaptation to
the latest customer insights and market expectations. As the product is new, generating demand is the
major challenge. Communicating the product benefits to the targeted audience and creating awareness
are the main goals.

• Growth: Once the product establishes itself in the market, next is the growth phase. This phase typically
sees increasing profit margins and cost per unit declines with increasing volumes. Product managers
should ensure that product is priced competitively to sustain the growth. Product roadmap prioritization
needs to be done in this phase.

• Maturity: In this phase, new customer growth slows down, and new players start coming in the picture.
The main challenge is thus retaining the customer base.

• Decline: Every product will eventually enter this phase. It is important to understand the reason behind
decline and if the decline is industry wide due to launch of some replacement solution or is the decline
limited to only your product. Trying to rescue the declining product is another responsibility of a
product manager. If the product is beyond rescue, then required steps should be taken so that long-time
customers are transitioned to the new alternate options smoothly.

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Product Management Lifecycle:

Product development involves the following six stages which a product manager must drive:
• Discover: Discovering the customer challenges, industry offerings, latest technology changes and
opportunities for new products.

• Define: Defining the product strategy and vision. Detailing the expected requirements from the
product to solve the customer pain points.

• Validate: Validating the work in progress design or prototype to make sure that the product
development is going in the right direction.

• Implement: Ensuring good communication between the cross-functional team to get all the necessary

features implemented as per the requirement.

• Launch: Launching the product as per timelines and driving the adoption with the help of other teams.

• Measure: Measuring the success of the product launch and planning the successive iterations if any
improvements are required.

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TARGET GROUP
Definition:

A target group refers to a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products
and services & fulfill their needs.

Example of a Target Group:

Consider a health product company that is working to build its distribution channels. To
determine if its health products will sell, it conducts research on its primary consumers.

It discovers that most of its consumers are in Switzerland, between the ages of 35-55. Consequently, it
may focus on advertising efforts in Swiss health-focused websites which then cater to this audience.

Target markets are used to gain a better understanding of a company's current and potential consumer
base. Once a target market is identified, it can affect a product's price, promotion, and distribution.
For instance, target groups may be useful when a company is looking to expand its operations to an
international audience. Meanwhile, a company may choose to tweak a product, such as through its
packaging, to attract a health-conscious subgroup.

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USER PERSONA

Example of User Persona:

Personas are fictional characters that help product managers make these decisions and guide how the
team will build features that customers love.

There are two main types of customer personas — buyers and users.

Buyer personas represent the ideal profile of a potential buyer, providing insights about the people who
decide to purchase your product or service. User personas represent the people who directly use your
product, bringing them to life in a memorable way that everyone can understand. The buyer and user may
be the same person — but they will have different priorities based on their user persona and their buyer
persona. The key benefits of defining user personas:
• Explain the “why” behind product decisions

• Focus on the needs of the most important user groups

• Prioritize features that solve actual user problems

• Implement new functionality in line with how customers will use it

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CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP

CJM is a directed graph, on which the path of the consumer of the provided service is displayed using
points of contact. The CJM records the details of the interaction with the service.

That is, CJM displays exactly how the consumer interacts with the service - which points of interaction
exist, through which channels the interaction is carried out (web, mobile application, offline point of
presence, etc.), as well as what happens inside each point of contact.

Let us look at a simplified CJM example:

You see three representatives, each representing a different consumer group. In the process of
consuming a service (achieving a goal), they must interact with different products. At each point, an act
of service takes place with a certain level of quality:

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The overall experience of service usually depends on the quality of service at all points of contact. The
principle of the weakest link is at work - one unsuccessful interaction casts a shadow on the entire service.
Therefore, it is very important that each touchpoint is worked out with maximum quality.

In general, you should always implement the system so that any point of contact motivates the consumer
to go to the next step (principal "Push"), and the next point pulled the consumer from the previous point
of contact (operation "Pull"). The push-and-pull principle contributes to a smoother customer interaction
with the service.
The tasks that CJM solves:

• Creation of continuous UX: Creating continuous UX throughout the entire service consumption.

• Increase in consumer conversion: By lowering barriers, as well as by reducing losses during the
transition from one point of contact to another point of contact, more consumers will reach the
goal.

• Increased customer loyalty: Retention rate - the number of returning consumers grows if we have
designed and implemented a service without barriers.

• Increasing the responsibility of the company's specialists: Each point of interaction has its own
responsible employees from the side of the company. After we have mapped all the touchpoints, all
employees in the company can see who is responsible for what and how they are doing their job (if
we set up KPIs for each touchpoint). This increases the level of responsibility.

• Accelerate the development of multichannel services and products and improve the quality of
development: Since all parties involved in the development more fully see how the service is being
carried out, and also see all the potential weaknesses of the service and can intervene in their
development in time.

• Create exciting new interactions: There is an opportunity to come up with and implement new
innovative features (Example: Continuing to listen to an audio recording when switching from one
Apple device to another).

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PAIN POINTS

A customer’s pain point is the emotion they feel when they think of a specific need, problem, weakness,
struggle, or an unfulfilled desire they have resolved. Defining the customer’s pain points gives the
opportunity to create solutions through products that will take away the customer’s specific pain; creates
trust and credibility for the company.

Ways to Identify Customer Pain Points:

• Perform Qualitative Market Research:

Qualitative market research focuses on detailed responses from customers where they can explain their
problems in full. This contrasts with quantitative market research which focuses on yes or no questions
and answers or a 1-10 scoring system. Qualitative market research is favoured because of a few reasons

a. Quantitative market research is too restrictive for identifying pain points: Quantitative research is
great for situations that have little grey area. However, with pain points, there often is not a simple
answer.

b. No two customer pain points are the same: Pain points can still vary significantly within the groups.
By allowing the customer the opportunity to fully explain their pain point can better identify which
pain points are common, which aren’t, which are serious buying blocks & so on.

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• Talking to Customer Service & Sales Teams:

Customer service and sales teams are on the frontline of the business talking to customers every day. This
makes them invaluable sources of information when it comes to customer painpoints.
Agents may get feedback from customers like “I liked your product when I bought it last but it’s far too
expensive without a discount, so I went with a different company this time”. Or “I was surprised to see
extra charges added on at the checkout that I wasn’t expecting so I don’t want to buy from you again”.
These would be examples of financial pain points and represent an area of your business where the
company may be missing out on significant profits by turning customers away.

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WIREFRAMES/MOCKUPS/PROTOTYPING:

Wireframes, mock-ups, and prototypes represent the different stages of the design flow.

Wireframe, a low-fidelity way to present a product, can efficiently outline structures and layouts. The
wireframe is the basic and visual representation of the design. Your wireframe design does not need to
focus too much on minutiae but must express design ideas and should not miss any important parts. A
wireframe is like a channel that helps team member understand their projects better.

Mockup, a kind of high-fidelity static design diagram, should demonstrate information frames and
statically present content and functions. Unlike a wireframe, a mockup looks more like a finished
product or prototype, but it is not interactive and not clickable. It is rather a graphic representation.
This can be helpful, for example, to provide investors with a picture of how a finished product can be
and help team members review their project visually.

Prototype is already very close to the finished product. Here, processes can be simulated, and user
interaction can be tested. A prototype looks very similar to the finished product. Early prototyping can
save a lot of development costs and time so that the work of back-end product architecture will not be in
vain because of unreasonable user interface design. A prototype is an excellent tool to obtain user
feedback and to test the product.

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Example of Wireframe/ Mock-up/Prototype

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MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT (MVP):

The old way of doing things was to release a first version of the product after several months of
investment, to offer an almost finished product.
To avoid this, you must work according to the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept, i.e., offer a
product that already addresses the customer's main problem (as best as possible!), before adding
accessory functions.
The MVP, or the Minimum Viable Product is a method which aims to first release a product with only the
most expected function (the Killer Feature or the function that kills) by a target audience, and to offer a
product as quickly as possible to confront it with the market.
Once the product faces the market, you can improve and enrich the product through Agile
development methods.

Carrying out a market study is often very long and / or very expensive, but by relying on the new
possibilities offered by digital tools (software / site / application mock-up software, 3D printing, etc.), it
is today possible to achieve them quickly and at a much lower cost.
With an MVP, the goal is to validate this idea quickly, and not to advance too much on the project
and realize too late that his idea was not the right one, was too early.

For example, Bill Gates released the first tablet PC in 2002. It was a failure because the

technology was not ready and the usefulness was not obvious. Steve Jobs released the iPad a few years

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later and it was a huge success.

A little later, when Microsoft released the Surface, everyone thought it was a copy of the iPad, when it
was the other way around. And so far, the Surface has not convinced against the iPad.

Examples of Minimum Viable Product (MVP):

The most successful minimum viable products don’t stay startups for long. In fact, you’ve undoubtedly
heard of most of these — although you may not have known that they were once MVPs.

a. Dropbox

Starting out as a demo-video, Dropbox explained the benefits of storing data in one place. The feedback
from users helped the then startup receive the funds it needed to develop its offerings.

b. Amazon

Most people know that Amazon began as an online bookstore. You may be unaware, though, that Jeff
Bezos started out by buying books from distributors and shipping them to customers every time his online
store received an order. The high book sales meant it made sense to keep adding more products to the
store, then acquire warehouses, and finally provide each user with a personalized experience on the
website.

c. Foursquare

When users began using Foursquare, it had just one feature. People would check in at different locations,
which allowed them to win badges. The gamification made people excited about using the service. Only
once Foursquare had a solid user base did it expand to become a full city guide.

d. AdWords Express

When AdWords Express came out, it seemed like it was automating ad copy. In fact, there was a team of
students quickly typing ads and delivering them to customers. Once it became obvious that this was a
service people wanted, AdWords Express developed into an actual automated process.

e. Groupon

Today, Groupon is a huge platform, operating in countries all over the globe. However, it began as a
piecemeal MVP, promoting the services of local businesses and offering deals that lasted for a limited
amount of time. As the founders were unable to build their own content management system at first,
they used a WordPress blog. They waited until they were successful before scaling the venture.

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f. Zappos

The most famous example of a Wizard of Oz MVP is Zappos. To test his business idea, founder Nick
Swinmurn took photos of shoes he found at stores to see if anyone would be willing to purchase a pair
without trying it on first. It turned out that consumers liked this model!

g. Airbnb

Beginning with the founders’ own apartment, Airbnb gave people the option to list a room for short-term
rental to earn extra income. It became clear that travellers were willing to stay in someone else’s home
to save money on accommodation, and the platform grew from there.

h. Facebook

Upon its release, Facebook was just a basic social media tool to connect with friends. Profiles were as
basic as could be and members were all students at Harvard University. The idea proved popular enough
to be worth expanding, and the platform gradually added more complex features.

i. Food on the table

An example of a concierge MVP is Food on the Table, which sends users recipes and deals from grocery
stores to help them save money while making meals they’ll love. When the company was still an MVP,
founder Manuel Rosso chose recipes, created shopping lists, and found coupons manually. After user
feedback showed that the model was viable, he set up an automated process.

j. Buffer

Before Buffer had its app for scheduling social media posts, the start-up launched a series of landing
pages. The first landing page just asked people to submit their email if they were interested in plans and
pricing for the product. The second asked users if they were interested in a free version or one of two paid
options. As most people chose one of the paid plans, it was clear that Buffer had potential.

k. AngelList

Many platforms require a huge network to take off, but they can start small by launching first as an MVP.
AngelList, a job and investment platform, is a great example. It started out using just the team’s own
contacts, and the first connections all took place via email. This showed that the model worked and
AngelList was able to grow into the much larger platform it is today.

If the type of offering you want to create is suitable as a minimum viable product, it is worthwhile going this
route. If your idea turns out to be less successful with users than you hoped, you can pivot before you’ve

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wasted a large number of resources. Furthermore, if the idea is viable, using an MVP model will allow you
to take user opinions into account in the early design stages.

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METRICS
Metrics are quantifiable measurements that enable businesses to define and track the success of a product
or business activity. There are numerous types of metrics. Some of these will be discussed below.

Metrics to Forecast Business Success of a Product:

These indicators define the fate of the company and the product.

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)

These metrics measure a product’s total revenue in one month. To calculate them, consider the MRR at
the beginning of the month, add gained revenue from new subscriptions, and subtract churned revenue
from lost customers.

Average revenue per user (ARPU)

It allows you to track revenue generated per user on a monthly or annual basis. These metrics are required
to define future service revenue in the event that your pricing plan is changed or a promotion is
implemented.
Monthly recurring revenue / total number of accounts = ARPU

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Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV or LTV)

These metrics allow you to estimate how much money a user will generate over time. LTV shows the
average profit made by one user before cancelling a subscription. This KPI's purpose is to show you how
much you can spend to attract a new customer at an early stage, based on the likely profit from one
person. To calculate it, first determine the average duration of a customer lifetime (the amount of time a
customer uses a product before discontinuing use) and the average revenue per user.
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) * Average customer lifetime = CLTV
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

This metric includes all costs associated with attracting customers, such as marketing, sales teamwork,
and advertising. These costs can sometimes include the salaries of marketing and sales professionals.
Typically, customer acquisition cost entails establishing a specific time frame and total revenue.
Sales & marketing spending’s for a period / total no. of customers generated for a period
= CAC

Metrics to Analyze & Grow User Engagement:

Customer-oriented metrics, while less important to stakeholders, will show you how your product
development efforts translate into user interactions.

Daily Active User/Monthly Active User ratio

Aside from revenue, the most valuable metric of product growth is the number of users

or subscribers over a specific time. However, the number of people who have subscribed to or bought
your product is not a primary KPI. What matters most is the number of active users. This category's
metrics track the number of unique visitors or users you have per day (DAU), week (WAU), or month
(MAU). A unique visitor is someone who visits a website at least once in each time.

Daily Active User (DAU) – the number of active users per day. An “active user” is one who signed in an
account and performed some valuable activities.
Monthly Active User (MAU) – the number of active users who complete valuable activities per month.
DAU/MAU = # of Daily active users / # of Monthly active users

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Session duration

This KPI is the most straightforward way to track digital product usage. The best way to calculate it is to
take the total amount of time users spend in your product, divide it by the number of users, and average
the results. Google Analytics computes this figure for you.

Traffic (paid/organic)

This KPI is mostly applicable to websites, whereas we use the number of users for applications and
software. It displays the total number of people who discovered and visited the website. While organic
traffic refers to visitors who found a webpage through a search engine, paid traffic refers to visitors who
found it through a paid source, such as paid search, social media ads, or sponsored content.

Bounce rate

The bounce rate is another metric. It allows you to calculate the percentage of users who only visited
one page of a website or app before leaving.

Metrics to Keep Users Interested:

Retention metrics can help you determine whether your marketing and customer service efforts are paying
off. You know how much it costs to attract a new user if you know your Customer Acquisition Cost.

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Retention rate

Customer retention rate (CRR) is the percentage of customers who remained with the company after a
certain period. You can base your calculations on the number of app downloads or first logins.
Retention rate = Customers at the end of the calculated period – New customers /Customers at
the start of the calculated period x 100

Churn rate

The retention rate is the percentage of users who stayed, whereas the churn rate is the percentage of
users who left. Customer churn (the number of users who cancelled paid subscriptions) and revenue
churn are the two types of churn rates (amount of revenue lost dueto customer churn). To calculate the
customer churn rate, divide the number of customers lost during a given time by the number of customers
at the start of that time.
Customer churn rate = Customers lost / Total customers

Metrics to Measure Product/Feature Popularity:

Number of sessions per user

This metric aids in understanding key user behavior: how frequently users return to the site. Itis
possible to track it using statistics that show the number of logins or site visits. This KPI reveals a
product's popularity – if the audience engages with it repeatedly. Unlike traffic or session duration, the
number of sessions per user represents an average for a specific group of people over a specific time.

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Number of user actions per session

This KPI appears to be like the previous one, but it tracks more than just the number of times a user opens
an app. It shows which actions a user performed and which features (if any) they used while using the
app. This metric is used to determine the popularity of a particular featuresince its introduction and when
compared to a specific time period. You can also compare these metrics of churned and retained customers
to get a sense of what attracts users to your product.

Metrics to Evaluate User Satisfaction:

Indirectly, churn and bounce rates, traffic, and retention rate reveal customer perception of your service or
product. Direct customer feedback is the most effective way to determine whether customers are
satisfied. Surveys can be used to obtain metrics such as net promoter score, customer satisfaction score,
and customer effort.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

This metric counts the number of loyal customers who are likely to recommend a product (promoters) as
well as those who despise it (detractors). To calculate NPS, have users rate your product on a scale of 0
to 10. Detractors would give it a score of 0 to 6, neutrals a score of 7-8, and promoters a score of 9-10.
The NPS formula is as follows:
NPS = % of promoters – % of detractors

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Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

It assesses a user's overall level of content or discontent with a specific product or service feature. Users
are typically asked to rate a product or service on a scale of 1-3, 1-5, or 1-10. It is calculated by adding all
the scores and dividing the total by the number of respondents. CSAT, as opposed to NPS, is used to
assess satisfaction with a specific feature. Other metrics are used to assess customer experience, such as
the Customer Effort Score (CES). A customer survey, like the CSAT, is required to determine how easy it
was for users to find necessary information about a product.

Final recommendation while choosing metrics:

• When selecting your main KPIs, prioritize those that reflect user needs
• Align user, product, and business objectives
• Concentrate on the average index rather than the total
• Concentrate on specific time periods (week, month, day)
• Highlight KPIs that have a long-term impact on revenue growth

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THEORITICAL FRAMEWORKS
BUS:

“How would you improve YouTube?” For such product improvement questions, BUS Framework offers a
three-step approach:

Business Objective:

Knowing the business context and objective helps you make better design decisions. If the interviewer
wants you to “Design a phone”, then its crucial to understand the specific business objectives, we are
trying to fulfill. For e.g.,

• Sell large volume of phones with a low price point

• Go for a premium market

• Having a user in mind for the phone (e.g., teenagers, business users)

User Problems:

• Select a user type: Deaf users, elderly users, users with mobility issues etc.

• List user problems: For e.g., problem with deaf users is inability to hear the phone ringing or
voicemails, can’t hear the other person talking on line, can’t hear the sound on videos received from
friends

• Prioritize user problems: Depending on how painful the problem is prioritized

Solutions:

• List solutions
• Prioritize
Solutions

• Summarize

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STAR:

The STAR (or SAR) is a very useful technique that can be deployed to emphasize your achievements in
context. The situation paints a picture of who you are as a professional, adds actions and context to your
thinking process, and reveals your robustness as a PM. All the questions below can be structured using
the STAR Methodology.

The Product Vision Question

Can you tell me an example of a product or feature idea you generated and how you made sure that it
was reflected in the final version?

The Team and Stakeholder Management Question

Can you tell us of a moment where you made sure that the concerns of sales-oriented and development-
oriented teams were aligned?

The User Question

What are your favorite techniques to include the voice of the user in your team deliberations?

The Business Intelligence Question

How would you react if the competition began providing the same services at a lower cost?

The Product Failure Question

What have you done in a situation of serious technical or commercial failure for a product or feature?

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Example: The Interviewer Says: “Tell me about a time when you had to be very strategic in order to meet
all of your top priorities.”

Your Response:
Situation: “In my previous sales role, I was put in charge of the transfer to an entirely new customer
relationship management (CRM) system—on top of handling my daily sales calls andresponsibilities.”

Task: “The goal was to have the migration to the new CRM database completed by Q3, withoutletting any
of my own sales numbers slip below my targets.”

Action: “In order to do that, I had to be very careful about how I managed all of my time. So, I blocked off
an hour each day on my calendar to dedicate solely to the CRM migration. During that time, I worked on
transferring the data, as well as cleaning out old contacts and updating outdated information. Doing this
gave me enough time to chip away at that project, while still handling my normal tasks.”

Result: “As a result, the transfer was completed two weeks ahead of deadline and I finished the quarter
10% ahead of my sales goal.”

HEART:

Kerry Rodden, Google’s ex-lead UX researcher, developed HEART Framework to help Google’s UX design
teams narrow their focus to only a few key user metrics and to quantify those metrics so they could
evaluate them objectively.

Product teams use HEART as a prioritization Framework when they have more ideas or requests for
features and enhancements than their cross-functional team can work on in a given timeframe. The
framework is a kind of UX metrics scorecard that’s broken down into 5 factors:

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• Happiness
How do users feel about your product? Happiness is typically measured by user satisfaction surveys, app
ratings and reviews, and net promoter score

• Engagement
How often are people coming back to use the product? Engagement can be measured by number of
visits per user per week, session length, or a key action, like the number of photos uploaded or songs
listened to per user per day

• Adoption
How many people complete the onboarding process and become regular users? Adoption is measured
by number of new users over a period of time or percentage of customers using a new feature

• Retention
What percentage of users are returning to the product? Retention is measured by churn
• Task success

Can users achieve their goal or task quickly and easily? Task success is measured by factors like
efficiency (how long it takes users to complete the task) effectiveness (percent of tasks completed), and
error rate

The HEART framework can be applied to a single feature in your app, or to your whole product. Also,
Net Promoter Score is a great tool to measure satisfaction.

How to use the HEART Framework?

• Set Goals: What do you want to happen?

• Define Signals: What is the thing we need to measure to get closer to the goal? For example, for
Twitter, if a user starts writing and editing a tweet but closes it before publishing, it’s a signal of
failure for task success
• Choose Metrics: How will signals manifest as metrics?

Try this question | What new feature would you design for the Amazon Echo?

Click here for Solution

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GOALS SIGNALS METRICS

Average Rating of the App

Good Feedback
Users find the app helpful, fun,
HAPPINESS and easy to use
Survey Results are Positive
Perceived ease of use

Recommend the app Net Promoter Score

Spending more time Average Session Length

in the app
Users enjoy app content and keep
engaging with it
Reads my newsletter
Open Rate
emails
ENGAGEMENT

Returns to my Number of conversions

website/app

Downloading the app Download Rate

New users see the value in the Signing up for a paid

product or new feature Registration Rate
account
ADOPTION
Feature Adoption Rate
Using New Features

Staying active in the

Churn Rate
app
User stays loyal to app/website to
use key actions
Renewing a Subscription Renewal Rate
RETENTION Subscription

User Loyalty Repeat Customers

Task Completion
Incomplete or rate/Incomplete per user
Users complete their goal quickly Completed Task
and easily

Completing Task Time to task completion

TASK SUCCESS Efficiently

User makes less errors

Error Rate per user

AARRR: The framework is known for measuring the effectiveness of your customer funnel. Of the 1000 people
that visit your website, how many ends up as a recurring paying customer? Without the framework it’s hard to

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determine where in the funnel you might lose them. Did your ads give a wrong impression? Is there a bug in the
mobile version of your website that makes it impossible to visit the homepage? Is it too complex to sign up? The
AARRR framework helps you to measure every step of the customer journey and helps you to identify leaks and
potential loopholes.

• Acquisition
- People visit your website
- One metric that matters is to grow the number of app downloads. It's a measurable result of
targeting the right audience with messages in your ads & copy

- Click-Through Rate, Conversion Rate are other metrics

• Activation
- They have a great first-time experience

- AHA- moment: The exact point in time when a user understands the value they get from a product
or service

- For e.g., Facebook discovered that a user is most engaged, when he/she connects to atleast 7
friends in ten days

• Retention
- Users come back

- The Metric that matters is the retention rate, as it is the best indicator for people coming back to
your app

- Other Metrics could be Churn rate, Daily Active Users, and Monthly active users

• Referral
- Users invite others

- Number of app installed through referral matters the most, as this a measurable result for users
inviting others via application

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- Other metrics could be Net Promoter Score (NPS), Number of invitations sent to invite friends,
Number of app installs per invite

• Revenue
- Users buy your product

- One Metric That Matters is the average order value, because this is a measurable result for users
spending money inside your application and a conformation that they understand your value
proposition

- Other metrics for this phase could be Average order value per user, Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

CIRCLES

“Redesign the Facebook Newsfeed for the Web” or “How would you improve Pinterest?” In such
Product design questions, interviewers look for six key elements in a strong response. These are Goals
and metrics, Target Personal & Pain Points, Prioritization, Creativity, and Development Leadership.

The CIRCLES framework serves as a checklist for product managers and helps them to cover all the
prerequisite areas of consideration while at the same prevents a disconnect between the business and
the customers.

The seven linear steps of the process form the CIRCLES acronym:

1. Comprehend the situation

The 5W’s & H also help product manager in asking a right question in the Comprehend Situation stage
and gather information about the problem before jumping into solution or some conclusion.

• What is it?
• Who is it for?
• Why do they need it?
• When is it available?
• Where is it available?
• How does it work?
2. Identify the customer

Start the second step of the CIRCLES Method™ by listing potential customer personas.

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3. Report the customer’s needs

As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>.

4. Cut, through prioritization

In the interview, you do not have time to discuss all use cases. So, you will have to pick one. When you
make your choice, it’s an opportunity to showcase your ability to prioritize, assess trade-offs and make
decisions.

5. List solutions

6. Evaluate trade-offs

7. Summarize your recommendation.

LEAN Canvas

Lean Canvas is an adaptation of Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder which Ash Maurya
created in the Lean Start-up spirit (Fast, Concise and Effective start-up). Lean Canvas promises an
actionable and entrepreneur-focused business plan. It focuses on problems, solutions, key metrics and
competitive advantages.

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Waterfall

Classical waterfall model is the basic software development life cycle model. It is very simple but
idealistic. Earlier this model was very popular but nowadays it is not used. But it is very important
because all the other software development life cycle models are based on the classical waterfall
model. Waterfall project management is a sequential approach that divides the SDLC to distinct phases
as follows:

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Requirement Gathering and analysis − All possible requirements of the system to be developed are
captured in this phase and documented in a requirement specification document.

System Design − The requirement specifications from first phase are studied in this phase and the
system design is prepared. This system design helps in specifying hardware and system requirements
and helps in defining the overall system architecture.

Implementation − With inputs from the system design, the system is first developed in small programs
called units, which are integrated in the next phase. Each unit is developed and tested for its
functionality, which is referred to as Unit Testing.

Integration and Testing − All the units developed in the implementation phase are integrated into a
system after testing of each unit. Post integration the entire system is tested for any faults and failures.

Deployment of system − Once the functional and non-functional testing is done; the product is
deployed in the customer environment or released into the market.

Maintenance − There are some issues which come up in the client environment. To fix those issues,
patches are released. Also, to enhance the product some better versions are released. Maintenance is
done to deliver these changes in the customer environment.

Only once the prior phase has been finished can the subsequent phase begin. A deliverable or a
document has to be approved between stages.

The following are the benefits of waterfall methodology:

1. Straightforward planning and designing due to the agreement on deliverables at the start of the
project
2. Better design with whole-system approach

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3. Defined scope of work
4. Easier costing
5. Clear measurements of progress
6. Defined team roles
7. Technology is understood and is not dynamic
8. Dedicated resources can work in parallel for their specific tasks

Newer development methodologies were created because of known disadvantages of waterfall,

including:

1. Rigid structure to allow necessary changes

2. No allowance for uncertainty
3. Limited customer engagement, resulting in poor satisfaction
4. Sequential approach is not ideal for a large-sized project where the end result is too far in the future
5. Not a good model for complex and object-oriented projects.
6. It is difficult to measure progress within stages.
7. Cannot accommodate changing requirements.
8. Testing is done only at the latter phases of the project.

Agile

Agile model believes that every project needs to be handled differently and the existing methods need
to be tailored to best suit the project requirements. In Agile, the tasks are divided to time boxes (small
time frames) to deliver specific features for a release. Iterative approach is taken and working software
build is delivered after each iteration. Each build is incremental in terms of features; the final build
holds all the features required by the customer.

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The Agile Manifesto was written in 2001 by proponents of lightweight software development, which
aimed to combat traditional project management processes. A few months later, the authors added a
set of 12 Agile principles as an extension to the Manifesto.

Agile methods are being widely accepted in the software world recently. However, this method may not
always be suitable for all products. Here are some pros and cons of the Agile model.

The advantages of the Agile Model are as follows −

1. Is a very realistic approach to software development

2. Promotes teamwork and cross training
3. Functionality can be developed rapidly and demonstrated
4. Resource requirements are minimum
5. Suitable for fixed or changing requirements
6. Delivers early partial working solutions
7. Good model for environments that change steadily
8. Minimal rules, documentation easily employed
9. Enables concurrent development and delivery within an overall planned context
10. Little or no planning required
11. Easy to manage
12. Gives flexibility to developers

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The disadvantages of the Agile model are as follows −

1. Not suitable for handling complex dependencies

2. More risk of sustainability, maintainability, and extensibility
3. An overall plan, an agile leader and agile PM practice is a must without which it will not work
4. Strict delivery management dictates the scope, functionality to be delivered, and adjustments to
meet the deadlines
5. Depends heavily on customer interaction, so if customer is not clear, team can be driven in the
wrong direction
6. There is a very high individual dependency, since there is minimum documentation generated
7. Transfer of technology to new team members may be quite challenging due to lack of
documentation

On the surface, it is easy to see why Agile and Scrum can often be confused, as they both rely on an
iterative process, frequent client interaction, and collaborative decision making. The key difference
between Agile and Scrum is that while Agile is a project management philosophy that utilizes a core set
of values or principles, Scrum is a specific Agile methodology that is used to facilitate a project.

There are also other notable differences between Agile and Scrum:

1. Agile is a philosophy, whereas Scrum is a type of Agile methodology

2. Scrum is broken down into shorter sprints and smaller deliverables, while in Agile everything is
delivered at the end of the project

3. Agile involves members from various cross-functional teams, while a Scrum project team includes
specific roles, such as the Scrum Master and Product Owner

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PRODUCT PRICING
Definition of Pricing:

Pricing is defined as the amount of money that you charge for your products, but understanding it requires
much more than that simple definition. Baked into your pricing are indicators to your potential customers
about how much you value your brand, product, and customers. It's one of the first things that can push
a customer towards, or away from, buying your product. As such, it should be calculated with certainty.
What are Pricing Strategies:

Pricing strategies refer to the processes and methodologies businesses use to set prices for their products
and services. If pricing is how much you charge for your products, then pricing strategy is how you
determine what that amount should be. Some of the more common pricing strategies include:
1. Value-based pricing
2. Competitive pricing
3. Price skimming
4. Cost-plus pricing
5. Penetration pricing
6. Economy pricing
7. Dynamic pricing

Pricing is an Under-utilized Growth Lever:

Many companies focus on acquisition to grow their business, but studies have shown that small variations
in pricing can raise or lower revenue by 20-50%. Despite that, even among Fortune 500 companies, fewer
than 5% have functions dedicated to getting pricing right. There's a missed opportunity in the business
world to see immediate growth for relatively little effort.
Because most businesses spend less than 10 hours per year thinking about pricing, there's a lot of
untapped growth potential in optimizing what you charge. In fact, getting your pricing right is a more
powerful growth lever than customer acquisition. In some cases, it can be up to 7.5 times more powerful
than acquisition.

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Top 7 Pricing Strategies:

Let us now take a closer look at the seven pricing strategies that were outlined above:
• Value-based pricing
With value-based pricing, you set your prices according to what consumers think your product is
worth. We are big fans of this pricing strategy for SaaS businesses.
• Competitive pricing
When you use a competitive pricing strategy, you are setting your prices based on what the competition
is charging. This can be a good strategy in the right circumstances, such as a business just starting out, but
it does not leave a lot of room for growth.
• Price skimming
If you set your prices as high as the market will possibly tolerate and then lower them over time, you will
be using the price skimming strategy. The goal is to skim the top off the market and the lower prices to
reach everyone else. With the right product it can work, but you should be very cautious using it.
• Cost-plus pricing
This is one of the simplest pricing strategies. You just take the cost of creating your product and add a
certain percentage to it. While simple, it is less than ideal for anything but physical products.
• Penetration pricing
In highly competitive markets, it can be hard for new companies to get a foothold. One way some
companies attempt to do so is by offering prices that are much lower than the competition. This is
penetration pricing.
• Economy pricing
This strategy is popular in the commodity goods sector. The goal is to price a product cheaper than the
competition and make the money back with increased volume. While it is a good method to get people
to buy your generic soda, it is not a great fit for SaaS and subscription businesses.
• Dynamic pricing
In some industries, you can get away with constantly changing your prices to match the current demand
for the item. This does not work well for subscription and SaaS business, because customers expect
consistent monthly or yearly expenses.

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Pricing Strategy Examples

Real-world pricing strategy examples are the best way for a business to better understand the above-
listed pricing strategies. Evaluating other businesses' approaches can be a good starting point but keep in
mind that your strategy should be based on math, market research, and consumer insights. For now, let
us look at the some of the pricing strategy:
• Streaming services
Have you noticed that you pay roughly the same amount for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu,
and other streaming services? That is because these companies have adopted competitive pricing, or at
least a form of it, called market-based pricing.
• Salesforce
When Salesforce first came out, they were the only CRM in the cloud. (It was not even called 'the cloud'
back then!) Armed with ground-breaking deployment and a target customer of large enterprise,
Salesforce could charge what they wanted. Later, after they had grown, they were able to lower prices so
smaller businesses could sign up. This is a classic example of price skimming.
• Dollar Shave Club
At one time, you could not turn on your TV without an ad for Dollar Shave Club telling you how much
cheaper they were than razors at the store. Although that level of marketing and advertising is unusual
for the pricing model, they were nevertheless employing economy pricing. It worked out well for them.
They were acquired by Unilever in 2016 for a reported $1 billion.

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APP CRITIQUE
E-Hailing: Uber

E-Hailing

The global ride-sharing market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 16.6% during the forecast period,
from an estimated USD 85.8 billion in 2021 to USD 185.1 billion by 2026. Ride-sharing services were the
most preferred services before the pandemic, as they offered a convenient and cost-effective means of
personal mobility with the help of a transportation network system. Another advantage was that they
helped to reduce travel costs and eliminated the need for individuals to own a vehicle. One more
benefit was the possible reduction of traffic congestion which might have been achieved by 2022–2023,
without the impact of COVID-19. With time & need, the mobility service providers (MSPs) devised
different models of ride-sharing services such as e-hailing, private vs. corporate car sharing, carpool,
car rental, and so on. The users had an option to choose from this wide variety of options based on
their needs, distance traveled, and personal comfort. However, owing to the pandemic, the ride-
sharing market has become one of the most impacted industries in the automotive space. The key
reason being global lockdown back in 2020 for almost 2-4 months (varied by country/city), and the
second wave of COVID-19, which has further impacted the business in Q1 of 2021 in most of the
countries. Another reason is, with the pandemic, many IT companies have adopted a work- from-
home culture, which has decreased office travel.
Though the pandemic has impacted most of the MSPs (for instance, Uber generated a revenue of USD
11.1 billion in 2020, with a decline of 21% as compared to revenues in 2019), it has also made the MSPs
change the business models or offerings; the ride-sharing players have gained momentum in segments
such as e-commerce, food delivery, and last-mile delivery.

About the App

Uber Technologies, Inc., commonly known as Uber, is an American technology company. Its services
include ride-hailing, food delivery (Uber Eats), package delivery, couriers, freight transportation, and,
through a partnership with Lime, electric bicycle and motorized scooter rental. The company is based in
San Francisco and has operations in over 900 metropolitan areas worldwide. It is one of the largest firms
in the gig economy.

Uber is estimated to have over 93 million monthly active users worldwide. In the United States, Uber has
a 71% market share for ride-sharing and a 22% market share for food delivery. Uber has been so

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prominent in the sharing economy that changes in various industries as a result of Uber have been referred
to as uberisation, and many startups have described their offerings as "Uber for X".
Like similar companies, Uber has been criticized for the treatment of drivers as independent contractors,
disruption of taxicab businesses, and an increase in traffic congestion. The company has been criticized
for various unethical practices and for ignoring local regulations, particularly under the leadership of
former CEO Travis Kalanick

Business Model

App Critique

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Step 1

The user must be able to find a way for the Uber driver to come to
their location and pick them up. The mapping of the input field is in a
good location at the top of the screen and is clearly marked in terms
users will understand “where to”.

Step 2
Upon clicking in the “where to” box you are able to enter a destination
or choose a recent location from a dropdown field. This box uses a
blinking blue line as a signifier, which affords the user to input their
location. You will also notice the “home” field is auto generated to your
current location

Step 3

If you input a reasonable location, such as my commute from my apartment in Vaishali to Gazipur you
will get immediate feedback with a screen that maps your intended ride. This visual conceptual model
of your uber ride affords that if you click confirm you will get picked up from your current location and
brought to your destination.

Strengths:
• The user-centered design has been at the fore-front of design and offers easy and quick execution to

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the main objective of ordering a taxi with the ‘where to?’ option center of the screen that detects
user’s location automatically and clearly.
• Can be adapted for each individual user offering favorite locations such as a home address saved in
the user’s account.
• Start-up page is clear and minimal, offering straightforward questions to register or log-back in. This
avoids confusion giving a seamless flow to the user.
• This keeps the main interface space clear of unnecessary options users may not need each time they
order a taxi, so even though it is accessible, it is not distracting for the users.

Weaknesses:

• It may be argued that the app can be hard to navigate for the older generation that do not have a
smartphone or do not use online apps or websites regularly, leaving a large audience unable to use
Uber.

• Color scheme can be argued to be plain and disengaging as a result of recent change from having a
colorful overlay before the update, to a neater and stylish design. Looking at color theories, black
and grey are associated with luxury and sophistication, which gives a design a minimalistic feel.
Although Uber has a big audience of business-users that would engage with the corporate style, the
general public had been overlooked.

E-commerce: Flipkart

E-Commerce

E-commerce business allows companies and individuals to buy and sell things online. It can be divided
into four major types:
1) Business to Business (B2B) – IndiaMART, Udaan
2) Business to Consumer (B2C) – Amazon, Flipkart
3) Consumer to Consumer (C2C) – OLX, Etsy
4) Consumer to Business (C2B) – freelancer, Desk

Indian e-commerce industry is expected to grow to $200 billion USD by 2026. Increasing smartphone
penetration is playing a significant role in it. Also, various Government initiatives like Digital India, Start-
up India, make in India are acting as growth drivers. Q4 2020 saw around 36% increase in e-commerce
order volume. Personal care, beauty and wellness is the largest sold category in Indian e-commerce

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market.

Today, almost every possible item or service is made available through e-commerce platforms.It is
giving a tough competition to traditional brick-and-mortar stores across multiple regions. Many
businesses have started to maintain presence in both e-commerce and offline shops to get the benefits
of both the business models. Main advantages of the e-commerce industry are convenience and
increased selection. Ability to shop any time and choose from selection across the globe made e-
commerce the first choice of many people especially the younger population. The industry still has a
few inherent drawbacks like inability to touch the products before buying them or lack of instant
gratification as one has to wait till the product arrives at home.

About the company & App

Flipkart was founded by Sachin and Binny Bansal in 2007. It is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka.
With initial investment from Bansal brothers, Flipkart started as an online book store website. Business
growth led to funding from multiple businesses like Accel India, Naspers Group etc. In 2018, US retail
giant Walmart acquired Flipkart for $16 billion. Myntra, PhonePe, Ekart, Jabong are some of the
subsidiaries of Flipkart. In 2014, the company changed its logo and identity design. In 2017, it started with
the Private Brands business e.g., MarQ, SmartBuy,Perfect Homes. By bridging the need gap effectively,
these brands are offering customers immense value in terms of selection, price and trust. They are also
promoting the growth of local manufacturing and SMBs.
Flipkart often provides lowest prices as compared to the market with selection from thousands of
sellers. It has easy-to-use UI features to browse, compare, and buy.
Some of the important features of Flipkart app are:

● 24x7 customer service

● Flipkart Assured - badge for high quality products

● Sell on Flipkart as seller

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Business Model

App Critique

1. Login: Simple login page with two login options – 1a) by mobile number 1b) by email

For login with mobile number option, mobile number is auto detected followed by automatic capture of
verification code. This option is easy as the user doesn’t need to remember the app password.

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2. Home Page:

Strengths: Home page provides easy access to Suggested items, deals of the day and Special Offers
pages. Placing product categories at the top, directly in front of the user’s eyes, is a good design
choice.

Consistent blue yellow color palette with simple and elegant icon suit.

Weaknesses:

• It may be argued that Flipkart’s home page looks unorganized compared to Amazon’s home page

• A bit cluttered interface with multiple options like supercoin, video, quick at one place

3. Search:

• Easy to use search feature at the top of each screen. Search feature also provides ‘Discover
More’ option with a few options at the bottom.
• Some pictures with random/dark color backgrounds give a less professional look. Having a common
background color for all item images in the search result would

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4. Share

Share feature popup UI is in line with the design of other application screens.

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5. Checkout

Strength - Clear 3 step checkout process with the step number mentioned at the top

Weakness - Free delivery eligibility text is difficult to read due to lack of highlighting.

Food-tech: Zomato

Food Tech

The food-tech market in India has valued at INR 289.36 Bn in 2019 and is expected to reach INR 1,868.19
Bn by 2025, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of ~39% during the 2021 - 2025 period.
The food tech market in India is an emergent but fast-growing market that has experienced remarkable
growth from 2015 onwards. The majority of the key players are startups and are atnascent stages of
growth.
Some of the main players that operate in the market in India are Swiggy, Zomato, BigBasket, Jubilant
Foods, Freshmenu, and Licious.

Market insights

Rapid urbanization, growth in the number of working youths, and increased adoption of the internet
and smartphones are a few of the significant factors that propel market growth.

Lucrative offers and discounts provided by various aggregators on their apps and the ease of doorstep
delivery are further driving the market. However, the dominance of unorganized players across tier I
and tier-II cities and the significantly low penetration of internet in tier III cities deter its growth.

Segment insights

On the basis of product type, the foodtech market in India is broadly categorized into two segments -
online food delivery and online grocery. In terms of revenue, the online food delivery segment
dominated the foodtech market, accounting for 67.13% of the overall revenue in 2020. The online
grocery segment is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period and is likely to dominate
the market by the end of 2025, accounting for ~55.10% of the sector.

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COVID-19 impact analysis

During the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the market experienced a setback mainly because
the online food delivery market was severely impacted by the nationwide lockdown. The frequency of
online food ordering declined initially because consumers were concerned about their health and the
availability of delivery agents feel due to the scarcity of jobs and migration of labor during. However,
many food service startups expanded their businesses beyond restaurant food delivery to target new
customers and retain existing customers with other types of delivery services.
Furthermore, the increased penetration of the internet in tier II and tier III cities since the pandemic has
helped these companies reach out to more people and expand their delivery services. The importance of
online transactions and other online activities were realized during the pandemic, both by customers, as
well as investors. This will help the foodtech market to grow throughout the forecast period.

About the App

Zomato is a fastest growing restaurant discovery website, established in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and
Pankaj Chaddah. Initially, it was named Foodiebay but in 2010, it was renamed as Zomato. It provides not
only information related to nearby restaurants but also provides facilities such as online ordering, table
reservations and management. Zomato currently serves 10,000 cities across 36 countries having 1.2
million popular restaurants with 80 million foodies every month. It is available in 10 different languages
and has 10 million reviews with 18 million bookmarks. It gives a platform to the restaurant owners to serve
a large number of users a good quality of food.

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App Critique

1. Login Feature: Zomato goes for simplicity, provides options for login, i.e., via Mobile number and OTP
or Facebook, Google, and Email. Providing multiple options to the customers helps users to login quickly
from low network coverage areas as well.

2. Account: Zomato’s account page is very engaging. It even has a profile of the user. Checking it, many
people have maintained their profile page, where they write reviews about restaurants, add

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photographs. You can follow your fellow foodie companions. Eating and updating reviews add up to the
stats.

Zomato has 5 tabs,

a. Order Food restaurants at home

b. Go out You can check amazing restaurants near you or anywhere, decide and rate the place, read
and write reviews
c. Zomato pro to get limitless dining privileges

d. Nutrition: For health care products such as protein powder, Immunity boosters, Skin care etc.
e. Donate: To donate for the feeding India cause by Zomato.
3. Home Screen: Zomato’s home screen is more contrasty and exceptionally captivating. It has very
little negative space.
4. Food Display: Zomato advertises and takes up a lot of space to display the food places available. The
users at one point will get tired of scrolling and may or may not settle with any restaurant. Zomato has
endless scrolling

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5. Search: The search bar is available on top of the home screen. By placing images and few options, it
has a clickbait which would want the users to click on a type of cuisine/restaurant, even if they aren’t
looking for anything specific.

6. Filter/Sort: Low discoverability — It is really difficult to find the filter options. Zomato has more food
choices in the filter

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7. Cart: Zomato doesn’t have a cart page or any alternate where anyone can go to the cart, in fact it
implies that you haven’t ordered anything. We can’t find the cart option at all. When we order
something there’s no visible pop message below for my order. One can even be puzzled while
searching for the cart. Navigation bar goes missing, you have to click back multiple times to view the
navigation bar.

EdTech: Udemy

EdTech
EdTech is the process of bringing IT tools into the classroom to make learning more engaging, inclusive,
and personalized. Tablets, interactive online courses, and even robots that can take notes and record
lectures for students who are ill are now commonplace in today's classrooms, which have evolved from
the cumbersome desktop PCs of the past.
This flood of educational technology is transforming classrooms in a number of ways: Students may easily
stay engaged by using engaging types of learning with EdTech robots. The ability of IoT devices to create
digital classrooms for children, whether they are physically in school, on the bus, or at home, is being
lauded.

The Covid-19 outbreak created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for India's educational technology

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("EdTech") sector. The traditional face-to-face interaction between a teacher and students suffered a
setback, and a paradigm shift to the unconventional mode of online learning occurred almost instantly. This
shift focused attention on the EdTech industry, which then received the necessary financial and policy
impetus to thrive throughout the fiscal year (FY) 2020-2021. The previous fiscal year saw a massive inflow
of investments, acquisitions, and the emergence of new start-ups, attesting to the EdTech sector's
meteoric growth.

About the App

Udemy, Inc. is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider geared at working adults and students in
the United States. Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar formed it in May 2010. The platform includes
over 40 million students, 155,000 courses, and 70,000 teachers delivering courses in over 65 languages as
of April 2021. Over 480 million people have enrolled in courses. Students and professors hail from more
than 180 nations, with two-thirds of the students residing outside of the United States.
Students enroll in courses primarily to improve job-related skills. Some courses can be used to get
technical certification credit. Udemy has made a concerted attempt to recruit corporate trainers who
want to offer courses for their company's employees. There are around 155,000 courses on the internet
as of 2021.Udemy's headquarters are in San Francisco, California, with offices in Denver, Ireland, Ankara,
Turkey, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Gurugram, India.

Business Model

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App Critique

1. Login: Simple login page with one login option – which is by mobile number. For login with mobile
number option, mobile number is auto detected followed byautomatic capture of verification code

2. Home Page:

Strengths:

• Simple and clean UI. Also, the home page provides easy access to Suggested courses, featured
courses. The page is neatly organized with all the courses which are suggested based on the
courses which are in demand or those which are similar to the one you have enrolled yourself in

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3. Search

Strength: Easy to use search feature at the bottom of each screen. Search feature also provides ‘Top
Searches’ and browse categories option with many different suggested categories

Weakness: Some icons of categories such as finance and accounting were blur which give a less
professional look. Having a common look for all item icons in the search result would make it look
better.

4. Share:

Share feature popup UI is in line with the design of other application screens

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Fintech: Paytm

Fintech

India is amongst the fastest growing Fintech markets in the world. Of the 2,100+ FinTechs existing in
India today, over 67% have been setup in the last 5 years.

The Indian Fintech market is currently valued at $31 Bn and is expected to grow to $84 Bn by 2025, at a
CAGR of 22%. The Fintech transaction value size is set to grow from US$ 66 Bn in 2019 to US$ 138 Bn in
2023, at a CAGR of 20%.

The Indian Fintech ecosystem sees a wide range of subsegments including Payments, Lending, Wealth
Technology (WealthTech), Personal Finance Management, InsuranceTechnology (InsurTech), Regulation
Technology (RegTech) etc.

The industry has seen cumulative investments into domestic FinTechs of more than $10 Bn since
2016.

As of May 2021, India’s United Payments Interface (UPI) has seen participation of 224 banks and recorded
2.6 billion transactions worth ~$68 Bn representing a jump of 15x from just 3 years ago for the same
period in 2018.
About the App

Paytm has become something of a phenomenon in India. With a catchy name and very recognizable
brand identity, Paytm has become one of the most used and accepted phone-based services across the
country in the past 9 years, garnering a user base of over 200 million people.

App Critique

1. Main-Menu seems cluttered

The way UX has evolved, we have been moving in the direction of minimalism since forever. Up until
about 15–20 years ago, the rule of thumb used to be you should be able to get from anywhere to
anywhere in an interface with a maximum of 2 clicks or selections. The problem with this practice was that
designers ended up putting too much content on every screen in order to fit everything into a 2-click
radius from everywhere, making the interface too overwhelming for the user. Soon, this rule lost its
significance and interfaces everywhere made a shift towards minimalism.

Paytm’s home screen itself presents a truckload of options, many of which are avoidable as I will show
you ahead. This creates a poor user experience, as the user is overwhelmed with options and doesn’t see

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a clear path of flow of control or any sort of hierarchy or prioritizing in terms of which functionalities are
more important than the others.

2. Pay and Scan:

Both of these options do the same job and are accessible at the highest level of navigation (“Pay” is
technically not at the highest level of navigation but when a user opens the app to make a payment, the
homepage is the default screen so practically “Pay” can be treated as top-level navigation).

3. Shopping and Mall

Again, both of these options do the same job and are practically accessible at the same level of
navigation.
Poor Information Architecture (Inadequate Navigation Menus)

The purpose of navigation menus is to envelop options and buttons that aren’t essential to display to the
user at that point. They help reduce clutter and set up an obvious hierarchy of functionalities. Navigation
menus can be dropdown menus, hamburger menus, etc. Information architecture is the sorting of content
and functionalities into menus and hierarchies.
The concept can be illustrated with an example. Imagine a designer needs to design a website with the
following list of features:

Instead of creating a link to each of these functionalities on the top-level navigation menu at the top of
the website, the designer creates a hierarchy as shown below and adds a link to only “Home” in the
top-level menu, adds a link to services in Home, and so on

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Paytm has been unsuccessful in capitalizing on the benefits of a robust navigation menu system. Paytm
has laid out all the possible second-level options on the top-level itself. For example, Paytm has a feature
called “Recharges & Bill Payments.” It’s possible to recharge your phone balance, pay your electricity bills,
etc. in the Paytm app itself.

The options “Mobile prepaid”, “Mobile postpaid”, “DTH” and “Electricity”, all come under the
Recharges & Bills Payments feature. Upon tapping on any of these, we find this screen:

In this screen, we have the choice to go to any of the top-level options (which had individual buttons on
the previous screen). “Mobile”, “DTH”,“Credit Card”, “Electricity” is all available here in the segmented
controlat the top of the screen.

It would make for a much richer experience if the (first) home page wasn’t crowded with so many
secondary options and the home page just had one button for “Recharges & Bill Payments”, after
which we find this screen and choose the type of payment we wish to make. Similarly, the Paytm
Travel options “Train tickets” and “Bus” in the second row of above image can be enveloped into a
single button for Paytm Travel on the home screen and all the secondary options in a segmented
control on the“Paytm travel” screen.
There are only two levels of navigation — cramming the page with too many options at the same time. My
proposed version of the sitemap this same section with a multi-levelled hierarchical structure would be:

A portion of the home page of Paytm’s current information architecture (sitemap) looks something like
this:

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There are only two levels of navigation — cramming the page
with too many options at the same time.

Proposed version of the sitemap this same section with a

multi-levelled hierarchical structure would be:
Here there are 2–3 levels of navigation, providing fewer
options at once.
Paytm should work towards filtering the volume of options
so that the user is exposed to only a small number of choices
at any given point in the experience.

Web design practices in the app’s design

• It is evident that the mobile app has been heavily modelled after the Paytm website. Lesser emphasis
on transitions, less fluid interface, lack of device-specific optimization, and even more cluttered
interfaces — these are all practices employed in web design.

• Web design and app design have some very different requirements because of the difference between
the contexts of the two platforms.

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• For instance, at the bottom of the home page, there are 4 “footer” links. This is a design convention
encountered in almost every website. This convention does not normally apply to mobile app design.
This seems to have been taken right out of thewebsite. The Paytm app home screen is a long scroll
view presenting a lot of horizontal scrolling collection views with offer details and items and services
Paytm provides. It has been designed to showcase to the user a preview of what to expect from the
entire app. This, again, is a web design practice. Apps are built to be more functionality-oriented and
less content-oriented. Apps show rather than tell.

• It seems like this is the fundamental problem with the entire app’s UX design. The Paytm design team
has confused web design practices with app design practices, producing an experience that would’ve
worked much better on the web. It is no wonder that the Paytm website is absolutely perfect by
conventional UI/UX Web design standards.

• The two primary parameters of any app are usefulness and usability. Usefulness has to do with how
useful the core functionalities of the app are — how useful is the idea. Usability has to do with how well
executed is the app — how intuitive it is, how good the experience is. When it comes to usefulness,
Paytm has absolutely nailed it. The app idea and functionalities are extremely useful and are obviously
the reason for their success. The usability of the app, however, needs work in some areas.

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GUESSTIMATES
• Estimate the fleet size of Vistara Airlines

Preliminary questions:

Do I need to calculate both international and domestic fleet size? (Interviewer: Count only the domestic
one as of now).

Should I consider only active aircrafts or also ones under maintenance? (Interviewer: Only the active
ones)

Overall Strategy

Would like to first estimate how many flight routes Vistara operates in. Then we can see what would be
frequency of each route and accordingly find the no. of aircrafts required to service the route. Finally,
we can sum up the required aircrafts for each route and get the result.

• There are two types of cities: -

1. 6 Metros: Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore

2. 30 Tier-two cities

• This would lead to three types of direct routes

o Metro to Metro: 15 routes

o Metro to Tier two: Total of 6x5=30 routes

• We can assume that every metro has 5 tier-two orbital cities, for example there is no direct flight from
Mumbai-Chandigarh. It is routed via Delhi. Hence Chandigarh is an orbital city of Delhi. We will assume
there are direct flights only between a metro and its orbital tier-two cities, not between a metro and
different metro’s orbital tier-two city.

And Tier-two to Tier-two (direct flights are rare, since they usually routed via Metros and hence
accommodated in previous two types of routes)

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• There may be some flights which have multiple stopovers. We can consider them to be equivalent to
two flights (if there is one stop over) under the types of routes mentioned above and continue with the
analysis.

STEP - 1 : Estimating # flights it would take to cover a Metro-Metro route

Let’s assume flights can run between 6 am in the morning to 12 am in the night. If we take a high
intensity metro route like Mumbai to Delhi, based on the experience, there is a flight of Vistara
departing every hour. If I assume that a flight leaves from Mumbai at 6 am. It reaches Delhi at 8 am.
Then there is a 1-hour turnaround time which includes maintenance of the aircraft. Then the flight
leaves from Delhi at 9 am. Similarly, after reaching Mumbai, the flight is ready to depart at 12 pm
(Noon).

At 6 am simultaneously a flight departs from Delhi, reaches Mumbai at 8am and after a 1 hr. turnaround
time departs from Mumbai at 9am.

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This would mean that we need 3 flights departing from Mumbai at 6 am, 7 am & 8 am and 3 flights
departing from Delhi at 6 am, 7 am & 8 am to achieve a 1-hour flight frequency from 6 am to 12 pm
(Midnight). Therefore, a route like Mumbai-Delhi requires 6 flights.

However, all Metro-to-Metro routes are not this busy. Mumbai-Delhi is the busiest route. If we take
Kolkata to Hyderabad, it is a less busy route and the flight frequency would be more like 1 flight per 3
hours by Vistara. This would mean a requirement of only 2 flights to cover the route.

On an average we can assume a requirement of 4 flights per metro route leading to an average
frequency of a flight every 1.5 hours. This would mean 4*15=60 aircrafts on the Metro-to-Metro route.

STEP 2: Estimating # flights it would take to cover a Metro-Tier-two route

Coming to the 30 Metro -Tier-two routes. A typical route would be Delhi-Chandigarh. These routes have
low frequency. The journey time is less than an hour. A flight departing at 6 am from Delhi will reach
Chandigarh at 7 am, would depart from Chandigarh at 8 am, would reach Delhi at 9 am and would again
leave from Delhi at 10 am.

Hence with one flight we can achieve a flight frequency of 4 flights per day. Based on the experience
(You can ask the interviewer for his experience, make the interview conversational) even 4 flights might
be too much and Vistara may be having just 3 per day to save on operating expenses. Additionally, it's
possible that one air-craft might be catering to two low frequency Metro --Tier 2 routes, however we
will neglect that and assume each route will have one dedicated aircraft at least. That leads to 30x1=30
Aircrafts. Hence, we have a total of 60+30=90 aircrafts of Vistara meant for domestic routes in active
service.

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• Estimate the number of schools in Mumbai
Preliminary questions
Are we counting both government and private schools? (Interviewer: Yes)

Are we looking at all standards from Junior Kg. to the 12th Std.? This would give us an age group of 4-
18. (Interviewer: Yes, you are spot on)

Should we include junior colleges as well in schools? (Interviewer: No, do not include them)

Should we consider NGOs as well? What about local level teachers teaching without any school (for very
poor students)? (Interviewer: Consider only establishments where students go for an education. The
establishment can be run by anyone, government, NGO or private)

Overall Strategy:
We have the following formula:
#Schools in Mumbai = (#School going children in Mumbai) / (Avg. # Students per school)

We will first estimate the (#School going children in Mumbai) and then the (Avg. # Students per school).

1. #School going children in Mumbai

We can divide the population across age-groups and then across income segment. We know that India
being a young country has 50% of its population below the age of 25. Since Mumbai has a population of
20 Mn, this would mean 10 Mn people are under the age 25. Assuming an equal distribution, this gives
us 400,000 students across each year till the age 25.

Depending on their age and family income segment, different percentages of children would go to
schools. The following are general characteristics being applied on a group and there will be exceptions.
The middle-class families send all their children to school. Some children may be home-schooled but we
can neglect that.

The lower middle class sends children to school up to 10th Std. But because of our patriarchal society,
some girls may not be sent to school. In the lower middle class segment several students only complete
their 10th Std. examinations and do not study further, though that trend is changing.

Most BPL families are too poor to send their children to school. These are usually, children of construction
workers, vegetable vendors or even beggars. However, there are several NGOs and government schools
accommodating them. These children have a slim chance of attempting their 10 th Std. exams and almost
none at attempting the 12th Std. exams.

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Note that the Upper Middle Class (10% of population) has the same relevant characteristics as the
Middle Class and hence it has been lumped in the Middle Class for analysis.

We can say that of the 0.4 Mn students of the age 17-18 almost 50% would be going to Junior Colleges
and the rest to CBSE, ICSE and other schools. Hence, we get the total school going children to be 2.4 Mn
+ 1.9 Mn + 0.4 Mn*50% = 4.5 Mn

2. Avg. # Students per school: We can divide schools as Large Schools (30%), Medium Schools (50%)
and Small Schools (20%)

If we just count the schools around IIT Bombay, Powai (Mumbai), there would be about 10 schools of
which 3 are large, 5 are medium and about 2 are small. You can take any area you want as a reference.
Try to choose one which has a good mix and which you think might be a close to an average

Large schools typically have 40 students in each class. They have 5 divisions per class. There are variations
but we can say generally they teach students from Jr. Kg to 12 th grade. This would mean a total of 40 x 5
x 14=2800 students.

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Medium Schools do not tend to space out their students across divisions like the large schools do. They
typically have around 50 students in each division and about 3 divisions in total. These schools generally
teach students from Jr. Kg to 10th grade. This makes it a total of 50 x 3 x 12 = 1800 students.

Small Schools teach about 30 students at a time. They have fewer divisions, let’s go with 2. They also
teach a small age group of students either only Jr & Sr. Kg, or 1 st to 5th Std. Let’s say they teach students
across 5 age-groups. This is an approximation as many times small schools like those run by NGOs lump
students across ages in the same class. We get total students as 30 x 2 x 5 = 300 students.

Hence an average school has 0.3 x 2800 + 0.5 x 1800 + 0.2 x 300 = ~ 1800 students. Hence the Total #
Schools = 4.5 Mn/1800 = ~2500 schools.

Sanity Check

As a sanity check we can see how many schools we get per square kilometer and if that number is
reasonable. We know that Mumbai has an area of 600 sq. km. I would expect about 2 schools per sq. km.
This takes the number of schools to around 1200. It seems like we made certain overestimations. Let’s go
over the numbers once more.

Our average school’s student strength looks all right at 1800, could not be higher. Our Population
distribution numbers seem right too.

Within the income-segments the middle class and BPL assumptions seem right. We may have over-
estimated the number of students from the LMC category. In the age-group of 4-16, 80% students may
have gone to school at some point of time, but not through all the grades in between.

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• Calculate the number of queries answered by Google per second

Preliminary questions
Mode of searches is Manual via mobile, desktop, app, web, home device. Ignoring any robot/auto API
based searches.

Geographically, we need to look at global population?

Analysis: We'll do a top-down approach.

Global Population = 7.5B

Less, Geographies excluded: China, Half of Russia (people here don't use Google as their primary search
engine); Less 1.5B (remain 6B)

Less, only 50% people are connected to internet (remain 3B)

Less, Google market share with Bing, AOL, other regional engines: Let's assume it to be about 70-80% =
75% (remain 2.25B)

We are left with 2.2B people who are potentially using Google search as their primary search.

Usage Frequency

We can segment them in their frequency of usage. I would say there are 3 types of searchers:
Aggressive, Active, Passive

Passive searchers are those who don't really use internet to search on a daily basis (like old people, kids,
our mom/dads, majority of rural population). Assuming this type represents the majority = 50% = 1.1B
people

Active people would search once a day. Assumed to be 25% of population = 550M people

Aggressive searchers are super active searchers who might search 4-8 times a day. Assumed to be 25%
of the total population = 550M people

Total searches per day= 550*1 + 550*6 = 3.8B searches per day = 3.8B / 24 hours / 60 min / 60 sec = ~
44,000 searches per second

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• Estimate how much it costs to run Flickr for a 20GB user
CANDIDATE: Just a quick clarification, when you say 20GB user, are you saying that the user is using
20GB of storage, or they bought a plan, which allows them up to 20GB storage?

INTERVIEWER: The latter.

CANDIDATE: I assume you want me to calculate costs of actual usage. That is, if they signed up for a
20GB plan, and they use something less than 20GB. That’s the number you want?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

CANDIDATE: And you want me to estimate costs per year or per month?

INTERVIEWER: Per month.

CANDIDATE: Okay. Let’s say that each Flickr user uploads 10 pictures per week.

Each picture is roughly 5 MB in size.

Multiply 10 by 5 MB each. That’s 50 MB each week. That’s about 2.5 GB of storage for the year. But
what we really need is the average cost at any given point in the year. So, let’s just take the mid-point,
and the average user, in its first year has about 1.25 GB.

Let’s talk about storage costs. I’ll estimate storage costs to be 10 cents per GB per month. That’s roughly
how much Amazon S3 charges for storage. We’re storing 1.25GB per user, so multiply that with $. 10
per GB/mo. gives us 12.5 cents per month. Per year, that’s $1.50 per user.

From a bandwidth perspective, we usually show the optimized version of the photo. Let’s assume
optimization can reduce file sizes by 40 percent. So rather than see the full 5 MB, let’s say the user sees
a 2MB version.

Assume each picture gets viewed on average 10 times per month. So that’s 10 x 2 MB each, so 20 MB
gets transferred.

We assumed that the user uploads 10 pictures per week. That’s 520 photos per year. Let’s take the
midpoint again, and we get 260 photos. So that’s 5.2GB per month.

Let’s say the bandwidth costs are 12 cents per GB per month. If we round our 5.2GB to 5GB, we get 60
cents per month per user.

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• What is the Revenue for the board game Monopoly® sold inIndia per year?

Preliminary questions

Is there an Indian version of Monopoly®? (Interviewer: “Yes.”)

If yes, how long has it been on the market in India? (Interviewer: “The Indian version has been on the
market since 2006. Prior to that, the British version was sold in India.”)

From this, perhaps the interviewer might further explain that in India there is a children’s version and
the regular version, and she would like you to estimate the revenue of the children’s version, which
targets 8–15-year-old children.

Once the question is clarified, identify the variables to apply to this problem.

The population of India: Approximately 1.2 billion people.

Percent of population that is aged 8-15 in India: Assume 15%.

Total population of 8-15-year-old children: 180 million.

Assumed percent living in areas where the board game is available for sale: 50%

Assumed percent of such children playing board games: 20%

Assumed number of board games purchased per child in this age range per year: 2

A potential question at this point for the interviewer: How popular is Monopoly compared to other
games? (Interviewer: It is gaining a lot of interest and is a popular board game with an estimated 10%
share.) Average price for Monopoly®: Assume Rs 600 (The interviewer will probably provide the
number; otherwise, you might need to estimate based on U.S. prices and dollar- rupee exchange rates)

Using these estimates, the annual Monopoly® sales in India are as follows: 180 million

× 50% × 20% × 2 × 10% × Rs 600 = Rs 2.16 billion annual Revenue.

Interviewer: If the exchange rate is U.S. $1 to 60 Rupees, how many dollars is that?

2.16 billion ÷ 60 = $36 million.

Total Revenue for the children’s version of Monopoly® in India per year appears to be approximately
$36 million. Note that because of the large chain of assumptions made, this estimate could be off
significantly; in particular, the estimate is highly sensitive to the percentage breakdown assumptions for
the relevant demographic (percent of 8–15-year-olds living where the game is available; percent of
those individuals who play board games; number of board games purchased by those customers
annually; etc.)

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PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT CASE

• Suggest a killer feature to improve LinkedIn? And what metrics would you track to
determine success?
CANDIDATE: There are a lot of different reasons why people use LinkedIn. Professionals could be

looking for jobs or career development opportunities. Recruiters could be looking for new

candidates. Sales people could be looking for new contacts.

For me, the persona that resonates most is the professional. I’m always searching for conferences and

courses focused on professional development. That’s the scenario I’d like to explore.

INTERVIEWER: Go ahead.

CANDIDATE: When I think about the conference scenario, I think of three use cases:

1. As a potential conference attendee, I want to find new conferences so that I can attend.

2. As a conference attendee, I’d like to see who else is attending the conference, so that I can keep

a list of people to network before, during, and after.

3. As a conference attendee, I’d like to have the conference materials easily accessible for reference.

So, here’s my solution: a conference page hosted on LinkedIn. It would have conference details, such

as event name, date, location, cost, and links to conference agenda.

Right below it would be registered attendees. Users can click to contact via LinkedIn’s messaging

system. And below that would be links to pre and post conference slide material.

LinkedIn’s revenue opportunities with this new conference page could include:

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Conference organizers pay monthly subscription fees

Get revenue share on all conference fees

Collect a small transaction fee on all registrations

INTERVIEWER: Interesting. Let’s talk about getting conference details data. How would you do it?

CANDIDATE: Three ideas come to mind:

1. Conference organizers can post details manually.

2. Build a crawler to index the web and parse conference data.

3. Define a conference data format and have conference organizers upload the data to LinkedIn,

either in a text file or a server-to-server API call.

INTERVIEWER: How would you determine if this new feature is successful?

CANDIDATE: There are a couple of metrics I would consider:

Acquisition. How many conference organizers have we signed up for the service? This measure

tells us whether or not the feature is compelling is worth spending their time on.

Engagement. Of the conference organizers who have signed up, how many conference pages

have they created? How often? And for the conference attendees, how often do they visit the

site? What kind of positive behaviours have they undertaken, whether it’s contacting or connecting

with other conference attendees? Or downloading presentation materials? We want the feature to

add value to both organizers and attendees.

Monetization. Lastly, how much money are we making? I wouldn’t want us to waste time

working on something that’s not contributing either short-or-long term revenue potential.

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CASE INTERVIEWS
• Interview 1:
Guesstimate? Market size of US Healthcare sector

• A generic application is losing users over aquarter, do

an RCA (Root Cause Analysis) to identify the issue
Case Interview problem statement?
• Build an application around an ailment of the
candidate’s choice

• For the first case, the candidate went through the

entire structure of the application, stating the basic
blueprint of any application like Amazon or WhatsApp.
And then suggested to check on the parameters
reflecting the sudden fall in users using the blueprint,
Your approach to the case? conversion funnel and monitoring the app for a week,
at least. For additional structure he/she went through
the Product management lifecycle
• The candidate built an AI based Mental Health
application, wherein there were real therapists
involved as the AI models got trained

• Interview 2:

• Why Product management

• What can a PM do to be respected by engineers?
• A short discussion about roles and responsibilitiesof
Interview Questions (Non-case-related)? PM
• Asked to explain a project in detail
• Situational questions about resolving conflicts
• Favorite product, strengths and weakness

Guesstimate? Number of mugs sold in India in a month

• If the candidate has access to all healthcare data,how

will he/she use it to come up with a feature/product
for patients
Case Interview problem statement?
• Given 150 products, how will the candidate present to
senior management about which product to go ahead
with

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• Interview 3:
• Strengths?
• Why product management after IT?
Interview Questions (Non-case-related)?
• Questions on leadership aspects at work
Netflix – as a product, rate it, compare itwith Prime
Calculate the total number of people flying over
Guesstimate?
Bangalore in a day.

A start-up from EdTech industry is losing its salesand

subscriptions over the past one year due to Covid. Suggest
Case Interview problem statement?
ways to implore the situation, describe the metrics to
evaluate your suggested solutions.

• Interview 4:
• Favorite App? If its DAU going down, what could be
the reasons?
Interview Questions (Non-case-related)?
• Coding question: fizz-buzz problem – complexity
analysis

As PM of Google: Estimate the infrastructural cost of

Guesstimate?
launching Google photos in India

Round 1:

• PPT Submission Round

• As a Prod Man, Create the design of a mobile
application (somecontext was given for user &
industry)

Round 2: List 5 metrics as a Zomato CEO you would

Case Interview problem statement? want to monitor daily

Round 3:

• As PM of YouTube, explain the rationale behind

‘skip ads feature’ to
a new PM
• How YouTube decides which ads to be made
skippable
Round 1:
• For ppt Submission round, the candidate saw
LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/school/pmschoolx/pos
Your Approach to the Case: ts/?feedView=all) winning solutions (last 8
solutions).
• The candidate went through the judging metrics
excel also - which is available on the LinkedIn page

• Talk to someone to get consumer insights – The

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candidate talked with parents to understand their
perspective on the given case.

• Review and revise your ppt

STRUCTURE of PPT:

• Executive Summary + Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Consumer Personas
• Consumer Needs
• Features
• Evaluation of Features
• MVP
• Key Feature
• Monetizing the Product & Feature
• Key Metrics
• Market Size Estimation

Round 2:

Guesstimate Approach:
▪ The candidate that he/she has used google photos
as an app to see photos clicked, nothingelse so
what is google photos?
▪ Interviewer replied cloud storage -> Got the hint,
cloud facility is needed -> data center cost -> Linked
India’s PDP bill coming (public data protection) and
so long term better if built in India.
▪ Structure your answer: Scope, approach, equation
and variables, final calculation.
▪ Categorized photos and videos from WhatsApp and
clicked, deleted, policy for deleting from cloud, old
photos etc. synced
▪ Consumer segmentation age wise and income wise
-> He/she created a table and said people have
different phones so diff size of photos etc.
The candidate then discussed approach and
wrapped the question

Zomato Question approach:

The candidate failed at this, the interviewer debated on
many things and also rejected many of candidate’s
ideas. The candidate’s answers were not complete
correct but they were well structured
First, identified key Stakeholders: restaurant +
customer
Then tried to think of some key metrics
• No. of orders
• 1 ratings and uninstallations
• CLTV = ARPU * Average Life time * average
orders per week for all customers
• Revenue per restaurant

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• Urban and rural divide (newly entered regions
vs old

Fav App & DAU question Approach:

• The candidate categorized as external and
internal reasons
• Internal
1. Bad feature added, good old
feature removed or exchanged
with bad one
2. New competitor
3. Disruption by technology

YouTube 1st question Approach:

• The candidate defined ‘skip ads feature’ and
then used that to build his/her rationale.
• Interviewer helped to build the Ans that was -
acquisition cost of customer for YouTube > 0
i.e., YouTube has to attract customers to use
YouTube, people don’t come automatically, if
they would have come automatically, YouTube
can force them to see ads.
• Dig deep, feel free to ask interviewer – make it
a conversation with a friend.
• The interviewer asked competitor of YouTube -
> most will say ‘daily motion’ etc.
• The candidate stuck with fundamentals of the
definition: Competitors: Anything that gets
affected negatively by your product/service.
• Listed competitors as Instagram and then said
that YouTube also a social platform so
WhatsApp and fb are also competitors etc. and
then interviewer said ‘you’ve hit the nail’ ->
YouTube fights for customer’s time and not
only videos

YouTube 2nd question Approach:

List all factors – need open and a calm mind
• Quality of ad
• Customer centricity – individual user profile-
based ad
• Length factor (7 sec ad make non skippable)
• Region (in Bihar, can make Bhojpuri Ads non
skippable)
• Covid-19 mandatory info by WHO
• Profitability / Ad by Tesla & Walmart not
skippable as they give huge money to YouTube
• Views on video: if video will be watched at any
cost by user: let the ad be non-skippable

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• Interview 5:
25-30 minutes
• Why Product Management?
• Do you want to ask anything?

Round 1 (1 hour):
1st 4 questions 30 minutes. 5th question 30 minutes.
• Tell me about yourself?
• Questions on my work-ex.
• Tell me something that is not in your resume?
Interview Questions (Non-case-related)?
• Which is your favorite app/website?
• Which is the worst app according to you?

Round 2: (25-30 minutes)

• Introduce yourself?
- Don't give me the bookish answer. Tell me something
else?
• Asked a lot of questions about my start-ups.
• Do you want to ask anything?
Over the last quarter the number of messages sent over
WhatsApp has reduced by 10%. Dissect the situation and
Case Interview problem statement?
identify the reason for the same?

• Interview 6:

• Tell me about yourself

• What would be some key metrics for an e-commerce
application?
Interview Questions (Non-case-related)? • Setback in one’s life and how you did they overcame
it?
• Favorite app and why? Describe its features? How
would you improve it?That app vs it's competitor

Round 1:
• Mini case:
The candidate was asked to assume that he/she was
the prod man for an application and was given 5
different enhancements that are lined tobe added to
the product. What would be the candidate’s priority
Case Interview problem statement?
order for them?

• Product design case:

The candidate was developing a pop-up ad tool that

the clients will be able to add to their website toshow

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their visitors different promotions.
Round 2:

• Product case:
Root cause analysis. Swiggy prod man, orders have
been down over the weekend. Analyze.

• Strategy case:
Not related to prod man. The case was that the
candidate is in the strategy dept for Airbnb. The peak
season is approaching especially for hill station
destination Kullu-Manali etc. But there is also an
impending 3rd wave looming. What can Airbnb do so
its business stays in the green during this period?

Round 1:

• For the Mini case, weigh both impacts on the user +

development effort to evaluate, be ready to justify
why this one at position X

• For product design case, Follow the CIRCLES

framework roughly, might deviate a little in the
discussion, but helps keep you guided.

Round 2:

Your approach to the case? Product Case:

• The candidate should ask lots of clarification
questions. Try to get some numbers/metrics from the
interviewer Go through the RCA framework. Take
through the user journey, see from which point we
are getting drops in the usage rate in the funnel.
• Even if the candidate think he/she has reached there,
try to get even more specific. The candidate could
come to the conclusion in his/her case that the filters
were where they had the problem. But then the
actual solution was that the veg/non-veg filter isn't
working. So, 20% of people drop off

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Interview 7:

• Tell me about yourself?

• Why product management and why MBA?
• What are your values and give examples from your
Interview Questions (Non-case-related)? life to showcase them?
• PM question on product lifecycle, MVP tests, what is
product management and role of product manager
was asked?

• As a PM of Amazon Prime, how will you improve it

as compared to its competitors?
Case Interview problem statement?
• As a PM of your favorite product how will you
improve its user engagement?

Interview 8:

Interview Questions (Non-case- Tell me about yourself?

related)?
Guesstimate? NA
Case Interview problemstatement? Case study round:

As a Microsoft/Zoom member, how can you make work

from home more productive, you can develop a new
product or make changes in the existing products (My
rationale or the thought process behind those pain points
which I had mentioned for the case study were asked in
the next round)

Round 2:

• To create an application from the scratch for

hoteliers, guides, small vendors in tourist places to
increase their revenue as it had taken a hit during
the Covid time
• I have started a new company and I am the CEO and
the above application is our first task which has to
be done so please present the Cost Analysis or a
rough breakup (rough idea about when the break-
even point will be reached and what would be the
initial investment required etc.)

Round 3:

Create an application for Uber as it wants to penetrate into

tier 3 and tier 4 cities in India

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Your approach to the case? Round 2:

• I always followed the CIRCLES framework and

presented my approach and ideas to him
• There were 2-3 follow-up questions and it was more
like a discussion

• Reading about Case Studies on PM Exercises and

LinkedIn – which helped in getting some ideas
• Using a certain framework while approaching
What do you think went right in this
Product Management Case Studies (They are
interview?
looking for our approach and not what is right or
wrong). The framework which I used helped me to
present a well-structured answer

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REFERENCES
The content in this compendium has been gathered from various publicly available
sources. Some of the sources are as follows:

• https://igotanoffer.com/blogs/product-manager/product-design-questions
• https://uxplanet.org/the-bus-product-design-framework-4e9fb6f81bcf
• https://www.aha.io/roadmapping/guide/product-management/product-managers-other-teams
• https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-the-star-interview-response-technique-2061629
• https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/google-s-heart-framework-for-measuring-ux
• https://clevertap.com/blog/google-heart-framework/
• https://medium.com/@ginoarendsz/an-introduction-to-the-aarrr-framework-b8570d6ae0d2
• https://growthrocks.com/blog/aarrr-framework/
• https://www.profitwell.com/recur/all/pricing-strategy-guide/
• https://canvanizer.com/new/lean-canvas
• https://medium.com/@steve_mullen/an-introduction-to-lean-canvas-5c17c469d3e0
• https://medium.com/@Vincentxia77/wireframe-vs-mockup-vs-prototype-selection-of- prototyping-tools-febf826cdd98
• https://copylove.medium.com/customer-journey-map-8a5ac61d6b5e
• https://medium.com/sozial-monster/everything-you-need-to-know-about-customer-pain-points- to-make-more-money-f4ec4160e2c5
• https://www.aha.io/roadmapping/guide/product-strategy/how-should-product-managers-define- user-personas
• https://medium.com/@claudiofuen/what-is-product-management-dfb5ead4d86c
• https://www.mindtheproduct.com/becoming-industry-agnostic-product-manager/
• https://igotanoffer.com/blogs/product-manager/product-design-questions
• https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/mobility-on-demand-market-198699113
• https://uxplanet.org/the-bus-product-design-framework-4e9fb6f81bcf
• https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/india-food-tech-market-report-2021-2025- featuring-key-players---swiggy-zomato-
bigbasket-jubilant-foods-freshmenu-and-licious- 301271435.html
• https://bstrategyhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Business-model-canvas-Flipkart.png
• https://thetycoonmindset.com/special-situation/zomato-understanding-the-business-model-of- food-tech-space/
• https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/swiggy-or-zomato-food-ordering-and-delivery-app- b4922da4029e
• https://thoughtoverdesign.com/work/flipkart
• https://www.apptunix.com/blog/how-does-udemy-work-business-model-revealed/
• The Product Manager Interview Book
• https://www.productmanagementexercises.com/2425/calculate-the-number-of-queries-answered-google-per-second
• https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/12-agile-manifesto-principles-how-to-adopt-them/
• https://project-management.com/agile-vs-waterfall/
• https://www.productplan.com/learn/product-management-vs-program-management/
• https://www.productplan.com/learn/responsibilities-product-owner/
• DECODE and CONQUER - Answers to Product Management Interviews by Lewis C. Lin
• Case Interviews Cracked Book by Sankalp Kelshikar & Saransh Garg

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