You are a PM at Meta, and Mark wants you to create a product to help people learn musical instruments remotely. What would you build?

Is this just a software or hardware + software product?

Are there any budgetary constraints I should be aware of?

This is about learning to play musical instrument not really learn to create music or learn to sing?

Assuming that whoever is the learner possess the specific musical instrument he/she wishes to learn.

We all know that the vision of Meta is to give people the power to build communities and bring the world close together. Many times, people cannot express their emotions through words but can easily do so through music. Over centuries, music has been seen as a way expressing and conveying emotions and music has really brought people together. So, the vision of the new product can be to build communities through learning of musical instrument.

I will structure my answer by discussing the various user groups who might be interested in learning musical instruments and consider one of those. Next, I will discuss their pain points and prioritize a few of them. Then, I will brainstorm a few solutions and prioritize them based on effort, impact on users and alignment with product vision.

User groups:

• School going children who are learning some musical instrument at school but would like to get some guidance while practicing.
• Working professionals who would like to learn a musical instrument just as a hobby but don’t want to waste time travelling in their already busy lives
• Senior citizens who have ample time to learn a musical instrument to kill boredom but cant really travel due to age
• Music lovers who know to play some or the other musical instrument and would like to learn to play another

Lets consider the user groups 1 and 4 as they would like to engage with the product more seriously and on a regular basis and might be willing to pay.

Pain Points:

• Unable to find someone in the immediate vicinity who is an expert at playing the musical instrument – P1
• Though have some idea of music, unable to understand when I am playing it wrong and correct me – P1
• Unable to understand my pace of learning (Am I playing good enough to move from basics to intermediate stage or from intermediate to advanced stage) – P2
• It is sometimes boring to play/learn musical instrument alone – P3
• Would like to get some kind of validation as I am learning to play the instrument – P3

In terms of severity and frequency of the pain points, I have prioritized them. Mainly the users find it difficult to find experts who can teach them when they want to learn and correct them in the learning process.

Now let’s brainstorm a few solutions:

1. Live community of experts and learners

2. Asynchronous learning

3. Learning through auto correctors

Solution 1 - Live community of experts and learners:

A platform which operates as a 2-sided marketplace with experts and learners. Experts sign up by submitting their certifications or by uploading multiple videos which are evaluated by in-house models to establish credibility. Learners sign up expressing interest to learn a particular musical instrument. Experts submit their 30min to 1-hour slots of availability every week/month to teach online. To match the learners with the experts, there can be 2 ways – a) Learners can also express their slots when they wish to learn, and an in-house calendar matching model matches the expert with the learner b) Learner can view the availability of all the experts and can select any slot of their convenience. Learners will be charged a fee for the service. During the online classes/sessions, the experts can understand the learners’ pace of learning and can also correct them whenever they are playing the instrument incorrectly. Learners and experts can both express their interest in individual learning or group learning as well.

Solution 2 - Asynchronous learning:

A platform which operates as a 2-sided marketplace with experts and learners. Experts sign up by submitting their certifications or by uploading multiple videos which are evaluated by in-house models to establish credibility. Learners sign up expressing interest to learn a particular musical instrument. The platform would have a curated list of videos of how to learn every musical instrument from basic to advanced stage. Learners will be charged for accessing those videos and learning. Learners can learn at their own pace. Whenever the learners face difficulty or want some expert help to correct them and show them the right way, a) either the learners can upload video recordings of them playing the musical instrument and request for feedback from experts (hence the name asynchronous) b) Similar to the above solution, learners can connect with any available expert for a 30min to 1hour session.

Solution 3 - Learning through auto correctors:

A platform consists of a curated list of videos of how to learn every musical instrument from basic to advanced stage. The platform consists of learners who sign up expressing interest to learn a particular musical instrument. Every video when played pauses after a certain duration asking the learner to play the same. The video has the capability to capture what the learner plays and an underlying model to evaluate the same. The learner can proceed with the video only when he/she is able to play it correctly. Learners will be charged for accessing those videos and learning.

Keeping in mind the company and the product vision of learning musical instruments through community building, only solutions 1 and 2 align. Also, we currently don’t have any models/technology to accurately evaluate whether anyone is playing a musical instrument correctly. Also, curating videos of teaching playing of musical instrument step by step is a high effort and a time-consuming process. So, solution 1 seems to be the optimal approach to get started. Solution 1 can also be implemented as part of Meta instead of building a totally separate platform.