As a product manager at Instagram, design an audio product.

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As a product manager at Instagram, design an audio product.

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Ujjwald · Answer 1 · 2024-06-23T10:38:22+0000

Step 1 - Define and scope the product

I want to start off by defining what Instagram is and the lay of the land. Instagram is a visual social network that started off by allowing people to take and post pictures. Today, it has multiple products like Reels and Stories. Instagram itself is part of the Meta family, which has, among other things Threads, Meta (Facebook), Quest (hardware), etc. The main source of revenue as it stands today is advertising revenue. There are 3 main personas here, in terms of creators, consumers and advertisers, and there is a flywheel where more creators would mean more consumers, which would in turn mean more advertising revenue.

Now, coming to the question, I have a couple of clarifying questions.

Why are we designing the audio product. So far Instagram was quite visual it its nature, so what changed that we wanted to do something like this.
Are we targeting any specific country/geo - Any country
Are we looking at something like music sharing, or anything else that you can tell me - I leave that to you, the interviewee.

I will assume we will focus on the consumers here. Because that will also drive creators here.

Step 2 - Segment the users and choose a group

If we look at the users, there are primarily 4 groups.

Ages 13-18
Ages 18-35
Ages 36-60
Aged above 60

For the purposes of this question, I will choose the segment aged 18-35. This is because this is a mobile first generation, and they are open to adopting new technologies as well. Also this segment understands the mechanics of a social network quite well, which I want to leverage for this product. Since advertising is the main source of revenue, adoption will need to be monitored, and this user segment would be great for that.

Step 3 - List and prioritize pain points

Before listing the pain points, I want to go through the user journey of a typical 18-35 year old.

Wake up
Scroll on Instagram/FB/other network
Work out - Spotify
Have breakfast - Instagram/X (Twitter)
Head out to work - maybe Spotify during the ride
Breaks at work/college - Instagram/Twitter
Head back home - maybe Spotify during the ride
Watch some entertainment - Streaming / Instagram/ Tik Tok
Scroll some more Instagram
Go to bed

If we list down the pain points.

Pain Point	Current Solution	Severity
No focus and there is constant urge to doom scroll	Meditation - Headspace (but no social features there so no motivation. This age group loves to do the in thing and they believe in FOMO)	M
I have so many friends but I don't know how they focus or what are their productivity hacks	None so far	L
I have a question for my influencer but apart from DMs, there is no way to connect with them on the platform	X (Twitter) spaces Clubhouse (lost its sheen now and there are no social elements there that can be exploited)	M (most of these influencers are there on X also so it is possible there)
I want to listen to a podcast with the influencers that I follow	YouTube Premium (because YouTube cannot run in the background).	M

So, I would like to focus of the following pain points.

I have so many friends but I don't know how they focus or what are their productivity hacks

Step 4 - List and prioritize solutions

Solution	Reach	Impact	Effort
Recommend meditation playlists from your friends	L ( People are increasingly aware of the digital addictions and this will help towards that effect)	L (This will be quite impactful)	L (We need to start off by getting some playlists and then creating a model for recommending them. Sourcing the content might be more difficult)
Recommend reels or stories that tell how this helped increase their productivity	L (Recommendations will definitely play well with people)	L (This will also be quite helpful)	L (We need to start off by getting some playlists and then creating a model for recommending them. Sourcing the content might be more difficult)
Hand curate playlists and show that to the people	M (People will have to individually curate lists, so it may not reach a lot of people)	M (Not as big as the first 2)	L (Curation is important here and will be time consuming)
Have a routine or a profile where the meditation will start as part of a morning or night routine	L (People have a routine in place and making that into a system may be quite helpful and reach a lot of people)	L (Will be quite helpful)	S (These are changes to the settings. Should not be huge)
Make only the routine accessible after a certain time so that the user can see only the meditation profile part of the routine. This will bring in more discipline	M (Not as imapactful as the earlier ones)	M (Not as impactful as the earlier ones)	M (not as impactful as the earlier ones)
Like or comment to improve the recommendations for others	L (This will help weed out the the ones that are not helpful)	L (Will be quite helpful)	M (The basic engine already exists, so we can leverage that)
Summarize the comments to help the user choose the right meditation to start off on their journey	L (This will help the users choose the most useful routine)	L (As these are user comments, it will definitely be more useful)	M (We could use the Llama models that are currently in use)
Have a streak tracker to see how many days this is being taken up by the user	M (This will help inculcate discipline)	M (Impactful but not as much as the earlier ones)	S (Not all that complicated)

So, I would build out a product that helps people limit doomscrolling so that they can improve their focus and productivity. This will be an audio only meditation feature set that would have :

Recommend meditation playlists from your friends
Recommend reels or stories that tell how this helped increase their productivity
Like or comment to improve the recommendations for others
Summarize the comments to help the user choose the right meditation to start off on their journey

Step 5 - Risks

Because this is an ecosystem, it is possible that the influencers and advertisers won't like this too much because they may worry it will be time off the core Instagram product

Step 6 - Metrics

The following metrics will be tracked

Number of meditation playlists started
Time spent on meditation
Amount of time spent on the core Instagram/Reels/Stories feed