You are the Product Manager at Spotify, and the company has decided to enter the audiobook business. How would you build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for this venture?

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You are the Product Manager at Spotify, and the company has decided to enter the audiobook business. How would you build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for this venture?

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Ujjwald · Answer 1 · 2024-12-26T14:55:30+0000

Step 1 - Briefly explain the product

I would like to start off by briefly explaining my understanding of Spotify and its business model, and see how this MVP could fit in there. So, Spotify started off as a music streaming service, where you could stream music online, and it had a great recommendation engine that powered this. The recommendations were a large part of why they became successful. The last few years, they have been getting tough competition from players like Apple (Apple Music), Google (YouTube Music) and even Amazon though with light usage(Amazon Music). There are also a bunch of other players in every local market catering to the local tastes as well. The user base for the paid tier had plateaued and they were looking at new growth levers. A few years ago they went into podcasting, which was good but didn't do much to improve their user base. I think this is where the idea for entering the audiobook business has come in. They are looking at it as an additional growth level to grow the subscriber base that has plateaued.

Let me know if this line of thinking needs to change

Interviewer - No, go ahead.

Step 2 - Narrow down the scope of the problem

Given the business goals outlined, I would say that getting new paid users (subscribers) should be the primary goal of this MVP. Let me know if there are any secondary goals or if anything needs to be added from a vision perspective.

Step 3 - Segment users and shortlist user groups

Let me take a minute to list down the user groups we should cater to. If we segment users by demography, we have

Pre-teens
Teens
Young Adults
Middle Aged
Senior citizens

For the purposes of this question, let's focus on teens, because we are looking at areas where we can grow the subscriber base, and I think there is no audiobook platform for teens yet. Additionally, one of the biggest problems facing today's teens is excessive screen time, and the good thing with Spotify is that it is audio first.

Interviewer - Ok, sounds good.

Step 4 - Identify and Prioritize pain points

User Journey	Pain Point	Priority
Wakes up	NA	NA
Get ready for school	NA	NA
Go to school by car or bus	Don't have anything to prepare the student for the school day ahead	S - It's hard to prepare the teen for the day at school
Attend school	Unable to understand what is being taught in school	L - If the student isn't able to understand the subjects being taught in school, we can look at solving that
	There is a lot dependent on the teacher and not enough peer learning	M - This is an issue but at the teen level, the teacher is expected to do a bulk of the teaching
Come back from school by car or bus	There is no way to review the concepts being taught in school	M - It would be nice to review the concepts, but they are not the highest priority
Finish home work	NA	NA
Go to bed	Watching TV has no alternative, as listening to the same songs can be boring	L - Research has shown that humans basically crave stories, so any way to lower screen time while still telling stories would be helpful

From the above, I think we can pick 2 pain points.

Unable to understand what is being taught in school
Watching TV has no alternative, as listening to the same songs can be boring

Step 5 - Brainstorm solutions and prioritize

Pain Point	Solution	Impact to Goal	Effort
Unable to understand what is being taught in school	Allowing the user to explore books or other material that will better help explain the concept	L - New users will be drawn if the system can recommend the right chapters in the audiobooks that can better explain the concept	L - The books will have to be broken down into chapters and then those chapters will have to be explained. This will take effort to build
	Books recommended by teachers	S - Unlikely this will result in new subscribers	M - Will have to see if the recommendation system can be used. Some tweaking will be required here.
	Books recommended by peers	M - This probably will not help improving subscriber base	M - Will have to see if the recommendation system can be used. Some tweaking will be required here.
	Books recommended by achievers	L - One signal a lot of teens look upto is people who have gone to an elite school/university. Books recommended for certain subjects would help improving the conversion rate here	M - Initially, can take up a list of people and take their recommendations and then allow the users to choose whom to follow
Watching TV has no alternative, as listening to the same songs can be boring	Giving the book that inspired the writers of the show	M - This might not help much in improving the subscriber base	L - This will require significant effort
	Giving the book that the show is based on (if available)	M	M

From the above, for the short term, I would prioritize recommending audiobooks that someone at an elite university would suggest, while for the long term, look at allowing users to explore chapters or specific concepts in a book that they have doubts in.

A Rana · Answer 2 · 2024-10-22T05:01:04+0000

Clarifying question:

Will it be a separate app or an integrating onn existing Spotify app? assume anything

Are we going to do MVP launch globally or first in specific demography ? assume anything

Will it be subscription based model like Spotify music app? YES

Are we going to start with certain book types at first ? Eg fictional , non- fictional , spiritual etc -- we need hug library to attract audience

User segmentation :

Power listener :

Who listen to audiobooks everyday and have unlimited plan of Spotify . These users finish several book every month. Like fictional non fictional etc

1. Need unlimited content library

2. Need a high quality Audio

3. Need unlimited audio book plans

4. need discounts on plans

Occasional listeners :

Who listen in mostly in free time 9 to 10 times a month and have limited Spotify plan access. They do it as part of leisure activity

1. Need limited Spotify audio books experience plan

2. Need flexible Spotify plan

3. Need content to explore

Casual users :

Who are new and are exploring the audio books experience and reads quite sporadically . They have low engagement

1.Need trial based plans to explore and later decide if they want to go ahead with it

2.Need content library to explore

We will prioritise power listener segment as they use audio books experience very avidly also spotify has huge user base that can be added advantage for spotify and users already have habbit of using the platform and are familier and happy with the quality of music , podcast that spotify has to offer

Painpoints of users:

1. Expensive audio content

2.Audio quality variations and narration quality can make and break the whole audio book experience for a user

3. Less content to explore

4.Difficulty to find desired content

5.Storage issue on device to download content , usually audio books are bigger in size and users have limited space on device to download content.

6. Inconsistent playbook experience : experience distruption of user switch between the devices.

7. Pace of listening as every user has his own pace to listen to audio content some listen fast and some wants to listen slow

8. Different narration options eg US English , UK English , Indian English

9. Narration conversion to local language

Out of above painpoints I will prioritize below painpoints for for mvp release

1. narration quality for androids in mvp release

2. content availability for end users

3. Lastly finding the relevant content on our platform

4. Listening speed

Solution:

In mvp release we will focus on android platform

Narration quality is maker and breaker of whole experience for end users . Poorly narrated content can create and experience so we will primarily focus on onboarding good narrators with good voice modulation to describe emotions , suspense etc for end user to bind and listen more attentively

We will provide 3 pace option like .5 x , 2x , 3x to every users and make sure quality of sound doesn't break if user switching between 2 different pace of audio

A vast variety of content for users to choose from fictional , non - fictional , business etc

User experience:

User can click on audio play book from top filters available on home page of user

This will navigate user to home page of audio play book

There will be multiple filters a available in name of fictional , non fictional , science fiction, business , under name of authors , top rated books , price etc

User will also be given search bar on top where user can type book name , Author name etc to find from in-house content library

Once user tap on book , it will open a new screen , book picture covering 60 percent of page

Below : progress bar and process will be shown in percentage .

User will be given settings for pace on right hand side to choose different pace of audio

User will get forward , back word and pause button