Design a washing machine for Google.

Clarification:

• What is the Business objective for google to launch this? Ans: Revenue
• Which Country are we plannin to launch this? USA
• Is there any product objective apart from washing clothes? Upto you

User:

Overall the market is seen to be segmented like this that influences purchases of innovative tech products

• Convenience Seekers family (Typically 30-45 Yrs with/witout kids and both working)
• Image Seekers (Believe in iconic purchases, First in category purchases)
• Family first (30-45 Yrs, Husband working and wife a home-maker with 2 kids)
• Pragramtic and conventional (45+)

We will focus on convenience seekers as that is a sizable segment and that is inclined to purchase innovative products. Not focussing on image seeker because of small size.

Needs/Pain Points:

• Have less time to manage household chores including entire process of washing, drying and ironing as they stay out of house most of the time
• Want to save energy corresposning to washing
• Forget to do clean clothes
• Need less effort to manage washing process

• Units sold and CAGR
• Revenue and CAGR 
• Number of operation through APP
• Profit and CAGR
• Complaints trend
• Distribution and CAGR
• APP download
• APP registration

Let me clarify the product that we are trying to design. Is this for Google employees or general marketplace?

Interviewer: Generald marketplace.

Me: Ok. As a PM, what has been helping is to think about the business goal or leadership vision/direction which helps me think through customer type. Once I know that, it becomes easier to think about what their main concers might be so that I can the think through would help satisfy their needs. Can we take similar approach?

Int: Sure.

Me: Is there a competitor product currently that isn't solving the needs or has major issues that we are trying to amend with our product? Or is this a brand new product?

Int: Upto you.

Me: Let's assume wasghing machines aren't any new for the world but we want to thinkoutside the box, like a Tesla for the world. Considering, this is a new venture, to stay afloat company needs customers. So let's focus on features that would attract new customers.

Int: Ok.

Me: Washing machines are used by three diff type of customers: 1) teenagers who are new to having to do their laundery 2) Elderly who may have memory issues 3)Normal healthy adults.

Let's focus on #1 since if we are to think out of the box, it's this group that can be easily swayed and it would also be an easier way for parents to get their kids to want to do their laundry. Well, at least me, having grown up in India, I know I never wanted to do my laundry and I am going to assume that's a prob most teenagers might have?

 Int: Ok ....let's see if we can do this in the next 10 min. We are short of time.

Me: I think teenagers who are new to laundry may face few problems 1)Don't know how to wash different type of clothes to make sure they don't spoil it 2)Forgets clothes is in washer because of being absent minded / getting busy with other things, etc.

I could think of more problem but in the interest of time can't think of anything else right now. Let's focus on #1 since that's going to majority of time and focusing on #2 may not result in differentiating factor for marketplace.

Int: Ok

Me: I will rate Feasibility, Complexity and Value Add to Customer as I go along. For F and C there is definitely many factors such as  tech and resource (time/money/manpower) to consider but let's not break it down to that level for now.

Solution:

1a. User can use camera in the machine to take a snap of the clothes and confirm the fabric understood by the machine. This can be done anytime a new garment is bought. This can be used towards recommendation engine. (F4 C2 V5)

1b. Machine's vision system auto identifies what clothes were loaded, user can confirm it and machine learns it overtime using various factors (what vision system sees vs what corrections user made, weight, etc.). Based on identification, machine will auto recommend settings to choose for washing  clothes (amount of detergent to use, time to set, spin cycle, level of warmth of water, etc.). (F3 C3 V5)

1c. User can rate quality of wash and machine can have a community of users who also have rated. Based on ratings, machine can recommend the user something like "most have used x settings for washing the type of clothes you are loading and have obtained x quality which is better than what you have experienced."  (F2 C4 V3)

Considering speed to market is important and 1a is needed to do 1b, let's do 1a and then 1b. 1c is great but is nice to have so we can push that to Release 2. Also, 1a and 1b are features that will differentiate in the marketplace for the most part and 1c is more complex. So let's release 1a and 1b first. There is a caveat with these features though even though AI and Vision technology is quite matrue. Vision may inaccurately recognize clothes and may damage the fabric. If that happens, there is possibility of law suites especially if these machines were used by corporate. Also, for 1c, users don't always put the same type of load so it might be difficult to specifically identify better setting based on community. This may even be not feasible.

If we release this machine, I would recommend measuring 1) # of new customers acquired per quarter 2)# of feature usage per 1000 customers.

All in all, providing technology heavy features is a key to attract young teenage customers. Also, I may be different since i was born in India and kids that young in India don't wash kids but my parents wanted me to and it was really hard for my parents to get me to do it. So these features may attract kids to want to do it and parents will hence buy. Parents are the real customers here in a way since they are the key to monetization. So let's go with 1a and 1b.

 

Business Objectives

C: Place of use – home, school, hotel, public use?

I: Home

C: Any specific geography to consider?

I: Consider India

C: Any specific business goal to consider

I: To improve customer experience

User groups

The following are the user groups for use of washing machine by Google:

1. Family

2. Millennials

Out of these options, I want to focus on point no 2- Millennials user group. This group users are tech savvy and influenced by social media and reviews online.

S. No.	User Need	Importance of the user
1.	Save time	5
2.	Cost effective	1
3.	Automated ironing of clothes	2
4.	Automatic cleaning mode according to clothes type	3
5.	Not to worry about water residue, dust etc	6
6.	Connect washing machine with phone	4

 

Solutions

Out of these, I want to focus on points from 3,4 and 6 as they are AI powered and will provide effective ways in using washing machine.

Google Washing Machine is a new product that has features like automatic ironing, drying of clothes, automatic mode selection according to clothes types, connecting washing machine to phone app.

S. No.	User Need	Solutions	Implementation Costs	Impact to the user
1.	Automated ironing of clothes	A compartment in washing machine where simply clothes can be hanged and simple click button to start. Clothes can be ironed using steam and heat.	High: as new featured is added	High
		Add scent option to add fragrance while clothes are ironing	Low: as it is an optional feature	Low
2.	Automatic cleaning mode according to clothes type	Special sensors to measure cloth load	Medium: adding special sensors	High
		Auto-detect cleaning mode according to the type of clothes and based on clothes type washing mode is decided	High: use of AI for auto-detect features	High
3.	Connect washing machine with phone	In-built Wi-Fi to connect washing machine to the phone app to give actions like start, stop machine, view remaining % of time	Medium: built-in Wi-Fi	Medium

 

Metrices used to measure success

1. Number of apps download

2. Increase in sales and revenues