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PM
Clarification Questions
- What do we mean by users? Uber has cab drivers and people booking rides, as users.
- What is the definition of acquisition here? Is it signing up on the app or booking first ride within x days of signing up?
- Are we looking to focus on any particular geography? Say, India?
- Is there any specific goal we'd like to hit by acquiring more users? Like increasing revenue, expanding to new territory?
Let's assume interviewer says-
- Users here means people booking rides.
- Acquisition means people booking their first ride within 30 days of signing up
- Geography in focus in India
- We're looking to ultimately increase revenue.
Describing Product
I'd like to take some time and share my understanding about Uber.
Uber helps people book rides. You can set your pickup & drop point and Uber finds are cab for you while showing the approximate cab fares.
Uber is a well known ride hailing app with large customer base and presence in tier 1/2 cities. Their strengths include affordable quick rides, easy payment options like UPI & multiple ride options.
Some weak points are unsatisfied drivers, women safety concerns, availability issues at peak times.
Strategic Choices
1. Launch in a new city/town
2. Grow in existing cities/towns
Evaluation Criterias
1. User experience
2. Revenue potential
3. Competitive landscape
4. Implementation Cost
From User experience perspective, Launching Uber services would be beneficial for people living in cities/towns where Uber is not available yet. They would be able to book quick rides and use Uber instead of traditional modes.
Growing in existing cities would not be that impactful from user experience perspective. People in these cities are aware of Uber but they're not using it due to some of the reasons highlighted before.
From Revenue perspective, Both choices can lead to revenue generation as there would be more people booking rides.
From Competitive landscape perspective, Certain geographies could have less competition and can even provides first movers advantage.
From Implementation Cost perspective, It would be most costly to launch in an entirely new city/town compared to growing in an existing city.
Recommendation
Based on above-mentioned, I'd prefer using "launch in a new city" as my strategic choice to grow Uber's userbase. I'd prioritise a city where competition has not entered yet, users are digitally savvy (tier 2 cities) and there's an evident problem of modes of transportation (no affordable options, local trains not available, metro trains not present, etc).
Gold PM
Clarifying questions:
- By acquiring users are we looking for acuiring more users (new) or resurrecting old/ churned users? (can be any) we are talking about active users.
- Uber has Uber rides and Uber eats? For Uber rides
- looking for more users in a specific category of Uber services? (all core services)
- Are we open to expanding horizontally and vertically? Yes
- Uber rides has two core type of users (rider side / driver side) (what users are we looking to acquire) (both)
- Any specific geography? (India)
Goal:
Uber’s vision is to provide a seamless solution for ride transport to its users. Our goal with this exercise is to acquire more active users for Uber.
Our goal is to do this with a strong LTV: CAC ratio.
Users:
For Uber rides we have two categories of users:
Riders:
Drivers:
I am prioritising riders here because if we focus on increasing the demand side, then the supply side would automatically follow. So this would lead to an inadvertent increase in the number of drivers as well.
Higher demand, higher prices == more revenue for the drivers.
Within riders we have:
New users (people who use services other than Uber)
New users (people who don’t use cab services / prefer other modes of transport)
Old resurrected users.
Prioritising 1st segment and 3rd segment
Target users: Users who don’t use Uber but use other platforms & Resurrected users. (highest chances of conversion here)
Strategy:
A couple of ways a product can acquire more users:
- Focus on marketing / growth channels (like SEO, referral, product integrations, social media marketing, paid ads)
- Focus on boosting Engagement within the platform itself.
- Expanding into new services / offering / launching in new areas
- Acquiring new products (expensive, needs a thorough P&L analysis)
- Focusing on monetisation strategy (we have already built a robust pricing strategy for Uber)
- Offers / Promotions
For this exercise I will be prioritising Point 1, 2, 3 & 6
For growth channels let’s look at the LTV: CAC for all variants.
(SEO is free of cost by Uber being a digital need based app, users won’t really be searching for Uber on search engines) ❌
Paid ads / social media: High cac options and don’t really guarantee a lot of conversion with Uber already being a well-known brand.
Strategy #1 Referral programs for launching in new areas / underserviced:
Uber already has a robust referral program in place. I suggest that we expand into new cities / underserviced areas in current cities and promote our referral program for riders.
It’s a very low CAC option. This program can be launched for a limited time (say for the first 6 months)
Strategy #2 Product Integrations:
When do users need transport services?
- commuting from work
- travelling to new locations
- travelling to airport
- delivery from nearby shops/ D2C shops
Identifying products within India that solve for travel and integrating with them so that the users can directly book a cab for places they will be visiting:
OTA platforms: cleartrip, MMT, easemytrip etc.
Airports apps: Adani One (tying up with the airports directly)
D2C brands: local F&B outlets that are not present on food apps like Zomato etc, to offer delivery services nearby. (Bakeries, Patisseries)
The user when opting for delivery option would be opting for Uber services at a subsidized cost.
Within platform:
Strategy #3 Expanding our core offerings:
- Launching EV vehicles in cab services (at cheaper, subsidized rates) (incentivize users for opting for eco-friendly options.
- Launching rider driven services where a user can be onboarded as a car provider and can offer car pooling services (like Bla Bla Car) (Uber would get a commission from each ride)
- Launching ambulance services (for people rushing to hospitals).
- Launching full day rental services.
Engagement within the platform / Improve our current offerings:
User funnel:
Onboarding/ Activation: (seamless onboarding users currently with mobile number)
Homepage:
User will input their destination (in case the location capture is turned on, pickup would be auto captured)
Feature improvement:
Strategy #4 Booking rides for other passengers
In this feature a user has two options
- Booking a ride for self
- Booking a ride for someone else (user can save multiple profiles in this section, under each profile we would be populating the pickup and drop off destinations on the basis of most booked locations (historical data of that profile, most frequent locations.
Ride selection page:
Here we can see multiple ride options that are available.
We can add an option here:
Strategy #5 Ride again with your favourite rider (for resurrected users)
If the user selects this option we would fetch a list of all of the rides of this user (past top rated rides) and show the user the options that are available at the selected pickup spot from his previous rides. We will match the user as per the ride match.
Post booking page:
Strategy #6 Fine tuning the ETA of the driver
Uber should add a feature where the users can see why the driver has stopped at a particular place (for eg. waiting at a traffic signal, road blocks etc.) This information can be basis past historical data and Gmaps info. Many users cancel rides when they see that the driver is not moving. This would help us retain riders.
Payment page:
Strategy #7 Integrating with BNPL solutions
Many a times users don’t book rides because they are in a low network area , don’t have cash handy. Integrating with a BNPL solution would help them book a ride without having to worry about paying immediately after a ride. Once a user has integrated with their BNPL account, the payment would be debited directly from their BNPL balance.
Offers & Promotions:
This specifically for resurrecting old users.
Starting a resurrection campaign of retargeting old users via Whatsapp & email & push notifications
where we will offer specific offers and promotions.
Multiple promotions can be: Flat, % off, bank offers (partnering with new banks) etc.
Clarify
- Any specific geography? Assume global
- Is this specifically related to pandemic worries? No
- And are we talking about the riders? Or the drivers? Riders given Riders drive demand
Goal
- As the problem states - more Users
- Is revenue increase also a goal? Or can the increase in users come in at slightly less revenue per user? - Assume - Possibly yes
Ultimate goal of Uber is to help consumers move from point A to point B by creating a marketplace by connecting drivers to riders
Current Users: Let me segment the users as below:
- Business travelers - who go on regular business trips
- Daily regular commuters - who go from point A to point B regularly - say for example office to work
- Casual travellers - others taking trips
Let me pick one or two User segment and try and see if we can solve some of their pain points that could help bring in more such consumers
- Let me pick the Business and regular commuters as I feel there are some synergies among the two user segments. They are both commuting the same routes regularly
Some proposed ideas:
- Fixed pricing - going from point A to point B regularly - for example the business user goes from Home to airport and back. Regular users from A to B. Can we offer them fixed pricing? This will A. Create stickiness B. Get more user if the pricing is favourable. One caveat here, for Business Travelers, for most parts, pricing is not an issue given it is covered by the respective companies
- Priority access - These users get priority when ordering cabs
- Wifi for such users in the cab - These users tend to be on the road a lot (especially Business Users), enabling wifi in the cabs so they can catch up on work could help create more stickiness. Especially helpful in emerging ecomomies where cellular plans might not be mature
Implementation - Would like to do an ROI analysis of the ideas agains the goals
| Fixed Pricing | High | M | This is not a trivial change and changes the business model and will have an impact on Revenue. |
| Priority access | High | L | People dont like waiting and this could really help with repeat users and even new users |
| Enabling wifi | L | H | This is dependent on cars being Wifi enabled and also supporting drivers to make it available and will have broader cost implications |
I would like to pick #1 and #2 given they are likely to have a big impact on the User growth.
Metrics: I would like to test it as follows
Would like to test it out for a subset of users first. Pick a highly frequented route for example say an airport to a couple of neighbourhoods.
Offer fixed pricing and Priority access to a subset of users
Measure:
1. #DAU that are utilizing the new services against overall users
2. New users utilizing the new services
Measure the above over a month to get a better sense of User growth.
Clarifying Questions
- How do you define users on Uber? (Drivers? Riders?)
- How do you define a new user? (e.g. someone who has never downloaded the app, lapsed user, someone who has downloaded the app but never used it)
- For the purpose of this question, I will focus on riders because I am predicting as rider demand goes up, driver supply will too.
- First, I will review the goal of the product, then I will go into the problems faced by the product, next how I would solve these problems, how I would implement these solutions, and then how I would validate my solution.
- Goal of product is to transport as many users as possible from one destination to the next in order to earn revenue from each ride taken.
- Uber has become a household name and captured a large portion of the market for your core ride use cases (e.g. getting to work, the airport, a friend's house). In order for Uber to grow, it needs to cover more underserved transportation use cases.
I would solve this use case by expanding Uber's product line and serving underserved users who may have unique or different transportation needs.
I would evaluate alternative transportation use cases that aren't currently served by Uber or the other ride sharing apps.
Here is a list of other transportation use cases that I believe are underserved by on demand riding apps and other transportation methods (e.g. public transportation) where Uber could differentiate itself to grow its user base.
- Users traveling to and within foreign cities by car and want tours of the area.
- Users require limos for weddings, special events
- Users require transportation by water (e.g. boat, ferry, etc) to get from one point to the other as it is faster than driving
- Users require plane transport on demand to get from point A to point B
- For the use cases outlined above, I am going to focus on use case #1, travelers who require car rides as I believe this group has the highest growth potential and are underserved. Better serving this customer base will enable Uber to differentiate themselves from competitors and other modes of transport
Priority | Customer Impact (5 being most impactful, 1 being least impactful) | Complexity (1-5) | Value Score (customer impact – complexity) | Use Case | Possible Solution |
A | 5 | 1 | 4 | Traveler getting from point A to point B for an event and want to take a tour, can select the “scenic route” | Give users option to take “the scenic route” when applicable to give them the ability to navigate past major landmarks or nice views |
B | 4 | 2 | 2 | Traveler has extra time, wants to schedule a dedicated driving tour | Enable uber to provide recorded tours while driving to entertain travelers in an easy, accessible way without having to engage an external service |
C | 4 | 3 | 1 | Traveler wants to take a walking tour | Enable recorded walking tours in major travel destinations |
D | 5 | 5 | 0 | Traveler wants to take a day trip and combine public transportation and uber | Travel planner for those travelers who have to take multiple modes of transportation and allow uber to integrate with public train times, public bus times, etc. This will allow uber to know when public transport is delayed, relaying this information to driver and planning pick up accordingly |
- I would implement the solutions 1 & 2 because they will increase Uber growth and differentiate Uber from other ride sharing apps, allowing them to gain even more market share.
- I am not prioritizing solution 4 as it requires a high level of content. I am not prioritizing solution 5 because it has a high level of complexity and requires partnership and cooperation with public transportation methods, which can be viewed as competitors and might not cooperate.
- For the first prioritized solution above, I would integrate an option to take the most scenic route. I would start with the major known tourist hubs and attribute all major known landmarks. I would build an algorithm for these cities to incorporate these new datapoints and then build "a ride" where these landmarks can be easily viewed by the car. This option will differentiate Uber from other ride sharing apps enticing new users to opt for Uber over competitors and even join Uber while traveling for business/pleasure, etc to improve quality of transportation.
- For the second prioritized solution above, I would work with travel and touring experts to make recordings of driving tours. Utilizing the scheduling feature already embedded in uber, I would integrate an option that allows the users to "take a tour" and then the app could play the recording in the uber car. Users could even take the tour in their own or different vehicles (at a cost) creating additional revenue streams for the app. "Driving Tours" also create another use case where users would utilize the Uber app, growing its rider base.
Bronze PM
How would you acquire more users for Uber?
What problem are we solving?
- Is Uber just the car services or is it Uber Eats and other services? Let's assume just the ride hailing.
- Is this on the driver or rider side? Let's assume rider.
- They use a smartphone app
- It summons a car to where they are quickly
- They can track where they're going and know who the driver is
- The cost is really low.
- Black cab/taxi users - they value convenience
- Other pre-booked minicab users - they value service and predictability
- Public transport users - they value price and speed over longer distances
- Walkers/cyclists - they value price and the experience
- Own car users - they value control and comfort
- Predictable service (reliable times and consistent service)
- Accurate reporting
- Quality service
- Easy for the business to order on behalf of employees
- I want to be able to make receipts available to the finance department so that I'm refunded for them
- I want to be able to specify which client or project the trip is billable to so that I can charge it correctly
- I potentially need my finance team to approve Uber as a supplier
- MVP is just encourage users to forward email receipts to finance in the email wording - test this on a small scale and ask users about it afterwards
- Reduce friction for the rider by including a field in the app to send a second receipt to
- Reduce friction for both sides by building a page for the finance department to log in to and export receipts in different formats
- To increase the number of users of ride hailing I would target the business users
- I'd focus on how they share receipts for expensing purposes to see if the product meets their needs
- I would look for significant organic growth in this segment or failing that, retention within the group
PM
1) Enter new cities.
- Was a good solution in the past. Now Uber is in most important places. It has actually retreated from some. Entering new cities is important but not as much as it used to be.
2) Marketing campaigns and loyalty programs.
- Uber can always run ads and give discounts to attract more people to use the app. This does have a pretty large cost.
- Uber can also do a loyalty program like airlines. This is especially effective for customers who are using uber for business and are not as price sensitive. Getting rewards to your personal account for taking a business trip will build loyalty to the brand.
3) Counterintuitively, facilitating more non-uber rides will help increase uber rides.
- What I mean by this is turn the uber app into a platform. Form partnerships with Bird, Lime, etc to connect riders to drivers.
- Offer a transportation solution at every price point from A-B using combinations of Bike, scooter, pool, public transit, and uberX.
- This will condition users to always open the Uber app whenever they are going somewhere.
- Create a condition where users instinctually check the Uber app before they go anywhere. More often than not, they will find that an Uber product suits their transportation needs.
Clarifying questions: Uber does ride-sharing as well as Uber eats. Uber eats is a small % of their revenue so let’s assume we stick with ride sharing. For ride-sharing, Uber has 2 main users – the drivers and the riders. For the purpose of this exercise, let us stick with acquiring more riders. This also seems like the first logical choice because a higher demand from riders will result in more drivers (to make money) and not the other way around.
Goal: To acquire more riders on the uber platform.
Users and Use Cases:
Professionals – who commute daily to work instead of driving or taking public transport
Students – who shuttle between dorms and class when they are getting late. Example of groups.
Young professionals – who like to go out at nights to party without the worry of the designated driver.
Airport Commuters – who like to go to and from the airport on a regular basis
Let’s pick the Young professionals who want to party as the user because of the following reasons
1. Higher income range – leading to better tipping,
2. More likelihood of uber X,
3. longer trips (they typically won’t go to the same neighbourhood places and
4. round trip opportunities – they have to come home late when their best option is Uber).
5. A large market – if you assume ages between 21-35 and assuming an 80-yr lifespan and uniform distribution, your market size in the US is (15/80)*320 million = 60 million. Not all are tech savvy and in applicatable areas so let’s drop that to 50% – since thats a good guess for people in big metropolitan areas where Uber has the biggest customer base so 30 million.
Ideas for increasing users
1. Partnerships with Opentable – Uber could tie up with reservation systems to provide discounts to users going to that location. The key here is marketing and the solution would be to tie up with opentable to detect reservations and provide a pre-booking workflow. Users upon reserving could directly book an uber with $10 off as an example. Uber could also provide menus and ordering during the commute for a great customer service
2.Detect DUIs before they happen – Uber could provide handheld machines at all bars that users can use for free (or minimal service) before checking out. If a user checks at > $0.08, Uber should volunteer to provide a car for the user to get home or suggest to the user to wait. It would be legally impossible to detain or report the user against his or her will. This is easy to implement – devices are available, generally makes the roads safer and has a clear way of increasing customers. Since this is at peak time surcharge rules apply allowing for higher monetization
3. Strategic partnerships with Live events
Most live involve large groups of people, space constraints and parking challenges. For e.g., Uber could partner with the NBA to be the preferred transport mode for fans to and from the NBA finals. This reduces traffic congestion, eliminates parking problems and allows Uber to demonstrate the value of the product and retain more customers.
If I had to pick one solution, I would pick #2. If you put all 2, it solves a real problem (safety), it is extremely easy to implement, handheld breathalyzers now connect to the iPhone and it can scale very easily throughout the country. It is also innovative, extremely useful and understandable in terms of value prop. The only challenge is the bar to entry which requires new users to install the app. The booth at the location could make this seamless but even providing a phone service in exchange for personal information.
The metrics would be new new Uber users, uber rides/user/month, 7 day/30 day repeat users, net reduction in number of DUIs in an area (say if you partner with 25 bars in Hollywood, you should see a noticable difference)
Gold PM
This is an interesting problem. To start, I’m going to assume that we are talking about Uber (share ride) users and not UberEats. Although both can go hand in hand, I think each play to attract users can be different. So for the sake of time and to pick a certain product, we will go with Uber’s main product — ride share.
What is Uber? Uber is an app that connects you to a ride/driver to take you home, work, airport, or where ever you may choose within a range. We can break down two main users– the driver and the rider. For this practice, we will focus on increasing riders. We can also break down the type of riders that Uber can penetrate and get a bigger market share:
1. Corporate Users: This would be for companies to provide rides to workers or stay long for work
2. College Students: Self-explanatory– and want cheap rides close to or around campus
3. Elderly: This would be for elderly people who at above 55 years old and would need rides to/from hospitals paid for by their insurance
I’m going to select college students because of a couple of factors:
– Most universities/colleges already provide a share ride taxi or trams for students
– Typically, riders are supposed to be 18 and over. Students tend to start university at 18 and we can dominate the market and get them to join Uber over other alternatives at an early age.
– Students are price and time sensitive (just like Uber)!
A couple of the pain points and reasons why this could be useful for students and university is that:
– As a student, I don’t want to be walking home late from the library
– As a student, trams don’t go close to where I live and I tend to have to walk 15 mins more
– As a university, this might be a cheaper alternative than hiring our own drivers or trams to run
Solutions:
– Partner with universities/colleges to provide a wholesale package to be the main ride provider for students within a 2-mile radius–the university would pay for this product.
– Sell students at the beginning of the year ride tickets– for example 10 rides within campus/$25 per work (numbers to be figured out)
– Provide Students a discount within campus grounds– for example $1/per ride
(I wish I had more solutions, but I’m blanking! Feel free to add!)
Out of all these, I would partner with universities. The reason is that the main goal of this is to increase users. Although we aren’t talking about revenue/profits, we are able to utilize a business line of a university/college to increase users for the long-term play. If we are able to penetrate users and build that trust at an early age, those users will tend to rely on Uber for all their transportation needs outside of campus grounds.
The way this would work is– we would get an approved EDU email list of active/current students, next we would send an invite to join Uber at the beginning of the year to use around campus. Pending on how the deal would be structured with universities, we wouldn’t charge the students. Rather, we would charge the universities as a replacement for their current trams/student transportation. Let’s assume that the average college/university is 5,000 students– 1k/per class (including grad school), we are looking at over 1k new users a year/per school (assuming all freshman don’t have Uber AND some grad students and transfer students entering already had it).
A couple of drawbacks that I would be worried about is:
– Not enough drivers to do demand
– Drivers don’t like short rides because of low pay (maybe inventivize them)
– Might only be good for schools with certain # of students, endowment, metropolitan location
– Uber might lose money initially when getting these users– need to calculate CAC
In terms of metrics, it’s pretty self-explanatory that the metric we would like is # of new users added (maybe at the beginning of the year), # of rides taken during the school year and after from users, and on the long-term engagement for users once graduated (just to track :)!)
In summary, I think this would be the best way to penetrate new Uber users. There wouldn’t have to be a change for drivers. Technology wouldn’t have to be updated. Say hello to a couple of thousand new student users yearly!
Let me know what you guys think!
Clarifying q
1.Which domain of uber ? - Uber TRANSPORT
2. aNY SPECIFIC VEHICLE USERS ? NONE
3.Is there any recent drop on uber users or is the acquisation happening on a new city which doesnt have uber service ?
4. Are we trying to acquire new users or churned out users ?
5. is there any geographical limitations ?
Assumption: New users in Uber Transport in India
Uber Product ; Transportation of objects from point a to point b
Functionalities
1. Varied mode of transport from cars, bikes , shared rides , premium rides
2. Food transportation
3. Goods transportation
Features
1. Booking of rides
2. Scheduling rides
3. Tracking of rides
4. Feedback process
5. Payment process
Key Target Audience
Uber Customers ; Booking rides in the app with desired location and travel
and Uber Drivers : Helping customers reach their desired location
NSM -Average no. of total rides completed by a user on a monthly basis
Landscape - reasoning of new user acquisation and why users would adopt Uber ?
Acquiring new users , why ?
1. Launching uber in a new city
2. Launching a new service of uber and require enagememnt on the feature
3. Acquiring new users on tg who has not been targetted yet -
Uber seasoned product ; most users already use it ; certain age group or demographics might not use it and we aim to target them ;
4. Retainibg of churned out users
Why users adopt Uber ? uSECASES
1. Transportation convenience -
A. Users who dont have personal vehicles -
B. Users who cannot find public vehicles
C. Users who are tourists
Criterias required for new user acquisation
New users who have not yet used UBER
1. User who are below 18 YEARS and above 7 years - dependent on guardians for travel ;
2. Users who are senior citizens - limitations : proficient with the application bcoz of their limitations on using phone ; confusing and intimidating
Solutions
1. below 18 years - Gaurdian unable travel with kid
a. Uber Kids : Activated on both gaurdian and kid's phone ; either of them can make a booking ;
gaurdian can track live locations of the kid while travelling ;
Prior communication with drivers before they pick up the kid ;
Camera tracking where a cctv camera will be activated monitoring the chilld's behaviour;
2. Senior citizens
a. Guided approach on how to navigate uber ; :
i. in application
ii. Customer care contact prior to booking ; instead of in app booking the booking will be done by customer care and additional nominal charge can be taken up for the service . Toll free contact no. can be created for users to call and book .
Evaluation
Uber kids :
Effort: high; Cost : High; Impact : Medium
Senior citizen:
i. in app guiding with arrows :
Effort: M; Cost: L ; Impact: M
ii. Customer care:
Effort: M; Cost: M; Impact: H
Risks
1. The customer care service if targetted only for 1 section of users then cost could be high as ROI might not be enough, we can also use this feature for users who are in a location where they are unable to access UBER due network issues and can get benefit of the service .
Clarifying problem
Let’s assume that we are acquiring more users for uber eats
Uber eats mission:
Enable people to eat from their favorite restaurants from the comfort of their homes
Competitors:
Doordash
Skip the dishes
Uber’s edge is that it enables delivery from a much wider area than doordash and skip the dishes, as well as more promotions and deals with further options having more expensive delivery fees
currently, it is a more expensive option compared to doordash
Users:
Customers
Drivers
Restaurants
Lets focus on acquiring customers as more customers = more drivers and more restaurants joining the platform, there are 3 personas:
Cheap skates - uni students/ lower income workers with low spending power, not much time to cook and uses uber mainly to take advantage to deals and promotions
Customers who want options from farther away - want to have more options when it comes to ordering
customers ordering large quantities of food for events
I would like to focus on the 3rd group as I think uber is already a strong competitor for personas 1 &2
User needs:
Convenience - want to order large amount of food without calling in or dropping by for pickup
Bulk pricing - the rules of wholesale applies here as well, order more pay less
Group ordering - maybe everyone is in charge of ordering their own food? They would need an organized way of ordering to ensure everything is streamlined
Proposed solutions - all with a focus of pricing and convenience
Partnerships with events and Bulk order pricing- where uber eats can be the official app for food deliveries so it’s easier to compile and track orders for lunch/ dinner hours, when in the event portal, uber can also offer discounts on food and delivery fees for attendees for ordering. potentially have a portion planner - input number of people and uber will recommend appropriate portions to order, when quantity reaches a certain point, ordering more food means cheaper prices per portion. People usually directly negotiate this with restaurants so uber will be streamlining this process.
Surge pricing during hours with higher order counts per restaurant - offer cheaper delivery prices for restaurants at delivery rush hours, because more orders at the same restaurant means some of them might be placed from the same neighborhood so can be delivered together by 1 driver
ranking effort/ impact
L/H
M/H
H/M
I would choose to implement #1 because it are relatively easier to implement and have higher business/ user impact, as well as making things more convenient for users and restaurants. Uber can also charge a higher service fee due to the large quantity ordered and also get an opportunity to expose the product to and convert non-uber eats users
Restraints
will need to discuss with restaurant partners to see how much discount is actually reasonable, this will likely vary
not every restaurant partner will be interested in the bulk ordering discount program - can create a label for restaurants that are in the program
Gold PM
Clarifying Questions:
which location? USA
which platform? App
What does acquire here mean? add new users to the platform
Target & Solution:
Uber has two major target audience, drivers and riders. I consider riders as our target for this questions.
we can categorized riders based on different factors:
first classification:
- people go from A to B in one city-->work on the rules for the quality of cars and drivers
- people go from one city to another city-->add more cities, special offers like air conditioner or Wi-Fi, possibility of joining people together
second classification:
- students and college students--> 1-as they are looking for safety, showing the numbers of driver's ride and let them choose if a person goes/ride to the university, school or dorm.
- business people-->1-as they commute one route every day, suggest fixed pricing and also can suggest a package with less price for whole week or month
- shopping/party/restaurants/concerts-->1-if you go there by Uber can get discounts from the restaurant or shop (we should have a list of those restaurants and shops which working with us), 2-special services for concerts and stadiums as there are a high number of requests and not enough drivers, 3-the possibility of entering the number of passengers before requesting (as some drivers don't accept more than 3 people in a car)
- airport: 1-special services for airport with a little bit higher amount, so a driver helps Putting the suitcase in the car and taking it out) 2-offer mini-van or van for the airport)
third classification: - 18-30-->rewards, gamification, discounts
- 30-50-->better cars and drivers, discounts
- more than 50-->1-as they are less technology savy, need easier accessibility 2-voice notification during installation and requesting 2-sending offers to install and request the first ride, 3-put a place in the application that everyone can enter a person's phone number who needs the installation instruction.
and generally add offers for more viechles like: bicycle, skooter, van, pickup truck, organizational services and even renting cars.
Metrics:
numbers of new users added
numbers of active users
numbers of rides taken
Gold PM
Clarifying Questions:
What's the goal -> Adding users will add value to business
Any specific geography - consider India
Any particular platform I should be focussing on - consider App
Timelines & constraints - 6 months, we have the resources at hand
What's my role - PM who also manages the PnL
What does acquire here mean? -> add new users to the platform
Any specific acquisition target? -> 20% in next 6 months
Approach:
Introducing improved product to existing market
Introducing improved product to new market
Introducing new product to existing market
Introducing new product to new market
Eliminating options 2 & 4 as Uber has been operating in India for quite some time. So we can focus on the options left with introducing new or improved version of the existing product to the existing market which is India. Further also assuming that we do not have the leeway to reduce prices to generate demand. And cashbacks, marketing are independent stuff.
So, lets deep dive into the user persona of Uber
Users:
Basis role played by the individuals
Riders
Drivers
Marketers
Basis how they are riding:
Solo
Pool
Focussing on riders + solo as this has the highest frequency of occurrence and thus the impact that can be made
Pain Points:
I find the rides to be expensive
Ride cancellation is an issue -> M-H impact
Concerned about hygiene of the car -> H impact and alignment with the vision & problem statement
Concerned about my safety while in Uber
Recommendation:
Get info about the last cleaning stat of the car before booking. Number of rides taken since last cleaning done -> P2
Get live video/audio feed of the cleanliness on Uber App in case ride is booked -> P0
See feedback shared by the recent riders about cleanliness in the car -> P1
Metrics:
#rides taken
# new users added (Daily, weekly, monthly)
% users using the video feature of Uber; Out of people once who say the video, what % did not cancel the ride
Gold PM
Uber is a platform which provides transfer of object from one place to another place.
Clarification Question:-
ME- we all know that uber is multiplatform service such as uber ride which provides transfer of people’s, Uber eats which provides transfer of food and uber freight which provides transfer of logistics so on which one you want me to focus on?
Interviewer:- choose one that you think is more appropriate
ME:- let’s take Uber eats because our competitors have a great share in the market and in corona time also we did a great job so there is a lot of opportunity to grab here.
ME:-what is the reason behind acquiring more users?
Interviewer:- what do you think?
From my perspective the reason behind it is to generate more revenue and acquiring the market.
Goal:- acquisition
Target User- people having family
Solution:-
1. expand uber eats to uber grocery services which can deliver item and have a delivery time 7AM-11PM.
2. I would like to have a A/B test for having subscription model.eg. pay 7$ and order unlimited for the month.
Success metric:-
1. % increase in new installs per day.
2. DAU/MAU.
request:- add more solutions
Goal: Acquire more users for Uber
Clarifying Questions and Assumptions:
Q: What do we mean by Uber? - Uber Eats/Uber rides Delivery etc.
=> say Uber rides
Q: acquire more users?-> do we want to acquire new users or have more rides from existing users
=> more rides- doesen't matter new or existing
Uber vision: connect physical and digital word to make movement convenient
What is Uber: It's a ride booking app which connects riders and drivers.
- riders go from point A to B by booking instantly or scheduling
- uber provides ride sharing option
- has surge pricing
- recently launched Intercity and booking rides based on hours as well
Stakeholder: Riders, Drivers, Company
User segmentation:
- Users going to offices: Recurring, fixed routes, predictable occurrences, peak hours, pressed for time
- Users attending parties/events: planned ad-hoc, can be groups as well, odd-hours
- Students/ parents dropping kids going to educational institutions - Recurring, fixed routes and times, predictable occurrences, safety, economical, pressed for time
- Elderly - ad-hoc, safety, less technology savvy, can be booked by someone else, accessibility issues
Solutions:
I will choose elderly group as I feel they are most underserved. If we target elderly, this solution can also help to target bigger segment who have similar issues as elderly like weak eyesight or disabilities etc. Additionally, users going to offices and parties might already be booking the rides. And students might prefer public transportation for more economical options
Solution 1:
User Journey:
1. Voice/visual notification for every action to users who are booking as well as for whom its being booked - P2
2. Inform to driver about the special needs of the user so that it can provide assistance - P1
3. Add an emergency assistance to every rider - P3
Risks/Tradeoffs:
drivers can get discouraged in case of special assistance person- can be managed by premium drivers or special pricing
Gold PM
Product Description: Uber is the American mobility Servive based in San Francisco with operations in approximately 72 countries and 10,500 cities.
Clarifying Question: Do we need to acquire more users based on the current business or we could think of giving breadth to the business:
Answer: Both
Strategy to acquire more users:
1. Can include more locations by having eye on the demand and supply in that area . So that inspite of users churn out from the app, uber should be able to retain and acquire more users from each and every geographical area.
2. Can include the Cab leasing program which definitely can help gain users who are always looking to hire a can for family outing rather than taking their own.
3. Can include Travel and Tour Packages where uber can acquire more users and in turn increase their revenue by providing the user with local and out of city tour packgaes by utilizing the exisiting drivers and cabs.
4. Can include Split fare feature to aquire more user as this feature could be great with respect to acquiring and retaining budget friendly user.
Priortization of New Enhancements/Suggestions
| Feature/Enhancement | Business Impact | Development Effort | Priority |
| Including more locations | M | M | P2 (As inlcuding more locations will help acquring and retaining the more customers) |
| Cab Leasing Program | L | L | P1(This could be a new way to acquire more new users) |
| Tours and Packages | L | L | P1(This could be a new way to acquire more new users) |
| Split Fare Feature | M | M | P3(As it is needed but can only be used more during office hours.) |
I would pick the Cab Leasing Programs and Tours and Packages to acquire more users for Uber.
Silver PM
Clarifying questions, answers in BOLD:
1. acquiring more users for uber, which users?
- drivers?
- or riders?
because its network effects, both should be acquired it can't be mutually exclusive.
2. is there a target for acquisition? like 10% more new users in Q3 2022. Yes, 10% in 3 months.
3. is the acquisition in a new market? like south africa, or brazil ?
4. is the acquisition in an existing market? like USA, India ?
5. if so, is the acquisition in an existing market, in the cities, where its already saturated ? or are we introducing new markets - like tier-2, tier-3 cities?
answer to Q3,4,5 ->
acquire new users in an already saturated market like SFO in the US
Restating the problem:
need 10% increase in new users (riders) by the end of 3 months in an already saturated market like SFO in USA, for uber mobile app
metric: 10% increase in new users
Solution:
whom to target?
users who or use cases where uber is not used yet in SFO or Bangalore city :
- > 60 age demographics
- these folks might not have an app installed on phone
- hyper-local connectivity (uber is currently used for office commute or airport commute etc, not for hyperlocal connectivity)
- these folks could have uber app already installed on phone.
- monthly office commute vans with pooling ->
- these folks could have an app installed already
- have tie-ups with senior housing communities
- have a decluttered app for seniors
- run promotions near senior citizen meet-up places (parks, tennis courts, etc)
(keeping the answer short without explaining context and user needs etc.)
Opportunities for uber I can think of are as follows:
|
|
|
|
New market (B2B) |
| - B2B space (trucks, transportation with companies) | |
Extended market (B2B2C) | - Partner with travel agencies / airbnb to pick up and drop - Partner with companies providing late night cabs/long distance transportation | - Car rentals |
|
Same market (B2C) | Same use case: - Surge pricing - cancellations - supply issues - driver issues - waiting time - cost | New use cases: - Shuttle services at less price - Book a cab for a few hours for party goers and users who want the same vehicle - EV vehicles for users who are environment conscious |
|
| Existing platform (booking a ride, supply & demand needs understanding etc., predictions, surging, optimizations) | Core technology (booking a ride, supply & demand needs understanding etc.) | Core skills |
My recommendation:
- I would go for a new use case that uber can provide for users with same core technology since there's a lot of potential in terms of market size and competition is not very high as well
- Uber can leverage its brand value, user associations, bare capabilites of booking a ride and shape up supply side.
Clarifying Questions
Should I focus on a specific Uber Business line?
Assume Uber Eats
Is this WW growth?
Assume within the US
Are there any key platforms for growth?
Assume no
Is there a certain key growth metric I should keep in mind?
Assume first time orders
Thanks for clarifying those points for me. To come-up with the best strategic options for acquiring more users for Uber, I’ll start by giving an overview of the company and the products they offer. Then I’ll talk through the current market situation and main Uber competitors. I’ll then talk through our main objective, the strategic options and how I’ll evaluate and prioritize those options. I’ll end with my recommendation.
About the Company and Product: Let me start by giving an overview of Uber and their products. Uber started a rideshare service that connects drivers, who own or supply their own vehicle, with people who need a ride. Their mission is to “reimagine the way the world moves for the better.” This is apparent in their more recent product Uber Eats which focuses on food delivery. Their main customers are private drivers, ride-seekers, restaurants and people who order take-out. They monetize their products, Uber Rides and Uber Eats via service fees on rides and deliveries.
Current Situation: In order to gain market share and build an initial user base, Uber offset the cost of Rides. However, given this point in their growth trajectory, that is no longer sustainable or an acceptable investment. As such, the cost of Uber rides, especially in mature markets like NYC, have increased. At the same time, their competition in both the Ride space and the food delivery space has increased greatly in line with demand during covid. Main ride competitors include Lyft, Taxis, and car ownership. Main food delivery competitors include Seamless, Grubhub and postmates.
Objective: Grow the Uber Eats user base by increasing first time orders
List of Strategic Options: Given the focus on increasing first time orders, we should consider the following strategies:
Restaurant outreach and expansion: Expand the number and type of restaurant that partner with Uber Eats for delivery. Explore how to create exclusive partnerships
Market expansion: Launch brand campaigns in low adoption markets like more rural towns taking advantage of increased take-out during Covid
Discount promotions for first time orders
Reduce time to delivery prioritizing first time orders until users are habituated with Uber Eats
Evaluation Criteria: I’ll evaluate the merit of these options looking new user growth potential, cost and complexity:
Strategic Options | Growth Potential | Cost | Complexity |
Restaurant Expansion | M - If we can get key popular restaurants exclusively, this could drive substantial new users. | M - Increasing restaurant outreach may require HC funding also, we may have to pay/discount fees to restaurants for exclusivity | L- Adding additional restaurants will not require technical investment |
Market Expansion | L - The largest markets are already covered by Uber eats | L - The main cost for market expansion would be marketing | L - The technical and operational capabilities are already in place for market expansion |
Promos | H - One of Take-out customers' main decision making process is price. If we discount their order, they will be very likely to try Uber eats | H - This would likely be a loss leader | L - The technology and staff are in place to run promos. |
Reduce Time to delivery for FTU | H - one of take-out customers main decision making factors is time to delivery. If we can provide fast delivery time for first time customers they will be more likely to choose uber eats and return | M - We would need to invest in the technology and restaurant training to prioritize first time orderers | M - We would need to invest in the infrastructure to identify first time orders, alert restaurants of the need to prioritize their order and train restaurants on how to handle this new priority |
Conclusion: In summary, in order to acquire more users for Uber, I would focus on driving for the first time Uber Eat orders. I would achieve this objective by reducing the time to delivery for first time users. This would have a high impact on customer growth as short delivery times is one of the main decision making factors in food orders. An additional benefit to this option over promo’s is it is more likely to retain those first time users as their first experience was positive so they will come back whereas with promo’s they know it is a one-time discount. While this strategy would require investment in a fairly complex technology, the trade off as a high-growth opportunity would be worth it.
Clarifying Questions:
· Are we talking about a certain division of Uber? E.g. Uber ride-shares vs. Uber Eats?
· How are we defining users – those who request the rides or the drivers?
· Is there a business objective I should be aware of? To drive revenue, engagement, respond to competitive threat?
· When you say users, does that mean someone who signs up and uses the app within a certain timeframe?
Define the product:
· Uber is a ride-sharing app that connects drivers to customers looking to get from point A to point B. The app lets you request a ride, share ride status with friends, rate and tip the driver. Uber has also expanded into Uber Eats, which acts as a food delivery service.
· Uber’s strengths are it’s ecosystem of users, upgraded safety features, and competitive placement in main cities.
· Uber’s threats include competitors like LYFT, other modes of transportation like cabs, bikes, scooters, and at times PR around dangerous drivers and safety issues.
Goal: Acquire more users to maintain/grow share of industry as emerging options continue to grow.
Scope: For the scope of this question, I will narrow it down to users being those who request rides to get from point A to point B (so not drivers and not evaluating Uber Eats). Is that okay?
Some strategies to acquire more users for Uber:
· Low promotional pricing for short-distance rides where other options might be viable (e.g. bike, scooter)
· Loyalty program to encourage repeat users
· Launch in new cities
· Bonus sign-up (e.g. first ride free)
· Marketing to draw more awareness on added safety features.
· Partnerships with Events/work places to promote Uber rides
Based on these options, I would evaluate these by impact to user, and cost to build/implement/maintain
Option | CM Impact | Cost | Notes |
Low promotional pricing for short-distance rides where other options might be viable (e.g. bike, scooter) | H | M | Price is a big factor users consider to make a decision. Uber already has these capabilities, so can offer promo pricing, with the goal of gaining new users to offset the loss in revenue for these rides. |
Loyalty program to encourage repeat users | M | M | Loyalty programs help create a stickier experience – e.g. 10 rides within 1 month get 1 ride free. Need to measure financial impact of this offering though. |
Launch in new cities | H | H | Rolling out in a new city could be a big build, and there would be a lot of marketing required to capture new users. |
Bonus sign-up (e.g. first ride free) | H | M |
|
Marketing to draw more awareness on added safety features. | M | L |
|
Partnerships with Events/work places to promote Uber rides | M | M |
|
Based on this- I would focus on the sign-up offers and creating a loyalty program to get new users to try Uber and create a stickier CM experience.
Platinum PM
Clarifying questions:
A) I assume that we are focussing on the Uber ride-sharing vertical.
B) I assume that we are interested in acquiring more riders. Because when we increase the demand that will in-turn increase the supply of drivers.
C) I assume that we are interested in acquring more personal users as well as business users. Also we seek to increase users across the board including uber, uberx and uber black.
Generate solutions
Strategy to attract more personal users
Marketing-based:
A) Create a referral program
B) Perform search engine optimization for google and app stores
C) Invest in google ads and social media ads
D) Invest in TV ads and sponspor the marquee sports tournaments
E) Provide free first ride promo
F) Use influencers for promoting uber products on social media and TV
G) Create bill-boards and news paper ads
H) Create blogs related to riders safety
Strategy to attract more business users
Marketing-based
A) Partner with major corporations and provide lower fares for the corportate employees
B) Create business account and make it easy for the users to get the rides expensed
C) Offer flat rates for the commute to the working professionals
Value proposition- based:
A) Offer priority rides at slightly higher cost
B) Give precise pick-up and drop-off time
C) build features that caters to under-served users that are physically challenged, to expand the user base
Discuss solutions
Marketing-based
I would prioritize the solutions where we can genereate incremental revenue, we can effectively measure the return on investments, we can achieve wider reach.
With this criteria, I would prioritize
a) Create a referral program: It incentizies users to bring the friends and families into the fold.
b) SEO: It is important to drive the visibility and thereby the apps downloads in the app store
c) Google and Social Media ads: It helps to reach much widers audience because chrome has 2B users and FB has 2.6B users.
e) Free first ride: we can run the A/B testing to measure the LTV for the customers that were offered free first rides versus ones that were not.
h) create blogs: it is low cost way to acquire new users.
I would not prioritize
d) TV, bill board and newspaper ads: It is difficult the measure the effectiveness of the investment
F) use influencers to promote the product on social media: influencers are required for the products that lack the brand power. Given that Uber already has brand power, we might not need it.
Strategy to attract more business users.
A) Perferred carriers with major corporations: When the major corporation's workforce grows, our user base will also grow.
B) Flat rate or cheaper monthly rate: It would allow us to acquire people that work that we are not parterning with.
C) Create business account and make it easy for the users to get the rides expensed: I would not prioritize it because it is not a needle mover.
Value proposition-based
A) Priority rider: It will help to attracts who live in high-income neighborhood that are sensitive to delays
B) More precise pick and drop off: It will help people to plan around the big moments, like people that travel to airport, people that communte to attend business meetings etc. people that plan to sport events, and movie halls,
C) Under-served cases: It will not only help to serve the underserved people but also generate the lot of good will for the company.
Conclude:
To attract new users, I would prioritize marketing based initiative based on its reach, ROI, and I would also build new features that add value to the users.
Clarifying questions
1. By users here do we mean the end customers or drivers or both? – Assuming its end customers
I would like to list the user journey on Uber
Knowledge -> Accessibility -> Download App -> Register as a rider -> enter destination -> check fares -> book a cab -> wait for cab -> reach destination
1. Does acquire here mean to increase the number of downloads and registrations? - yes
2. Is Uber trying to increase the reach of its app further or has there been a dip or stagnation in the number of users and Uber wants to improve that? – Uber wants to increase reach to new users and also understand users who leave Uber and why they leave.
3. Are there few people in the existing segments who are not using Uber? – yes
4. Do we know why people are not using Uber? – There is no detailed study but few people complained of long wait times and quarrels with drivers and hence they left the platform.
5. Do we know if this is acquisition is specific to a geography? – No, it is in general for Uber.
So, Uber wants to acquire more registrations in terms of those who have never used and re-acquire those who have left. This strategy is across all geographies.
6. Do we know if users are preferring competitors to Uber? – In some places platforms such as Lyft are more prevalent and Uber faces stiff competition.
7. In places where competition exists, are they the reason Uber lose clientele? – could be
Suggestions
Uber can divide markets into two – one where competition exists and where competition does not exist - and understand in both the cases why users are either not using Uber or leaving the platform.
Once Uber has found the root cause then based on this, solutions can be implemented. For example, if users are not using Uber and prefer Lyft because it has lower wait times, then Uber needs to improve its algorithm for matching drivers to users or hire more drivers.
Summary
To summarize, Uber wants to acquire more users in its existing segments and re-acquire those who are leaving. To do this Uber needs to understand the root cause for both across two market segments – one where there is competition and one where there isn’t. Based on this Uber can improve its platform to suit that segment.
Silver PM
Clarifying questions -
1) Are we talking of increasing users through ride sharing app or we are foraying into sister apps as well like Uber Eats?
2) We are acquiring more users by exploring completely new users or are also looking at currently inactive users?
For simplicity, we will focus only on ride hailing app & riders (We will not consider drivers as users here).
Current user base -
Purpose -Those who want to travel from one place to another for work, outing or availing some service etc.
Age group - 20 to 50 years
Assumption - A simple answer can be expansion to more geographical areas but we are keeping that suggestion aside for this time.
We will explore some user groups and use cases which are vastly unexplored currently -
| Use Case | Consumer Impact (1-5) | Complexity of implementing (1-5) | How it can be done? |
| Day scholars/students commuting to college/school on a daily basis | 5 | 3 | Creating a dedicated route/distance/time program for repetitive to and fro apps. |
| Partnering with restaurants/malls/hospitals for cab facility at reasonable price once the activity is over | 4 | 5 | Users can schedule the ride at an Uber Booth/a notification can be sent to the cab driver of the rush at the place |
| Airport facility | 5 | 3 | Reinvest energies in attracting airport travellers by minimising queue timing. |
Key metrics would be - increase in bookings for the same, eyeballs at the loacations.
Also, another solution can be personalizing/customising user based requirements. For example - I might be able to create a package for myself. And basis my requirements, I will be given a quote.
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