What is your favorite product? Why?

The Paytm Soundbox

Problem It Solves:

Small vendors, such as vegetable sellers and tea stall owners, often operate in noisy, fast-paced environments. They juggle between managing products, handling cash, and attending to multiple customers at once. Before the Paytm Soundbox, they had to constantly check their phone or connected device to confirm payments which essentially :

• Consumed time

• Led to errors or missed payments

• Created trust issues with customers ("paise aaye ki nahi?")

How It Solves the Problem:

• The Soundbox automatically announces the amount received after every UPI transaction in the local language.

• It removes the need to manually check phones.

• Vendors can hear the payment confirmation in real-time while continuing their work.

• Customers can’t claim “payment done” falsely anymore — it builds instant credibility.

 Why I Love It:

• It’s inclusive , even tech non-savvy users can use it.

• It reduces cognitive load for multitasking vendors.

• It’s localized and affordable.

• It has a tangible impact on trust and efficiency at the last mile of commerce.

Suggestions for Improvement:

1. Daily Hardcopy Summary: A printout (or SMS-based summary) at the end of the day to keep track of all transactions for vendors without smartphones.

2. Inbuilt Calculator: Many vendors use separate calculators — integrating one helps them quickly total bills.

3. QR Scanner: Adding a scanner makes the device more versatile.

4. Battery Indicator or Alert: To avoid situations where the device dies mid-day.

5. Multi-language switching: Some vendors may serve diverse crowds — easy language switching would be useful.

 

• Non-Creators (General Users): These users seek entertainment through reels or funny videos and often use the platform to pass time.
• Personal Users: These users share private moments with friends and family through photos, reels, or videos.
• Creators: Content creators aim to grow their following (community) and generate revenue through brand collaborations.
• Businesses or Brands: These users leverage Instagram to promote their brand or sell products by sharing marketing content.
• Enthusiasts/Hobbyists: Users showcase hobbies like painting or playing guitar to build a fanbase or community.
• Memers/Entertainers: These users create and share memes or humorous content, focusing on building a follower base.

• Staying Connected: Users can share pictures, videos, and stories to stay in touch with family and friends. They can also chat and share content directly via DMs or stories.
• Entertainment: Instagram provides access to engaging content from influencers, bloggers, and other creators. Reels, in particular, have significantly increased app usage time.
• Career Building: Since TikTok's ban in India, creators have migrated to Instagram, building communities and generating revenue through brand collaborations.
• E-commerce Integration: Instagram's shopping feature enables users to shop directly from their favorite brands.
• Affordable Marketing: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro-businesses use Instagram for cost-effective marketing campaigns to promote their products.

• Stories: a. Customizable Duration: Allow users to set the duration for their stories. b. Extended Drafts: Remove the 7-day limit on story drafts, letting users retain drafts for as long as needed.
• Local Content Spotlight: Highlight local content creators to help users discover and consume geographically relevant content.
• Streamlined Checkout: Make the e-commerce integration faster and more intuitive.
• Enhanced Explore Feed: Organize the Explore page into categories displayed below the search bar. This allows users to browse content aligned with their preferences. The current AI-driven Explore feed often displays cluttered or unwanted trends and sensitive content.
• Activity Dashboard for General Users: Provide insights into app usage for users struggling with overuse. This feature can help track time spent on Instagram and promote healthier digital habits.

Zomato is my favorite product because it offers a comprehensive range of services related to dining and food, including restaurant discovery, food delivery, table reservations, user-generated content, and subscription services.

Why I Love It?
Zomato covers every aspect of the dining experience, from discovery to delivery. Its restaurant discovery feature is exceptional, providing extensive information about local eateries and top-rated restaurants through user reviews and ratings. This helps me make well-informed choices about where to dine and what to order.

The food delivery service is incredibly convenient, allowing me to enjoy restaurant-quality meals at home. The real-time order tracking and wide variety of restaurants available for delivery make it my go-to option.

What I Appreciate?
1. It helps me order food from my favorite outlets.

2. It allows me to explore diverse cuisines and restaurants.

3. It provides information on live events and lets me book tickets.

4. It shows restaurant ambiance and food menus before visiting.

5. It offers tailored suggestions based on my dining history and preferences.

6. It provides access to user reviews and ratings for informed choices.

7. It enables real-time tracking of food delivery.

8. It allows for group ordering with friends or family.

9. It offers the option to schedule orders in advance.

Suggestions for Improvement:
1. Introduce a feature to order and pick up food while passing by the restaurant.

2. Implement a system for selling surplus food at discounted rates before closing time, reducing waste and providing affordable options.

3. Allow users to post videos or reels about restaurants, giving a better sense of the food and ambiance.

4. Incorporate augmented reality (AR) to let users virtually explore restaurant interiors or view 3D representations of dishes before ordering.

5. Create forums or discussion groups where users can share dining experiences, recipes, and tips, fostering a sense of community.

 

What is your favourite product & why?

My favourite product is the game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It's Nintendo's 4th best-selling game of all time, with 300M+ copies sold, and the 17th installement in the Legends of the Zelda series. I have fond memories as a kid playing my first Zelda game, Legends of the Four Swords, on the Gameboy Colour. 

But as an adult, the games became repetitive with the same game mechanic: relatively linear progression, with puzzles and enemies leaving you feeling like you found their (game developers) solution, rather than yours. 

Why I like it

Breath of the Wild redefined the franchise with its emphasis on player freedom, while still keeping the core of the Zelda game. Realising that their fans have grown up and don't need their hand held, they innovated on: 

1. Open-world: fly, swim or climb your way around the expansive open-world terrain.
2. Progression autonomy: no straight path to completion, only guidance. 
3. Solution autonomy: provide players with a set of flexible set of tools, and let them solve problems how they want. 

To build this game, Nintendo also had to innovate the game's physics engine, open-world object rendering and redevelop the whole game mechanic. 

What we can learn 

The game showcases more than the ability to embrace change from an old company, but also some fundmental truths about the benefits of user freedom in product design. 

1. Flexible tools and processes, over structured processes.
2. User autonomy, over rigid constraints.
3. Customisation options, over one-size-fits-all. 

What can be improved 

While it's hard to improve a game with universal critical acclaim, there are some improvements that could be addressed in the gameplay mechanics. Open-world is great, it comes with it's own challenges. Some improvements I would make to address the challenge are: 

Find a simpler way to move upwards: Climbing in the rain in-game, like in real life, is almost impossible - you'll slip. And it rains often, so traversing upwwards up a mountain would mean just waiting for the next day. Could the player:

• Have a power that allows them to ascend through terrain? 
  • This would mean revisiting player-terrain mechanics
• Build something to quickly teraverse around it? 
  • This would mean introducing build mechanics

More densely packed map: The world is huge, but it can sometimes feel empty travelling, with nothing to keep you busy. Could the player: 

• Defeat more monsters? 
  • This would mean new character designs
• More puzzles to complete? 
  • This would mean new puzzle designs

• Increase weapon durability?
  • This would mean weapon and enemy balancing
• Add a reforging mechanic? 
  • This would mean adding new mechanics and obbject interactions

Answeing this question using the BUS framework. Kindly provide feedback.

B - Business Objective/Describe the product:

Google Pay (GPay) is a digital payment platform developed by Google, aimed at simplifying financial transactions for users. It allows users to link their bank accounts, credit cards, and debit cards to make seamless payments, both online and offline. Additionally, GPay facilitates peer-to-peer payments, bill payments, and enables users to store loyalty cards and tickets digitally.

U - User Problems:

ng spent over 13 years in the banking sector, I've observed firsthand the challenges users face when it comes to managing their finances. Some common pain points that GPay addresses include:

Convenience: Users often find it cumbersome to carry physical wallets and make cash transactions. Also transferring money to someone through the traditional process of cheques, RTGS/NEFT, IMPS etc is cumbersome and time consuming. 

Security: Security concerns are paramount in the banking sector. Users may be hesitant to adopt digital payment platforms due to fears of fraud or unauthorized access. 

Language Barrier: While many online banking apps offer language choices, but for most people, the understanding of banking terminology even in their native language like Hindi is difficult. That creates an apprehension about using online apps like GPAY.

 

S - Solutions/Summary:

The following are the solutions that Gpay offers to the above pain points.

Convenience: GPay addresses this by implementing robust security measures such as encryption and two-factor authentication.

Security: GPay addresses this by implementing robust security measures such as encryption and two-factor authentication and also the Google Brand which instills confidence in the customer. They use the best of Google's Artificial Intelligence and fraud prevention technology to identify suspicious transactions in real-time.

Language Barrier: Gpay has very smartly offered a Hinglish option in their 10+Language options (and the first one at that) which will make the understanding of banking terminology and processing of a transaction very much easier for the average indian citizen.

To further improve the user experience and address existing pain points, I propose the following solutions:

Wider Array of Options: Gpay should provide a wider array of payment and other options on the lines of its closest competitor, Phonepe, thereby making it a one stop destination fulfilling all needs of the user.

Integration of AI-driven predictive analytics: To further enhance efficiency, the integration of AI-driven predictive analytics could be used to anticipate user preferences and streamline the payment process even further. For example, by intelligently suggesting payment methods based on past transactions etc, GPay can further reduce the cognitive load on users and enhance their overall experience.

Personalized Insights: Implementing AI-driven analytics to offer personalized spending insights and budgeting suggestions would empower users to make smarter financial decisions.

Offline Transactions: Developing functionality to facilitate offline transactions would further enhance the accessibility and convenience of GPay, especially in areas with limited internet connectivity.

Gamification/Incentivization: While Gpay started by providing incentives for every transaction and is still doing it for referrals, partnering with merchants to offer exclusive discounts and cashback incentives would incentivize users to use GPay for their transactions, driving user engagement and loyalty.

A suggestion from the business perspective: Almost 95% of Indian Smart Phone users are Android Users- which is generally logged in using a gmail id and Gpay usually comes in the package of free, pre downloaded apps on these phones. Now the unique UPI users in India are approx 330 million and say 95% of it approx 314 million already have GPAY preinstalled on their phones. But the Gpay penetration is only 67 Million active users. So it seems Gpay is not making use of this leverage that they already have. More incentivization can be offered to the customers to switch to Gpay. More needs to be learnt about this unutilized opportunity and its related reasons.

Prioritizing the solutions:
 

In conclusion, Google Pay has effectively addressed many user pain points in the field of digital payments, but there's always room for improvement. By prioritizing enhancements such as Wider array of options and gamification/ Incentivization, GPay can continue to innovate and solidify its position as a leading digital payment platform in India's fintech landscape.

Zepto is my favourite product, known for its rapid delivery, typically completing orders within 8-10 minutes. They provide a speedy service for groceries, essential items, and a diverse array of products, ranging from gift stores to makeup and more.

In comparison to competing products like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart,& Dunzo Zepto's commitment to its value proposition of delivering groceries within 10 minutes is commendable. In my personal experience, I've consistently received orders within 8-10 minutes, rarely exceeding this timeframe

When I think about why it's my favourite, it comes down to three key design questions

1. How useful is it?

2. How innovative is it?

3. Is the product easy to use and understand?

In terms of utility, Zepto stands out for its user-friendly interface. The platform conveniently organizes various categories for easy exploration. Additionally, upon placing an order, the home page features a "Products for You" section, showcasing previously purchased items. This feature minimizes the need for manual searching, enhancing the overall user experience. In addition to its user-friendly design, Zepto boasts two noteworthy features that contribute significantly to its appeal. Firstly, the Zepto Cafe impressively ensures ultra-fast food delivery, often within just 10 minutes, catering to those moments of immediate hunger or when time is of the essence. Secondly, the innovative Zepto Stories feature showcases influencers and individuals discussing various products. This not only fosters trust in the platform but also provides a seamless ordering experience with a simple click. These distinctive features set Zepto apart from its competitors, adding a layer of innovation and uniqueness to its service.

Finally, the product is easy to use and understand because various categories are listed for easy exploration and navigation as well.

To summarise, my favourite product is Zepto because it is innovative and easy to understand

Though I'm a fan of Zepto, a recent alteration in their delivery policy has caught my attention. Initially, users enjoyed free delivery for orders above 99 INR, but the recent change mandates a minimum order of 199 INR for free delivery. I believe this adjustment might affect user retention and lead to a drop-off in usage. The attractiveness of free delivery, especially for orders above 99 INR, played a crucial role in acquiring and retaining users on the platform, considering India's price-sensitive market. I've noticed another recent change in Zepto – they've discontinued their referral program. This piqued my curiosity because just two months ago, I conducted a product teardown to understand Zepto's referral program. The program, offering both the referrer and referee 25% off on a new user's first order, was impressive. It not only facilitated user acquisition but also generated positive word of mouth, increased engagement, and personally brought me the joy of enjoying a 25% discount four times as I referred my friends (Based on my secondary research, particularly app store reviews, I've come across users expressing their curiosity and interest in the whereabouts of the referral program)

User problems: 

U1: Lack of adequate customer support services

U2: Wrong items/expired products delivered 

U3: Minimum order value changed 

U4: Referral program discontinued 

My favourite product is Splitwise. 

Before explaining what is it, I'd like to talk about the problem in my life which it is solving.

1. Problem: What is my Job to be done?

I have lots of shared expenses with my friends, colleagues, family members and flatmates. Sometimes it becomes difficult to ask for the amount I paid for them due to stigma. Also I feel conservative if I paid for the whole group and I didn’t get my money back.

2. Solution:

   1. What is it doing?

It is an android or iOS based simple app where I can add my spends and share it with the people I spent my money with. It saves it and easily tells everyone who is owing me and how much. It has removed the stigma of reaching out to people for the money they owe and simplified my communication as well.

2. How is it doing?

   1. Efficiency: 

      1. The tool offers a smooth way to add expenses which is just a click away

      2. It records every expense as ledger and is visible to everyone so that i don’t have to remind any of my friend

      3. It even adjusts the total amount my friend owes if he paid for my expenses on our next outing to keep balances always up to date

      4. It gives me whatsapp like group or individual spaces to add my expenditures accordingly

   2. Innovation

      1. It categories each expense in predetermined buckets helping me to analyse my past expenses and compare easily.

      2. It gives pre-built functionalities like split my expense equally or unequally or who spends how much without me putting too much brain into it.

3. Availability: Easily available as ios/ android app, and light to download without taking too much space in my phone.

4. Room for Improvement: there are some pain points still needs to be solved

   1. I need a payment mechanism within the app as i don’t want my friend giving me excuses of not able to pay me due to external issues

   2. I need it to help me in my budget planning as I have added all my expenses to it

   3. I need to have a guest account functionality where even if a user has not downloaded the app can still interact with our shared expenses to overcome the challenge of not able to resolve owed money

 

I’ll roadmap my feature list as per the below ‘Final Order’

 

[Restructuring and adding certain steps to the originally posted answer by one of my peers here @Ruchi Sharma]

My Favorite Product is "WhatsApp"

 

Step-1: Describe the Product

• WhatsApp is “Primarily” a messaging app available freely for Mobile (android, ios) & Desktop users

• It allows users to:-

  • To send messages - text, video

  • Make calls - audio, video

• It’s one of the early products invented in 2009 which solved the problem of communication via the internet. 

  • Before that people used to communicate via sms for messaging.

 

Step-2: Explain what you like about the Product

• When I think about why WhatsApp as my favorite product, it comes down to 3 key points.

1. Useful        - Is the product useful and solving a key pain point?

2. Efficient     - Is the product solving the issue quicker with less effort from the user

3. Innovation - Is the product solving the user problem in a new way.
    

1. Useful 

• Allows communication (message, calls) irrespective of region or country 

  • One doesn’t need a ISD connection to be able to connect to friends or family in other countries.

• Enables Users to share media in messages.

• Enables users to collaborate by forming a Group.
   

2. Innovative
   WhatsApp has continuously come up with innovative features to engage & acquire new users. Ex:- 

   1. Voice Message

      1. Enabling users to record a voice message and share. 

      2. This has impacted a huge customer base who are not very good at typing like users in the age group of 45 to 60 and belonging to tier 3 cities.

   2. WhatsApp web

      1. Connecting your laptop with your mobile phone via scanning a QR code is very innovative. 

      2. It gives the end user the flexibility to use WhatsApp through laptop/desktop.

   3. Fingerprint Authentication

      1. Adds another level of security to the app.  

      2. With this feature enabled, even if you leave your phone unlocked, your chats cannot be accessed by anyone else, until it is verified by your fingerprint.
          

3. Efficient 

• Ease of usage. 

  • Users need not learn new representations for each task

  • In application tutorials are not required to educate users.

  • It comes natural to them.

 

[ Improvement Steps: Step-2 Onwards]

 

Step 2: Clarifying the Scope   (To narrow down the scope of the Question)

 

• Are We concentrating on any specific region ? - No

• Any Particular Platform to be focussed upon (Mobile/ Desktop)?

• Assumptions

  • Platform: Mobile 

    • Since Mobile usage is increasing rapidly as a next platform

 

Step 3: Choose a Goal               (Select one goal and give your reason for the same.) 

[If the Interviewer does not have any particular goal in mind, then we’ll make our own assumption for the Goal and explain the reason behind choosing it]

Assumption:

Goal: Driving Engagement

• The main mission of WhatsAppl is to enable easy connection and collaboration of people across the world and thus bring them closer to each other and instill a sense of community. 

• User engagement is something that aligns very closely with this mission of WhatsApp 

• for this reason we will be focusing on improving user engagement for this question
   

Step 4: List the User Groups & Select one

Now we will divide the users based on their usage 

• Individuals:        Want to engage with their Contacts 

  • Students

  • Working Professionals 

  • Old Age people 

• Businesses:       Want to engage with their Users 

  • Startups

  • Big Corporations

Step 4.1: Select your user group and state your reason for the same. 

For the scope of this Question, we will be focusing on improving the Engagement for “Students”

 

Step 5: List down user Pain-Points/ (Use Cases) & Select Prioritize them 

Pain-Points for Students

1. Website Links 

• Students receive a lot of website links in Whatsapp 

• Clicking them would open in any other browser. 

• Additional click to open an external application like chrome or firefox. 

• They have to again navigate back to Whatsapp to continue reading the messages or they might not even come back to whatsapp.

2. Recent Trends

• Students would be interested in recent trends or follow topics happening around the world to keep them updated.

3. Inter-Communication among other Social Media Apps 

• They love Sharing content among other social media Apps like Fb, Insta

4. Selling old Items

• Would be interested in selling old items - Books, stationary, etc 

[ Since No. of Pain Points are decent in number, so skipping the Prioritization part ]
 

Step 6: Brainstorm Solutions (for these prioritized pain-points)

#PainPoint-1: Solutions                  [ Website Links ]

1. Inbuilt Browser

• By Default Inbuilt Browser will be used to open the links received on WhatsApp

• This would skip the extra step of choosing the 3rd party Browser to open the link.

• This would keep the user intact with WhatsApp itself, instead of moving to other platform.

#PainPoint-2: Solutions                  [ Recent Trends ]

1. Content Feed

• Allowing users to follow topics like News, Sports, Movies, etc

• WhatsApp would deliver curated content from official sources 

• This would help in eradicating “Fake News” spread through WhatsApp

#PainPoint-3: Solutions                  [ Inter-Communication among other Social Media Apps  ]

1. Share Option

• Allowing users to share content among other Apps in the Fb ecosystem.

• This would improve the Engagement as a whole in the Fb ecosystem.

#PainPoint-4: Solutions                  [ Selling old Items ]

1. Sales

• A separate Platform dedicated for Sales (similar to Status)

• Users can post their Items for sale 

 

Step 7: Evaluate Solutions 
Prioritize the solutions based on meaningful criterias like:
Impact to end user, Implementation effort

Based on the above criteria we have prioritized the following Solutions: 

• Inbuilt Browser

• Content Feed

Step 8: Define Metrics (List down the metrics that you'll evaluate and track for these features.)

A) Inbuilt Browser

1. [ No. of Links opened in Inbuilt Browser ] / [ day (month) ]

2. Avg Time Spent in Inbuilt browser  - /day  - /user 

3.  No. of Users returning to messages after viewing the websites in the inbuilt browser 

B) Content Feed 

1. Avg Time spent in reading the content  /day (or month)

2. No. of Articles read by users /day (or month)

3. Follow rate of Topics
    

 

Step 9: Summarize your answer

• In order to increase the Engagement, 

• I would recommend WhatsApp to build 2 features: (a) Inbuilt Browser (b)Content Feed

• And, measure the performance of these features using the Performance Metrics as defined above wrt each feature.

My favorite product is STRAVA, Labelled the ‘network for athletes’, Strava has built up an active userbase of cyclists who sweat by the app. The phrase “If it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen”. One of the USP of the product is its platform agnostic and work as close competitor to fitness app with wearable brands. It has more than 100 million users

3 killer features of the products are:

• competition,

• tracking or metrics

• discovery

I have mentioned 2 products 1st is hardware and 2nd is software and the methodology i have used is Ease to use , Reliability , Functionality 

1. Brave
 

Why I like this product

Brave Browser is all about giving the user a faster, safer, and better web experience. Instead of bombarding users with ads and trackers like many websites do, Brave automatically blocks them. This not only speeds up the browsing experience but also respects user privacy.I appreciate how Brave has identified a real user pain point (privacy concerns) and built a solution around it.

 

Ease of Use

1. Familiar Feel: Brave uses the same underlying tech as Google Chrome. So, for anyone switching from Chrome, Brave will feel like home. This reduces the barrier for users to try a new product.

2. Automatic Privacy: With Brave, you don't need to be tech-savvy to have a private browsing experience. It blocks ads and trackers on its own, which means users don't need to set up anything or add extra tools.

 

Reliability

1. Consistent Speed: Because it cuts out all the extra (and often unnecessary) ads and trackers, websites on Brave tend to load faster. Users can count on Brave to deliver a smooth experience without unexpected lags.
 

2. Safe Browsing: Brave is serious about safety. It offers protection against harmful ads, trackers, and even more sneaky ways people try to collect your data.

 

Functionality

1. Earning while Browsing: Brave introduces an interesting twist - users can opt to view certain ads and get rewarded in return with BAT (a type of digital currency). This way, users have a say in their browsing experience.

2. Advanced Privacy with Tor: For those who want an even more private experience, Brave has a built-in Tor option, which is like putting on an invisibility cloak when browsing.

 

2. Sony XM5

Why I like this product

Sony XM5 headphone is all about top-tier sound quality combined with state-of-the-art noise cancellation. These headphones identify and meet a key user demand: immersive audio experience without the interference of external noises.
 

Ease of Use

1. Intuitive Controls: The headphones come with touch controls. Swipe up or down to control volume, swipe forward or backward to change tracks. It's an intuitive way to manage your listening experience without constantly reaching for your device.
2. Comfort: For devices worn on the head, comfort is a usability factor. The XM5s are designed with plush ear cups that can be worn for extended periods without causing discomfort.

Reliability

1. Battery Life: The XM5 promises up to 30 hours of battery life. This means users can rely on them for long travel or multiple days of listening without needing a recharge.
 

2. Stable Connections: With Bluetooth 5.0, the connection is stable, ensuring minimal dropouts or disruptions. The headphones also support multiple device connections, allowing seamless switching between, say, a laptop and a phone.

Functionality

1. Noise Cancellation: Sony's Adaptive Sound Control is a standout feature. It adjusts the noise-canceling levels based on your activity (sitting, walking, etc.), ensuring an optimal listening experience.

2. Speak-to-Chat: An innovative feature where the music automatically pauses when you start speaking. This is an example of smart tech that anticipates user actions, enhancing the overall experience.

3. Quick Attention Mode: By placing a hand over the right ear cup, the volume is instantly reduced, allowing users to quickly tune into their surroundings without removing the headphones and also when I am removing my headphones the content that I am viewing automatically pauses and resumes as soon as I wear it.

 

 

My favorite product is google calendar. I will talk about -
1- The Product
2- Users and their needs
3- Solution provided by google calender 
4- Comparison of the tool with respect to other solutions  
5- Wow Factors, why do I love most about it 
6- Areas for improvement 

1- Product - It lets users manage their work scheduling, meetings, and overall planning of the day. The product is available in web and app versions.

2- Users and their needs

Business users - 
A -They want to schedule a meeting with their colleagues in accordance with their availability.
B - They want to confirm with participants if they would really join the meeting. 
C- They want to view/modify their planned day schedule
D-They need alerts when a particular activity is about to start 
E- They need a path to quickly attend the meeting virtually or a guide to move to the physical location.
F- They need alerts during the call so their agenda is properly covered during the call.
G- They may require a task list, whiteboard, or screen sharing feature during the call.
H -They need action items to post meetings so that actions are taken on them 

Individual users -
A- They want to schedule their day
B - They want to mark certain events so that they don't miss out on them 
C- They want to schedule/ attend calls with friends and families

Solution
Google Calendar address most of the needs mentioned above. They have features to view schedules, plan an event after checking the availability of participants, tools like screen sharing during the call, alerts, confirmation from participants, and many more things.
 
Comparison
1- In comparison with manual scheduling, google calendar is very efficient. It reduces manual efforts and is more accurate, transparent, and easy to use.
2- In comparison with Outlook calendar, it has a simpler UI to address most of the business needs.

For example,
A- there could be sometimes confusing to pinpoint the current day on the outlook calendar while in google calender it is pretty simpler 

B -While scheduling the meeting, outlook users have to add accurate email IDs if there were no past interactions among the users, while Google allows you to add all emails existing in the organization.

C- Outlook calendar has a lot of options that may not be very useful to all the users, while google calender has fewer but important features.

D- In the outlook calendar, you need to insert skype/teams call link which sometimes users may forget as it is not very obvious, while in google calendar it is very obvious and easy.

E- Outlook keeps alerting users for past events until they are dismissed, google alerts only as per the notification setting, once an event is over, alerts are not shown.

Wow Factors of Google calendar 
It can auto-pick events from Gmail, like flight tickets, hotels, etc. 

Improvement Areas 
It could be in one of the following
1-User acquisition
2-User engagement 
3-Revenue stream 
4-AI usage

It would require us to check key product metrics and figure out which area if improved would generate a greater impact on company goals. 

The revenue stream from nonbusiness users is one of the areas which is highly neglected and has good potential for positive user engagement as well. Google can think more on these lines
1- Show services based on existing events in the calendar

For example- a user has is arriving at the airport at the night and has the next flight in the morning, the calendar can suggest (can have a distinct design that indicates that it is just a suggestion) to book a hotel
A user has marked her wife's birthday on the calendar, google can suggest buying flowers or planning something the day before the event 

2- Paid events 
If there is a music concert, there could be ads to join the event

So to summarize, I started with what is google calendar, then I talked about two user sets and their problems, then about how google calendar solves them, then how to google calender is better than its competitors, then what are some wow factors, and then finally areas of improvement in google colander.

 

My all-time favorite product has been “Quora”. I will try to put my points across this product using a simple approach of U- Useful, E- Efficient, I- Innovative.

 

Quora is my favorite platform, and I have been using it quite a while now. It’s an app/web platform, where people put their doubts, thoughts and answer questions related to questions on what they have experienced. It’s a great knowledge sharing platform.

 

Useful – Quora is very useful product if you have any doubt in mind related to any job offer, location reviews, company honest feedback, you will find everything here. You are allowed to post your questions and person who has knowledge about that topic or have experienced the similar environment or situation will share his/her experience on the same. Another interesting thing is you meet people around the world, you ask questions and you get good no of answers to your problems.

 

Efficient – There are lot of people will be positing their answers, so It will just ask you to post your questions that’s it. When people will start answering your questions, notifications will pop-up and here you are with lot of solutions to your problem. Quora has helped so many it’s users to overcome loneliness and depression by letting people sharing their feelings and encouraging each other. People also got dedicated jobs using platform by reading all the answers related to interview process.

 

Innovation – It’s very innovative product in the market since 2010. It’s allow you to share your view point and it let the other person also help you with the solution with his/her possible knowledge. You can also use text, images, videos or link to make your answer more self-explanatory. It has been made by using Python, C++ & other algorithms which makes it very advance. There are 190 million users out there who are using Quora and sharing knowledge with each other.

 

Improvement Area:

Overall Quora is a great product but I would to improve few things in the app.

·        You can’t simply send the message to the directly, you will have to search for user name in the message box and if he/she enable you to message them then only you can message him. I would like to add a feature which at least let the profile know that x,y, z user is wish to connect with via a messaging.

·        You can’t see if the person has seen your message or not, if a feature can be added to know if message has been seen or not would help the user to decide further.

So far I can think of only these improvement area.

What is your favorite product? Why?

My favorite product is the Playfully app and service. I used it for both of my boys.

 

What is the Playfully app?

Playfully is an app for parents for children ages 0-3, designed to help parents spend more meaningful moments nurturing their children.

 

Why is it my favorite?

The app is my favorite product since it is useful, efficient, innovative, and user-friendly.

It addresses two needs that I have: spending meaningful time with my kids and spending less time preparing for it.

 

1. Useful - It addresses my need to do meaningful and creative activities with my kids that match their age and capabilities - I never knew what they could do at every stage. The app suggests a variety of activities we could do based on the capabilities of my kids and the activities that they did in the past. The app knows what we did in the past, tracks their progress, and offers activities that can challenge them a little bit each time.

2. Efficient - It explains what, how, and what it “trains” the kid to do - each activity described with text and images, so it is easy to follow and understand its meaning for the kid’s development.

3. Innovative - It designs my mindset -  the app reminds me to spend meaningful time with my kids - the service sends email notifications weekly and on every round date. It reminds me that parenting doesn’t stop; it is not just a one-time article or a book that you read and can forget.

4. The app is well designed and user-friendly.

 

I did try a few competitors as BabySparks, but no one offered such a wide variety of detailed activities.

 

How to improve it? (if being asked as a follow-up question)

I would recommend adding videos. Sometimes I don’t understand the instructions; a video could assist. It could also help non-native English speakers.

How to measure its success?

Engagement

• Track the number of video plays

• Track the number of activities marked as completed (probably better to test with an A\B test.

• Track average session duration.

Monetization

• Track retention.

• Track how many users joined from non-English speaking countries.

• Duration of subscription.

 

Another aspect could be social. Currently, there is no option to share thoughts and experiences between parents; it could create a community around the product and increase engagement and create a viral effect.

Approach

1. Choose the product and give a brief background and its business objective

2. Talk about user segments and select one to focus on

3. Outline the reasons why it is my favorite product

4. Suggest improvements to the product

Choose the product and give a brief background

Whatsapp: It is free app that one can use to communicate with family, friend, colleagues through text, voice mail, voice call, video call. It's business objective to help bring people together

User segments that it serves: A) Individuals to connect with family and friends B) Businesses to connect with customers

I am going to talk about the product from the prespective of the individual user

Reasons why it is my favorite product:

A) Efficient: It offers the cheapest form of communication method to stay in touch with family and friend in different countries; 

B) Easy to use: It is very intuitive to use that young kids to senior citizens, college graudate or rural farmers use the product without any difficulty.

C) State of the art translation features: I can type a message in english and translate it to other langugae using the in-built feature and send the message; that way i can communicate to someone whose langugae i do not speak

D) Offers multiple methods of communication: I can use image, video, voice mail, voice call, video call, group voice call, group video call to connect with others

E)  Privacy, no ads: Though the app is free, it includes no adds; also the conversation is encrypted end to end and is secure

So Whatsapp is my most favorite messaging app.

That said, I feel that are certain aspects in which the app can do better

A) Pay friends using whatsapp: Users want to send money and receive money from friends and family; payment service would be hugely helpful; users do not have download another app such as venmo 

B) Translator/Read aloud: New feature that would translate the voice mail and read aloud the message from one language to any other language; it will allow people that cannot read/write to still communicate

C) Spell and grammer check: Integrate with 3P services such as grammerly for spell and grammer check; it is especially useful for someone whose is communicating using their second language

D) Notify me: Feature that let the user when their favorite contact is online; thus it helps to reduce the lag in text communication 

E) Customize notifications for contacts: Turn on/off the message notification for certain contacts, just as we turn on/off the message notification for certain groups

 

 

 

This is my first ever attempt at these product questions. Any feedback is welcomed.

Product interview question.

 

Tell me about a product you like and use frequently. Why do you like it? - Uber App

When I evaluate whether or not I like a feature, I think about 3 criterias:

Is it innovative? Is it useful? Is it honest?

I’ll use those criterias to evaluate Uber’s ride feature.

Uber- is a ride hailing services. Passengers request for a cab via the Uber mobile app (iOS or Android). The cab arrives at specified location and takes customers to their destination. 

Pros

1. Innovative: 

- Riders once they confirm the ride can see the driver's profile. The app also provides infomation about the model of the car, the license plate, name of the driver and photo of driver picking them up.

2. Useful: 

- To make services more safer, passengers can share ride location with a friends and family through whatsapp and sms etc, letting them know where they are easily and quickly.

- Automatic payment through the app means riders can enjoy ride without having to reach for  their wallet. Also if you riders travel in a group they can easily split the fare 

- Flexibility riders can call the cab when they are ready and expect the ride to come  directly to them. No need to stand at a station or taxi rank  

3. Honest: 

- Rating system, New riders are able to view drivers ratings before booking. This option reassures new riders about what to expect on their trip. The ratings could also help riders decide whether to confirm a trip with the driver

Cons 

1. Innovative: 

- Accuracy of drivers data for example,sometimes the photo ID of the driver can be outdated and may not always match.

- Also rider can only confirm rides, they cannot select a particular drivert select the driver you want. The app offers the drivers closest to you.     

2. Useful: 

- Those with no card or those who don’t have the Uber app cannot use the service                

- Flexibility can sometimes depend on location and time of day. Passengers can be subject to long waiting time if they are further out as the services of uber drivers may be limited 

3.Honest: 

- While the app provides customer with honest feedback in the form of ratings, I have mixed feelings about the ratings. Riders are unable to verify who’s rating the drivers, ratings could be subject to bias. It's possible the driver's customers could be his Friends and family, ratings could also be down to unconsious or conscious bias (i.e. discriminating views), drivers could be intentionally encouraging passengers to rate him highly before they leave the car as way to helping boost their scores.

To recap, I like the uber app because it meets the 3 criterias for a great product. It's innovative, useful and honest.

 

 

 

My favourite product is inShorts. It is a news aggregator app which provides short news summaries. It covers one story in form of a card. This card has an image (or set of images or a video) at the top with a summary of 60 words or less at the bottom. In case the users are interested to read the entire article, they can access the original article in just one left swipe. The users can set their preference for various sectors/categories of news. It also allows searching old shorts based on keywords and topics. Additionally, it also conducts frequent polls where users can provide their opinion about recent developments..

Today there is a lot of content available online, and people do not have time to read newspapers or long articles. This app caters to the user group who want to keep abreast with the latest news/happenings quickly without reading long articles. This app is also very popular amongst youngsters and students who are preparing for entrance exams. It is clearly not for people who like to read opinions and editorials.

My criteria for evaluation of a product are Use frieldliness, :

User friendly: The design is very simple yet very engaging. Users have to just keep swiping for new content or swipe for detailed news article. There is a visual on top of each card which quickly provides the context of the news. The text section at bottom is kept short (60 words max) which needs less than 30 seconds to read through. Thus, the investment of time per card is short enough for users to read through even if the story in itself might not be the most interesting one. The overall design keeps users swiping for more content.

Useful: The app aggregates news from most popular sources thus acting as one stop shop for my requirement of reading news. Further, it also allows me to set my preferences on categories which means I do not have to sift through articles/websites to access content which interests me. Thus it serves the purpose right.

Efficient: Saves lot of my time by bringing the relevant content to me and also by summarizing the news in shorts . Further, it also has AI engine which understands what I like to read and delivers more of similar news without me explicitly setting the preferences.

There are few competitors. Biggest news aggregator in India is DailyHunt as it supports 14 languages. Further, there are apps like googleNews, YahooNews, AppleNews, etc. However, they are traditional news aggregators which do not provide a similar user experience. Further, they usually just have headlines (with or without an image) and not summary of the article. For Inshorts you just have to swipe and tap. There is hardly requirement to go back or scroll through long pages. This kind of user experience is missing in other apps.

 

 

Improvement areas for the product:

1. Sometimes certain words are new to users. There is no way to search meaning of words in the app.

2. Users are interested in local news too. Inshorts currently does not provide local news. 

3. For visually impaired and old people, the text size cannot be increased. 

4. Personalization of news feeds is not always correct. Sometimes users do see news which is not relevant for them.

Solutions for Improvement areas:

1. Can integrate with google api to search and translate the meaning of certain words.

2. There are many English newspapers for local news. Integrate with them. Plus, tracking of user location might not be necessary. Users can be asked to set a geographic preference or AI can be leveraged to see if a user is interested in news of specific city/country.

3. Allow zoom or text size setup.

4. Can give users an option to mark if the news is not relevant to improve the AI engine. Recently there are lot of complaints on the app feedback where users are seeing Bollywood celeb news.

 

Requesting seasoned PMs to provide feedback @Mo14 @bijan. TIA

I like the Application "Dr Lal PathLabs" available in India for Android and IOS.

This application is made to cater to patients looking for easy access to blood tests and other inspections.Dr Lal PathLabs provides access to booking a test at your home and lists all the prices and combos available in your region. Apart from this, the application also provides a repository of all your past test records, which you can use to compare and detect trends in any health changes.

 The application also stores the invoices of all your records, removing one more non-value-add step from the user journey. After testing, the report is also directly uploaded to your dashboard. Therefore, the patient does not have to go to the centre for collecting reports. 

Dr LalPathLab also provides care packages for diabetes, pregnancy and cancer with extensive info about the diseases and what tests are recommended by doctors for them. Over and above, it also assists with diet plans and exercise plans in the packages.

Improvement Areas:

1. Application UI - The user interface has too many thumbnails for different features, which reduces the ease of use for a non-tech savvy person.

2. Test Combos - Patients who want to add multiple tests are charged separately for each test. However, some combinations of tests are already part of a combo (lower-priced), but the patient is not recommended those combos while adding tests.

3. Past orders and Reports not synced - Past orders tab can be used only to download receipts or reorder the same test. The reports related to the order or the details of the tests in that order are not present. For reports or details, the user has to go to a different tab altogether for reports.

4. Notifications - Once the report has been finalized, in most cases users do not get any updates on the application unless they log in and check. A notification for a newly uploaded report will help improve the customer experience and also saves the user time.

 

Would love any feedbacks :)

 

Elevate is my favorite product. It is a mobile application available on Android and iOS platforms.

The business model for Elevate is to cater to the universal desire of people to improve their cognitive skills like effective reading & listening, processing speed, accurate speaking, memory and maths, etc.

Personally I love it a lot as I enjoy taking the workouts which are small brain training exercises on the App that help me improve in cognitive skills in a very fun filled yet intellectual manner. The app resolves several pain points for me, e.g. I don’t need to spend long hours polishing my skills, I don't have to look for learning material, moreover I can learn amazing stuff in small intervals, on a daily basis without getting bored for a single second.
This makes me prefer spending time onElevate  as compared to a competitor app like Lumosity.

The Wow factors that make me fall in love with Elevate are:

- Workouts. These small exercises are a fun way of learning and have been designed very accurately and differently for each skill. They’re very short and non repetitive, hence less time consuming and non boring for the users. Filling each exercise/puzzle gives an instant sense of progress to me as a user in a short time span and that makes me spend more time on the App.

- Notifications to review recent errors. As a user, I receive notifications within the App to remind me to review some of my recent mistakes that I made during the workouts, to help me improve. For example, if I made spelling mistake by writing Altitude as “Alltitude” while doing the exercise, I can review this mistake later through visiting the notifications section on the App  where I don’t just see the word with the correct spelling but also see it’s meaning, where it was derived from and exactly what mistake I made while performing the exercise (added an extra L). I find this feature extremely helpful to be mindful about my mistakes.

3- Achievements is another amazing section in the App that helps me stay motivated to take more workout sessions as it gives me a sense of accomplishment. There are different kinds of achievements that I can make while playing the App, i.e. “Persistent Player”, “Accurate Player” , etc. Each achievement has a different criteria to pass, for example, in order to become a Persistent Player, I’ll have to train for 1 hour everyday. I think all of this makes the App interesting to another level and I really find this feature very innovative.

4- Game Statistics. Elevate shows me my game statistics in a very easy to understand manner. With the help of a simple toggle button, I can see the stats like my highest score, difficulty level that I reached in the game and my ranking amongst other users. What’s interesting about this feature is that I see my stats against different attributes associated with a skill. For example, “Memory” is a skill and it has attributes like “Focus”, “Retention” and “Sequencing”. So, as a user, I see my progress in the form of highest score, difficulty level, and ranking against each attribute under the skill “Memory”. This makes it a great feature as I can make sense of my progress in a particular skill.


What I’d like to remove from Elevate?


Elevate has a feature called Daily Streak which I’d like to remove from the App. There are a couple reasons why I don’t like this feature.

Almost every feature in Elevate, other than the daily streak, has the guide/about section to introduce users to that feature and to let them know its importance in the game. I am aware that Snapchat has a streak feature and how it works, but how will a user who doesn’t use Snapchat will know what a streak is?
My concern with this feature is that it is there in the App without any description or guidance, hence a user who is not familiar with streaks in the gaming Apps, would find it difficult to understand the feature.

Secondly, even if  a user does understand what a streak is, I still feel this feature doesn’t serve a purpose in the user’s journey or experience on the App. For example, unlike in snapchat, if a user tries to maintain its streak with another user by continuously sending pictures everyday, he/she would see the outcome in the form of a stronger streak which appears in numbers next to the streak icon. Seeing the streak strength develops a sense of bonding between the two users.

However, in the case of Elevate, what is the end outcome for a user if he/she maintains the daily streak? Despite having an Achievement tied to this activity called “Streak Specialist”, I feel winning that achievement would hardly make a difference in user’s experience with the App. It doesn’t create a sense of bonding with the App or between the two users, as there’s no reward for maintaining a streak.

In the bigger picture, this feature hardly serves a purpose in increasing user engagement with the App or likeability towards the App, two factors that could raise the potential revenue.
Hence, I feel this feature is pretty useless for Elevate’s audiences and I’d like to remove it.

One of my favorite software products is Quora.

About the Product:

Let me tell you a bit about quora. It is a QnA site in which you can ask questions and someone from the community can answer your questions. It is community driven, so anyone can ask or answer a question. Users can ask personal to general questions and there is an option of A2A in which users can ask a specific person who is supposedly qualified to answer on the topic.

User Personas:

Quora’s user base ranges across all ages, professions and groups. It has a very wide network of people which brings a lot of knowledge onto the platform. 

Pain points & how it addresses:

1. When people are faced with questions in various situations, they approach their friends or search for it online. Quora with it’s wide network of individuals addresses this pain point by being that friend who has answers to all the questions.

2. Another pain point quora addresses is people’s need for knowledge. Having wide adoption, there are thousands of questions asked and answered in Quora everyday. This makes quora engaging for the users.

Why do I use:

I use quora to find genuine answers. We can get real insights from people e.g. Let’s say if I am planning for a 3 day trip to Kanyakumari, either I can search it in quora and someone would have already asked this question or I myself can post a question like “What is a good 3 day itinerary from Bangalore to Kanyakumari”. I can get answers from users who have really travelled from Bangalore to Kanyakumari and I can do my planning accordingly.

 

The other point which I like the most about quora is the quality of the questions and answers. Multiple things contribute to this. First is the intelligent moderation by the Quora bots and the staff. Secondly, quora has managed to pull really qualified people on it’s platform. The replies from these qualified people makes the answers more credible and filled with knowledge. I mean, who better than Reed Hastings can tell how much Netflix spends on Postages.

 

Competitors overview:

 

There were many other Q&A websites at the time Quora was started e.g. Yahoo answers, Answers.com, Blurtit etc. Yahoo answers was one of the best QnA website before quora. But with the quality of the content, qualified people and its ability to convert itself as a knowledge platform, quora has been able to set itself apart.

 

• What is your favorite? What does it do?

Blinkist is a learning platform that gathers key insights from nonfiction books to read and listen to in an easy-to-digest, 15 minute summary format. Each key insight is called a ‘blink’. It has mobile and desktop experiences. 

 

• Who is the user and what do they want to do with the product?

It is designed for those: 

 

• Who are struggling to find time to finish non-fiction books; Each book is summarized into key blinks and can be listened to in 15 mins; People can learn about a book while they are driving, taking a break, cooking, or doing laundry.

• It is also designed for those who are Feeling overwhelmed by all the books they have collected but never have time to finish. People can find their bookshelf collections, highly recommended bestsellers, and new interesting books on blinkist and learn through them effectively.

• Lastly, it is also designed for those who can’t decide which book to read next and continue learning. Blinkist also provides recommendations based on the books you are interested in. After you are done with one book, there are more options at your fingertips and continue to learn.

 

• If you are the user, why do you use it?

And those are my reasons why I love this product. I have a collection of books and barely finds time to finish them all. Blinkist has tailored the key insights with the right amount of details to help me learn and go through my book lists using pocket times. When I am done reading the books, they would recommend more similar options or other categories I am interested in. Then it helps me to continue reading and learning.

Customer: needs & values

• What problems is it solving for the user?

In summary,

• It takes only 15 mins to read/listen to a book and it can be easily fit into your life. It saves people time. 

• Blinkist has a wide range of categories and bestseller books, and helps people get through their book collections more efficiently. It provides diversity and can meet different interests.

• Blinkist curates good quality content and provides relatable and continuous recommendations. It provides relavent quality content. 

Company: Business Model

• Is there something about the business model that is essential for the user?

Blinkist functions on the customer subscription model. It starts off with a 7-days free trial with an annual subscription, no free trial on a monthly subscription plan. In order for people to get on subscription plans, it has to provide a sense of belongings for users to commit especially with a yearly subscription after a 7 days trial. 

 

Competitor: How do competitors or alternatives compare?

The user interface is a draw to users that they have redesigned every book cover to be in sync with the minimalism design style of Blinkist. It created the feeling that those content belongs to blinkist and shifts users attention on the quality content, rather than getting distracted by the original cover design of books, compared to its competitor StoryShots.

 

 StoryShots presents book summary contents in all formats as in audio, read and video. But the video quality is low and limited. Books are presented with their original covers rather categorized. It doesn’t present focus to users which can easily distract users.

 

Currently, Blinkist is promoting a new feature called shortcast as a curated podcast summary on top of the interface. Each shortcast provides key insights of a 40-60min podcast and shortens the summary less than 10 mins. It is a similar idea as blink but a shortcast is a summary for a  podcast episode. Compared to its competitor Instaread who provides similar services with a compelling customized user interface design, the audio quality is not as good as Blinkist and they are not seeking innovations and continue to keep their users engaged. 

 

Ways to improve? 

• Which metrics can be improved (e.g. customer base, retention, conversion, and engagement)?

As Blinkist explores more ways to curate content, their mission is leaning more towards helping people to build continuous reading habits. It’s clear that they are focused on ways how to 

engage their users.

• Describe use case scenarios.

As a subscribed user, It’s exciting to try new features as they are rolling out shortcasts trying new ways to learn. Since there are more and more podcast content, it will be nice to be provided with a curated podcast and learn. As I listened to the shortcast on how to improve your productivity at work, I was really inspired to share this shortcast with my team and have a discussion around it. But there is not an easy way to share.

• What would you change or add to the product to support these use cases and improve the metric?

Blinkist can add “share with your friends' ' feature to allow people to easily share with their friends and teams. As the shortcast is shared out it can not only expand to more users. Meanwhile, blinkist can calculate how many times certain shortcasts are shared, and leverage the popularity to continue promoting on the platform to drive more engagement of that shortcasts.

 

 

As the business, with the increasing need of curating content, blinkist can open the platform to more writers who are willing to contribute and get paid with their reward, which will help the platform to ensure the quality of content and encourage more writers to contribute, growing the business into the ecosystem.

My favorite product is Apple Health app, Health app provides tons of features to monitor one’s physical, mental and overall health.

 

Generally, I evaluate product based on three criteria.

1.     Usefulness – The product should solve core problems or pain points for the user

2.     Efficient – The product should solve the problem quicker and without issues or obstructions

3.     Innovative – The product should be innovative and interesting

 

Apple Health App easily meets all these criteria

Usefulness

 

Physical activities: It easily syncs with my Mi band and shows me history of my physical activities (Steps taken, stairs climbed, running distance, calories burnt) and heart health.

Sleep Quality: It also monitors my sleep schedule and sleep quality and provides features for maintaining regular undisturbed sleep schedule.

Mindfulness: Innovative integration with third party apps which helps you take a break and relax in today’s fast paced world.

Vitals monitoring: For elderlies and co morbid patients, it provides way to monitor and log their vitals like blood glucose, oxygen and blood pressure.

 

Efficient

Apple Health app keeps syncing with your devices from time to time and keeps track of your data. I have never seen sync failures with this app till now. If you are using apple watch, the amount of data managed via this app is even higher and continuous without error.

Another advantage of Health app is, there are no ads so you don’t get distracted and you can get all information in one app so you don’t switch between apps.

 

Innovative

There are two innovative features in the app that I like the most.

1.     Mindfulness : Mindfulness allows you to monitor how many mindum minutes you are spending each day for your me time and also helps you to connect to apps which help you with meditation during your mediation session.

2.     Hearing health: Apple monitors the sound levels that you are listening to when using your phone or Macbook or airpods pro and warns you if you are listening to music at higher decibel levels for a longer time and helps you maintain overall hearing health.

 

In summary, I love Apple Health app because it is useful in providing me data about my overall well being at one place, it is efficient and doesn’t distract me from my goal of rbeing healthy and it provides innovative features to make the experience seamless.

 

If you had to improve one thing in the product, what would that be?

 

I started using the feature sleep schedule, how that works is, Once you enter your regular sleep schedule in the app, Health app starts winding up your day 45 minutes prior to the scheduled time and suggests you to be mindful and prepare yourself mentally towards a sound sleep. It also disables calls and other notifications during your regular sleep schedule.

 

This has a problem. I don’t want to block midnight calls from family and close friends as they might just call me for emergencies. There is no way to do that. It would be awesome if the app lets me define a whitelist or letting calls through after certain number of calls from the same number.

This is a deciding factor for me to start using this particular feature again.

My current fav product is Cult fit.

Firstly I will like to explain the product at a high level and its business objective. Second I'll outline the target user and their problems, and thirdly, how the cult fit app has solved the issues better than its competitor and why it is my favourite app.

Before I explain my framework, I would like to clarify how cult fit works.

Product intro:

The Cult fit is a fitness and well-being startup, and the app is one of India's most comprehensive fitness apps. It has four verticals.

1. Cult. fit
2. Eat. fit
3. Care. fit
4. Mind. fit

It is the chain of fitness centre across India. Due to covid, they have a scaled-down offline business and quickly innovated the online industry. 

Business objective

Cult fit the main goal is the availability of the cult fit studios, a unique workout designed, and their centre social experience. These value propositions have increased customers retention and acquisition. There is a total of 130+ centre across India in the span of 5yrs. During the covid situation, they scaled down the offline business and immediately came up with online live streaming. With the help of ml and AI, they created the energy meter, which tracks the movement virtually.

Target

Specific target audience with the age group of 20 – 40, Urban population and higher income group. 

The problem they are trying to solve.

1. Lack of time
2. Everything at one point
3. Professional trainers
4. Integrated approach

So as being one of the end-users of the cult fit, let me explain more about the product from that perspective. 

Cult fits solve the common problem for users like me.

1. Get confused when going to the gym, like where to start.
2. Personal trainers are expensive.
3. Get bored with one type of exercise. 

Solutions

Cult fit solves the common problems of the users better than its competitors. 

1. There have opened many centres in urban areas which provide ease availability of the studios, and now they have online live streaming.
2. Expert trainers and all classes are trainer-led both online and offline
3. Wide range of activities. 
4. Clean centres. 
5. Well equipped

The user has an endless stream of content, making the user more likely to use and engage in the app. Activities like, once you finished the online exercise, you can share your report with your friends, book a dietician, consult a doctor, there is a workout designed for beginners. 

These factors make its value proposition better than its competitors like myfirstfitnesspal, noom and many more.

 

There are few tradeoffs I would like to do

1. Smartwatch sync
2. Streaming on lower bandwidth
3. Scalability

 

 

When I think about good to great products, a few characteristics come to mind. The product should largely be intuitive to use, should solve a problem, should be time and effort efficient in solving the problem compared to alternatives, and it should be innovative in its design and approach. Apple Watch meets all these criteria. Here is how:

1) Addressing a problem: Fitness and health are major concerns for most adults, and increasingly, younger populations, especially in developed countries like the US where obesity rates are around 50% or more in some urban areas.  Apple watch helps you keep track of your daily fitness levels and incentivizes you to do better through goals for each month and week. Other products like Fitbit do this as well and were pioneers in the space, however, Apple, bringing its broad ecosystem to bear has been a major disrupter because it also helps solve two other problems: communication on the go (through features like walkie-talkie, taking calls on the watch, and messaging).  

2) Time efficient: most gestures on the watch take a few seconds, at a glance design patterns ensure most apps are information dense - necessary for small screens. Use of complications to help with user customization is a major plus

3) Innovation: Over time, Apple has innovated in this space by bringing better quality glass (scratch resistant), water-resistant body, cellular features (for a price), and different styles because customers like to customize.

Features I would like on the watch are kid friendliness. Today it works well for adults but does not meet the needs of kids who can be monitored remotely.

My favourite product is Maya- it is an easy and fun to use period tracker (menstrual cycle calendar).  It is a one-stop solution to track my periods, related symptoms, mood swings and my overall health.

Many a times, I tend to forget my dates and I wanted to get rid of remembering the dates. This was the prime reason why I downloaded this app. Maya resolved my issue- I can view my periods length and cycle variations through a simple bar-graph. Also, I can check my menstrual phases in intuitive colour codes.

The 2 key features that delights me are:

1st: Prediction & Reminder-  this app not only tracks my cycle but also accurately predict my upcoming cycles and set up calendar reminders before my next period.

2nd: Recurring Symptoms Prediction- I can log my symptoms, cramps, emotions, skin, moods, flow, and more and find patterns in my cycle. Through statistics and history, now I get prepared beforehand- proper diet, exercise, Netflix Subscription helps!

In the recent update, Maya solved 1 more pain point of mine by providing option to set custom cycle reminders, where I can set a reminder for intake of certain diet on day 20-25 of my cycle.

I feel this app is really useful for any women who belongs to menstruating age group. As menstrual cycle can also say a lot about fertility, Maya can help Future mothers, able to predict their ovulation and peak fertility days as well.

The two major competitors are Clue and Period Calendar.

Clue recently added a premium section, though the layout is still the same but it is now full of annoying popping ads. I feel that the simplicity has been lost now.

Sometimes, I face the issue of irregular periods and Period Calendar doesn’t provide me the flexibility to add the same in the free version.

This is the reason why I stick to Maya app.

Although I love the app, I feel there are still some scope of improvements like integrating In-app menstrual health encyclopaedia and educational contents with my period behavioural analysis to provide more personalized contents throughout the month. This feature keeps users like me engaged all the time. Also, they can introduce different themes for teens, expecting mothers and other users to enhance their experience.

My favorite product that I use on a daily basis is a personal money management app called as “MoneyView”. It helps me set a monthly budget and classifies my expenses into various categories and allows me to keep a track of my spends. It allows me to manage my finances efficiently. When I think as to why is MoneyView my favorite product, it boils down to the following points:

MoneyView is successful in solving a long standing problem faced by me i.e. managing and budgeting my expenses and thus improving my personal finance habits. The reason it is so useful is because it tracks all my digital payments by it self through my SMS. Since I mostly use digital payments, I do not have to do much to track my spends and I can simply analyze my spend at the end of the month. The best part is that it categorizes my spend into different categories like Grocery, Fuel, Dining, Entertainment, etc (there are ample categories) and thereby enables me to identify where am I spending more and where do I need to cut down my expenses

As a PM, I always strive to keep my products scale-able and high on performance. This is what increases my products retention. MoneyView constantly scales in terms of categorizes and features it has to offer to make the budgeting as accurate as possible. I have encountered minimal bugs on the platform and the support team is super responsive,in case you need a query answered. The interface of the product is very easy to use which definitely adds on to the performance aspect

MoneyView has often been voted as one of the most useful personal apps. The innovation that it brings on the table to capture and categorize your spends is amazing. In terms of security, it only reads your business SMS (Yes, SMSes are classified as business and personal by the provider) and ensures there is no breach of your personal space. It has also been innovative in terms of monetizing, by offer invest plans on the platform. Hence, it encourages me to save money and then invest the saved money

 

I generally use the BUS framework to answer this question

My favorite product is CRED

B- Business Objective/Describe the product

CRED is an app that allows users to make credit card payments of multiple card vendors through a single platform in a timely manner. The app helps users store multiple credit card details and get timely reminders on payments, extra charges, offers etc and the USP of the product is that the user gets rewarded with something called as CRED coins for every credit card payment. So a payment of x, results in the user rewarded with x cred coins which can then be used to get cashbacks, purchase products at a discounted price etc on the CRED platform. Additionally CRED has also entered into other financial domains like lending, rent payment, mutual funds etc

If I think of the core business objective of CRED, it remains about "rewarding" Credit worthy/responsible users. In the words of the founder-Kunal Shah, "In India, no one is rewarded for good credit behaviour, and CRED is trying to change that"

U- User Problems

Start with broadly defining some user personas relevant to CRED

U1: Users with 5+ credit cards, use CC for almost every transaction, are very digital in their spending, know about offers etc on CCs. They need a product which can help them keep abreast of diff CC offers, manage their cards, payment reminders, extra charges etc

U2: Have 1 credit card at max and use it occasionally when they get some offers. They just expect a safe usage of the card where they are not faced with unwanted charges or credit card frauds

U3: Have no credit cards, but are eligible based on their credit score. They are hounded by banks trying to sell them credit cards. They need a reliable way of knowing which credit card to get and if it adds any value for them

There are other stakeholders in this business namely Credit card vendors (VISA/Master etc), Banks, PGs & vendors who list their products on the CRED store. However for the sake of this conversation, I will restrict the conversation to End Users

I will consider U1 as the segment to focus on, since it is clearly CRED's most valuable and engaged user base as far as relevancy with their product is concerned. What helps is I myself belong to this group and therefore can connect better

Some major user problems associated with U1 are

- Managing payment dates for multiple cards

- Understanding your credit card statement

- Making payments separately on each card/bank website whilst entering the CC details everytime for each card

- Missing on extra charges like annual fees/late payment fees/interest payment etc

- Credit card frauds

- Not knowing what benefits my card entitles me to, this could be miles or lounge visits or discounts on specific brands

- Despite being a very heavy user of CCs and contributing to larger revenues for CC companies, I am treated at par with a user who probably has just one CC and makes the occasional late payment

S- Solutions/summary

Here the focus needs to be on how CRED solves the problems I listed above and why it does a better job than competition

Some credible competition to CRED (in the credit card managing business) are

- Paytm

- PhonePe

- Amazon Pay

If we consider other businesses of CRED like Rent payment/Lending business etc, then competition increases to include

- Rent Giraffe

- No Broker Pay

- Banks

 

User Problems	CRED Solutions	Competition
Managing payment dates	Constant notifications on app, whatsapp notifications, reminders start from D-15 and go upto D0	Mostly restricted to in app notifications
Understanding your CC	One platform to view all your cards, access their data, look through the statements, understand them better with simple categorisation of spends, thus avoaiding the complex jargons or structures of most CC statements	A simpler statement structure than the ones banks provide, but not as good as CRED
Make Payments	One click payment options with multiple paymodes-UPI, DB, NB etc	Competition does equally well
Extra Charges	CRED immediately flags any unwanted charges for each CC, as soon as the statement is generated	NA
CC frauds	NA	NA
Card benefits	Does a decent job of letting users know what possible benefits a particular card entitles the user to. However there is no easy way to use these benefits or redeem the card points directly from CRED	NA
Rewarding customers	CRED coins can be used to buy different products from the CRED Store/commerce platform. Coins can also be redemmed for instant cashbacks. The other businesses of CRED like rent payment, lending (lower than market rates) etc can also be looked as an extension of this philosophy of "rewarding" customers with lower rates or better benefits which other users are not entitled to	Some occasional cashbacks

Given how flawlessly CRED solves core user problems and does a far better job and existing competition, this makes it my favorite product

 

An extension of this question is generally "How would you improve it". In the above table, the two user problems- CC Frauds & Card Benefits come out as potential problems but CRED either has a half baked solution to it or none at all. These can thus be used as potential leads to expand on how you can inprove CRED. 

A simple answer would be to provide a means to convert Card points (bank given) to equivalent CRED coins or to provide a way to use those points directly on the CRED platform

 

-          Uber is my favourite app as it revolutionized the way users commute

-          It is very efficient in connecting the commuters to drivers and also tells the price upfront for users to be able to make an easy decision. It also takes care of the safety aspects by giving provision to share the ride.

-          Having the provision to allow multiple stops while riding gives an ease to users to travel with friends

Primarily there are two personas:

-          Commuters

-          Drivers

Business goal – increase user engagement measured as number of rides booked by the user and revenue

Ways to improve the application:-

-          User engagement increase:-

o   Ability to mark a driver as favorites will increase safety and reliability for both commuters and drivers as user has already connected with the driver. Driver will also be able to reach faster as they know the address and the routes.

o   Allow users to book recurring rides against a route at a particular time against the same cab or different cab. This will not only reduce wait time for a user but also increase the number of rides by user.

-          Revenue:

o   Add premium charges for wait time in the middle of the rides. This will not only be convenient to user but also give more rides to drivers.

o   Deliver groceries – drivers can also be used to deliver groceries as groceries can be delivered any time during the day in the intermediate times when the vehicle is idle. This will give additional source of income to drivers as well.

 

Success Metrics

Feature	Effort	Value
Mark favourites	Medium	High
Recurring rides	Low	Medium
Premium Charges	Medium	High
Deliver Groceries	High	Medium

 

 

Based on above analysis, I will prioritize in following order:-

1.       Mark Favourites

2.       Premium Charges

3.       Recurring rides

4.       Delivering groceries

 

Out of the 26 answers to date, I see only a couple who have chosen a physical product. Hence, I intentionally chose a physical product that I love. If it was a digital app it would have been What's app where there is an answer below. Please let me know your thoughts.

Me: Sure. Is there a preference between a digital product such as apps vs a physical product? Interviewer: Your choice   

Me: Before I dive in, could I take a couple of minutes in defining a structure for this? Interviewer: Yes.   Me: This would be my approach to share my favorite product 

1. Introduce the product, and provide an overview of its functionalities and the users/personas 

2. Share 3 things that WoW in the product and what problem it solved for me 

3. Talk about the user journey/business model that is unique to this product (Not applicable to this answer) 

4. I shall also share what are the alternatives/competition and why those are not preferred 

5. Improvements that I want on the product 

6. How to measure / metrics the improvements     

My favorite product is Instant Pot. Instant Pot is an electric pressure cooker. It also acts as a pan supporting different styles of cooking with pre-set modes. When it was launched the target segment was households that are working, but want to carry healthy lunch to work. Currently, it is used across almost all kitchens spanning users across the age from 20 to 80s for regular day-day use.   

Three things that WoW in the product 

1. Reduced Cook time compared to traditional alternatives 

2. An ecosystem/community that is vibrant sharing recipes, tips, etc. 

3. Lesser energy consumption     

In particular, things that made me fall in love are 

1. Ability to set a timer for when the cooking needs to start.- Before I got Instant pot I used to either cook my lunch for work either the previous day and keep it in the refrigerator or get up early in the morning and cook. Both of them were not great, since it was not fresh and took away my precious sleep time :-) 

2. Single pan / Cooker to support different styles of cooking- It is a single thing in the kitchen with which I could cook pasta, soup, and even Indian sweets. So less clutter. 

3. Just to add to it, coming from the southern part of India, Yogurt or curd is my staple diet. I like to make my own Yogurt at home. Before Instant Pot, a perfect Yogurt was often a hit or miss based on ambient temperature, etc. The built-in Yogurt mode in Instant Pot guarantees success.   You can see why I love Instant Pot or is a perfect Salesperson for it. Any questions you have? 

Interviewer: Good, could you talk about the competition   

Me: This is a perfect segway to talk about alternatives and competition. 

The alternatives to Instant Pot can be grouped into three buckets

• Traditional pressure cooker: This requires attention, your presence, and more time to cook
• Old style electric Rice cookers: They are good just for rice, but fail to cook grains and does not provide options for multiple styles of cooking
• New age Instant Pot competitors: Recently for the past couple of years, they are new competitors that have similar technology to InstantPot. Most often those choices are very expensive- almost double when compared to InstantPot and have very little differentiation. Also, it does not have a community like Instant Pot where I could go learn recipes and tips from real people

Hence Instant Pot for me continues to be the #1 thing in my kitchen. Hope that addresses your question 

Interviewer: Yes   

Me: With that said, I also have few improvements that would make InstantPot even better.

1. Currently, it is bulky. It is difficult and heavy if you have to move it from the shelf to the counter to cook. For instance, my mom at times needs help in moving it up to the counter. So it would be good if it is lightweight.
2. Related to bulky- Due to my dietary restrictions, I often have to cook at places where I travel. I have tried carrying Instant Pot, and it is no easy and is exposed to breakage. It would be ideal if it can be disassembled into smaller parts and easy to carry. Another potential business model that can be explored is to sell InstantPot to long-stay apartments, hotels and this could be marketed as a differentiator by the hotel chains.
3. Cleaning- Although the lid and insert are detachable and can be cleaned, it is often difficult to clean the corners where you could drop food. Making areas easily accessible will help for a clean and safe cooking
4. Finally aesthetics- The silver black is kind of becoming old, they could provide alternatives to it. For example, they could be bold and provide the iMac kind of look and feel allowing us to see the internals of how the food is getting cooked.   
5. Others include voice enablement (or linking to Alexa, google home), app-based controls (i believe it is available now)   

I will also quickly touch on a couple of metrics on measuring these improvements. I believe I may be a small user segment for a few of those suggestions, but nevertheless

• Launch in a particular location, a new set of designs like floral, see-through, etc. and measure success on the number of sales against the traditional model
• Work with few boutique hotels to see how often guest uses instant pot before expanding it to larger hotel chains     

Is there anything more that you would want me to address?

There are various applications I use.  One of my favourite application is Linked-in.

What is Linked-in? - It is a platform for professionals to connect with each other and help them accelerate their career.

Why is it my favourite app? -

-Innovative: It revolutioned the professional industry by giving a single way for professionals to share about their career and achievements as well as connect to grow their networks. And network is immenselt helpful in achieving their vision.

- Efficient: It gave Recuriters a mechanism to post the open positions and search for the interested talents across via 'Open for recruiters' flag and also help professionals apply to a job easily via linked in

- Useful: It gives a way for professionals to learn via various groups like 'Product School' and follow different companies or industry leaders.

What linked-in could improve:

- It's becoming more of social networking than professional networking. Improving notifications or controlling the posts which are non-professional to be removed from the board if flagged.

- connect that job seekers to professional coaching via premium membership to increase revenue as well as improve user engagement.

I would love to discuss my favorite product. If you are comfortable with it, I would like to discuss a product that combines both software and hardware. Before we jump in, here is a high-level structure of my answer

1. I will give you an overview of the product, talk about how it is used and some key features of the product
2. Provide the criteria that I use in evaluating products
3. Explain how this product fits these criteria
4. Bring it together, and maybe we discuss some of the opportunities ahead for this product.

Overview of the product:

My favorite product is Amazon Echo plus; it belongs to the smart home or smart speaker category and one of the early entrants to this category. A quick description of Echo Plus is a cylindrical speaker capable of handling complex voice commands. It can run voice commands and play music and has an inbuilt Zigbee hub that controls other smart devices in the household. A quick note on Zigbee it is a communication protocol that works on short-range and low-frequency communication. That was a short description of the product's hardware side and the software side, which is a combination of Alexa app and Alexa assistance AI. The app allows you to control settings for the Echo Plus, set up profiles, and set routines for controlling other smart devices in the household.

 

Criteria:

When I evaluate any product, I look at three things

1. How useful is the product?
2. Is the product innovative? What I am looking for is how the product sets itself apart from the competition
3. Ease of use of the product

With the criteria defined, let's jump into looking at how this product fits each of the criteria.

To me, the usefulness of the product becomes clear when not just the line between technology and UX/CX blurs but rather disappears. For example, whenever we try to look for some information, we say "just google it," not go use a search engine (technology) to find the information. In this case, Google as a product or technology has made the line between technology and experience disappear. Amazon's Echo Plus has done something similar, and it has embedded itself in our life - a simple task for pre-covid of getting groceries has become complicated. We wanted to reduce our visits to the store and limit our exposure to the virus. Using Echo plus voice commands, we have started creating a grocery list on the device, and every time we remember something, we add it to the list without picking up a phone or pen/paper. With us being prime members, now we don't even have to go to the store. Once our list is complete, we just order it via the echo plus. With both my partner and me working, Echo plus has also become our nanny - we use Echo plus to tell our kids stories and even give them quizzes, making it integral part of our life, and to an extent similar to Google, it has made the line between technology and experience disappear.

 

Moving on to innovation, great products either win by differentiating themselves via features or are cost leaders in their space. I think we can say both for Echo plus, it is not only one of the cheapest smart speaker out there, but it differentiates itself from its competitors on multiple features and capabilities. The most significant advantage that Echo plus has its ease of access to Amazon's massive echo system, some of these I discussed in the product section's usefulness. Having tons of integration with third-party applications also helps in differentiating itself from other smart speakers. Where Echo plus truly shines is by having Zigbee or having a smart-hub that allows me as customer to automate things in my house. If I have smart-bulbs, smart-locks, and cameras, I can control them using Echo Plus and using the app. I can set routines that help save electricity and make it look like somebody is at home while we are on vacation. An added benefit to the customer is that the device help saves time; Automating different routines saves the customer from manually doing those things or worrying about them.

 

Moving onto our last but not least criteria, easy of use. An often overlooked aspect of a product is how easy it is to use. Software products such as apps or even hardware products like a smart speaker can quickly lose their value proposition in the customer's eyes if they fail on the first impression, i.e., the on-boarding phase. Echo plus does a great job on ease of use; nothing can beat voice commands. Right of the bat, Echo plus gives the user a simple and self-guided experience - once you take it out of the box, all you have to do is plug it in, and it will guide you through the setup. I can claim that it has successfully passed a six years old test. I have two of these devices, and for the second one, I gave it to my six-year-old to set up, who has just started reading and did set up the device without any hiccups. To me, on-boarding the most critical step and any product that fails the customer at this step will never be able to deliver the value prop that the customer expects from the product.

Opportunities:

There are some areas of improvement or opportunities for this product. Especially around privacy and security

1. Zigbee is not a secure protocol, and there have been incidents where someone hacked into the device and got control of other smart devices in the household. Maybe move to a more secure protocol.
2. Echo plus does provide convenience, but it should not feel like invading the user's privacy, and maybe having the capability to purge all our voice commands or recordings would help. Having a unique command to stop listening for a short period would also help if the family or customer is having a sensitive conversation with someone.
3. This one is a bit personal, and I learned it the hard way. The device should not allow kids to order or subscribe to various services offered on the device. I finally figured out how to solve this, but it is a "smart" device and should recognize the voice of a minor and prevent them from ordering or at least require confirmation via the app or email before finalizing the purchase.

It's my first time trying to answer a product manager interview question, would really appreciate some feedback!

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My favourite product is the Binance app. Before I evaluate why I like this product, let me give a brief about what this application does. 

It is a cryptocurrency trading platform, where you can buy/sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and around 800 other coins. It is one of the first exchanges to enable people to invest in a new asset class and diversify their portfolio. You can deposit fiat currencies(USD, INR, JPY, etc.) on the platform and you can use it to buy crypto(short for cryptocurrencies). The application has consistently hit a daily average volume of 10 billion USD, so there is decent enough liquidity to trade the coins.

I would like to use the following three parameters to evaluate why I like this product :

1) Innovation

2) Ease of use

3) Usefulness

Innovation - Blockchain is the backbone of crypto currencies. It removes the need of a middleman. Allowing trading of crypto currencies is indeed innovative. This is akin to creation of a platform where you can trade an entirely new asset class, with potential great returns. It provides a new investment opportunity, moving away from the traditional stocks, bonds and forex markets. For a seasoned trader, Binance also provides futures/options trading of crypto. Thus, I give Binance a high innovation rating

Ease of use - The platform is fairly intuitive and easy to use. However, a person who is not into tech might find it difficult at the beginning to understand all the jargons and start trading. To solve this problem, Binance created an entirely new platform, Binance Academy, which can be accessed by a quick Google search. Everything you need to learn about blockchain, trading, cryptocurrencies, you will find it there. It's indeed an exhaustive resource to get you started quickly. Also, they run a separate YouTube channel where they explain in detail how to get started with trading on cryptocurrencies. So, although the initial few days will require some learning, the application is fairly easy to use and intuitive when you use it a couple of times. 

I give them a high rating on this because they have put in a lot of efforts in making it easy for people to access the information that they will need to get started

Usefulness - The app is indeed useful because it enables us to invest in a new asset class altogether,grow our wealth, and diversify our investment portfolio. To give an example, in the year 2017, Ripple cryptocurrency(known as XRP) gave a staggering 37000% returns to its investors in a single year. The crypto markets are highly volatile, I agree, but there is ample of opportunity to invest in something new and get great returns. Thus, it scores a very high rating on the usefulness scale for me.

 

Having said all of the above things, I would also like to point out a few pain points about their platform and what they can do to resolve those pain points - 

 

1) Not enough liquidity while trading certain coins - There are many coins on the platform where the liquidity is extremely low. Liquidity is a measure of how easy it is to trade a coin. If there are many people willing to buy/sell a coin, we say that there is good liquidity and we can trade our coins easily. But for certain coins, this is not the case. The liquidity is low for them and hence it gets difficult to trade those coins.

 This can be primarily attributed to the fact that not enough people are there on the platform to give higher liquidity on the app. There aren't enough people because many aren't aware of the investment opportunities in cryptocurrencies. 

Binance can solve this by bringing in other asset class to its platform that people are familiar with. One such thing is bringing in stocks of listed companies like Tesla, Apple, etc. How will Binance bring stocks on its platform? In tokenized form! Blockchain allows tokenization of any asset you can think of. If Binance is able to offer tokenized assets of familiar things, that will certainly drive user growth to its platform and, in turn, will result in people wanting to invest in cryptocurrencies. Thus increasing the overall liquidity of the platform

 

2) Quality of certain coins is a big concern - By quality of a coin I mean the quality of the project which created that coin. There have been many instances when a low-quality project got listed on Binance and the people running the project did an exit scam. When the price of the coins increased, the founder of the project sold off his stash of coins and closed the project and ran away. This resulted in monetary loss to many people

To tackle such a problem, Binance would need to put in stringent project listing policies. A thorough background check and code review of the project also needs to be carried by Binance before they list it on its platform

 

3) Accessing past trade history is a big pain - As an investor or a trader, I would certainly want to be able to see the list of all my past trades. In the Binance app, we do have this feature of seeing our past trades, but that is located deep inside the app somewhere and is difficult to find. 

They can put it at a more convenient place, like directly in a separate tab in the app which can be accessed in not more than 1-2 clicks. This will definitely enhance the user experience

 

My favorite Product is Paytm. It has simplified the payment and become one stop solution for all payment needs now a days. It brough disruptive innovation in payment.

Further I will be explaining why Paytm is my favorite in terms of usefulness, efficient and innovation  

1.       Useful

Paytm has changed the payment mechanism completely. As a user, I can walk into without my may wallet and go for any shopping. It is most useful for small payment like milk, vegetables and Tea/Coffee shop payment. It is solving following pain points for users:

• No issues of change (small denomination of money), specifically for small amount of shopping
• With its wide presence user can walk without physical wallet. This also makes it One stop solution for all payment needs
• Bill Payment like electricity recharge within few seconds by sitting at home
• Peer to Peer money transfer without any KYC process. Most useful for sharing contribution amount for any gift/party other small occasion
• For merchants, it is very useful as there is no need of internet connection for payment unlike payment through POS terminals

2.       Efficient

• Instant money transfer through QR code or phone number
• Integrated with all merchants from small shops like vegetable vendors to big stores
• Easy onboarding and Easy to use. Senior citizen users can easily onboard and learn how to payment

3.      Innovation

• Paytm brought disruptive innovation the way payment happened in India
• Merchants can take payment without internet connection
• Paytm is bring innovative solution continuously, latest example is Voice activated point of sale speaker. The speaker (Paytm Soundbox) announces the incoming payment that closes the deal for both the buyer and the seller, using voice. No need to wait for SMS confirmation: Whenever a customer makes a payment via Paytm at your store, the SoundBox will alert and notify you that the payment is completed successfully

Improvements

As Paytm becoming one stop solution for all payment needs so I can think about following improvements

1.       Improving home page UX

Paytm home page is very cluttered which makes user difficult to use it. Although it is a change of UX only but brings lots of value for the usage of the feature. In terms of KPI, improving home page will increase customer engagement and reduce churn to other similar products like Google Pay. Following are some of the examples to improve this:

• For repayment to the same merchant, recent transactions are not appearing on the home page
• Scan any QR and Pay seems duplicate option for same feature and adding space on home page
• Too Many options distracting user to find the daily use features

2.       Spend Analysis

• As a user I would like to see my spending pattern with several visualization like weekly/monthly expenditure
• Options like set spend limit can be provided, which will help user to set spending goal
• In terms of benefits and KPI, this will motivate to the users to do all payments through this app only to track their expenses, so usage of the product will increase

3.      Saving

• Auto saving feature can be provided to save money by automatically deducting some amount from each transaction (5-10%) and directly deposit that amount in the paytm wallet. This will motivate the user for saving
• User can define saving goal and set a timeline to save money for future investment
• In terms of benefits and KPI, this will motivate to the users to do more payments with paytm, usage of paytm wallet will also increase which will increase the revenue

4.       Budget

• Monthly budget can be created based on individual spending. Every transaction can be categorized in various types and accordingly budget for restaurants, groceries, transport etc. can be created that will help user to manage the finance
• KPI to measure, user engagement and increase in use of payment features

My favourite product is curefit. cure.fit is a health and fitness powerhouse that takes a holistic approach to physical and mental well being. At cure.fit, they make group workouts fun, daily food healthy & tasty, mental fitness easy with yoga & meditation, and medical & lifestyle care hassle-free.

I will breakdown the reasoning behind selecting as favourite product in three buckets:

1. Usefulness : When the lockdown happened, all the people were forced to adopt an unhealthy lifestyle without proper exercise, which they use to do in parks, yoga-studios or gyms. Cure.fit provided world class fitness trainers at the comfort of your home. The live classes from the best trainers around the globe made this app a pain-killer for the fitness freaks.

2. Efficient : It keeps a track of the sessions you did and prepares a weekly report. 

3. Innovation : They had energy meter tracking, which helps the user get a score at end of class, to see what was their relative performance. At the end of the class, the user takes a pose for the day from the devise, which acts as an investment in the habit forming loop.

They follow the hook model perfectly in order to make the app habit forming for the fitness freaks

1. Triggers : They send customized triggers, when someone in your squad enters a session you get a notification

2. Action : Attending class using the cure.fit was the only option left for many fitness freaks since the no gyms and yoga-studios were open in lockdown

3. Variable Reward : Getting a new trainer every day is a variable reward in itself.

4. Investment : At the end the user needs to click pose of the day, which acts as an investment on the platform, as user will be making repository of his/her daily poses

 

A different approach than the Lewis Lin framework of useful, easy to use, innovative :)

________________

 

My favorite product is Duolingo, which is a language learning application.  It's my favorite product because it solves an important, universal problem much better than its competitors.

 

First, I’ll give a brief overview of what the product does and its business objective. Then, I’ll outline the target users and what problems they have. And finally, I’ll explain how the product solves those problems better than competitors and why that makes it my favorite product.

 

Beginning with the product overview, Duolingo is a B2C mobile and web application whose mission is to teach users a new language via daily, gamified exercises.  Duolingo offers a skill tree of lessons that uses listening exercises, flashcards, and multiple choice questions to drill you on new vocabulary and phrases. The service also has community features that let users connect with others who are learning the same language.

 

From a business model perspective, the company uses a freemium model.  Users can choose between a free, ad-supported plan, or upgrade to a paid plan that removes ads and enables lesson downloads for offline use. Further monetization opportunities are through in-app game purchases, and additional testing verticals.

 

Now that we understand what the product does, let’s think about Duolingo’s target users, whom Duolingo describes them as ‘everyone’.  Think about it… almost everyone you know that’s maybe over the age of 10 has tried to learn a language at one point or another in their life.  So given this is an offering that services a pretty broad user base, let’s think about what are the core pain points around learning a new language.

 

Pain Points:

1. Cost / Lack of opportunity — Many people cannot learn a new language because they cannot afford it. 
2. Lack of time — Many folks feel they are too busy to spend an hour and a half going through a lesson. 
3. Fear of failure — Many people are afraid of failing or looking ‘dumb’ in front of others trying to pronounce a new word.

Now, let’s think about how Duolingo solves these problems and does so better than the competition.

1. Cost — Duolingo completely removes this barrier through its freemium approach to language education.  When it came on the seen, it’s competitor was largely Rosetta Stone or in person classes which are very costly.  Their approach democratizes access to this type of education. 
2. Lack of time —  Duolingo does a great job of tackling this.  By breaking curriculum into small, bite-sized chunks, users can make progress in 5 minutes or less, finding small pockets of time throughout the day.  This contrasts to traditional alternatives, which require larger chunks of time (eg 1 hour +) to get through the material.
3. Fear of Failure — The privacy afforded by their model —  that you can self-pace and practice in the comfort of your own home — serves to relieve this fear.  Users may feel more comfortable practicing words out loud.

To summarize, Duolingo is a great product because it solves an important, universal problem in some innovative ways, and it does so better than its competitors. For this reason, I believe it's the best product in its category.

My favorite product is Medium App.

I think Medium has revolutionised the way people read and write on various topics.

I can primarily think of the below User groups:

1. The Avid Blog Reader

2.  Blog Reader who reads once in a while.

3. The Avid Writer

4. Someone who writes once every while

 

That is there is the Reader Side and the Writer side.

 

Lets see how Medium has benefitted both.

 

Reader Side

It has made Blog reading fun from a rather tedious activity. Even those who are not habitual blog readers enjoy on Medium.

Medium solved the following problems for the reader:

 

1. Discoverability

How to discover the best writers' blogs? How to see what is trending and people are engaging with?

Medium allows a search suggestion and allows us to follow the writers' or their pages.

It also allows us to see what is trending on Suggested Blogs section on my Medium Home Page

 

2. Personalisation

How to find blogs suited to my interest? 

Medium solved this by knowing about the user's interests and also suggesting blogs using its algorithm which recommends similar blogs as to what the user engages with.

Its almost as if Medium know what i want to read!

 

Writer Side

Medium solved the below problem for the Writers of Blogs.

1. Ease of Use

Never was writing and posting a blog simpler than before. We can add images, text, videos, GIFs etc at a few clicks. Huge improvement over the Wordpress days.

 

2. Sharing

As a writer a big motivating factor is the fact that people will read your blogs.

Medium allows to share the blogs to your network and also to Medium's feed. When people react to the post, it pushes it ahead in Medium's recommendation algorithm.

Also, people can discover by the keywords which you tag the blog against.

 

To sum it up, we can evaluate Medium on parameters of Innovation, Usefuleness and Honesty.

Innovation: Blogging is not new. However, by making the entire process simpler and easy to Use, Medium does well on Innovation front.

Also it Recommendation Algorithm is an innovation in this segment

Usefulness: Medium is super useful. One can visit Medium for a topic one is researching on and is sure to find blogs there. Also, as a habitual user, it increases one's knowledge and state of knowledge in fields one has opted for.

Honesty: The product does not validate what users have written. However, as it is a public platform in which only quality and genuine content trends, the incentives to write otherwise are low. 

Moreover, there is the option to report every story for any inaccuracies.

 

However, there is scope for improvement.

One such is in optimising Medium for Search engines. I rarely find a Medium article as a top result in Searches. Using SEO for the same may be a good idea.

Other is audio/video blogs. World moved from hard copy of books to ebooks to now audio books. As the next generation of user finds itself less on time, it will move to time saving products across categories.

Hence, audio/video blogs may not be a bad idea after all.

 

 

My favorite product is Twitter. First I am going to talk about the business objective of Twitter and its different user personas. Problems of the User personas and how twitter solves those problems and end with a short summary.

Twitter's objective is to create a microblogging and social network site which enables users to share their ideas or information quickly and network by their quality of thinking and writing. Twitter’s USP is in its format which is a 140 characters limited crisp post called ‘tweet’. It makes it easy for users to type the information quickly and broadcast to their followers network. It is predominantly used as an information network than a Social network. Any news or information can be found on twitter before it is published by any news agencies. It has therefore become the mouthpiece of any celebrities and politicians like Donald Trump and Narendra Modi.

As a social network, it helps people to find like minded people and form networks judging by the quality of their thinking or writing, instead of showing of the certifications or degrees like linkedin. For people with ideas to share, the character limit forces them to give their best in writing short and impactful tweets making it easy and interesting for the readers. It enables followers to consume it during their short breaks between work or while commuting compared to quora which usually has long detailed posts.

Twitter has 3 user personas:

1.Influencers: These are users with blue tick marks who could be celebrities in their corresponding fields ex: Bill Gates or Donald Trump or RGV. There are also twitter celebrities who have hundred of thousand of followers who use this medium to influence people by sharing their writing. Before twitter, the only way for people to broadcast information to society was through traditional new media like TV, Press or radio. Other social networks were only supporting personal networking with their friends or acquaintance and blogs had no mass reach. Twitter solved it with their ‘follow’ option where any number of people can follow and interact with anyone through tweets. This empowered celebrities and influencers to directly connect with their audience and the audience to follow and interact closely with their favorite actors, writers or politicians.

2. Regular users: Users who follow the influencers, their friends and family with followers in hundred who are predominantly content consumers. They would like to follow their favorite celebrities or pages based on their interests and participate in live Q&A, start discussions over a tweet they come cross or the topic trending topic in their city or country. Apart from the opportunity to connect with the celebrities as mentioned earlier, it help to find information on any topic using the hashtags. Hashtag enables users to look for the latest hot trends in their locality, get information from real people instead of traditional media, understand opinions of different people on a topic in the reach of fingertips. Without twitter, users can google search a topic which would only retrieve few links from traditional media or blogs. Twitter gives more information than any traditional media combined with other people’s opinion on the topic

3. Business accounts: Accounts representing a firm which are created to connect with their existing or potential customers. Their goal is to acquire new customers through content marketing, Ads and customer engagement. They can also take feedback from customers and solve any grievances. Having an active twitter account which quickly addresses the user complaints is seen as a great customer service for brands, government departments and politicians.

Twitter has also been the most ethical and socially responsible social network of all the existing popular networking sites. They have recently introduced functionality to issue warning on content which insights or promotes violence and have even flagged tweets by Donald Trump with it without discriminating.

To summarize, Twitter is my favorite product which helps me to share ideas, find quality and reliable information quickly, network with like minded people based on my interests and connect with my favorite personalities.

Note: I didn't cover improvements part as it opens up new set of questions and framework to answer

My favorite online product has to be quora, an online question answer based discussion forum where people can post questions and have them answered, often by subject matter experts. For example, I might ask, what is the best book to read to prepare for a Google PM interview and it would give me enough material to prepare.

The goal of the website is to have questions answered for users and it accomplishes these goals by having them answered by industry experts where other users can upvote or downvote an answer based on how useful the answer is.

Solving specific questions is not the only fun part, It is basically a site that enables learning different fields for me. One night I am reading about data structures and the other about black holes and outer space! And both the topics are equally interesting to me. I think there are very few sites in the market that connect learning and fun in a way that quora does.

The only major drawback in my opinion is the layout of answers on the screen. Quora does not currently show the most upvoted answer on top for certain questions. This makes it difficult for the seeker to search for relevant information sometimes.

Uber is a ride sharing service which lets book a cab to travel from one place to another. I use on a daily basis to commute to work.

 

Uber is super convenient for me as I have the flexibility of leaving at any time and not rely on public transport too much. 

 

Users 

 

• People who commute
• People visiting a new city
• People who can’t drive
• Others 

 

Their main pain-points were around finding a means of transport to travel from one place to another. Often cabs or autos charge randomly where as public transport is not always available at all places and is often overcrowded. 

 

Before UBER,  people used to rely on public transport. The timings are not always suitable hence that option is not very flexible. Other Cab drivers and autowalas charge random amounts. There is no consistency in pricing. Usually very expensive in big cities. Moreover public transport buses and metros etc are often super crowded. Often people have to travel the first mile or last mile to and from the metro station or auto stands or taxi stands from their homes or workplaces. So it is not always convenient. 

 

 

Uber solves these painpoints very well.

 

• With Uber, you can book a cab anytime depending on availability even in places where there are no taxi or cab stands- it will come to pick you up at the exact location and drop you at your destination. You don’t have to walk too much. 
• With Uber, you can see exactly how much will be charged for the cab, how much wait time is there and how much time it will take to reach the destination.
• You can also share your ride details with relatives and friends for your own safety. 
• Another advantage is you do not have to pay by cash you can simply add a card and payments are auto deducted - specially in a covid scenario it is important to have minimum or zero contact. 

 

Why Uber is better than other options? 

 

Uber is a much more safer option than other ride share or bike rental options -  Bounce or Vogo or Rapido since bikes are less safe compared to cars. Plus Vogo or Bounce require a license plus helmet to really ride those rental bikes. 

 

Public transport options are often very crowded and private cabs and autos often charge too much. 

 

 

How I would improve Uber? 

 

Often for people who commute on a daily basis 

 

• cabs are not available due to higher demand on certain days in those specific locations. But cabs are available in other regions of the city. There are often higher cancellations or high wait time.

 

Solution : - 

 

Uber can track the daily departure time of users and often trigger notifications few hours before to the users so that people are arrange for alternate means of transport. 

 

Also another way to solve this painpoint, Uber can start a ride assurance program where customer can pay a premium on a monthly basis or on a per ride basis. As part of this program,  

 

• Uber can ask for work and home locations as well as daily times to reach office and to leave office. Based on that Uber would automatically make a cab available with minimal time at the right time based on traffic conditions to make sure you reach on time or leave the office on time and get a cab immediately. 
• The drivers cannot cancel the cabs booked via ride assurance program as they will be incentivised for this and fined heavily if they cancel so that cab availability increases significantly. 

 

How to Measure Success for improvements : -

 

Average wait time for standard users during peak hours (as they should not be impacted by the ride assurance program)

Average wait time for users under ride assurance program during peak hours 

Number of cancellations for bookings under the ride assurance program 

 

 

 

**Note - Posting my first ever answer on this platform and expecting feedback and comments from you all. This will surely help me in improving my skills  and confidence.

Question - What is your favorite product and why?

Before answering this question, let me explain what a good product means to me.

According to me a good product is something which solves user problems easily yet effectively, which is easy to understand, use and most importantly solve some of his serious problems. A good product can be a hardware product, software product, mobile application, service product etc. Here I will be taking about mobile application product.

There are alot of great products out there but I will choose Google pay as my favorite product in mobile applications. To start my answer first, I’ll explain what google pay does at a high level. Second, I’ll outline the target users and their problems. And finally, I’ll explain how it solves these problems better than others and makes it my favorite product.

 

About Google pay - Gpay is a UPI platform developed by google which helps in instantly transferring the funds between the two bank accounts without any additional cost through a mobile platform and internet.

 

Users of Google pay - Since Gpay is a payments app so it is used majorly by individuals and business owners to transect money with others.

• End users - Google Pay is used by individuals to send money to their friends, family, recharge mobile, or pay the neighbourhood chaiwala.

• G-Pay for business - You’re a small business owner or a manager at a corporation, Google Pay makes it easy to accept payments and connect with customers.

User pain points in transferring money

• Time consuming - It takes a lot of time to get the money transferred from one account to another. Money transferring is not instant.

• Complex process of adding beneficiaries before transferring money

• Additional changes and taxes on transferring money - IMPS/RTGS charges

• Limit on maximum amount to be transferred in one day.

• Either requires net/mobile banking or visiting a bank branch to transfer the money

• Sender requires lot of bank details of the receiver before transferring money. Such as account number, IFSC code, account holder name, accout type etc.

• Complicated KYC process

 

 How google pay solves the user problem better than others?

• Excellent Design and user experience - Simple and fresh design of mobile application keeps it ahead of other platforms.

• Easy to use - Google pay is extremely easy to start with and understand. User flows are quite simple. Paying money through Google pay is as easy as we pay via cash.

• Instant and free - Money transfer is instant and free. We can send money instantly to our friends, family members or someone who is in our contact list. We do not require much of their account information. Mobile number is sufficient enough to send/receive money.

• Secure - Security is the most important aspect of the payment apps as user money is involved in each transaction. Google's backhand security and encryption can't be questioned. Google-pay comes with the highest level of security and encryption mechanism making it a safe platform for users to transact. 

• Trust of Google - This platform gets an edge over other UPI apps because we have got trust and brand of google.

• Performance - Performance of the product is very high. Money and recharges get successfully completed in a fraction of time. However google-pay interacts with other banking applications and systems, authentication layers but transections are quite smooth and fast. 

• Innovation - Innovative features like scratch cards, swipe to pay/receive money, innovative games to enhance user engagement etc  

• Basket of important features - Apart from fund transfers, users can recharge phones, pay various bills, set reminders to payments etc makes it one stop solution for payment needs.

• Great rewards programme - Google pay offers a best in segment rewards programme. Cash backs, scratch cards, rewards directly getting credited into bank accounts, great referral benefits.

• Wide presence - Google pay is a leading UPI platform in India and widely accepted. It helps accuring new users easily

Suggestions for improvement - 

Improve success rate - Sometimes while transecting on google pay, we get errors and payment is not successful. We should work around it to make success rate close to 100%

Integrations with split billing apps like Splitwise - Settling splitwise balances through google pay can be a good idea as it will make bill settlements easy, convenient and fast.

Improve google pay for business use case - Google pay is widely used by individuals to send/receive money to/from their friends and relatives. Google pay business use case has a lot of growth potential. Google pay’s scan to pay utility is not yet that popular among customers. This will help in PM Modi’s vision on Cashless India.

To summarize, Google-pay is my favorite application as it is useful, easy, popular and innovative. Due to this this app has seen a tremendous growth in recent years.

This is one of the more commonly used questions in PM interviews, and very likely you will receive it as some stage. The good news is, however, that preparing for this question in advance will make it go a lot smoother.  

 

For this example we are going to choose Spotify.  It’s something that is universally known, has evolved over time and has had a healthy amount of feature development and general improvements.  Additionally, it has competitors in the market, so discussion around strategy is something that can be brought up in the discussion.

 

I use Spotify frequently in my day-to-day life.  Outside of being a regular user, I am also excited about the problems they are solving in terms of connecting their members & users to new and interesting music (Mission).  As they operate in a relatively crowded space, where the access to a large catalog of music is ubiquitous, they have doubled down on two areas: discovery through social connections (Strategic Theme), as well as machine learning and personalized playlists (Strategic Theme) to move the needle on discovery.  I would suspect that a key metric to measure the discovery goal is the number of unique artists per user (North Star Metric).

What I like about Spotify is that it solves an important pain point for me.  As a user, my use case for a music streaming service is that I will be using it primarily during working hours, and using it for several hours at least each day (Persona).  I don’t want to have to select music actively each time a new song comes on; I need to have a stream of regularly new music in the same genre that helps me do focused work (Pain Point).  What feature I like that helps with this is the Discover Weekly feature, where based on my previous listening history, I get a fresh playlist of new songs every week, which gives me new songs that are within my musical tastes profile. As far as improving on Spotify, I would explore doubling down on the Discover Weekly feature. One thing I would like to do with the Discover Weekly feature is the ability to share the playlist with colleagues, or vice versa (Pain Point).  If, for example, someone I know has good music taste, it would be nice to follow their tastes over time as well (Solution).  Through this, I might discover new artists that I might not have already known, which would likely benefit Spotify’s success metrics as well.

 

My Favorite product is : WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is a messaging app available freely for android and ios users. It allows user to send text and voice messages or video calls .

It’s one of the early products invented in 2009 which solved the problem of communication via internet. Before that people used to communicate via sms.

 

Why I like :

1. Useful : It’s very useful , user can communicate irrespective of region or country . One doesn’t need a ISD connection to be able to connect to friends or family in other countries.

1. 1. Innovative : WhatsApp has continuously came up with innovative features to engage and acquire new users. Some of them are 
      1. Enabling users to record a voice message and share. This has impacted huge customer base who are not very good in typing like users in age group of 45 to 60 and belonging to tier 3 cities.
      2. WhatsApp web: Connecting your laptop with mobile phone via scanning a QR code is very innovative. IT gives the end user the flexibility to use WhatsApp through laptop/desktop. It comes with some limitations though.
      3. Fingerprint Authentication : Adds another level of security to the app.  With this feature enabled, even if you leave your phone unlocked, your chats cannot be accessed by anyone else, until it is verified by your fingerprint.
   2. Efficient : The best thing I like about WhatsApp is the ease of usage. Users need not learn new representations for each task - setting up a group chat in WhatsApp is aligned with adding new members to the existing chat . In application tutorial is not required to educate users.It comes natural to them.

 

Things to improve 

Target Metrics to improve : Engagement 

I am considering the engagement as metrics to improve and below mentioned features are suggested taking this metric in to consideration

 

1. Profile Photo Views : If user can see how many people viewed their profile pic , it gives appreciation to users. Currently one can comment on other’s DP

but cannot really know how many people viewed it.

1. Bookmark Conversations : As a user I can bookmark the conversation in individual or group chat and can reference later.
2. Improving Whats App groups : There are few improvements specifically for groups ,  
   1. Firstly while forwarding a message to several groups, WhatsApp should automatically disable those groups that already have that message .
   2. Secondly providing group based password protection

 

Prioritizing the improvements

 

Feature	Effort	Impact	Priority
Profile Photo Views	Low	High	P1
Bookmark Conversations	Medium	High	P2
Restrict forwarding duplicate content in groups	High	Medium	P3
Password protection for groups	Low	High	P1

 

Note: Effort is rated based on technical complexity.

 

After prioritizing the improvements , I shall choose following 2 features 

1. Profile Photo Views
2. Password protection for groups

 

My fav product is Nike Training Club

Product Goal: The goal of the product is very clear in providing the platform for fitness at various levels of difficulty and tracking.

Target Customer : All fitness enthusiasts aiming for fitness in or out of gym.

Underserved needs of the User :  

1) It is hard to maintain a regular schedule to hit the gym 

2) Lack of personal fitness trainer 

3) Gym/Fitness memberships are high

4) Miss workouts during out of station/vacations

Value Propositions : 

1) Anywhere workout with personal training and timing

2) Customizable fitness plans

3) Free product

4) Track progress on daily/weekly/monthly basis

Key Features :

1) Voice and video based support 

2) Calorie counter

3) Easily sharable on Social media

4) Achivement badges for Motivation

5) Easily integrated with Nike Running Club

UX : As a user navigating the app and selecting the type of exercies are very clear and easy. Easily customizable plan for different levels of complexity and user friendly.

My favorite product is Dunzo.

Dunzo is a 24x7 delivery app that delivers anything to your doorstep in 45 minutes. They also deliver groceries, food, medicines, meat, and even pet supplies.

What I like 

Convenience: I use it to deliver packages to my friends and family in an easy 2 step process. I can order almost anything from anywhere within the city and get it delivered immediately.

Ease of use: The UI is neat and organized making it very easy to use. The main search looks for items and vendors and gives the closest match, they also show results from google places which helps to buy from the unlisted stores.

Innovation: Started off as a task management group on WhatsApp, it is now a full-fledged hyperlocal delivery app. First to introduce a  service that lets users 'hire' people, who in turn, run errands for them or carry out odd jobs on their behalf.

What I would do to improve

3 main metrics are acquisition, revenue, and retention

Multi-language support: Acquire users who don't know English.

Introduce a loyalty and membership program. This way retention will be higher and not lose to new competitors.

Voice assistant: Build a voice-based task list and easily convert that to action. This way the user does not forget the tasks to be completed and will increase revenue per customer.

 

 

My favorite product is Pocket. 

 

Pocket is an application to create a reading list of articles and videos by saving them while browsing the internet. It is available as a desktop and mobile app but I use it as a chrome extension.

 

How it works is - after installing the extension, whenever I want to save a link (usually an article or a video), I click on the Pocket extension icon in my browser and it saves the link in its remote server. At the time of saving the article, it also suggests similar articles saved by other users in the past. While saving the article, I can also add a hashtag to the article by either selecting a previous hashtag or creating a new one. The links and their tags are synced across my devices. 

 

The app is available in a Freemium model. Some of the features are only available to premium users such as searching articles using article content.

 

The reasons I like Pocket is because of its useful, easy to use, and innovative features.

1. I used bookmarking in chrome prior to Pocket to save articles or my favorite links but I found that whenever I needed to go back to a saved link, I hardly remembered which folder did I save it to so, search was a big issue. In case, I found the link, I couldn’t recollect what information did I find useful in the article when I first landed on it.
   1. Pocket comes very handy in this case. I can not only categorize the articles that I save using the tags but also search the saved articles in future by simple user-defined tags that I attach to them
   2. Additionally, I have the in-app highlighter feature which helps me in highlighting the main points about the article.
   3. So, Pocket is useful and definitely many steps ahead of the old school bookmarking that I used in the past
2. Secondly, the app is extremely intuitive and easy to use. I never needed a guided tour to understand its usage. There’s a search box at the top to search my saved articles using their titles or URL. There are 3-4 filters on the left side to search articles based on tags, highlights, whether they are favorite, and whether they are an article or a video. In case the list of tags becomes very long, I can always search the tags separately.
3. Lastly, I would like to talk about some of the innovative ways in which Pocket differentiates itself from simple bookmarking.
   1. I can save articles by emailing links to them
   2. I can view articles in Article view, change the font size and background color for easier viewing of article
   3. I can share my saved links through email with my friends and family

 

While I like Pocket a lot, I really want a way to create notes on it, at least for the article that can be saved in Article view either a way to comment at the end or in-line notes marker just like we have in PDFs. Another feature that I would be ecstatic to have is a way in which I can collaborate on a saved article with my friends/colleagues/family. We both can either create a message thread on each different link or have a messaging window where we can immediately share the link and discuss about it in the moment. This will not only increase user engagement on the platform but also lead to the acquisition of more users as a user will need to invite his/her friends for the collaboration to take place.

 

 

When I think about my favorite product, I evaluate it against 3 principles.

1) Is it useful?

2) Is it innovative?

3) Is it easy to use/intuitive?

My favorite product to use is Google Photos and it meets those principles. As a user, I love how intuitive the design is, how seamlessly it works across all platforms and how it solves my photo sharing and storage issues. The other key thing is that it provides fun animations and photo edits to photos. As a PM, I think Google Photos has done an exceptional job as providing new ways to categorize and search for your photos. They're harnessing the power of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to help users find their photos and providing excellent facial recognition.

Google Photos has tackled key pain points users have when it comes to photo management. Storage, categorization and sharing. While I love using the product, I would suggest a coulple of areas to think about:

1) Improved geo-tagging, often times I check where photos were taken and the location is wrong. I think figuring out a stronger integration with Google Maps would help.

2) Having a way to tag censored content. For example, if I'm uploading photos of my passport/drivers license I want to be able to tag that so that it doesn't get shared or leaked

3) Better integration with social media apps such as Instagram. To share photos the native experience is to share via gmail or as a link. I tihnk having the ability to share directly to Instagram via Google photos would be super useful.

My favorite product is Apple News app.

It solves one of my biggest pain points of switching between 5-6 apps every day to consume news. After this, I don't need 6 different apps installed on my mobile to catch up on the day's news.

I like it because:

1. It serves news in a more digestible manner. With Apple news, I can focus on one news item at a time, completely consume it and move on to the next one. I find this hard to do on other apps like Google News because there are lot many moving parts on the screen like auto-play videos, banner ads, sliding news items, which makes it impossible to retain focus. I eventually ended up abandoning these apps after giving them a hard try.

2. Apple news is one of the best examples of human-centered design. There is a specific way humans do certain things like ordering food, shopping, buying magazines, etc. Apple News app does not deviate from this user habit and just to give you an anecdotal experience - reading a magazine on Apple news iPad app feels like holding a physical paper magazine in front of you. To provide this natural experience, Apple created a new format of its own called Apple News Format (ANF) in addition to using rich typography and photography.

3. Lastly, Apple news curation and fast learning of preferences are my delighters. Apple does both algorithmic and human curation, and I could really see the effort of curators through the unbiased news articles they present in spotlight section of the app. Moreover, it learns your preferences faster. Within a week of using the app, I started seeing news I like to read and in fact, I never had to set my preferences manually.

As much as I love it, being a heavy user, I find some things that can be improved on this app. I would like to talk about those if you want me to proceed.