Design a Google bicycle.

Question Clarifications

* Would we be partnering with any existing bicycle maker to handle supply chain or distribution of the bike?  

* Is this a bicycle that is intended for exercise?  Or is this something more along the lines of an e-cycle / closer to a personal motorized vehicle?

* Is there any preference on whether this is a bike that is sold, vs. temporary rental usage by the customer?

What are the goals?

* What are the goals of this product?  What is Google looking to achieve by making this product available?

* What types of metrics are we wanting to measure in relation to this product?  Are there metrics related to depth of entrenchment into the Google ecosystem of products?  Are there metrics around contributing new data, or user information for personalized experiences?  Are we looking to deepen usage of particular products like Google Fit watches, or smart speakers like the Nest line of products?

Interviewer Feedback

Let's say the response is that we want to look at some metrics around revenue, but we also want to look at some metrics around how we lift the sales of other bundles products or subscriptions, as well as improved usage of other Google technologies.

Walk Through

At this stage, I'm going to do a quick walkthrough of the buckets of use cases, the users, what the specific use cases are and where we might have some strategic advantage to provide a product that provides a better overall user experience to Google customers.

Users & Use Cases

There are a couple of buckets of use cases I think of for bikers that we should consider for this product line:

1 - Competitive Bikers - This could be highly competitive, Tour de France type competition, down to local competitors in crits or other types of races

2 - Off Road Bikers - Bikers who like to do trail riding

3 - Touring Bikers - Bikers who like to take long trips on their bikes, they have packs attached for camping, food, etc. and may have specific goals in mind - like biking across a particular state, or riding a really long trail, or biking around a scenic area like the Wisconsin Dells.

4 - Fitness Bikers - Consumers who just want to use biking to stay fit, and may be particularly interested in weight loss, heart rate information, improving their performance for optimal caloric burn as well as meal planning type information.

There are many different products targeting different users and use cases, and a couple of trends within the cycling space right now that we should consider.

Competitive Bikers - Are optimizing on the bike.  The weight of the bike itself is a notable consideration.  There are other small optimizations for speed related to gear and wear, both in the components on the bike, the tire size and pressure, as well as the wearable technology.   

Competitive biking is technical, with products in the space to measure torque, heartrate, stress levels, etc.

The goal of this user is to improve performance.

Off Road Bikers - Are typically a bit more of a gear head type audience.  They like to maintain their own bikes, they look for something that is comfortable but sturdy.  A big part of off-road biking is locating trails that are both scenic, fun, with information on how other users rate the technical capabilities so that a rider can choose the level of challenge they are up for a particular day.  A lot of the planning is done on public data sources like alltrails.com to select where to ride.

The goal of this user is to have a fun time while having some level of fitness while enjoying being out in nature.

Touring Bikers - Aren't serious bikers, nor maybe pay attention to components or frame weight - but place a higher emphasis on a dimension of comfort.  They want something they can ride comfortably over long distances, that have options for hauling gear, and can help give them information about a trip that they've preplanned.  

Touring bikers are also really into the experience along the way, cataloguing their trip, photos along the way of things they've seen - for the memories of the accomplishment of an area or a distance.

Fitness Bikers - There is a big trend in fitness biking right now.  Peloton is huge, Zwift is also gaining speed, both of which are capitalizing on a trend of convenience in the home for fitness - while still reaping some of the positive benefits of social interaction in the competitive aspects and having a workout pre-planned for you.  

The goal of a fitness biker is a positive body image, confidence, a sense of accomplishment, and an outlet for competition.

Where are the opportunities?

It seems to me that there are opportunities with Google's existing ecosystem to cut across several of these segments while offering an improved experience.

I think we can offer a more interesting product across the dimensions of:

* Comfort

* Features

* Perceived Quality

For Comfort:

* A bike that is smart enough to adjust to the comfort levels, based on readouts from the user.  Two comfort points are the saddle, and the grips (wrist pain).  In conjunction with Google Fit, could read the heartrate, and with other localized sensors could adjust the cushion and temperature of the seat.  

Another dimension of comfort is how well the bike is tuned.  An integrated screen could provide recommendations for tube pressure, or could monitor shifting to recommend a tune up.

For Features:

* There are a number of features that could provide an integrated experience with an on board display with online access around:

** An integrated camera that could automatically take photos during the trip with / without user interaction. Google could understand key places to take photos along the trip and take those photos from any angle around the bike.  In read time with Lidar, Radar or some other technology could identify point in time events and capture those photos.  Additionally, with voice command - a user could tell photo to snap a photo to capture a particular moment if it wasn't already.  

** Trip planning

** Information about trails - ratings, difficulty scores, etc.

** Information about recommended stops or features

For Quality

* Google should partner with either a trusted bike manufacturer or component manufacturer to build the bike.  As much as possible, leverage an existing brand that is known for quality and reliability.

Business Model / Pricing Models

There are a couple of ways that might make sense to be able to license the product such that it meets our goals of both revenue, but driving users deeper into the ecosystem.

Pricing

There are a couple of options:

* Cost plus pricing

We could look at the cost to manufacture + margin.  My feeling is that we'd be leaving some money on the table.  This would be more susceptible to changes in market pricing.

* Initial Fee + Subscription Pricing

There may be an avenue to have some subscription-based pricing, with a loss leader initial fee for the bike.  While this may be possible, we'd need to test consumer demand to operate on a rental type business - and there would be a lot of logistical overhead to make accessing the bikes easy for the consumer and keeping the bikes serviced.

* Bundled Pricing

We could sell the bike with other services / products from Google like a Google Storage, Google Fit, and maybe the camera for taking photos from the bike is a separate add-on that could be sold as an option.  

The tradeoff here would be that users who don't purchase the technology may not see a compelling reason to purchase the bike standalone based on the features outlined.  This strategy is also directly tied to the demand / value creation of other products like Google Fit.

* Value based pricing

This would allow Google to set the price based on the value created for the features around automated comfort, photography for capturing an experience, and live readout data for optimizing the experience of using the bike.  This would still allow options to bundle other products as add-ons (storage, Fit), without canabilizing the value of the core product with onboard technology.  This also ensures that user data can still be gathered about the user to improve other Google products for personalization in advertising, data breadth in Maps, photos, etc.