Ride Sharing Take Home Assigment

Prompt

Micro tragedies

A micro-tragedy is a moment in a driver's day that can spoil their relationship with the ride sharing company they are working for. Something the driver sees as unfair but can happen, e.g., an extra long wait time between trips, a rider who makes the driver wait an excessively long time, or a perceived false promise made by the ride-sharing app to the driver.

Why micro-tragedies matter

We believe that micro-tragedies have an outsized impact on driver happiness.

Your mission

Help ride-sharing app better understand the micro-tragedy space. What are the different ways micro-tragedies could occur? How might these micro-tragedies impact the business? Based on that understanding, define a north star and roadmap to achieve that north star. In your roadmap, help clarify what problems / products we'd approach first and why. Choose one of your initial products and create a rough sketch of what it might look like and what the high level requirements might be.

 

Agenda

 

1. Executive Summary

2. Introduction and Examples of Problem Statement

3. Prioritization and Define North Star

4. Explore Solution and Define MVP

5. Appendix

Executive Summary

• As per the survey data, micro-tragedies resulting in misaligned driver earnings is the largest factor driving high churn rates and low satisfaction rates among drivers. This also negatively impacts the demand-supply curve and brand value.

• This deck explores the arena of the misaligned earnings issue in detail and recommends a technical and creative proposal for a feature enhancement in the driver side of the app.

• The proposal tackles the problem by creating a new driver interface via which new drivers can provide their availability and flexible driving schedules. The smart optimizer algorithm will then use this personalized schedule, region and historical data to provide an estimated earnings due at the end of the driver schedule. The estimated earnings goal setter can also be triggered for drivers who are struggling after new driver pilot program.

What is a micro-tragedy?

A micro-tragedy is an event which a driver perceives as unfair and ends up blaming the ride-sharing firm.

• Not every negative driver experience is a micro-tragedy

• • A driver stuck in peak traffic may not be a micro-tragedy

Micro-tragedies have an outsized impact on:

• Driver satisfaction / relationship

• Driver Earnings

• Driver Churn

• Ride-sharing app business and brand value

Driver micro-tragedies examples

Driver micro-tragedies characteristics

• There could be a micro-tragedy at any stage of a ride or a driver’s journey - pre, post or even during a ride.

• Many of these problems are interrelated like; rider wait time is also an earnings problem, Bad time estimation could lead to an unfair rating.

• All these problems negatively impact driver satisfaction rate and ultimately resulting in low earnings and high churn rates are earnings related.

• Earnings is the north star metric for drivers for the purpose of this case study, and such micro tragedies impacts a driver’s earnings significantly.

Prioritize Driver Micro-Tragedies

Driver micro-tragedies Priority

There are 5 specific problems in the earnings bucket

• Earnings Variability: Driver earnings vary significantly from day to day

• Driver Learning Curve: A learning curve involved around where and when to drive

• Lofty Earnings Expectations: New driver earning expectations driven by blogs and hearsay

• Driver Mistrust: Drivers feel ride-sharing firm does NOT have their back in regards to earnings

What are the expected outcomes by solving this problem?

Our Mission / North Star

Make ride-sharing app the trusted platform for consistent earnings for all drivers

Earnings micro-tragedy user story

Hypothesis

Proposed solution: Ride Sharing Driver Concierge (1/3)

Ride Sharing Driver Concierge (2/3)

Ride Sharing Driver Concierge (3/3)

Launch Experimentation

We’ll track a number of metrics to measure success

Tentative MVP Timeline (1/2)

Tentative MVP Timeline (2/2)

Future beyond MVP

There is a lot more we can do with Uber Assistance beyond MVP. Some starter ideas below.

 

Appendix