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Meta — Product Management Interview [Part 1/3]

In this series, we will be covering product management full interviews for different companies.

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Round 1: How would you design a feature around sports for Facebook?
Round 2: [Extension of round 1] Same first question from a different perspective?
Round 3: What is your favorite product? How will you improve it?
Round 4: If you are PM at Meta and your CEO wants you to come up with ideas to get the next 500 million customers, what you will do?
Round 5: Why do you want to join Meta?
Round 6: You are PM at Uber, How will you beat Lyft by a significant margin?
Round 7: How important Android is for Google’s growth strategy?

Round 1: How would you design a feature around sports for Facebook?

Interviewer: I am going through your resume, meanwhile why don’t you introduce yourself?
Shailesh: <Typical Introduction Pitch> talks about my hobby in sports.

Interviewer: How would you design a feature around sports for Facebook?Shailesh: Okay before that let me clarify my understanding of Facebook. Facebook is a platform like a graph of connected people where people can connect with their friends, family acquaintances remotely. They can express themselves about some experience, concerns, etc. to which they care about. The mission of Facebook is to create a more communal feeling among people. It has various functions like News Feed where you can post status, pictures, chat, video call, etc. This is my broad understanding of Facebook, is there anything missing that I should be aware of?
Interviewer: You are good to go.

Shailesh: So I have some questions which I want to clarify, My first question is this feature that we are building will be residing in the Facebook application and we are not building a separate product? According to me, we can leverage the kind of network on Facebook by integrating this feature into Facebook itself. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, you can go ahead with this.

Shailesh: My second question is what is the goal of designing this feature? Are we trying to make the sports-watching experience better or are we trying to make the sports organizing experience better or the sports playing/hunting experience better? All of them can be interesting objectives but I would like to focus on sports watching experience better because it is directly linked to the Facebook mission of creating a communal experience and getting the world closer, although we can also go ahead and build a feature in which we can connect people having similar interest in sports. What do you think? Interviewer: I think both are interesting objectives to target, you can choose and go ahead.

Shailesh: Okay is there any resource or time constraint should I be aware of? I am asking this question because it may play an important role in prioritizing the features.
Interviewer: No you are not bound by that.

Shailesh: Let me quickly form the objective of the problem from whatever we have discussed till now. We want to create a feature on Facebook that will make the sports-watching experience better.
Interviewer: Yes go ahead.

Shailesh: The way I would like to go about this problem is, first we can think of the different user personas and their user journey. From the user journey, we can think of the different pain points, and then we can think of some of the solutions. At last, we can have some metrics to see if our solution is actually working, and later if time permits we can see the future trends, system design aspect. Is that sound okay to you?
Interviewer: Yes that sounds great.

User Persona

Shailesh: There can be multiple different user personas who watch sports but If I have to state user persona in a more MECE way, we can have the following personas

1. A person who is a superfan, he watches each and every match. He loves to express himself about different key moments in the match. He loves to explore different sports.
2. A person who is very particular about what sports he want to watch and he is well versed with that sport.
3. A person who started taking interest in sports wants to learn about the different nuances and keywords of the sports.

User Persona Priortisation

Shailesh: All of the user personas are very good to target but as per my understanding, I would like to target the people who are superfans because targeting that persona will make more engagement on the platform which is one of the broad goals of Facebook. The second persona would be likely to watch the sports on a different platform as Hotstar, ESPN, etc. What do you think?
Interviewer: yes that sounds good.

Shailesh: Now lets’ see the user journey of persona #1 so that we can think of the pain points.

User Journey

1. The person keeps track of all the different matches that are going to happen in the future.
2. The person prepares himself for the match by getting a Merchandised t-shirt, snacks, etc.
3. The person asks a few friends to come over if they are not able to come, sync with them via WhatsApp and discuss the key moments in the match or do some kind of prediction.
4. The person put a status on Facebook, Instagram, express their opinion about the key moments in the match.
5. After the match gets over they try to have some discussion about the match with friends, acquaintances, etc.

User Pain Points

Shailesh: Now that we have mapped out the broad journey of the user, we can think of some of the pain points or the use case.

1. Keeping track of all the matches that too in different time zone is the pain, many times it is frustrating to skip the initial part of the match.
2. A broken social experience is kind of frustrating, you have to operate on different devices and different applications to communicate with friends.
3. Capturing key moments is painful, we make videos or capture photos from our devices and put that as our story on WhatsApp, Instagram.
4. Getting to know different opinions of people about the games is also painful.

Shailesh: Now let’s prioritize the pain points, I would like to see the intensity and frequency of the grievance and goal as well to prioritize’ the pain points. I think this way we will cover the depth and breadth of the problem what do you think about it?
Interviewer: Okay let’s proceed.

Pain Points Priortisaiton

Shailesh: I will rate the intensity of Paint point #1 to be medium and we have a lot of friends from whom we can get to know about the upcoming match. I think pain points #2 and #3 are the ones that occur every time we watch the match and their intensity is also high. If we go about seeing pain point #4, we have live commentaries which cover some part of it. In all, I would like to prioritize pain points #2 and #3 for further analysis. Are you aligned with this?
Interviewer: Yes it makes sense.

Solutions/Features

Shailesh: Now let’s think of the different solutions for the pain point.

Solution for the pain point #2

1. We can have features like “Sports Room” in which they can create a sports room and can see matches together and express themselves via GIFs, memes in the chat section. They can team up, can do prediction and at last, we can have a leaderboard kind of a thing. This fusion of Sports room with gamification will help in great social experience and will also increase engagement.[Medium Effort][High Impact]
2. Since Facebook has acquired Oculus, we can have another feature like “Meta Sports” in which we can leverage the AR/VR functionality such that it will feel like they are watching the sports together in a more immersive way. They can watch the match in the stadium or at the position of match referee or near the goal post etc. [Super High Effort][Super High Impact]

Solution for the pain point #3

1. Since Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are integrated, we can have features like “Auto capture moments” which will capture moments in the match, and on one tap you can share it on either FB, Instagram or WhatsApp, etc. Another thing you can do is you can save all those moments and can share them with other people. [Medium Effort][High Impact]
2. We can have a “Get the moment” voice feature in which you can just say out the moment like “Get me the moments where Rohit sharma hits Six”, it will create the collage or make a video which you can share, comment on it. [High Effort][High Impact]

Shailesh: If I would have to pick the solution for the same, I would go about features “Sports Room” and “Auto Capture moments” since they require medium effort and it is having a high impact.

Shailesh: Now let’s see the success metrics for the problem

Success Metrics

1. Average amount of time spent by user per day on this feature.
2. Average number of “Sports Room” created per match.
3. Average number of chats, GIF sent in the chat per Sports room.
4. Average number of moments shared via “Auto capture moment feature” per match.

Round 2: [Extension of round 1] Same first question from a different perspective?

Interviewer: How was your round 1?

Shailesh: Yeah that was good, I think I have given my best shot.
Interviewer: What was the question?

Shailesh: The question is to create a product for Facebook around sports.
Interviewer: How did you solve it?

Shailesh: I create a feature that will make a sports-watching experience better.
Interviewer: Can you think of something related to sports e-commerce and talk to me about how will you see the growth of the product and how will you go about launching the same product.

Shailesh: So as I understand this problem you want me to talk about the growth of the feature, do you want me to do a guesstimate for this?Interviewer: Yeah you can do that.

Shailesh: Do you have any specific preference for this?
Interviewer: Talk me through the market you would want to launch this.

Shailesh: The way I would like to structure this problem is what is Facebook’s mission and how this feature fits into this mission. From there we can talk about the customers, total addressable market, their needs, demands, and their consumer behavior. From there we can think of the competitions and our core competencies. Thereafter we can think of launching the product, we can divide it into pre-launch, launch, and post-launch. Is that sound good to you.
Interviewer: That sounds good, please go ahead.

Facebook Mission and Goal

Shailesh: Sports is something which unites people, I am from India and you can find crazy cricket fans and enthusiasts. In India from very early age kids starts playing sports and some of them also get professional coaching. Building sports commerce will immensely help people and it is in line with Facebook's mission and vision.
Facebook is the graph of connected people which brings people closer and it will help people to get with the similar-minded people who are into the same sports liking. Now let’s talk about the customer of this product.

Customer and Competition

Shailesh: The customers of this product can be sports enthusiasts who are finding people with similar interests, Sports coaching institution who are providing quality coaching, Sports infrastructure who are the ones who provides facilities like grounds which you can book, there can be another persona like sports equipment seller. These are the broad user persona who will be in this ecosystem. There are various fragmented players in India who provide these facilities like Crickheroes (for cricket), Crickbuzz and some local players are also there. So we are providing a unique value proposition by providing a complete ecosystem where player can find equipment, book grounds, get coaching and find people with similar interest.

Launch

Shailesh: For the launch, we can create an initial buzz with social media campaigns, and youtube videos/shorts etc. We can partner with the sports celebrity who can be the face of the application. We can also onboard a good sports academy. We can organize free sports camps for 7 days. For the pilot testing, we can start this from a metro city like Bangalore and initially onboard a single game.

Round 3: What is your favorite product? How will you improve it?

Interviewer: What is your favorite software product?

Shailesh: Okay, as I understand the question, I need to discuss my favorite software product which I like the most, irrespective of how it is performing in the market. Then I need to discuss why it is my favorite product?
Interviewer: Yes

Shailesh: Okay, I would like to go about it is, first, I will explain what qualities a good product should have and how my favorite product has all those qualities. From there, we can think of some of the scopes of improvements.
Interviewer: Please go-ahead

Shailesh: For me, a good product should have the following qualities:

• It should solve the user problem [Usefulness].
• It should be intuitive/easy to use [Ease].
• It should be aesthetically pleasing, should have good UI/UX [Aesthetics].

Shailesh: Currently, my favorite product is CureFit; I use it almost daily. To be on the same page, let me describe what it is all about. CureFit is a health and fitness application which is offering digital experiences across fitness, nutrition, and mental wellbeing. Its vision is to become a complete digital health solution

First, let’s talk about the Usefulness of the CureFit for that, I need to discuss my pain points and how CureFit has addressed them seamlessly.

1. Working out has always been a difficult task for me; like most other people, I procrastinate. Now, after covid, working out at Home has become even harder. Without proper equipment, it feels like doing nothing. I juggled between exercise and ended up wasting my time.
2. Even If I get equipment at home, I don’t feel motivated enough to work out; I used to give up easily.
3. Lack of guidance about postures of different exercises exposes me to the risk of physical tear down, and there is always a frustration of not getting the desired result.
4. If I have done any workout activities like swimming laps, cycling, etc., there is no way to have a consolidated record of my fitness activity.
5. There is always a frustration of proper guidance about diet; there is a lot of information on the internet but trusting them is a pain. Sometimes following someone else’s diet may result in a lack of essential nutrients and ending up in a chronic ailment.

Now let me discuss how CureFit has solved all my above problems efficiently.

1. CureFit app has a range of fitness sessions, like HIIT, HRX, belly burn, etc. It suggests a personalized fitness plan and sessions depending on our fitness goals and health assessment. Online sessions are designed by experts so that no equipment is needed, all the exercises are body-weight-based exercises.
2. In CureFit Subscription, we can book any number of classes at any time. In a covid era, we miss going to the gym and working out with buddies; now, we can book a session with our friends and buddies and work out together. Here we will be assigned a rank depending on our performance, making us agile and won’t let us procrastinate.
3. In an online session, we can have our camera turned on, so that the fitness tracker can track our movements. Experts and trainers analyze our performance and give us personalized feedback like what things are going wrong and what things we need to improve.
4. In CureFit, we can track your fitness journey weekly and monthly. After achieving the fitness goal, the new badge is unlocked, and the goal is reset to a new high potential.
5. We can integrate IOT sensors such as Google fit and Fitbit bands to the CureFit app, which helps us log our fitness activity outside CureFit consolidated in one place.
6. Apart from the workout, we have personalized recommendations of the diet and post-workout supplements, as per our fitness goal and body requirement. There are video recipes in the app; either we can see those and cook our post-workout meal, or we can have a meal subscription plan that will deliver it to our doorstep.
7. CureFit has its marketplace where we can buy authentic post/pre-workout supplements and sportswear at a discounted price.
8. For a healthy body, not only should we have a physically fit body, but also mental wellness is equally important. In CureFit, we can book mental wellness sessions and can destress our body.

CureFit is very intuitive to use, and it has a great user experience. On the front page, you have a tab bar at the bottom that divides the app into its four broad features: Home, Live classes, wellness marketplace, CureFit. We can easily navigate through the entire app with this tab bar. At the top, we have a movable tab bar that can directly take us through all their core features like joining live classes, ordering meals, meditation at home etc. The user doesn’t feel lost and the ability to see all the core features at the front makes it very easy for the user to navigate through it.

The personalized attention, unique socialization, and intuitiveness to use the app are the core reasons why I like CureFit the most. With that said, every product has a scope of improvement. Let’s talk about what are the improvement areas I would want to see in the CureFit app.

1. Calorie Tracker by picture: Currently tracking calories is a very difficult task, Curefit can have a Smart AI-enabled camera from which we can take photos of your meal and it will automatically update your calorie count.
2. CureFit video session doesn’t have any video quality control, so in case our network connection is frequently breaking, it becomes daunting to load the video streaming, again and again, it will result in the loss of productivity and intensity of the workout
3. CureFit doesn’t have quality customer service; if we have ordered food from the CureFit eat and there is some issue like spillage, there is no way to instantly contact customer care. We can only drop an email to the customer team, and a delayed response may frustrate the user.
4. AI chatbot for the fitness companion: The chatbot can serve as your fitness guide companion. The chatbot can set reminders for you to facilitate your workouts every day.

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