IITM Product Casebook '22-'23

IIT-M PM CASE BOOK
23 INDUSTRY STANDARD INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS TO HELP

YOU ACE YOUR NEXT CASE
THE FIRST ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE CASEBOOK

WITH CASES FROM TOP PRODUCT MANAGEMENT FIRMS
ISSUE DETAILS
All rights reserved by Case Club, IIT Madras.
ISBN : In Progress
First Published : October 2022 (Version 1)
No attempts can and should be made to transmit the information, store, retrieve and copy any part of the book by any
means (digital, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) prior to the permission of the authors.
DISCLAIMER
→ The cases collected in the book are purely based on memory of candidates post their interviews. Hence certain
discontinuities / derailment can be expected from the actual interview.
→ In order to maintain a continuous flow of conversation in the multiple cases, certain parts have been modified with
respect to the actual cases we collected. The said action was also taken at certain places to ensure a steep learning
curve for the reader.
→ For the above reasons, the cases are not to be taken as a word-by-word transcript of the interview but rather a
resource to get an idea of type of cases and difficulty level an engineering undergraduate can expect in their placement
interviews for management consulting profiles.
PREFACE
This book has been prepared by the Case Club, IIT Madras. We saw a gap in the case preparation that
students from IITs do every year. There seemed to be lack of a book that satisfies both the criteria - provides
cases at undergrad level and focuses on cases that engineers can expect. Due to the steep rise in the variety
and complexity of products, the demand for product managers who streamline the process of bringing a product
to market across industries has surged up.
This casebook happens to be the first casebook at an engineering undergrad level and IIT Madras is the first IIT
to develop this. It contains a set of 23 case interview transcripts, collected from the on-campus placement
season ‘21 alongwith a few practice cases. The cases are supposed to give an exact flavor to candidates for
the type and difficulty level they can expect.
The Case Club of IITM (including heads, strategist and associates) has put its heart and soul behind collecting,
writing and perfecting each case for the benefit of the problem solving culture, not only at IITM but across all
colleges in the country. Do go through this and try to share with anyone you feel would benefit from this.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We have received support from several people on the way and we would love to thank each one of them for all
the help they provided in return for absolutely nothing :
IITM Graduates (APMs at present) :

It wouldn't have been possible without y’all giving us the cases with utmost patience that you displayed.
Anuj Khandalikar (Flipkart), Mansi Khandelwal (Flipkart), Samarth Wagh (Groww), Kritin JP (TATA Cliq),
Abhishek Kumar (TATA Cliq), Anfas Nujum (Metadome.ai), Ishaan Indurkar (Metadome.ai), Janakiraman
(Kotak), Guru Pramoth (Zomato)
IITM Administration :
We would like to thank Prof. Ramamurthy K, Chairman, Library Advisory Committee 2021-22 for all the support
provided. A special mention needs to be given to the Academic Affairs Secretary - Ramkamal T B (2022-23) for
the help and more importantly the faith shown in a new club for this major responsibility.
Decode and Conquer, Cracking PM interview, PM interview cracked, Preparing for Product Interviews:
We would like to thank the authors of above mentioned casebooks to develop the amazing casebooks which
motivated us to go ahead and build one of our own for engineering undergraduates. The clarity in their
casebooks really helped us take some major decisions about how should we go ahead and write the cases.
GUIDE TO USE THE BOOK
→ Form a case group among your friends.
→ Practice the cases in your group. The interviewer needs to keep an open mind - grill when interviewee is making
absurd assumptions, help when they’re off track and most importantly be open to new approaches.
→ Have a positive feedback session post the case. Do not hesitate in sharing negative feedback. Help each other
improve, it’s your responsibility!
→ It’s a casebook. It’s intended to look perfect. The actual interviews however are full of hiccups, unusual
conversations & the interviewer constantly trying to keep candidate on track. Don’t get thrown away if your solution does
not follow the flow in the cases here. Rather have confidence in your approach and reinforce positive learnings from here
in your own case solving.
ABOUT CASE CLUB, IIT MADRAS
Case Club, IIT Madras was started in 2021 with an aim to improve the problem solving culture in IITM. The founders
realised that problem solving and structured thought process are tools not just relevant to Consult but rather to every
industry. In fact it’s an efficient skill to solve any problem one faces in life.
With excellent initiatives executed just within its 1 year of existence - Consult 101, Guesstimate Premier League, Product
and Consult Casebooks, Case Club has received a lot of traction and appreciation and is full geared up with its brand
new set of activities which are even more fun and engaging for the students. Stay Tuned!
MEET THE AUTHORS
Gayathri Vipin, Associate Nabhitha B, Associate Rethik Visweswar, Associate Kishore Rajendran, Associate Aditya, Associate
E Prakathishwar, Associate Aryamaan Singh, Associate Vaishnavichandra G, Associate Nidan Basheer, Associate Anushka S, Associate
Anirudh Kulkarni, Head Revati Sawant, Head Janisha B L, Strategist

PAGE NUMBERS SAME AS PDF PAGES :)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.NO NAME DIFFICULTY COMPANY PAGE
A. FAVORITE PRODUCT 9
1 GATHERING STEAM EASY TATA CLIQ 10
2 MEDITATION IS THE KEY EASY GROWW 12
3 LACK OF SLACK MODERATE TATA CLIQ 15
B. PRODUCT DESIGN 18
1 PEOPLE AND PANDEMIC EASY HI LABS 19
2 BLIND TESLA MODERATE MEESHO 21
3 ZOMATO FOR SENIORS MODERATE ZOMATO 23
4 ELIMINATING FAKE DIFFICULT FLIPKART 26
C. PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT 32
1 MADE IN WHATSAPP EASY FLIPKART 33
2 BETTER UBER RIDE MODERATE GROWW 36
3 FLIPPIN FLIPKART MODERATE FLIPKART 39
4 WHAT’S THE RATING ? MODERATE FLIPKART 42
5 LEARNING PROPERLY? MODERATE GAANA 45
6 PAY WITH GPAY DIFFICULT KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK 47
7 DO YOU WANT A JOB? DIFFICULT GAANA 50
PAGE NUMBERS SAME AS PDF PAGES :)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.NO NAME DIFFICULTY COMPANY PAGE
D. ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS 54

1 USERS EVERYWHERE, SUBSCRIBERS NOWHERE EASY TESTBOOK 55
2 CYCLE MECHANIC EASY TATA CLIQ 58
3 YOUTUBE HACKS MODERATE GROWW 61
4 I HATE FAKE ! DIFFICULT FLIPKART 63
E. PRODUCT METRIC 68
1 INSTAGRAM INFLUENCE EASY TATA CLIQ 69
2 BECOME AN INDIAN IDOL EASY ZOMATO 71
3 ENGAGE TO GROW MODERATE GROWW 73
F. GUESSTIMATES 76
1 THE TERMINAL EASY HILABS 77
2 MESSY MESS MODERATE KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK 79
FAVORITE PRODUCT
GATHERING STEAM
This interview was based on a Microsoft form where the interviewee was asked to type out their answers and the
COMPANY
interview itself was a discussion on the responses collected.
Hi, let us start with the case. What is your favorite product?
Steam is my favourite product. It is a gaming marketplace and a community forum where gamers, modders and developers
can buy, sell and discuss games.
ROUND Great. So how would a platform like Steam generate revenue?
Platforms like Steam earn money from commissions generated by sales of games, microtransactions, which are in-game
PM transactions and game cosmetics, which are visual accessories used in games like Fortnite.
Why would consumers prefer Steam over their competitors?
Consumers prefer Steam as it is very reliable and is quite easy to upgrade.

TYPE
Sounds good. Can you give me a brief walkthrough of an average user journey.
FAV PRODUCT
A first time user would have to initially download the application create an account add billing details
search or explore games purchase the game download the game
Very well. Now are there any reasons why a consumer would choose a competitor over Steam?
DIFFICULTY
Platforms like Epic Games offer more trials and discounts on their platform, which motivates many to use it instead.
EASY
Great. Who do you consider as the major competitors of Steam?
Platforms like EA Origin, Xbox Store and Epic Games are the direct competitors of Steam.
GATHERING STEAM
COMPANY According to you, how competitive is this market?
Due to the presence of multiple players, the market is very competitive I’d say.
Now, say you are a Product Manager at Steam. What product strategy would you pursue in light of the discussion
we had so far?
If I was a Product Manager at Steam, my strategy would be to do nothing and wait out the competition.
ROUND
Why would that work? Can you elaborate more on this?
PM
When one looks at the market through Porter’s Five Forces Analysis, which is used by managers to find the strong and
weak points of a company in relation to their competitors, the following can be observed:
1. Buyers: They are price sensitive.

2. Suppliers: There are a huge number of suppliers.
TYPE 3. Threat of new entrants: Since the number of products and users needed to sustain a platform is high, the threat of
new entrants are low.
PRODUCT
FAV PRODUCT
DESIGN 4. Product differentiation: Low
5. Substitutes: Not a lot
From the following observations, it can be seen that Epic’s business model, which is based on heavy promotions is not
financially sustainable as it either leads to heavy losses or losing market share and other competitors don’t have a good
DIFFICULTY product catalogue. Hence, it makes sense to do nothing and wait out the competition
EASY That’s an excellent analysis. We can close the discussion now

MEDITATION IS THE KEY
COMPANY Tell me about your favorite tech product. If that product wishes to launch into India, what strategies will you use
(GMT) and what new features would you introduce for the Indian market?
Okay. Before we begin with the case, I have a question in mind.
Please go ahead.
What is the type of industry that we are looking into?

ROUND
There is no restriction to it. We can go ahead with any industry of your choice.
PM
Okay. So let’s assume we consider a meditation app and solve the case for it.
My approach would be as follows :
TYPE 1. To identify the target audience

2. To figure out all the pain points
Product
FAV Design
PRODUCT 3. To find out all the possible solutions
That sounds good. Please go ahead.
The target audience for this product can be segregated into three different groups based on their age:
DIFFICULTY 1. Students (15 - 25 years): Do meditation as a hobby and to stay fit and healthy
2. Working Professionals(25 to 50 years): Do meditation for stress release and calmness
EASY 3. Elderly people(50+ years old): Do yoga / meditation for healthy life or social gathering
Are we going well?

COMPANY Yes, this is a good approach. Which segment would you want to focus on?
We can focus on working professionals because of the large market size and paying capacity. Let us identify the pain
points:
1. Less time due to busy schedule
2. Same monotonous meditation every time
3. Nothing visibly rewarding to sustain the habit
ROUND
Possible Solutions :
1. A feature in which a person can select how much time he has for meditation today and fills in how
PM he / she is feeling. We will recommend meditation to him/ her accordingly.
2. Uber for meditation - A new expert will be connected to the user every time he/ she opts to
meditate, who will guide you through meditation and listen to your feelings post meditation like a therapist.
Moreover, this can be monetised like the Onlyfan business model, where you can subscribe to whichever teacher
you like.
TYPE 3. Creating a group feature where a user can meditate with his / her friends. This can serve as a reward. I used
cue-action-rewards framework here.
Product
PRODUCT
FAV Design
PRODUCT
DESIGN
This is great! What pain points can you think of for the students segment?
The possible pain points are:

1. Boredom: Students are used to a dynamic lifestyle and might not appreciate the essence of Yoga
DIFFICULTY or Meditation.
2. Not fancy enough: This age group likes putting all their activities on social media and might not
consider yoga to be cool enough for that. In fact they might view this as something old people do.
EASY
Good. Do you have any solutions for these problems?
COMPANY Sure, here are 2 solutions :
1. Gamification of Yoga where the instructor teaches yoga/meditation in a fun way or with some nice
music. We can have specific courses for this age group.
2. We can have a social media campaign where youngsters post their daily fitness goals as
instagram stories with unique hashtags and tagging us along. This will provide them incentive to
do yoga daily and improve the perception among other students as well.
ROUND
Yes. We can close the case. You did well
PM
TYPE
Product
PRODUCT
FAV Design
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
LACK OF SLACK
COMPANY Hi, let us start with the case. Tell me about your favorite product.
When you say product, I’m taking it as a digital product. Slack is one of my personal favorites. It’s a messaging platform
generally for businesses. It facilitates closed group conversations for people within an organisation to connect.
Nice. What features attracted you the most to Slack?
I will walk you through the user journey and highlight the features that made me stick to this product for so long.
ROUND Account creation Joining servers using invite link Accessing various channels & features
→ It has a very well-organised user interface with conversations grouped into specific channels
SENIOR PM
→ Notifications: There is an option to mute each channel independent of the other channels on the same or different
servers. Additionally, users can set up a specified time during which notifications will appear
→ Users will have access to all old messages when they join a group/channel newly. This feature helps new members to
know the previous works and progress of their team
→ Many other applications and features are integrated with slack. These applications can aid in tracking metrics of
TYPE importance like new users, total signups of the product being developed
→ The online-offline status update controls are very user-friendly and customizable
FAV PRODUCT → It has an audio channel feature similar to the voice channel of discord but it also has a video recording option similar to
Whatsapp and not found on discord
That’s interesting. Now, let’s say you are a product manager at Slack. What additional features would you like to
bring in?
DIFFICULTY
I would like to get one thing clarified here. What kind of features do you want me to think about? Should it lead to an
MODERATE increase in revenue, user acquisition, improved user experience & engagement or user retention
As it’s a messaging platform, you can look at features to increase user engagement and retention.
LACK OF SLACK
COMPANY Sure. I would like to focus our discussion on a particular customer segment of slack, which is a community-based group.
Tell me more about this community-based group.
Many learning platforms use slack as their primary medium of knowledge transfer. An example would be Product School.
The learning community is organised by having separate channels for particular goals like providing resources, peer
learning and doubt-solving
ROUND Interesting. You can continue with this.
So these community workspaces on slack have a huge number of users and hence an even larger number of messages
SENIOR PM
daily. So new and inexperienced users don’t know which of these messages is helpful because of the information overflow.
Many of the features I suggest will revolve around this pain point.
User engagement on slack = Total # users * avg time spent on slack per user
TYPE Hence, to increase engagement, we can either expand our user base or increase the average time a user spends on our
platform. Based on this understanding, I’d like to group my suggestions into the following two buckets :
FAV PRODUCT To expand the customer base
User acquisition :
→ Having the product for two customer segments :
→ For general public usage: Same features as now. Free
→ For businesses : Including business-friendly features like those on Whatsapp. Paid version
DIFFICULTY User retention :
→ Personally, I have observed that people shift to other apps like zoom or google meet when online meets and
MODERATE
EASY calls are scheduled. We can integrate a video conference tool on our platform or have video channels that
allows people to schedule online calls at a minute’s notice.
LACK OF SLACK
To increase usage per customer

COMPANY
→ Upvote and downvote options: To prioritise the messages and channels based on individual user discretion
→ Adding filters: Users can read messages with a higher upvote or sort them according to their needs. They can also use
time filters like the ‘last 24 hours’ or ‘last 7 days’
→ A whiteboard option to note down minutes of the meeting and essential notes while on a call will add value and hence
increase customer retention.
→ Adding a calendar feature will help schedule meets on the aforementioned video channels. It will also help users
organise their day by blocking off time slots for specific tasks
ROUND
These are excellent suggestions. What metrics will you track to measure the success of these changes?
SENIOR PM As my suggestions are related to adding new features to all or a selected group of people, the metrics that we have to look
into will only be activity based
# new users in each segment :
→ After introducing the product for the two customer segments, we can track the number of new logins to the
free segment and the conversion rate of free users to the paid services
TYPE # daily active users :
→ By tracking the upvote-downvote counts, we can track the total number of viewers/interactions and hence
FAV PRODUCT arrive at an approximate number of active users of our platform
→ Total number of sessions per user per day to track the number of times they are coming on the platform
# users utilising meet features :
→ Average time spent by a user will enable us to know the amount of engagement we are creating on our
platform
DIFFICULTY → We can track the total number of video calls happening daily and based on the weekly stats, we can include
more related features
→ Total number of actions a user takes on the calendar tool per day
MODERATE
EASY
That was great. Thank you.
PRODUCT DESIGN
PEOPLE & PANDEMIC
COMPANY Hi, let us start the case. During lockdown, due to covid a lot of people got emotionally and financially weakened.
Suggest an idea to help those people.
I want to clarify whether the idea should be for emotional well-being or financial or both.
For now consider any one of these two.
Ok, so I will go with emotional well being.

ROUND I would like to divide people into different age groups and then find out the reasons for a particular group.
Students:
PM ● Not able to socialize and go out-of-doors
● Couldn’t complete courses or degrees
● Not able to study in online scenario
● Death of a relative
Adults:
● Lost their employments
TYPE ● Isolated from their family and society
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN Old :
● Isolated from their family and society
Great, you can move ahead.

DIFFICULTY
As per my knowledge, people who seek counselling/treatment from a certified person for their emotional issues will
EASY generally face the following hurdles:
● They are expensive and not everyone can afford them. Moreover many people are currently facing financial issues
as well.
PEOPLE & PANDEMIC
COMPANY ● People will be having privacy concerns.

● Finding a good psychotherapist is not an easy task.
Based on these observations, I would like my product to be pocket-friendly, to respect privacy of the customer and to
ensure a proper feedback mechanism.
That’s fine. Can you list some features that you would like to have?
I would like to have the following features:

ROUND 1. Price: Our main goal will be to reduce the cost of consulting a psychotherapist. We can mitigate the cost by
grouping people into groups of 4-5 with one therapist per group.
PM 2. Problems: Categorise people having similar issues into the same group.
3. Privacy: Anonymous users for privacy
4. Interaction:
● Certified psychologist with cost and time
● Text, call features with therapist
5. Feedback: Rating / feedback for therapist as well as patient
TYPE
This is a good idea. We can close the case now.
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
BLIND TESLA
COMPANY Build a transport service for the blind using an autonomous fleet.
I would like to know our place in the value chain. Are we a service provider like Uber or do we build the fleet?
We are the service provider. The fleet comprises cars only.
What is the geography and timeline to analyze?
ROUND Based in India and on a quarterly basis. Assume the blind person is travelling alone.
PM Let me look at the user journey currently in Uber.

● Pre journey: Booking the cab by the blind user by entering the destination.
● During the journey: In transit to the location. Authentication of the right cab via OTP. Ingress into the cab from the side of a
road. Emergency numbers accessible in case of a breakdown.
● Post journey: Getting down, crossing the road etc. as that is a safety issue and finally payment.
TYPE In the pre journey, most modern phones have advanced accessibility features so we only need to ensure the app is
compatible with these features. For example : Just open the app and voice enter the destination where you want to go and
PRODUCT DESIGN confirm by saying 1. The driver can call once to confirm the address and destination.
For the in-journey part, The app will automatically announce once the car reaches the user address.The car can produce a
low volume siren to guide the user towards the car. As soon as the user opens the door, the siren will go off. There can be
updates on the location every 15 minutes and emergency numbers must be accessible. In fact there can be a button inside
DIFFICULTY the car that when pressed would automatically announce the live location and distance from destination. Similarly there can
be a button for emergencies.
MODERATE
For post-journey, there can be a prepaid wallet from which money is deducted as the only option for this service. An
automatic voice can ask for rating out of 5 stars and the feedback.
BLIND TESLA
COMPANY To measure this, we need to see the user adoption rates as this is a new service. This can be measured by number of
signups, monthly usage rates etc.
Good. How can we have a trial run for such a product?
There are 2 ways in my opinion :

1. Collaborating with a blind society - Take blind people on independent rides across the city and try to identify possible
bottlenecks at all stages of the ride.
ROUND 2. Identifying localities / cities with highest blind concentration and trying free rides there during peak traffic hours.
PM Fair enough. What are some possible risks associated with this service?
1. User adoption : Gaining the trust of blind people on driverless cars will be the biggest challenge and given that it is a high
fixed cost business, less user adoption can lead to losses.
2. Accidents : Even a single accident or poor user experience can lead to extremely negative PR and damage our services.
TYPE As it is a very sensitive service, 100% accuracy is required. Similarly excellent emergency handling would be required as
blind people might need even more support during an emergency.
PRODUCT DESIGN
3. Location : As there is no visual verification of the address entered but rather a voice input, the app might incorrectly
interpret the location at times and the user might reach a different location leading to a lot of inconvenience.
OK. Good enough. We can close the case. Thank You!

DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
ZOMATO FOR SENIORS
COMPANY Okay, let’s start with a case. How do you design Zomato for senior citizens?
I have a few clarifications before we move ahead. What exactly is the objective this initiative?
As you know, the population of senior citizens in India in expanding. We need to be prepared to capture this
growing market.
Understood! May I know what is the targeted age group of this population?
ROUND
Yes, let’s look at those who are 50 years and above.
SENIOR PM
Do you want me to assess the impact or revenue opportunity from them?
You can assume that it is an opportunity of significant size.
TYPE Right, so what exactly do you mean by design? Is it any changes in UI/ UX or reformations in marketing strategies or even
building a separate platform?
PRODUCT DESIGN In this context we can consider modifications in UI/ UX.
Are there any geographic constraints to the target population? As in India specific?
Yes, as our goal is for immediate implementation. So let’s focus on the Indian diaspora.
DIFFICULTY
Since we are considering the UI/ UX scenario, shall I assume that the target audience already has access to technology or
MODERATE should we explore it a bit more in detail?
ZOMATO FOR SENIORS
COMPANY You can go ahead and consider that everyone we ought to target have access to the current technologies.
Okay, so I would now prefer to analyse the problem further by going through their user journey (with regards to this
particular age group)
1. They find out about our service through electronic or print media or through word of mouth.
2. Installing the application and signing in
3. Assuming they are looking out for something healthy but not a specific item with no preference over chains/
ROUND restaurants, they browse for the item and a list of sellers are displayed.
4. These are ordered by reviews, better ratings that guarantee better quality and taste of the food item. However, there
SENIOR PM is no mention on healthiness of the food.
5. The next dilemma is narrowing down on a food item of choice and comparing reviews and the options available.
6. Apply offers/ coupons, select drop off address and initiate payment.
7. Track delivery and collect the order on arrival
TYPE Am I right in assuming these divisions and if yes shall I go ahead to extrapolate these steps involved into pain points in
order to arrive at a conclusive solution?
PRODUCT DESIGN Yes you are right in doing so, please proceed…
So the list of all pain points compiled after going through the user journey are:
1. Awareness: The knowledge of the existence of the app/ service and its offerings
2. Technical familiarity: their comfort level towards using apps on mobile phones, filling in personal information and
DIFFICULTY payment channels (card registration)
3. Health concerns/ disabilities: like poor eyesight, parkinson's etc
MODERATE 4. Language barriers: Low English proficiency to follow up on basic instructions
5. Multitasking: switching between apps to pay, providing permissions.
6. Post order modifications: connecting with restaurant in case of late delivery etc.
ZOMATO FOR SENIORS
COMPANY Solutions:
These are formulated after careful consideration of all the points explored above
1. Advertising on the platforms like popular newspapers and radio channels that are read/ watched by majority of the
customer segment.
2. To reduce the friction in signing in, we can connect the app to users’ Aadhar card by simply taking their phone
number. This way we can automate the process of filling in the address, assuming that majority of the users’ live at
ROUND their permanent address.
3. Phone’s voice assistant like Siri can be integrated to directly take commands from the users about their choices and
SENIOR PM lead them to the payments page. An alternative approach could be to set up call centres for phone based ordering
where the users’ can place their order with the support executive of Zomato.
4. The application should contain senior friendly filters like ‘healthiness rating’ of the restaurant.
5. The application should be made inclusive of the persons with health concerns/ disabilities. Therefore, the gesture
control system can be integrated with the app along with colour blind theme and an option to change font size.
TYPE 6. The application should automatically redirect the user to the payment portal/application and auto detect the OTP so
that the pain of switching apps is reduced.
PRODUCT DESIGN Great work! We will end the case now
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY This case is a continuation of “I HATE FAKE” case from RCA section.
Now that we have decided to solve the problem. Would you help us highlight the key challenges and some solutions?
Sure. Before diving into the case, I would like to ask a few clarifying questions
Go ahead
A. Regarding the Company:
● What does it do? → Social media company
ROUND ● What is the Business Model? → Ads and Marketplace
● Market share? → Market leader
SENIOR PM ● Which Geographies are we targeting? → Only India
B. Competitors:
● Market share, Business model? → Standard ones (incumbents + new companies), Ads + marketplace
● Are they facing a similar fake news problem? → Most likely, Industry wide problem
TYPE C. Product
● Which FB product? → FB app, News Feed
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN ● Objective/vision of this product? → Engage people and keep them coming back to FB over and over again. Monetize
this with various BMs
● Success metrics of this product → Engagement: Time spent on app per user. Revenue: Ads revenue/ GMV per user
● ‘Fake news’ definition → Misinformation that is spread via social media
● Scale of the fake news problem → Unknown
DIFFICULTY ● For how long have you experienced the fake news problem? → Noticed it a couple of months back
● Any metric that got affected due to fake news? → No RCA available readily
DIFFICULT
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY D. Objective
● What is the objective? → Identify key issues and propose high level solution to solve for fake news in FB india news
feed
● Why should we solve this problem? → In previous case
Alright, I think I have a good background knowledge of our client. So now I will break down the PS to get a better overview of
the process.
ROUND Sure, go ahead
SENIOR PM
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
The core entity is the Fake news FB posts in the news feed as discussed in the previous case.
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
EASY
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY Okay so now I will analyse the actors in this ecosystem.
Sure, go ahead.
Source of Fake news → Off Platform
Publisher of Fake news → On platform
Consumer of Fake news → On Platform
Society → Off platform
There is nothing much we can do to control the off platform actors. So we will focus on the activities of on platform actors
ROUND
Fair enough, go ahead.
SENIOR PM So this is the basic classification for the publishers and consumers or the on platform actors for our case
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
I will analyze each of these in detail now
Sounds Good.
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY A. Originators:
● Could be malicious or unintentional originators of fake news on the platform
● Persona:
1. Ground level Party workers
2. Polarised opinions
3. Easily manipulated/ brainwashed
4. Mid 20s, aspirational
5. Broken english, basic understanding of social media and tech products
ROUND B. Spreaders:
1. Politically active and vocal about thoughts
SENIOR PM 2. Mid 40-50s
3. New to social media
4. Victims of confirmation bias
5. Lot of free time on hand
Can I move ahead with these assumptions about originators and spreaders of fake news?
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Yes, this is exactly what we are looking at. You can proceed.
Now, I will come up with granular problem statements which can be addressed along with the priority order.
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM
I would like to analyse the key issues for addressing these problem statements.
TYPE Sure, go ahead.
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN According to me the major key issues would be:
1. Lot of off-platform nuances and variables that control the fake news spreading ecosystem
2. Identifying absolute truth (fake vs real) is difficult
3. Impact prediction of fake news on society and FB is difficult
DIFFICULTY Great, now that you have understood the root cause and the problems to be addressed,
Can you please give some recommendations?
DIFFICULT
EASY
Sure, so I propose a high level solution:
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM
We should keep a check at each step in this funnel.
A. Fake news originator checks

● Real or fake
TYPE ● Pages/people followed
● Posts liked or shared
● Previous posts history
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
B. Image political fake news check
● Classification ML model:
1) Inputs - image pixels of posts shared via image medium in the region
2) Output - Fake news or not fake news (basis number of ‘reports’ to the post etc + verified by moderators)
DIFFICULTY
C. Potential Impact on society
DIFFICULT
EASY ● Simple ML model with three classifications: Benign, medium, dangerous
Sounds good, we can close the case here.

PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT
MADE IN WHATSAPP
Hi ! Let's start with a case. Whatsapp was recently acquired by Facebook. How do you think the experience of
COMPANY
whatsapp can be improved?
Alright, I have a few clarifying questions. Are we looking at a specific timeline?
We can look at one year.
What exactly do we mean by improving experience in Whatsapp?

ROUND
Here, it means improving ease of communication.
PM Are we looking at personal users or business users?
We can look at personal users.
Can I consider it to be a mature product?

TYPE
Yes.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
I have enough information to start the case now. First, I would like to run you through the basic functionality of Whatsapp to
see if there is any scope of improvement here. The basic features are -
→ Texting people
→ Putting statuses
DIFFICULTY → Audio and video calling
Do you think any of these basic functionalities can be improved further?

Difficult
EASY
No, here I don’t see any scope for immediate improvement . All these basic functionalities have been optimised and reached
their saturation point as of now.
MADE IN WHATSAPP
So, where else can we tap in?

COMPANY
We can look at adjacent features in Facebook and Instagram and include them in Whatsapp to level up the experience..
Some features I can think as of now are -
→ Talking to people outside one’s contact list

→ Introducing a marketplace.
→ Improving ease of joining communities
ROUND
That’s great. Is there any specific feature you want to focus on and why?
PM I would like to focus on launching a new marketplace because Facebook and Instagram have been experimenting with a
similar model. And given that Whatsapp already has a payment feature, introducing a marketplace can be highly rewarding.
That is a good observation. We can proceed further.
TYPE To proceed further I would like to break this into two interfaces. We can look at the seller and user flows.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN The user flow would be -
Scouting for businesses Looking through the catalogues Transacting online
So while customers scout for businesses who would appear on the searches?
DIFFICULTY
I would like to make it hyperlocal. We can include a feature of setting up a radius.
Difficult
EASY
Why would you like to keep the feature hyperlocal? Do you think there is any specific benefit?
MADE IN WHATSAPP
It acts as a soft power in a way and gives the customer a feel good that the money they are spending is going to elevate
COMPANY
local communities. And I feel given recent talks regarding ONDC this move has great growth potential. On the other hand it
is an extremely cost effective option as well.
That is a valid argument. Let us move to the sellers side now .
Yes. So, the sellers would include small business owners for example - a baker selling cakes or a small scale fashion
designer selling clothes.
ROUND This would include onboarding sellers and ensuring they provide good service.
PM Since we have a one year timeline what should the focus be on?
Technology can be built within a month or two after testing and piloting. We need to focus on onboarding verified sellers on
the platform and enabling transactions.
Once we get a basic idea about the traction we can onboard more people and do more pilots and eventually building up a
marketplace from scratch.
TYPE
Great ! That concludes our case. Thank you.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
BETTER UBER RIDE
COMPANY Assume you are a PM at Uber. Improve the rider’s experience during the ride.
Sure. Before diving into the case, I would like to ask a few clarifying questions.
Go ahead.
Why does this metric matter to us?

ROUND
It would help us in customer retention.
SENIOR PM
Do you have any specific locations in mind?
Let’s go ahead with Bangalore.
TYPE Is it for Uber pooling or UberGo?
You can continue with UberGo.

Product Design
IMPROVEMENT
First we can dive into the major customer segments who are using UberGo.
The users can mainly be divided into three segments based on their travelling distances :
DIFFICULTY
1. Cabs going long haul mainly from the city to the airport.
MODERATE 2. Employees from home to workplaces.
3. Local travellers travelling around the city.
BETTER UBER RIDE
COMPANY Due to the high travelling time and thus high-paying capacity, I’d like to focus on improving the rider experience of
users who are going long hauls majorly to the airport.
That sounds good. Let us dive into the case
Alright, we can look into the journey of a user and see various points at which interaction happens and how we can
improve the same
ROUND
● Booking a cab (Time taken, Ride cancellation by drivers)
SENIOR PM ● Talking to the driver and coming to the location (Soft skills of driver, language spoken)
● Inside the car (Seat comfort, smooth driving - Some users use laptop/phone or may prefer sleeping)
● Interactions inside car (Attached tablet, Music and Videos)
Can we look forward to analysing the data collected from the riders ?
TYPE
According to my knowledge, these are the kind of data we collect as a measure of rider’s experience:
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
The possible metrics are rider’s rating, driver’s rating, travelling path, travelling time and the destination.
We can also collect the interaction data of the users with our target. This could be done by the data analytics team
DIFFICULTY of the company.
MODERATE
BETTER UBER RIDE
COMPANY
Most importantly, if a rider is giving a two star rating to a driver we can tend to analyse the root cause on why
exactly is he/she giving that rating and accordingly we could take necessary actions.
That’s Good enough. We can close the case.
Do you have any questions for me ?
ROUND { - I discussed a few points regarding Groww from a trading perspective. I also explained to him about three new
features like Simplified Demat account portability just as Jio did to mobile number portability.}
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
FLIPPIN FLIPKART
COMPANY Hi, let us start with a case. Say you were the Product Manager at Flipkart, which is looking to improve their product
to stand up better to their competition. How would you go about this?
So Flipkart is an e-commerce store, and is a buyer-seller marketplace that deals in a wide variety of products like
electronics, groceries, and fashion, to name a few. To improve the business, the various stakeholders, i.e., the sellers,
buyers, logistics arm and advertisers would have to be considered. Is it okay if I consider it to be a mature product in India?
Yes, you may consider so.

ROUND
Okay. As for the business objectives to be focused on for product improvement, I have chosen two - retention and
PM acquisition. Is there any particular area I should focus upon as in any particular demographic or product or just stick to this
non-differentiating level?
Such a differentiation is not needed. What approach do you have in mind to approach this case? Could you provide
me with a general outline?
TYPE For starters, I would like to look at the three major stages a Flipkart user could be on:
→ Downloading and logging in
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN → During the first couple of uses
→ Uses after becoming a core user.
I would like to focus on how to retain the users at each stage, and also on encouraging them to move on to the next.
DIFFICULTY Sounds good.
MODERATE So for this, a customer segmentation is required, I would like to do this on the basis of:
→ An understanding of the tech-savviness and digital literacy
→ Gender and age dimensions
FLIPPIN FLIPKART
COMPANY This will help build an accurate customer persona. On the basis of this persona I will then move on to identifying the
problems faced by the customer.
Alright, let’s take the case of a Tier-3 city middle-class female without a steady source of income, dependant on
another for the same. How will you identify the needs of this customer?
Assuming the target is in the age group of 25-45. I would trace their product user journey as follows:
ROUND Awareness Accessibility Navigation Purchase Delivery
PM 1. Awareness of the service: She could learn of Flipkart through TV/print/social media advertisements, word of mouth
or the uniform of delivery partners on duty.
Once the product has registered in her mind -
2. Accessibility to it comes next. For this she would require a smartphone and good internet connection. There would
also be the question of literacy in her language of convenience as well as basic digital literacy.
TYPE 3. Navigation comes into the picture now that the user is on the platform and is trying to buy a product off the platform.
Considering a typical day and possible usages, some possible product categories could be: General toiletries,
Stationery, Books, Kitchen groceries, Footwear, Clothing. Ease of navigation is needed in filtering the desired
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN ‘product zero’ by sorting out through parameters like reviews, ratings, price range, etc.
4. Moving on to the Purchase aspect. Our target customer might be reliant on another’s income to make the purchase,
and this may pose a restraint which leads her to keep an eye out for deals and offers.
5. Once the purchase has been made comes the Delivery stage. The navigation system has to accurately detect the
delivery drop off point, and the delivery staff be able to make assured and timely delivery. Of course, the question
DIFFICULTY also arises about the availability of an accessible drop-off point for the delivery staff.
MODERATE
EASY That’s great for tracing the product journey. Assuming a customer has passed points 1 and 2 in your mapping.
What pain points could arise during the rest of their experience using Flipkart?
FLIPPIN FLIPKART
COMPANY Navigation: The element of digital literacy could be one aspect. For example, she could be stumped at the download and
sign in stage, which could result in this being a turn-back point. This also extends to using filters and selecting the right
product, as well as availing good deals. Further, if the user is not comfortable with English, the language of convenience for
her not being offered on the app could be another pain point.
Payment: Sometimes, the Cash on Delivery option could be unavailable, making it difficult for users unversed in digital
payments.
ROUND Delivery: Finally, in case of failure of the navigation system, or unavailability of delivery points in proximity, delivery time and
product condition may be compromised, affecting the user experience.
PM
That is a very comprehensive look into our friend’s problem here. Finally, to wrap it up, how would you build a
bridge across to a user who is facing a steep learning curve with the app? Also suggest an incentive that could
encourage the user to keep using the service.
TYPE To avoid the first possible roadblock of a steep curve, Flipkart could use push advertisements on channels such women
frequent in general which could showcase how easy it is to download and sign in. Easy and simple tutorials could also be
made readily accessible.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN As for repeated purchases, we could incentivise the seller through referral coupons and random discount vouchers. Another
way of roping in online purchase traffic could be by introducing a resale option on Flipkart, where users can make money by
reselling products, on a zero investment charge-platform.
Great. That sounds like a good plan. Well, that wraps up our product sense case. Thank you.
DIFFICULTY (Doesn’t go into how to address these problems, as the interview was only to test the product sense of the interviewee)
MODERATE
EASY
WHAT’S THE RATING?
Hey, let's get started shall we? Here is your case: How can you improve Flipkart reviews?
COMPANY
I have a few clarifications before we move ahead. What exactly is the objective of such an initiative?
We are looking at a better interpretation of reviews by the users, converting more of them into buyers/ more
checkouts.
ROUND Just confirming, is it (increasing sales) from a Flipkart seller perspective or for the company in general, improving the overall
customer experience.
PM
Let’s assume you're consulting on behalf of the company, aiding our product team to set up new features to ensure
a better user experience.
Are we looking at reviews on the official website and apps or even other sources like quora, blogs, affiliates etc.
TYPE
We can restrict ourselves to those appearing in our webpage and app.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Sure, are we going for better quality reviews or are we focussing on increasing the numbers?
We shall look at a quantitative increment in this context.

DIFFICULTY
Let's explore the purpose that reviews serve in the first place and later understand the current layout of Flipkarts review
MODERATE pipeline.
As I understand, reviews serve as word-of-mouth testimonials from satisfied customers providing unbiased opinions and
concerns regarding a product and dictating a customers choice whether or not to buy it.
COMPANY Currently the layout of Flipkart displays detailed written reviews on the bottom, with an indicator providing rations of reviews
split on the basis of stars awarded and an overall rating. (more reviews implies more purchase which in turn direct to the
popularity and trust for the product/ brand). I've also considered all categories to be valid and equally weighted*. Am I right
in assuming these statements?
Yes, you may consider these assumptions to be valid and proceed.
ROUND Let us now consider two factors posing a challenge to better reviews, one being the lack of in-built features and the second
being the of unwillingness of buyer to review
PM
(Category-1) Firstly let's consider the user’s journey once the app is installed and signed in.
● Assuming they are looking out for a specific product with no preference over brands, firstly, they search for the
TYPE product and a list of sellers pops up.
● These are ordered by decreasing popularity/ total no of sales, better reviews and F-assured tags for credibility
(guarantee stamp for having undergone additional quality checks). Assuming that the number of reviews are
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
proportional to the sales, the most reviewed ones show up on the top.
● The next dilemma is narrowing down a price range/ a cap on maximum budget to be spent followed by narrowing
down a set of products to be compared.
● After comparing reviews and features they reach a final conclusion and proceed to add it to cart/ checkout.
DIFFICULTY ● Apply offers/ credits, selects drop off address and initiates payment.
● After receiving the delivery and use some shall post their experience as reviews
MODERATE
COMPANY Solutions:
● From the above sequence we can infer that if a “paradox of choice” does exist it might actually reduce conversions
and a comparison mechanism is essential for the same as it complements the decision making process of a buyer.
Therefore reviewer counts on the top must be displayed for buyers to distinguish the product from the entire lot.
● Also, an additional feature to compare similar products within the same price range must exist (similar to that
implemented in Amazon).
ROUND ● The overall rating can be further split into differentiating feature wise ratings providing more clarity to customers on
deal-breaking differences.
PM
(Category-2) Rating is different from Reviews as the latter demands more time and effort from the user. Hence, the vast
majority of the buyers skip reviews. Also, one negative (1 star) review needs four positive (5 star) reviews to negate its
effects on the overall ratings. But assuming the same scenario for all the products we can disregard this disparity in general.
TYPE
Solutions: Incentivising reviews with Flipkart credits/ points can be a suggestion. Also, adopting a strategy of pop up
requests for reviews on subsequent visits prove to be beneficial.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Great work! Let’s end the case here.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
LEARNING PROPERLY ?
You are the PM at an ed-tech startup which has a platform that offers hard and soft skills training. It is currently a B2B
COMPANY
service. Programs are self-paced, but there is a deadline of 3-4 months within which they have to complete it. However,
people were only focused on the courses in the first 1 week and last 1 week where users rushed to complete it. Can
you improve this situation?
Firstly, who are our customers? Are they doing blue collared jobs or desk jobs in these companies?
Mostly white collared job employees.

ROUND
Do they belong to a particular industry?
SENIOR PM
There is a mix of people from across industries. There are also some students from campuses.
I see that this is a push-based learning program rather than a pull-based. Are the courses completely individual or are there
batches of people who take it together and see the videos/ classes themselves.
TYPE
The programs are batch based and they are provided video content with some live sessions. The company
IMPROVEMENT
IMPROVEMENT recommends certain people to take up the course and they are a part of the batch.
Are the courses customizable? Do the companies choose from a list of courses? Also, could you elaborate on the type of
training, who creates the courses and content delivery.
DIFFICULTY
The company chooses from a list of programs.The chosen employees in these companies further have a freedom to
MODERATE choose from the list made by the company. Content delivery varies across courses- some have more reading material,
some have more live sessions etc. There is a hybrid model where some courses are created by internal subject experts
and some of them are created by people who are outsourced (professors, speakers, industry experts etc.)
LEARNING PROPERLY ?
COMPANY Let me look at the user journey to identify the relevant points. Firstly, you said that the user chooses the courses. Is there
a decision fatigue where they have to check a lot of different courses before they choose and end up choosing
something sub optimal?
This is not the case as the choices are limited by the company shortlist too.
Next in the journey would be registering for the course. I do not think that would be a problem as the problem lies in them
ROUND not being enthusiastic enough to finish consistently. So considering their time learning the course, I would like to make
the following observations:
SENIOR PM
● Notifications for some people: Most people need some sort of a nudge to get back to the platform, but not all.
Identifying those people who need it based on user activity is important. Self-goals can be set by users to
complete.
● Attention span: Making smaller nuggets of information content would be better than longer videos in a
TYPE self-paced course.
● Gamification: A leader board based on interaction and test scores with some rewards for the top performers
Root
IMPROVEMENT
Cause Analysis
IMPROVEMENT on a weekly basis. Since it is batched based, this brings in a social element. Badges for milestones can also be
given, which can be shared on social media or with the batch.
Remarks by the interviewee: This was a little confusing because the business was B2B. We are exposed to B2C
DIFFICULTY
platforms like udemy/ coursera and because of that, the bias seeps in and it becomes difficult to identify the problem. It is
important to clarify the user journey thoroughly.
MODERATE
PAY WITH GPAY
COMPANY Let’s start with the case. Analyse e-bill payment feature in Gpay and suggest some improvements.
I have not used this feature previously. But, I think it should be a feature that fetches all the bills at a single place, and can
be paid for with GPay.
Yes, You got it right. It is a feature to pay all your bills at a single place, to make your life a bit easier.
Great, Let me ask some clarifying questions so that I can get a hang of the e-bill feature.
ROUND
Sure
SENIOR PM
There are two stages of usage here. First time payment (linking the accounts) and using the feature after linking. Can you
please explain the user steps involved currently in both of these stages?
Yes, For first time setup, the user has to link the account, let’s say electricity account to GPay by entering some
relevant data. Using this information GPay fetches all pending bills under that electricity account. The next step is
TYPE common for both first time user and recursive users. They can just pay the bills with existing GPay payment
methods.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Great, So currently the feature works only for paying to an established organisation which has an API to access customer
bill data
Yeah that’s right

DIFFICULTY
Thank you for the inputs, I have got a pretty good idea of the functionality.
DIFFICULT Let me go through the user journey and try to look for any improvements at each step.
Good, Go Ahead
PAY WITH GPAY
COMPANY First time payment:

Go to Bill section Select Company/Service Add Details Pending bills Payment
Recurring payment:
Go to Bill section Pending bills Payment
Now analysing each step in both these user journey,
ROUND Increasing no. of customers checking bill payment section:

→ Intimate users about pending/new bills for users who have saved info
SENIOR PM → When a user pays with GPay in the electricity website, a pop up message should appear asking permission to
store their data for future use. With this we can migrate users to this feature
Companies/Services available:
→ Adding subscriptions like Netflix, Prime and other platforms
→ Adding more options like Kirana store, newspaper, milk payment. A feature where these shopkeepers can send
TYPE the bill to their customers, and customers in turn pay them with GPay
→ Catalogue the services available with respect to location, as each state has their own services.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Adding Details:
→ Important step, as this determines the transaction. Display the customer details before saving the data, so that
they can rectify any typing mistakes.
→ OTP / website password to check for authenticity/correctness of data entered
DIFFICULTY → As suggested before, pop up window in website payment to store data
MODERATE
DIFFICULT Pending Bills:
→ Users should not miss out on payment date, so by default pending bills should be ordered chronologically.
Additional filter/sorts can be provided to aid users in making financial decisions
PAY WITH GPAY
Payment:
COMPANY
→ Users typically pay with debit card, credit card, netbanking, UPI. The edge this feature has over the traditional
one is aggregation and recursiveness. To improve the recursion, we can motivate users to store money in GPay
wallet for transaction in a click or automated transaction.
→ New possibility might include creating bank mandate for automated payment. (Not sure of the govt. laws)
These are the list of improvements that will enhance the purpose of the feature. Should I look into any other field or area?
ROUND This is great! Can you prioritise these suggestions? Pick the top 3 suggestions
Sure, I will create a impact vs effort matrix to prioritise them

SENIOR PM
New Feature Impact Effort
● Pending bill reminder Medium (User retention) Low (Addition of notification feature)
● Pop up to store data High (New users) Medium (Collaborate with payment sites)
● Subscription payments High (New users) Medium (APIs for many companies)
TYPE ● Shopkeepers Low (cash/on spot payment) High (Create features to add recipients)
● Catalogue services Low (Just a filter) Low (create filter)
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN ● Check page on saving data High (Safety & accuracy) Low (Display details to verify)
● OTP/password on saving data HIgh (Safety & accuracy) Medium (Collaborate with companies)
● Pending bill display order Low (Payment reminder is better) Low (Sorting/order of display)
● Automate transaction High (Only diff. Between other modes) High (Adding new software changes)
DIFFICULTY The top 3 would be

1. Automate Transaction - As it is the key difference between normal UPI & this feature
2. Check page / OTP - As accuracy of data entered is very important
MODERATE
DIFFICULT
3. Pop up to store data - This brings in new customers
Great insights! Let’s end the case here

DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY How would you retain customers for Naukri.com/ LinkedIn job search?
Retention is a big problem for the companies that have a transactional product. I want to know what customers we are
talking about, those who are already using the product to search for jobs or attracting new people. Also, can you
elaborate on retention?
Let us consider those who are using the product. We want them to use the platform the next time they are
ROUND searching for a job. By retention, we want customers to return to this platform for the next time and also keep
them engaged in the platform for some time after they find a job for monetary reasons.
SENIOR PM
May I assume that we are only considering job seekers and not those who are looking to network, find leads etc. ?
Sure, that is fair.
Also, how long do we want to retain these customers and keep them engaged after they get their job?
TYPE
A couple of months.
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
I have come up with a 3-pillar structure that I want to discuss with you.
● Use case/ feature strategy: How would one layer on additional use cases for people to compel them to use the
DIFFICULTY product.
● Frequency strategy: How do you increase the frequency with which a user logs in to the application. For
DIFFICULT
Difficult example, if he checks updates once every 7 days, how do you make it once every 3 days?
● Intensity strategy: Time spent on the platform per use. Additional and useful activities can be thought of to
increase the time spent once the user logs in.
DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY Okay that looks good, let us dive into the use case first.
Let me divide use case into 2 parts based on the user journey:
● During the job search/ just after applying
● After finding a job
For the first one, one important aspect could be group recommendations based on the user’s school and current job. For
example, discussion forums for people looking for similar jobs or a group with alumni from the same institute could be
ROUND recommended. Speaking to others can be important in such situations. For the second one, we could make use of
learning courses/ certifications to keep them engaged. Does this sound good?
SENIOR PM
Fair enough, keep in mind that we are targeting customers who are already engaged. Let’s look at frequency
strategy next.
Let me list what we can do here:

TYPE ● Notifications: Active notifications and updates on their job application, new messages in the groups you are a
part of, hot article on the topic you follow.
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Let me stop you there. How will you identify which user gets what notification and their frequency? Many
notifications can be detrimental.
DIFFICULTY As a first experiment, we need to collect data on which user prefers what notification. Then we can build a mapping
towards which user gets what notification using ML and similar techniques by building a dataset of users and preferences
DIFFICULT
Difficult over time.
That makes sense, you may continue.

DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY Let us move to the third pillar of intensity strategy. Basically, I want to see how the user interacts, whether they are just
viewing the platforms for updates in a few seconds or are they actually spending more time commenting, interacting with
some items?
Currently, they are only viewing updates.
To tackle that, we can make use of the article section I mentioned before. We can build a recommender of short articles
ROUND based on the user’s search history and interactions.
Can you define metrics to measure the success of everything you have mentioned?
SENIOR PM
For the use case part, we can measure the correlation between a user interacting with the various items presented
previously like short articles, courses, groups etc. and him returning for a job search in the predicted period of time. For
the frequency part, we can calculate how many more days is the user logging in per month as compared to the previous
TYPE month. If this is above some threshold, it is a success. Lastly, we can measure the intensity by the average total time
spent per log for a week.
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
These are good points, but how would you change the strategy if we want to engage the user for a much longer
period of time like 1 year?
I would focus on the courses part mentioned previously. Since we are not an ed-tech company, we could have tie-ups
DIFFICULTY with other ed-tech companies for the sake of offering premium/ SOTA courses. We can also look at the monetization
strategy where we can allow people to pay only if they get a job. This creates a gratitude feeling and they will be willing to
DIFFICULT
Difficult pay some more money.
DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY Are you sure about the last point?
I think it has potential. Some of the hurdles I can think of are that the Indian market is very price sensitive which could be
a problem. Also, it would be difficult to identify whether they did get a job from the platform as they could have applied
through a post of an opening.
Remarks by the interviewee: The crux of the case was to recognize that users were just spending a couple of seconds to
ROUND see updates and they were not using the app for anything else. This made engaging them further difficult. The
interviewee luckily chose a framework he had read which led directly to the solution. It would have been slightly more
difficult to find this had he chosen the standard user journey . There was a variant of this question asked, which is listed
SENIOR PM
next.
TYPE
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Difficult
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
USERS EVERYWHERE, SUBSCRIBERS NOWHERE
COMPANY Hey! Let’s start this interview with a case. We have observed that the number of people subscribing to our classes
on the platform has reduced in the past one year. What do you think is the reason?
There could be two reasons why the number of subscribers have fallen on the platform. Either the number of users using
the platform has fallen or the pricing structure has changed. Has either of this happened?
No, the number of users has actually increased and the pricing structure has been the same for the past year
ROUND So, the user increase is from the existing customer base and the decrease in subscribers is caused by something within the
application. So, I’d like to know more about the user journey from watching the tutorial to buying the product, since the issue
lies somewhere within this journey.
PM
We give a small free tutorial video to the users interested in subscribing to the platform, based on that, users
decide whether to subscribe to our product or not
So, to clarify,
TYPE User watches the tutorial Chooses products Adds it to cart to subscribe Checks out and subscribes.
Yes, that’s what they generally do.

Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
Going through this process step-by-step, has the number of people watching the tutorial reduced?
No, it has roughly remained the same.
DIFFICULTY Okay, is there any decrease in the number of people adding products to their cart?
No, it has remained constant.

EASY
COMPANY Alright, has there been any decrease in the number of people checking out?
Yes, there is a steep and unusual fall in the number of people who are checking out
Has there been any changes in the process between adding to cart and checking out in the platform in the past year?
Yes. A new technical update has been launched which changed the process between adding to cart and check-out
This could have lead to technical glitches like system crashes making it difficult for users to proceed forward from adding
ROUND items to cart
PM
1 Right, this must be the reason the subscriptions have went down. It went great, we can close the case here
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
EASY
COMPANY
ROUND
PM
1
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
EASY
CYCLE MECHANIC
Hey! Let’s start the case. Your client is a company which has an app offering cycle mechanics on the spot. They
COMPANY have observed a 20% decline in the number of users. Analyse the possible reasons for the same.
I have a few questions in order to get to know our client better. Firstly, can you please elaborate on how exactly this product
works?
Sure. Let us say a cycle rider faces a problem with their cycle during a journey. They can use our product to book
for a cycle mechanic and someone will be sent to the rider’s current location for repair
ROUND Interesting. I would also like to know the regions where this product is offered.
We can consider that your client operates within the IITM campus only.
PM
I would also like to know whether the decline has been observed in the app or website, if it exists, and also whether the
decline has been gradual or spontaneous.
The product is available only in the app version. The decline is seen over the last 2 days.
TYPE
Ok that’s a very spontaneous drop. I would like to take a moment here to come up with the user journey of this app and then
we can list down the possible reasons of user decline under each step.
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
Sure go ahead.
Here is how the user journey will look like as far as my understanding of the app goes :
→ A cyclist faces an issue with his cycle within the IITM campus.
DIFFICULTY → He needs to take out his phone and connect it to the internet.
→ In case he doesn’t have our updated app, it should be installed or the existing app should be updated and opened
EASY → He should navigate through the app and book a mechanic after adding his current location
→ I’m assuming that after a small wait, the mechanic arrives and repair work is carried out
→ Payment will be done through the app I presume
Does this sound good ?
CYCLE MECHANIC
COMPANY Yes you are right. The payment is done through the app itself.
I’d now like to list down the possible things that could go wrong in each of these steps of the user journey
→ Rider having problem with his cycle:

The factor to consider under this step is the total number of riders assuming that the number of cycle mishaps is still
the same as no major change has been brought into force on campus to avoid such scenarios
The number of riders on campus could have reduced due to the following reasons:
ROUND → A covid wave has spread suddenly and hence lockdown has been imposed throughout the campus / Chennai
→ In case it’s a weekend or a govt declared holiday, many students are either not on campus or are just holed up in
their hostel rooms because most of the students use cycles extensively for attending classes or labs
PM
1
→ Accessing the phone and internet:
As we are talking about the year 2021, I’m assuming that everyone carries their phone along with them wherever
they go.
So one concern here, although it sounds improbable and far-fetched, is that there has been a campus wide network
disruption and hence cyclists are unable to access internet services
TYPE → Having an up-to-date version of the app and navigating through it:
Here we move on to the problems that can exist from our product’s end
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis → Play store/ app store don’t display the app anymore due to some certification issues
→ Our app’s server is down and under maintenance
→ A new UI has been introduced and searching for options here is more complicated than on the earlier version
→ Wait for mechanic and payment :
→ Due to bad user experiences involving the service provided and payment method previously, users might have
DIFFICULTY started avoiding the app. But this cannot be the case because the decline has been spontaneous and not gradual
EASY That’s an exhaustive breakdown of the root causes. You’ve covered everything I was expecting. I think we can
close the case now
CYCLE MECHANIC
COMPANY Sudden decline in

number of users
Looking at user journey
Cyclist faces an Reduction in number of cyclists on campus

issue due to various reasons
ROUND
Accessing
Campus wide network description hence
PM
1 phone & internet
cutting off access to internet
App availability
App unavailable or server down due to
& navigation
maintenance.
TYPE
New, complicated UI
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis Wait, repair &
Wait for mechanic high. Hence low retention of
payment
users
DIFFICULTY
EASY
YOUTUBE HACKS
COMPANY Hey, let’s start the case. You are a Product Manager for YouTube. There has been a 10% drop in engagement over
the past 2 weeks. What will you do?
Youtube is a video sharing platform whose primary source of venue are ad campaigns. Am I right?
Yes, please proceed.
I would like to ask a few questions to understand the product and our problem better. Firstly, can you tell me in which
ROUND geography we are seeing this problem?
PM The drop in engagement is being seen across India.
Interesting. Can I know what are the metrics used by YouTube to measure engagement?
The primary metric we use is the time spent per user per day on YouTube.
TYPE Makes sense. I would like to take a moment to list down the different stakeholders involved here. They are:
→ Viewers
RCA → Creators
→ Companies that advertise on YouTube
Can you tell me which of these category of users has contributed the most to the drop in engagement
DIFFICULTY It has been observed that there has been a drop from the creators’ end. The creators aren’t uploading as many
videos as before. However, there has been no change in the viewership.
MODERATE
Interesting. I would like to list down the possible reasons why this could be happening.
YOUTUBE HACKS
COMPANY User-specific reasons:

To have a better understanding of these, I would like to do a rundown of the user journey followed by a creator on YouTube:
Sign-in on YouTube Content ideation Content production Content upload on YouTube Receive
analytics on content engagement.
Has there been any changes to this?
ROUND No change.
PM
1 Interesting. I would now like to take a look at other possible reasons.
Product-specific reasons:
→ Changes in metric measurement method
→ The engagement calculator tool may be malfunctioning
→ App updates or UI changes
TYPE → Any new strategy adopted/ announcements made by YouTube
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis External reasons:
→ New competitors or new product offerings made by existing competitors
→ Covid-related fall in usage patterns
→ Negative publicity about YouTube
→ Government regulations.
DIFFICULTY
The possible reasons you’ve listed down seem exhaustive. The issue was caused by a new update made to the
MODERATE Copyright policy by the government. The regulation prohibits the use of audios without the permission of their
respective owners. This has lead to a decrease in content uploaded. We can close the case.
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY Your client is Facebook. They have been facing a problem of fake news. You have to understand why this is
happening and is it worth solving.
Sure. But before diving into the decision of whether it should be solved, I would like to ask some clarifying questions
Go ahead
A. Regarding the Company:

ROUND ● What does it do? → Social media company
● What is the Business Model? → Ads and Marketplace
SENIOR PM ● Market share? → Market leader
● Which Geographies are we targeting? → Only India
B. Competitors:
● Who all? Market share? Business model? → Standard ones (incumbents + new companies), ads + marketplace
● Are they facing a similar fake news problem? → Most likely, Industry wide problem
TYPE
C. Product:
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis ● Which FB product? → FB app →News Feed
● Objective/vision of this product?
→ Engage people and keep them coming back to FB over and over again. Monetize this with various BMs
● Success metrics of this product
→ Engagement: Time spent on app per user. Revenue: Ads revenue per user/ GMV per user
DIFFICULTY ● ‘Fake news’ definition → Misinformation that is spread via social media
● Scale of the fake news problem → Unknown
DIFFICULT ● For how long have you experienced the fake news problem? → Noticed it a couple of months back
● Any metric that got affected due to fake news? → No RCA available readily
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY Alright, I think I have a good background knowledge of our client. So now I will be following this approach
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
The situation being comprehended well, I would like to analyse deeper into what is the root problem and will it be worth solving.
DIFFICULTY Sure, go ahead
DIFFICULT Okay so I would like to get into the process of how exactly fake news spread.
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM This is a high level abstract view of the process. Should I include any more sub-steps?
No, this looks good, you can proceed with this.
Okay so now I will list down the stakeholders at each step in this process.
1. FB
TYPE 2. Ads suppliers
3. End users
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis ● Fake news supply i. Originators ii. Spreaders
● Fake news consumers i. Detractors of FB ii. Spreaders
4. Sellers
5. Society
DIFFICULTY Is there any particular segment I should be focusing on?
DIFFICULT
EASY Let’s look into Fake news suppliers
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY Okay so here we need to understand which topics of fake news are being circulated
ROUND
Is there any category which dominates? And by how much margin?
SENIOR PM
The major source of fake news is from Political Images & let’s consider only that for now.
Okay so the majority is political images & we can ignore the rest for now
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
I will dive deeper into analysing how the news exactly spreads.
DIFFICULTY Any particular data on which segment does the fake news belong? (Original vs Shared posts)
DIFFICULT
EASY The massive spread is due to the shared content.
Okay so now I would like to analyse the effect of the PS on various entities and how it will affect the business and ethical goals.
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY Sure, go ahead.
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
So from all these considerations my final recommendation would be that the problem is worth solving.
DIFFICULT
EASY The estimate for the priority we should be giving to solve this problem is high considering all the parameters (Reach, Impact,
Confidence and Efforts)
PRODUCT METRIC
INSTAGRAM INFLUENCE
COMPANY Hey there! Let’s talk about Instagram. Do you use it?
Yes, I spend a considerable amount of time on the platform.
Great. Let’s do a case then. You are the Director of Product at Instagram. What metrics will you use to measure the
app’s success?
Instagram is essentially a social media service that is also used for messaging and influencing. Can I consider these as its
ROUND major features?
ProductPM
Manager Sure, go ahead.
Can I know the business goals of Instagram?
Instagram aims to increase revenue, engagement and user acquisition rate.

TYPE Interesting. I would like to draw the customer journey before defining the metrics. The different stages in the user journey
are:
PRODUCT METRIC Customer sign-in Creating content (stories, posts, reels) Viewing content Reacting and commenting on
content Messaging/ Video call Follow/Unfollow
Looks good, you may proceed.

DIFFICULTY Okay. Now I’d like to split the metrics into different categories so as to make sure that every aspect of the app is covered.
The key Focus metrics would be:
EASY → Daily active users - Time of usage of the app per person in a day
→ Weekly active users - Time of usage of the app per person in a week
→ Ratio of daily and weekly active users
INSTAGRAM INFLUENCE
COMPANY Alright sounds good.
Next I would like to divide the metrics into 3 buckets:

User level metrics:
→ Number of sessions per user per day
→ Number of interactions per user per day
→ Number of posts per user per week
→ Number of stories put per user per day & number of stories viewed per user per day
ROUND → Followers and following count
Post-related metrics:
ProductPM
Manager → Average interaction per post - likes, comments on average
→ Number of photos per post
→ Number of photos per post viewed
Messaging-related metrics:
→Number of people a user chats with
TYPE Based on the metrics defined so far, I would now like to define Level 1 and Level 2 metrics relevant to Instagram:
PRODUCT METRIC Level 1: Directly influences focus metrics

→ Number of sessions
→ Number of photos
→ Interactions per post
DIFFICULTY Level 2: Drives Level 1 and Focus metrics

→ Followers and following count
EASY
Great, thank you. We can close the case
BECOME AN INDIAN IDOL
COMPANY Hi, let us start the case. Can you suggest some Instagram features to aid artists with revenue generation
Before I start I have a few questions. Is increase in revenue the only objective?
Yes, new features for revenue generation is the only objective.
Ok, What type of artists are we targeting?
ROUND Could you list out all the types of artists according to you?
PM Okay, Let me start by evaluating potential user personas.There are many types of artists such as painters, musicians,
designers, actors etc. Should I narrow down to one of these categories?
Let’s focus on musicians.
Great. So, musicians use instagram mainly to gain more popularity and reach, which can in turn lead to money.
TYPE But for this case, I will focus on revenue generation solely from the Instagram platform.
PRODUCT METRIC When a musician uses Instagram, they login to their account and upload content regularly along with relevant hashtags.
Posting stories, creating reels, going live and setting up advertisements are some other frequent activities.
First, for the login stage, a simple feature to identify if the account is a real artist or not. We have the “verified” feature for
this. This would help identify the true artist and eliminate other dummy accounts that might be trying to take advantage.
DIFFICULTY OK, can you now focus on the revenue generation aspects
EASY For revenue generation, we have 3 options :

(i) Advertisements
(ii) Actually sell the music
(iii) Some sort of subscription
BECOME AN INDIAN IDOL
COMPANY Artists can be given royalties when their music is used by others in their posts.
(Note: The following feature didn’t exist during the time of this interview) [Giving credits for using a song in a reel]
That’s interesting. What are the metrics that you’ll track to measure the success of the changes implemented
● For the advertisements, we can check the dropout rate.

● For the success of the platform and the new features implemented, we can check churn rate.
● MAU (Monthly Active Users) is also an important metric that can be monitored, based on which we can judge the
ROUND engagement and prioritise on the features further.
PM What is your personal opinion on these features
When an artist’s music is used to promote something, I believe the artist should also receive credits and royalties as
proposed.
Since Instagram is one of the best platforms for brand promotion, it makes sense to have this feature integrated in it.
This can really increase an artist’s revenue by a lot, tif the song used becomes really popular.
TYPE These features can really boost opportunities for revenue generation
PRODUCT DESIGN
METRIC Great. Thank you.
DIFFICULTY
EASY
ENGAGE TO GROW
How familiar are you with investment platforms and apps like Groww and according to you how do they stand apart
COMPANY
from the conventional process?
I have decent experience in investing but not necessarily through apps like Groww but I'm certain that their USP is the
hassle free approach towards investing, taking away most of the friction from onboarding someone with no prior experience
whatsoever and catering to their curiosity around the current hype that exists around investing.
ROUND Great! You seem to be pretty familiar with the subject. We shall move onto the case then. Groww has been seeing a
considerable dip in their user engagement despite their highly successful efforts in user acquisition. Map out the
reasons why.
SENIOR PM
I hope to run over a few clarifying questions before I attempt the case. Just to be on the same page, how exactly is the
product marketed/ what does it offer?
The Groww app was marketed to be a 2-in-1 online trading platform including a Demat and a trading account where
TYPE the broker offers an online onboarding experience with Zero account charges.
PRODUCT METRIC Okay, so from what I understand, Groww offers an interface to sell/ buy Mutual funds, Indian and US stocks through a
simplified and intuitive UI experience for the user where people could scout the market and can carefully consider their
investment choices.
Moving on, can the same problem be assumed to affect both the website and app or is there a specific one I must target?
DIFFICULTY And by user acquisition shall I consider the “number of app downloads” or” total number of visitors/ sign-ups” as possible
metrics?
MODERATE
For this particular case you can consider the “Groww App” to be the service platform and yes we shall consider
the number of App downloads to be a relevant metric for user acquisition.
ENGAGE TO GROW
COMPANY Alright, so what exactly are we considering to be user engagement here? Is there something particular that I must look into?
Maybe like:
● Number of sign ups (In a stipulated time period)
● Amount of time spent on using the app
● Total amount invested per user
● Number of sessions per day or per week
● Number of transactions per day or per week
ROUND
All of the above mentioned metices are relevant in this context but for the sake of this case we can proceed onto
SENIOR PM exploring the number of signups as a criteria to judge engagement.
May I inquire if there has been any changes to the UI or the general functioning of the platform as of recently?
Yes, there has been a significant update over the past few months.
TYPE
Then I guess we can proceed to scope out the user journey where you shall guide me on any recent changes that might
PRODUCT METRIC have triggered the actual problem.
Sounds fair enough. We can proceed now.
DIFFICULTY ● Firstly, once the application is installed, the user registers themselves
● Then they proceed onto exploring the features of the app, possibly guided by a self initiated app tour.
MODERATE ● Once they've been familiarized with the UI, they navigate through the verification procedure (KYC) and update
personal details
ENGAGE TO GROW
COMPANY ● Some do prefer to go through in house beginners material to get themselves acquainted with trading and its
subsidiaries.
● Once all these are done, generally, a beginner proceeds on to deposit a trivial amount into their account and carries
out their first trade!
What are your inputs on the chronology of the user journey I've proposed? Is it any different after the recent update that
you've just mentioned?
ROUND
Yes, there's a change, the company had figured to move up the KYC verification process as a preliminary step to
SENIOR PM allow the users into using the application, only after which they are let to use the apps features.
Then would I be accurate in assuming that the users won't have access to the trading interface or market fluctuations before
verifying themselves through the KYC framework?
TYPE Yes, you would appear to be right in saying so.
PRODUCT METRIC Conclusion: A huge chunk of the population lacks proper financial backing and foundations in investing principles. Therefore
many tend to lose money over such platforms and are aware of those risks. The recent trends have rekindled their interest
towards investments and have set many on the path of figuring out the process and techniques involved on a self taught
basis. Therefore the preliminary service offered by apps like Groww as in market statistics, dummy trading interface,
DIFFICULTY technical analytical tools etc help them satiate their curiosity. The recent updates have hampered this very curiosity that had
motivated people to check out and interact with the app by putting an added layer of friction onto their rather smooth
MODERATE onboarding experience. The detailed process involved in KYC updation in the very beginning would have reduced fresh
registrations/ sign ups hence lowering the overall engagement rate of the platform.
GUESSTIMATES
THE TERMINAL
COMPANY Hello! Let’s start the interview. Can you estimate the number of Planes leaving Chennai Airport in 24 hours.
Okay. I would like to start off by getting to know more about the types of planes we are talking about, for example
passenger/cargo, domestic/international, government/private/defence.
Sure. We want to know total number of planes leaving the airport so take all of them into account.
Got it. So i have to estimate number of Planes leaving chennai airport in 24 hours.
ROUND # Planes leaving Chennai airport = (# Functional Runaways X % Utilization of runways X time) / Time for which one
plane will use the runway.
INTERVIEW
PM Is this approach alright?
Yes, go ahead.
Okay, so i will like to split the timing into peak and non- peak hours.There will be 10 peak hours and rest will be non-peak
TYPE hours. For peak hours I am assuming percentage utilization as 90% and for other it will be around 60%.
Okay.
PROFITABILITY
PROFITABILITY
GUESSTIMATE
GUESSTIMATE
GUESSTIMATE
Also there are two runaways in chennai and it will take approx 5 min for one plane to clear off the runway.
# planes = # planes in peak hour + # planes in Non-peak hour
# planes in peak hour = (2*0.90*10*60)/5 = 216 Planes

DIFFICULTY # planes in non-peak hours = (2*0.60*14*60)/5 = 202 Planes
EASY
EASY
EASY Does this sound reasonable?
Yes. We can conclude the case.

THE TERMINAL
COMPANY
ROUND
PM
INTERVIEW
TYPE
PROFITABILITY
GUESSTIMATE
DIFFICULTY
EASY
MESSY MESS
COMPANY Find out number of food plates used on a normal working day in IITM mess.
Sure, Just a few clarifications. Are we talking about number of food plates served in mess? Also, are we taking into account
of plates served in other eateries?
Yes, estimate number of plates served in mess. To make things simple let’s consider plates served in messes only.
Great! I have sufficient information to start on the problem. My basic approach is to look into number of people eating in the
ROUND mess by analysing occupancy of tables with time.
PM Sounds good, Go ahead.
There are three main mess buildings in IIT M namely, Himalayas, Nilgiri and Vindhya. With a total of approximately 12
dining halls operating.
From my experience there are about 30 tables in a dining hall and each table can accommodate 8 people.
TYPE
Number of people eating = Occupancy X No.of tables X Capacity of a table
GUESSTIMATE Can we look into the %occupancy per hour?
Yeah, sounds good.
All mess operate for 2.5 hrs in all 3 sessions in a day,

DIFFICULTY
1. Breakfast(7-9:30 am)
2. Lunch(12-2.30 pm)
MODERATE 3. Dinner(7-9:30pm).
Splitting this into 50 mins slots to analyse the occupancy of mess. We will have 3 slots in a session and totally 9 slots.
Can I assume that all dining halls have same occupancy at any given time?
MESSY MESS
COMPANY Yes, You can.
Great, moving on to estimating % of seating occupied
% seats occupied
Breakfast Lunch Dinner
Slot 1 20% (Early Risers) 60% (Breakfast skippers) 50% (Lunch skippers)
Slot 2 50% (Way to class) 50% (Way to hostel) 60% (After sports)
ROUND Slot 3 50% (Way to class) 60% (Way to class) 60% (Night Owls)
INTERVIEW
PM # of seats occupied = Occupancy X No.of tables X Capacity of a table

Slot 1 550 1700 1500
Slot 2 1500 1500 1700
TYPE Slot 3 1500 1700 1700
On an average let’s take a person eats for 25 mins => In every slot 2 people would have eaten for every occupied seat
GUESSTIMATE
# of food plates consumed = # of seats occupied X 2

Slot 1 1100 3400 3000
DIFFICULTY
Slot 2 3000 3000 3400
Slot 3 3000 3400 3400
MODERATE
So totally 26,700 plates are consumed on a normal day in IITM mess
MESSY MESS
COMPANY
Good.
I would like to do a sanity check here. There are about 10000 students eating in mess, so a maximum of about 30000 food
plates are served per day. 26,700 implies around 90% of the meals are consumed in the mess. Looks like it is slightly on
the higher side.
Taking my case as a general one, I skip 3-4 meals in a week. So around 80% of the meal consumption would have been
ideal which is around 24000 plates per day.
ROUND
Great! Let’s end the guesstimate here.
INTERVIEW
PM
TYPE
GUESSTIMATE
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
ALL THE BEST!
“The best thing about feedback is that both a negative and a positive feedback lead
to an improvement in product, either by the need created or the motivation.”
For queries/feedback, reach out to us on

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IIT-M PM CASE BOOK

23 INDUSTRY STANDARD INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS TO HELP

THE FIRST ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE CASEBOOK

IITM Graduates (APMs at present) :

ABOUT CASE CLUB, IIT MADRAS

Anirudh Kulkarni, Head Revati Sawant, Head Janisha B L, Strategist

S.NO NAME DIFFICULTY COMPANY PAGE

S.NO NAME DIFFICULTY COMPANY PAGE

D. ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS 54

3 YOUTUBE HACKS MODERATE GROWW 61

4 I HATE FAKE ! DIFFICULT FLIPKART 63

ROUND Great. So how would a platform like Steam generate revenue?

Why would consumers prefer Steam over their competitors?

Consumers prefer Steam as it is very reliable and is quite easy to upgrade.

COMPANY According to you, how competitive is this market?

1. Buyers: They are price sensitive.

EASY That’s an excellent analysis. We can close the discussion now

Okay. Before we begin with the case, I have a question in mind.

What is the type of industry that we are looking into?

My approach would be as follows :

TYPE 1. To identify the target audience

That sounds good. Please go ahead.

Are we going well?

The possible pain points are:

COMPANY Sure, here are 2 solutions :

Nice. What features attracted you the most to Slack?

Tell me more about this community-based group.

ROUND Interesting. You can continue with this.

To increase usage per customer

For now consider any one of these two.

Ok, so I will go with emotional well being.

Great, you can move ahead.

COMPANY ● People will be having privacy concerns.

I would like to have the following features:

We are the service provider. The fleet comprises cars only.

What is the geography and timeline to analyze?

PM Let me look at the user journey currently in Uber.

Good. How can we have a trial run for such a product?

There are 2 ways in my opinion :

OK. Good enough. We can close the case. Thank You!

You can assume that it is an opportunity of significant size.

PRODUCT DESIGN In this context we can consider modifications in UI/ UX.

PRODUCT DESIGN Great work! We will end the case now

ROUND Sure, go ahead

COMPANY Okay so now I will analyse the actors in this ecosystem.

A. Fake news originator checks

Sounds good, we can close the case here.

Alright, I have a few clarifying questions. Are we looking at a specific timeline?

We can look at one year.

What exactly do we mean by improving experience in Whatsapp?

We can look at personal users.

Can I consider it to be a mature product?

Do you think any of these basic functionalities can be improved further?

So, where else can we tap in?

→ Talking to people outside one’s contact list

That is a good observation. We can proceed further.

Scouting for businesses Looking through the catalogues Transacting online

That is a valid argument. Let us move to the sellers side now .

Why does this metric matter to us?

Let’s go ahead with Bangalore.

# planes in peak hour = (20.9010*60)/5 = 216 Planes