Table of Contents

1. What is a Product? ...................................................................................................................................... 3

2. What is Product Management? .................................................................................................................. 3
3. PM Roles...................................................................................................................................................... 4
4. Basic Trending and Must-Know Concepts of the industry .......................................................................... 6
A. Prod-ops ................................................................................................................................................ 6
B. Blockchain ............................................................................................................................................. 8
C. Sustainability and Green Product Management ................................................................................... 8
D. Cloud Computing .................................................................................................................................. 9
E. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning· ......................................................................................... 10
F. Augmented Reality (AR): ..................................................................................................................... 13
G. Virtual Reality (VR): ............................................................................................................................. 14
I. Data Analytics, Product Analytics, and Business Analytics ................................................................. 16
J. Generative AI ...................................................................................................................................... 19
5. Product Life Cycle ...................................................................................................................................... 21
6. Product Design Thinking............................................................................................................................ 24
7. Product Management Frameworks .......................................................................................................... 39
CIRCLES Framework.................................................................................................................................. 39
Hypothesis Progression Framework......................................................................................................... 42
RICE Framework ....................................................................................................................................... 44
Value vs Complexity Prioritization Matrix ................................................................................................ 44
MoSCoW................................................................................................................................................... 46
DVF ........................................................................................................................................................... 47
Kano Model .............................................................................................................................................. 47
9. Metrics ...................................................................................................................................................... 49
10. Go-To-Market Strategy ............................................................................................................................. 52
11. Product Pricing .......................................................................................................................................... 53
12. Software Life Cycle Models ....................................................................................................................... 55
13. IT Terminologies ........................................................................................................................................ 59
Kanban...................................................................................................................................................... 61
API (Application Programming Interface) ................................................................................................ 63
DevOps ..................................................................................................................................................... 63
Edge Computing ....................................................................................................................................... 63
IoT (Internet of Things)............................................................................................................................. 63
RPA (Robotic Process Automation) .......................................................................................................... 64
Cybersecurity............................................................................................................................................ 65
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ........................................................................................................... 65

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 Quantum Computing................................................................................................................................ 65
14. Product Requirement Document (PRD) ................................................................................................... 65
15. Product Teardowns: ................................................................................................................................. 67
E-Hailing: Uber ........................................................................................................................................ 67
E-commerce: Flipkart............................................................................................................................. 70
Food-tech: Zomato ................................................................................................................................ 75
EdTech: Udemy ...................................................................................................................................... 80
Fintech: Google Pay ................................................................................................................................ 84
EdTech: Duolingo ................................................................................................................................... 89
E-Commerce: Amazon ........................................................................................................................... 95
Internet dating: Bumble ......................................................................................................................... 99
16. Miscellaneous: ....................................................................................................................................... 103
A. Product Design Psychology ................................................................................................................ 103
B. Design Tool - Figma............................................................................................................................ 107
C. Root Cause Analysis with Fishbone diagram ...................................................................................... 109
D. Platform Economy .............................................................................................................................. 110
17. Product Management related courses & resources .............................................................................. 110
18. Frequently Asked PM Interview Questions............................................................................................ 111
19. References.............................................................................................................................................. 112

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1. What is a Product?
Any item or service that satisfies customer needs can be called a product. A product can be tangible
or intangible. Tangible product examples can be found all around us whereas intangible products
can be services or experiences like a software. Product definition can change based on the industry
we are looking at. For example, for an internet-based company, a product can be a combination of
functionality, design, content, and monetization. For an e-commerce company, product definition
can include fulfillment, packaging, customer service, etc. A person responsible for managing such
a product throughout its lifecycle is the product manager.

2. What is Product Management?

Product management involves purposefully coordinating a company's product lifecycle,
encompassing the beginning, development, market launch, and ongoing support and improvement
phases. This strategic approach is crucial for introducing innovations and driving business growth.
As the demand for efficient product management rises, it has evolved into a pivotal function within
organizations, playing a fundamental role in navigating businesses through the dynamic challenges
of the contemporary business landscape. Successful product management ensures products are
delivered on time, fostering adaptability and responsiveness to customer needs, which significantly
contributes to a company's ongoing success and competitiveness.

Product managers are pivotal in guiding a product through its lifecycle, strategically aligning goals with
broader company objectives for cohesive development. Their customer-focused approach involves
using research to enhance user experiences while collaborating closely with cross-functional teams to
ensure successful development. Decision-making is central, requiring prioritization and addressing
challenges. Managing the product lifecycle demands continuous innovation for competitiveness.
Effective communication and analytical skills are essential, enabling them to convey the product vision
and evaluate performance efficiently.
Difference between a Program Manager, Product Manager, Project Manager, and a Product Owner
Program Manager Product Manager Program Owner Project Manager

Responsible for successful CEO of the product who Generally, a tactical role, Responsible for overseeing
execution of strategic strategically drives the aimed at certain product the planning, execution, and
initiatives after identifying the ideation, development, go-to- feature improvement. Can be completion of projects. They
inter-dependencies among market, support & understood as a more ensure that projects are
projects, products & improvement of the products. technical & engineering-based delivered on time, within
resources. role. budget, and meet specified
objectives.

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3. PM Roles
A. Technical Product Manager: A technical product manager is a specialist who primarily deals
with the technical dimensions of a product, concentrating on aspects that demand expertise
in technology. They typically have an educational background and significant experience in
technical fields such as software development, data science, or engineering. Their specialized
skills and expertise allow them to comprehend the intricacies of technical products, assess the
appropriateness of technical specifications and requirements, and actively contribute to
development areas such as infrastructure and security.

B. Growth Product Manager: A growth product manager concentrates on enhancing a business

metric or objective (such as acquisition, activation, retention, referral, or revenue) by
eliminating obstacles to value. Like a traditional product manager, a growth product manager
is focused on addressing customer problems but gives priority to initiatives that have the most
significant impact on business outcomes. Ideally, a growth product manager leads a dedicated
team comprising engineers, analysts, and UX designers. This collaborative team strategically
prioritizes initiatives, formulates experiments, and establishes measurement criteria.
Depending on the specific initiative, this cross-functional team collaborates with various other
company resources.

C. Data Product Manager: A data PM specializes in the management of product data,

encompassing the processes of collecting, organizing, storing, and disseminating data within
an organization. The role of a data product manager extends beyond the design stage,
focusing on optimizing the flow of data throughout the entire product lifecycle. This data is
utilized to construct and refine product features. The core responsibility of a data product
manager involves balancing the strategy, governance, and implementation of all aspects
related to data. They act as facilitators in conversations among various stakeholders, including
executives, engineers, analysts, other product teams, and external customers who consume
the data. In addition to selecting and maintaining a product's data management software, a
data PM possesses a comprehensive understanding of machine learning algorithms, AI, and
various technical aspects.

D. Business Product Manager: A business product manager plays a key role in supervising a
company's procedures for product and service development, with a focus on ensuring quality
and marketability. Their duties typically include collecting and analyzing data to comprehend
and define product requirements, collaborating with engineering and quality control teams,
identifying marketing opportunities, overseeing roadmaps, and devising strategies to fulfill
consumer needs. Additionally, as a business product manager, it is crucial to lead and motivate
the workforce to achieve goals while adhering to the company's policies and regulations.

Key Roles/Positions working with a Product Manager:

The specific roles that report to or work closely with a Product Manager can vary depending on the
organizational structure. However, some common roles that may collaborate with or fall under the
purview of a Product Manager are mentioned below. Effective collaboration between the Product
Manager and these roles is crucial for successful product development and management.

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 A. Associate or Assistant Product Manager: Individuals in these roles may assist the Product
Manager in various tasks, including research, coordination, and project management.
B. Product Owner: In Agile development environments, a Product Owner collaborates with the
Product Manager to represent the customer's interests and prioritize features for
development.
C. Development Team: Engineers and developers work under the guidance of the Product
Manager to implement product features, ensuring alignment with the product roadmap and
overall strategy.
D. Quality Assurance (QA) Team: Collaborates to ensure that the product meets quality standards
and that any issues are identified and addressed during the development process.
E. UX/UI Designer: Collaborates with the Product Manager to create a user-friendly and visually
appealing product, ensuring a positive user experience.
F. Data Analyst: Collaborates on data-driven decision-making, providing insights into user
behavior and product performance.
G. Marketing Manager: Works with the Product Manager to develop and execute marketing
strategies for product launches, promotions, and overall brand positioning.
H. Sales Team: Collaborates to understand market needs, gather feedback, and align product
features with customer demands.
I. Customer Support Team: Works closely with the Product Manager to understand customer
issues, gather feedback, and ensure that customer concerns are addressed in product
development.

Corporate Hierarchy:
In many companies, the product management hierarchy typically includes the following roles, listed
from lower to higher levels:
A. Product Manager:
• Manages a specific product or product line.
• Defines the product strategy and collaborates with cross-functional teams.

B. Senior Product Manager:

• Manages larger or more complex product portfolios.
• Provides mentorship and plays a key role in strategic decision-making.

C. Group/Product Lead:
• Oversees a group of products or a product department.
• Responsible for the overall success of the product portfolio.

D. Director of Product Management:

• Manages multiple product teams or entire product departments.
• Sets the overall vision and strategy for product management.

E. Vice President of Product Management:

• Provides leadership to the entire product management function.

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 • Collaborates with senior leaders to align product strategy with business goals.

F. Chief Product Officer (CPO):

• Heads the entire product management function.
• Plays a crucial role in shaping the company's overall product strategy.

4. Basic Trending and Must-Know Concepts of the industry

A. Prod-ops

What is Product Operations (ProdOps)?

Product Operations, or “ProdOps,” refers to several common product management processes

that have been consolidated into a centralized team to achieve operational efficiencies and
scale throughout the product and customer lifecycle. The concept is similar to the practice of
aligning software development teams and operational/hosting teams into a centralized
“DevOps” team.

When and Why ProdOps is Important to the Product Team and to the Company as a whole?

As successful products and product management teams grow, they must service the demands
of many more customers and internal partners. The workload of each Product Manager can
literally more than double. Despite – or perhaps, as a result of – this growth, many product
teams begin to experience far greater friction in getting things done, not to mention getting
them done correctly, completely, and consistently. This affects product management team
performance.

The need for a ProdOps team includes these common indicators:

• Ad Hoc Use of Data: Data-gathering, in-product and elsewhere, is done differently for
every product or service. This is also the case for your data curation, analysis, reporting,
and decision-making. The various Product Managers use data differently, and some
don’t use it at all.
• Inconsistent Testing and Learning: You know you should practice continuous discovery,
experimentation, and validation, but you’re simply too busy to do this consistently. It
feels like you’re not learning about changing customer and market needs quickly
enough.
• Getting Lost in the Feature Requests: You’re getting buried in product feedback and
feature requests from actual customers, as well as many internal teams and proxies.
You’re losing your ability to acknowledge, prioritize, and position those requests.
• Confusion in Commitments: Your team is conveying different messages and roadmap
commitments to other stakeholders. Some decisions are made through back–channels,
while other decisions are “unmade.” Savvy colleagues on other teams are lobbying
certain Product Managers to make commitments for others.

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 • Messy Processes: Your pre-release and release processes are getting sloppy, and you
don’t always meet your release criteria or fully enable your customers and internal
teams for product success.
• Pricing and Value Misses: Your pricing is haphazard or stale. You’re not sure if you’re
overcharging or leaving money on the table.

What Do ProdOps Teams Do?

The ProdOps team is responsible for driving customer engagement as well as gathering,
curating, and exposing data for better decisions. ProdOps leverages your tool stack,
templates, and best practices across the product and customer lifecycles, working to reduce
the friction and barriers to scaling your organization.

Their role may be illustrated by the following points:

1. User Adoption:
ProdOps helps users find features, get value, and use self-service resources. They may
collaborate with onboarding teams.
2. Roadmap Consistency:
ProdOps ensures all roadmaps use the same tool, format, and update schedule, even
though individual product managers own them.
3. Pricing Rules:
The Pricing Manager in ProdOps sets the framework for consistent pricing strategies
and reviews across products.
4. User Engagement:
ProdOps tracks user journeys within the product, understanding usage patterns,
feature engagement, and drop-off points.
5. Team Alignment:
ProdOps equips customer-facing teams (marketing, sales, support) with information
about releases and features.
6. Customer Feedback:
ProdOps orchestrates thoughtful and consistent customer outreach to gather feedback
for product improvement.

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 B. Blockchain
Blockchain is a distributed database that stores information in blocks that are chained together.
This creates a permanent, secure, and transparent record of transactions.
Here's how it works:
- Transactions: When a transaction occurs (e.g., a payment, a contract signing), it's broadcast to
a network of computers.
- Verification: These computers, called nodes, verify the transaction's authenticity using
cryptography.
- Block Creation: Once verified, the transaction is added to a new block, which also contains a
unique identifier (hash) and the hash of the previous block, creating a chain.
- Consensus: The nodes reach agreement (consensus) on the validity of the block, and it's added
to the blockchain.
- Distribution: The updated blockchain is distributed to all nodes, ensuring everyone has an
identical copy.
Key features of blockchain:
- Decentralization: No single authority controls the data, making it resistant to manipulation and
censorship.
- Immutability: Once data is added, it's virtually impossible to change or delete, ensuring a
tamper-proof record.
- Transparency: All transactions are viewable by anyone on the network, promoting trust and
accountability.
The diagram shows a chain of blocks, each containing:

- Transaction data: The details of the transaction (e.g., sender, recipient, amount).
- Hash: A unique identifier for the block.
- Previous hash: The hash of the previous block, linking them together.
- Timestamp: The date and time the block was created.

C. Sustainability and Green Product Management

Sustainability and green product management (GPM) are two intertwined concepts that aim
to reduce the environmental impact of products throughout their lifecycle.

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 Green Product Management (GPM):
Applies sustainability principles to the design, development, marketing, and end-of-life
management of products.
Minimizes environmental impact at every stage:
- Raw materials: Choosing recycled, renewable, or ethically sourced materials.
- Manufacturing: Reducing energy consumption, using cleaner production processes,
minimizing waste.
- Packaging: Opting for minimal, recyclable, or biodegradable packaging.
- Product design: Creating durable, repairable, and energy-efficient products.
- Use: Encouraging responsible product use and extending lifespan.
- End-of-life: Facilitating easy recycling, reuse, or safe disposal.
Benefits of GPM:
- Reduced environmental impact: Less resource consumption, lower emissions, and
minimized waste.
- Enhanced brand reputation: Consumers increasingly value sustainable products.
- Improved resource efficiency: Saves costs and creates new business opportunities.
- Compliance with regulations: Adheres to environmental regulations and standards.
- Increased innovation: Drives development of new eco-friendly technologies and solutions.

D. Cloud Computing
On-demand delivery of computing resources (data storage, servers, software, analytics &
intelligence) over the Internet to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of
scale.
Benefits of cloud computing:
i. Lower costs – eliminate the need for capital investment in hardware, and data centers.
ii. Higher speed – services provided on-demand offer flexibility to businesses through
faster access to relevant data.
iii. Global scale – access stored resources from anywhere across the globe
iv. Enhanced performance – regular updates to existing software, improving speed and
efficiency of hardware.
v. Security & reliability – Easy data backup and disaster recovery making continuity in
work easier.

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 Types of cloud computing:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Basic IT building blocks that typically provide hardware and
data storage space access. IaaS gives the highest flexibility and management control over IT
resources.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): Eliminates the need to manage infrastructure & lets users focus on
developing and deploying applications. This helps increase efficiency as much of the heavy lifting
required to maintain hardware and OS is removed.
Software as a Service (SaaS): Focuses on the product's usability without looking at the
underlying infrastructure or software.

E. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning·

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 Artificial Intelligence (AI): Simulation of human intelligence in machines programmed to think
like humans and mimic their actions. The term may also be applied to any machine that exhibits
traits associated with a human mind, such as learning and problem-solving.
Machine Learning (ML): Method of data analysis that automates analytical model building. It is
a branch of artificial intelligence based on the idea that systems can learn from data, identify
patterns, and make decisions with minimal human intervention.
Deep Learning: A class of machine learning algorithms that uses multiple layers to extract
higher-level features from the raw input progressively. It involves the concept of neural networks
Types of machine learning algorithms:
i. Supervised Learning: The task of learning a function that maps an input to an output
based on example input-output pairs. It infers a function from labeled training data
consisting of a set of training examples. For instance, you want to train a machine to
help predict how long it will take you to drive home from your workplace. Here, you
start by creating a set of labeled data. This data includes Weather conditions, Time of
the day, Holidays, etc. All these details are your inputs in this Supervised learning
example. The output is the amount of time it took to drive back home on that specific
day.

ii. Unsupervised Learning: It is a type of algorithm that learns patterns from untagged
data. The hope is that, through mimicry, the machine is forced to build a compact
internal representation of its world and generate imaginative content. For example,
customer segmentation or understanding different customer groups to create
marketing or other business strategies.

iii. Reinforcement learning: It is an area of machine learning concerned with how

intelligent agents should act in an environment to maximize the notion of cumulative
reward. Unlike supervised learning, where feedback provided to the agent is the right
set of activities for performing a task, reinforcement learning uses rewards and
punishment as signals for positive and negative behavior. For example: In robotics and

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 The development of a machine learning (ML) project typically involves several stages. Here is
a general overview of the key stages in the machine learning development process:
i. Problem Definition:
• Clearly define the problem you want to solve or the task you want the machine learning
model to perform.
• Identify the goals and objectives of the project.
ii. Data Collection:
• Gather relevant and sufficient data for training, validation, and testing.
• Ensure that the data is representative of the problem and is of high quality.
iii. Data Preprocessing:
• Clean the data by handling missing values, outliers, and inconsistencies.
• Transform and normalize the data to make it suitable for training.
iv. Feature Engineering:
• Select relevant features or variables that are most informative for the model.
• Create new features if necessary to enhance the model's performance.
v. Model Selection:
• Choose the appropriate type of machine learning model (e.g., regression, classification,
clustering).
• Select a specific algorithm or model architecture based on the problem requirements.
vi. Model Training:
• Use the training data to train the selected model.
• Adjust model parameters to optimize performance.
vii. Model Evaluation:
• Assess the model's performance using validation data.
• Fine-tune the model based on evaluation results.
viii. Hyperparameter Tuning:
• Optimize hyperparameters to improve model performance.
• Utilize techniques like grid search or random search.
ix. Model Testing:
• Evaluate the final model on a separate set of test data to simulate real-world
performance.
• Ensure the model generalizes well to new, unseen data.

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 x. Deployment:
• Integrate the trained model into the production environment.
• Implement the necessary infrastructure to support the model in a real-world setting.
xi. Monitoring and Maintenance:
• Monitor the model's performance in production to detect and address any issues.
• Update the model periodically to account for changes in the data distribution.
xii. Documentation:
• Document the entire machine learning pipeline, including data sources, preprocessing
steps, model architecture, and deployment details.
xiii. Feedback Loop:
• Establish a feedback loop to continuously improve the model based on new data and
user feedback.

F. Augmented Reality (AR):

Definition: Augmented Reality (AR) overlays digital information, such as images, text, or 3D
models, onto the real-world environment. AR enhances the real world by adding digital
elements, typically viewed through devices like smartphones, tablets, smart glasses, or heads-
up displays.
Key Characteristics:
i. Integration of Virtual Content: AR seamlessly overlays digital information onto the real-world
environment, blending virtual and physical elements.
ii. Real-Time Interaction: AR systems allow users to interact with virtual objects or information
overlaid on the physical world in real-time, enabling dynamic engagement.
iii. Contextual Awareness: AR applications adapt virtual content based on the user's location,
surroundings, and actions, providing relevant information in context.
iv. Device-Based Accessibility: AR experiences can be accessed through various devices such as
smartphones, tablets, and AR headsets, making them widely available to users.
v. Enhanced Visualization: AR enhances visualization by providing additional information,
instructions, or digital enhancements overlaid onto physical objects or spaces, improving
understanding and decision-making.
Examples of AR:
a. Industrial Maintenance and Repair: AR aids technicians in industrial settings by overlaying
real-time instructions and visual aids onto machinery through AR glasses, improving efficiency
and minimizing downtime.
b. Architectural Visualization: AR is used in architecture and construction to project 3D
building models onto physical spaces, aiding architects and clients in visualizing designs and
making informed decisions.

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 c. Remote Assistance and Collaboration: AR enables real-time guidance and support for field
technicians or remote workers by sharing live video feeds with overlaid instructions and
annotations, enhancing problem-solving and knowledge transfer.

G. Virtual Reality (VR):

Definition: Virtual Reality (VR) creates a completely immersive, computer-generated
environment that users can interact with in a seemingly real or physical way. Users typically
experience VR through headsets or glasses that completely immerse them in a digital
environment, shutting out the real world.
Key Characteristics:
i. Immersive Experience: VR provides users with a highly immersive experience by simulating a
three-dimensional environment that surrounds them entirely, creating a sense of presence
and immersion.
ii. Interactivity: VR enables users to interact with and manipulate virtual objects or
environments in real-time, allowing for hands-on experiences and engagement with the
virtual world.
iii. Realism: VR strives to create realistic virtual environments through high-quality graphics,
sound effects, and motion tracking, enhancing the sense of immersion and presence for users.
iv. Spatial Awareness: VR systems track the user's movements and adjust the virtual
environment accordingly, allowing users to move freely within the virtual space and explore
from different perspectives.
Examples of VR:
a. Therapeutic VR: VR is used for therapeutic purposes like treating phobias and PTSD by
immersing patients in virtual environments to confront and overcome fears. Companies like
Limbix and Psious develop VR therapy solutions for mental health treatment.
b. Corporate Training: VR is used for corporate training, simulating real-world scenarios for
employees to practice tasks and procedures. Platforms like STRIVR and Talespin offer VR
training solutions for enterprises.
c. Virtual Museums: VR creates virtual museum experiences, allowing users to explore
historical artifacts and cultural exhibits from their homes. Institutions like the British Museum
offer VR tours for remote access to cultural resources.

Distinguishing Factor:
The main distinction between AR and VR lies in the level of immersion and interaction with the
real world. AR enhances the real world by adding digital information, while VR creates a fully
immersive, synthetic environment.

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 H. WEB 3.0

Web 3.0 refers to the next generation of the World Wide Web, building on the concepts and
technologies of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. While there is no universally agreed-upon definition,
Web 3.0 is often associated with a set of evolving principles and technologies that aim to make
the web more intelligent, decentralized, and user-centric. Here are some key aspects of Web
3.0:
i. Decentralization:
Web 3.0 envisions a more decentralized internet architecture, moving away from
central control. Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies are often
considered foundational for decentralization.
ii. Semantic Web:
Web 3.0 aims to make data more meaningful and interconnected. The semantic
web involves structuring information in a way that machines can understand,
enabling better data integration and knowledge discovery.
iii. Interoperability:
Web 3.0 seeks to improve interoperability between different platforms and
applications, allowing data and services to seamlessly work together.
iv. Personalization and User-Centricity:
There is a focus on creating a more personalized and user-centric web experience,
where individuals have more control over their data and how it is used.
v. Artificial Intelligence (AI):
AI and machine learning play a significant role in Web 3.0, enabling more intelligent
and context-aware applications. This can include personalized recommendations,
natural language processing, and automated decision-making.
vi. Smart Contracts:
Smart contracts, often facilitated by blockchain technology, allow for
programmable and self-executing agreements. This can automate various
processes without the need for intermediaries.

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 vii. Tokenization:
Tokenization in Web 3.0 refers to the process of representing real-world assets or
digital entities as digital tokens on a blockchain or distributed ledger. These tokens
can represent ownership, rights, or other forms of value, and they enable efficient
and secure transfer and management of assets in decentralized systems.
a. Real Estate Tokenization: Splitting property into digital shares for easy trading.
b. Asset Backed Tokens: Turning physical assets like gold into digital coins for
ownership.
c. Tokenized Securities: Converting stocks and bonds into digital tokens for trading
online.
d. Intellectual Property Tokenization: Transforming digital art into unique digital
tokens for ownership proof and trading.
viii. Immersive Technologies:
Technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are considered part
of the Web 3.0 landscape, providing more immersive and interactive experiences.
ix. Privacy and Security:
Web 3.0 emphasizes enhanced privacy and security, empowering users with more
control over their personal information. It's defined by its trustless and
permissionless nature, enabling direct interactions without intermediaries or
central authority approval. Enabled by blockchain and decentralized networks, this
setup promotes user autonomy and creates a more inclusive digital landscape by
removing barriers to entry.

I. Data Analytics, Product Analytics, and Business Analytics

1. Data analytics: It is the practice of extracting insights and patterns from raw data to make
informed business decisions. It involves the process of collecting, cleaning, transforming, and
analyzing data to uncover valuable information that can drive strategic actions. Data analytics
empowers product managers to make data-driven decisions, understand user behavior,
identify market trends, and optimize product performance. Key Components of Data Analytics:
i. Data Collection - Data analytics begins with the collection of relevant data from various
sources, including databases, spreadsheets, APIs, sensors, social media, and more.
ii. Data Cleaning and Preprocessing - Handling missing values, removing duplicates, correcting
errors from raw data, and transforming data into a consistent format suitable for analysis.
iii. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) - Summarizing and visualizing data to gain initial insights
using techniques like descriptive statistics, data visualization, and correlation analysis.
iv. Statistical Analysis - Statistical techniques like hypothesis testing, ANOVA, and regression
analysis are used to analyze data and draw meaningful conclusions, understand relationships,
and make predictions.
v. Machine Learning - Machine learning algorithms are used for tasks such as classification,
regression, clustering, and recommendation systems. Understanding different algorithms and
their applications is crucial for effective data analysis.

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 vi. Data Visualization - Visualizing data through charts, graphs, and interactive dashboards
enhances the understanding of complex patterns and trends. Tools like Tableau, and Power BI
are used.
Types of Data Analytics:
i. Predictive Analytics: Uses data to predict future outcomes, employing techniques like
modeling and machine learning. Examples include linear regression and time series analysis.
ii. Descriptive Analytics: Examines past data to understand past performance and identify
patterns. Common examples include data queries, reports, and descriptive statistics.
iii. Prescriptive Analytics: Recommends actions based on predictive analysis, suggesting
decision options to capitalize on predictions. It not only anticipates outcomes but also explains
why they occur and suggests how to take advantage of them.
iv. Diagnostic Analytics: Analyses the historical data to identify patterns and dependencies,
providing insights into problems or questions. Techniques include data discovery, mining, and
correlations.

B. Product analytics is a robust set of tools that allow product managers and product teams to
assess the performance of the digital experiences they build. Product analytics provides critical
information to optimize performance, diagnose problems, and correlate customer activity with
long-term value.

Why is Product Analytics important?

With Product Analytics, you can:
• See in real time how well you’re meeting user needs.
• Measure the exact success of individual features.
• Make informed decisions on metrics that support business goals.
• Transform your ability to develop ideas and design user experiences.
• Transform your ability to develop ideas and design user experiences.

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 What are some specific examples of Product Analytics, and how are they used?
In general, a good analytics tool will give you the following capabilities:

• Behavior Tracking can be automatically applied to user actions across your sites and apps
• Cohorts allow you to identify trends and patterns among user groups based on common
characteristics
• Segmentation teaches you who users are, where they came from, and when
• Profiles let you establish user categories around criteria of your choice
• Notifications permit you to alert product teams and communicate with users
• A/B Testing compares versions of messaging and features for effectiveness
• Dashboards allow you to visualize data in useful and revealing ways
• Heatmaps and Session Recordings let you see hotspots of activity and replay individual
user sessions to observe user behavior and discover their pain points.
• Funnels can be set up to explore different paths to conversions
• Measurement tools allow you to evaluate each feature’s user engagement
Some Product and Mobile Analytics tools:

C. Business analytics involves converting data into actionable insights to enhance decision-
making. It utilizes various tools such as data management, visualization, predictive modeling,
mining, forecasting, simulation, and optimization to derive these insights from data.
Key concepts in Business Analytics include:
i. Business Statistics: Analyzing numbers to improve decision-making, covering financial
statements, demographics, and consumer behaviors.
ii. Business Intelligence: Collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to provide insights for
business decision-making, often presented through reports and dashboards.
iii. Predictive Analytics: Using statistical models to make predictions about future events or
outcomes based on patterns in data.

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 iv. Data Visualization: Representing data visually through graphs and charts to aid
understanding and decision-making.
v. Marketing Analytics: Applying statistical analysis to understand and improve marketing
strategies, including segmentation, forecasting, and customer relationship management.
vi. Financial Analytics: Applying data analysis in a financial context to evaluate investment
opportunities, manage risk, and optimize operations.

Benefits of Business Analytics include:

i. Enhanced Decision-Making: Business analytics provides data-driven insights for smarter
decision-making, optimizing strategies and operations.
ii. Cost Savings: By identifying inefficiencies, analytics helps reduce costs and improve
resource allocation, leading to savings.
iii. Better Customer Experience: Understanding customer needs through analytics enables
companies to tailor products and services, enhancing satisfaction.
iv. Increased Efficiency: Analytics optimizes processes, minimizing waste and boosting
productivity across the organization.
v. Improved Strategic Planning: By analyzing market trends and competitor data, businesses
can develop more effective strategies aligned with market conditions.

Differences between data analytics, product analytics, and business analytics:

Focus Scope Application

Product Analytics: Product Analytics: Focuses Product Analytics: Used by

Analyzes data specifically on metrics such as user product managers and
related to a product or engagement, retention, development teams to
service to understand user conversion rates, and prioritize features,
behavior and improve feature usage to optimize enhance user experience,
product performance. product performance. and make data-driven
decisions.
Data Analytics: Analyzes Data Analytics:
raw data to extract Encompasses techniques Data Analytics: Applied
meaningful insights, to explore, clean, across various domains
patterns, and trends across transform, and interpret including business,
various domains. data from diverse sources science, healthcare, and
for insights and decision- finance to gain insights and
Business Analytics: Applies
making. inform decision-making.
data analysis techniques to
solve business problems Business Analytics: Business Analytics: Used
and support decision- Analyzes data related to to optimize processes,
making across different sales, operations, finance, improve performance, and
areas of a business. marketing, etc., to drive gain a competitive
strategic decisions and advantage by driving
improve overall business strategic decisions within a
performance. business.

J. Generative AI
Generative AI refers to a class of artificial intelligence systems that are designed to generate
new content, such as images, text, or other data, often in a way that mimics or creates content
similar to what a human might produce. These systems leverage various techniques, including

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 neural networks, to generate novel and realistic outputs. Generative AI is often categorized
into two main types: Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Variational Autoencoders
(VAEs).
Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs):
GANs consist of two neural networks, a generator, and a discriminator, which are trained
simultaneously through adversarial training. The generator aims to create realistic data, while
the discriminator's role is to distinguish between real and generated data. Over time, the
generator improves its ability to create realistic outputs, leading to a competitive dynamic
between the two networks.
Use Cases:
• Image Generation: GANs can be used to generate realistic images that may be
indistinguishable from photographs.
• Style Transfer: GANs can alter the style of images, transforming them into the style of famous
artists or other reference images.
• Data Augmentation: GANs can generate additional training data to enhance the performance
of machine learning models.
• Super-Resolution Imaging: GANs can be used to enhance the resolution of images, making
them sharper and clearer.
Variational Autoencoders (VAEs):
VAEs are a type of generative model that learns to encode input data into a lower-dimensional
space (latent space) and then decode it back to the original data. VAEs are probabilistic models
that focus on learning the distribution of the data in the latent space.
Use Cases:
• Image Generation: VAEs can generate new images by sampling from the learned latent space.
• Data Imputation: VAEs can be used to fill in missing parts of data, such as completing missing
regions in images.
• Anomaly Detection: By comparing reconstructed data with the original, VAEs can detect
anomalies or outliers in datasets.
• Generating Creative Content: VAEs can generate novel and creative outputs in various
domains, such as art and music.

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 Common Use Cases for Generative AI:
1. Content Creation: Generative AI is used to create content in various forms, including images,
videos, and text, often for creative purposes.
2. Data Augmentation: In machine learning, generative models can be used to augment training
datasets, providing more diverse examples for model training.
3. Style Transfer: Style transfer applications use generative models to transform the visual style
of images, creating artistic or novel variations.
4. Image-to-Image Translation: Generative models can translate images from one domain to
another, such as converting satellite images to maps or black-and-white photos to colour.
5. Deepfake Generation: Controversially, generative models are used to create deepfake videos,
where realistic-looking videos are generated, often replacing a person's face in existing
footage.
Generative AI has a wide range of applications, and its capabilities continue to evolve with
advancements in neural network architectures and training methodologies. It's essential to
consider ethical implications, such as the potential misuse of generative AI for creating
deceptive content.

5. Product Life Cycle

What is the product life cycle?

A product life cycle is the total amount of time that a product is available to consumers, from
when it’s first introduced until it’s removed from the market. A product’s life cycle begins when
it’s initially developed and introduced to the market and ends when the product is no longer
available for purchase.
The product life cycle is divided into four total stages, including development and
introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

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 The stages of the product life cycle:
A. Development and Introduction

Development and introduction are sometimes considered two separate stages, but
they are so closely linked that it’s usually more practical to consider them together.
The development phase of the product life cycle is when raw ideas are refined into a
marketable concept. From a business standpoint, product developers conduct market
research, determine whether the concept is viable, and identify their target audiences.
After product ideation, organizations solicit investments from third-party entities,
create prototypes, conduct product testing, and begin to plan the product’s launch.
The introduction phase of a campaign is the time when consumers are first made aware
of a product. During this phase, it’s critical that marketers use multiple channels to
target their ideal audiences. An introduction comes just before a product’s release and
can set the stage for a successful launch. The importance of this stage is that the
Product Market fit is established here.

B. Growth

A product’s growth stage is when consumers begin to believe in its capabilities and
view it as something that will add value to their lives. Demand and profits are both on
the rise when a product is in its growth phase.

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 This is usually the stage in a product’s life cycle when other businesses will attempt to
capitalize on a competitor’s momentum. Once a business has proven there’s a market
for a particular solution, other organizations in their industry will try to grab a share of
the profits. In this stage, companies should advertise their product’s modifications and
highlight how they are enhancing the customer experience to stay one step ahead of
new competition.

C. Maturity

In a product’s maturity stage, sales grow at a slow but steady pace. The rapid growth
period has ended and supply has balanced out with demand. Competitors have
established a foothold and are threatening the original manufacturer’s market share,
but most original producers have mastered the processes of sourcing raw materials and
manufacturing enough to cut prices to encourage continued sales.
The maturity stage of the product life cycle is also the most profitable. Sales remain
consistent while manufacturing costs drop. Business leaders try to prolong this period
of the product life cycle so that they can maximize their return on investment (ROI).
Top-performing products can stay at or near their peak for years, though there will be
some natural fluctuations in sales, especially if a product has a prolonged maturation
phase.

D. Decline

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 All products eventually reach the end of their life cycle. This period is marked by a
decrease in sales and is most commonly referred to as the decline phase of the product
life cycle.
Oftentimes, out-of-date products are replaced by modern alternatives. In these
instances, aging products are more likely to experience a rapid drop in popularity as
opposed to a gradual decline.
Some companies can avoid this stage with a strong brand or by retiring the product to
introduce a newer version of it. Sometimes, a product can sit in decline for years
without actually being sunsetted, but eventually, it will reach a point when investing in
advertising is no longer pragmatic. At this point, businesses usually pull the product.
When a product is not worth marketing, it has reached the end of its lifecycle.

Examples of the product life cycle

The typewriter
Product life cycle stage: Decline
The typewriter was once an innovative product that revolutionized the writing world.
It represented a massive upgrade over handwritten letters, books, journals, and other
documents.
The typewriter went through every phase of the product life cycle. As it reached
maturity, it became more cost-effective to produce and as the cost of the typewriter
decreased, the technology was more accessible to households around the world.
Although the typewriter remained in the maturity stage for decades, it eventually
transitioned into a decline after the introduction of the personal computer. Now,
typewriters are little more than decorative pieces of history.

Smartphones
Product life cycle stage: Maturity
Smartphones are a prime example of a product that has reached the maturity stage.
Millions of people use them every day, and the market has become mature enough to
not only generate billions in revenue but also support multiple successful brands.
Smartphones will likely enjoy a prolonged maturity phase. While they’re now joined by
wearable tech like smartwatches, smartphones will likely remain a staple of modern life
for the foreseeable future.

6. Product Design Thinking

Design thinking is a process for solving problems by approaching them from a user's perspective.
It requires you to develop deep empathy for your users and build products/services that solve
their needs. There are 5 stages in design thinking. Refer to this video for a better understanding.

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 In short:
A. Empathise: With the help of user research, your goal is to understand your users, their
challenges, and their needs.
B. Define: Inputs from user research will be utilized to define a problem statement from a user's
perspective.
C. Ideate: Come up with ideas for your problem. Think quantity over quality.
D. Prototype: Build anything tangible (from paper models to high-fidelity designs) that can be
tested with your users.
E. Test: Show your prototype to real users and collect feedback.

Examples of products where design thinking has been applied:

A. Airbnb

In the company’s early days, people weren’t booking rooms, and revenue wasn’t increasing
beyond $200 per week. But, it was a moment of learning about their users that the founders
saw as a turning point in getting the company to where it is today.
The early Airbnb team believed that people were hesitant to book through the platform
because photos of listings were low resolution and didn’t effectively show users where they
would be staying. As a result, they travelled to New York to spend time with hosts and help
them take high-quality photos, and revenue doubled. According to Joe Gebbia, the designer of
the group, that instance of meeting their users changed the trajectory of the business.

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 B. Pay it plan it by American Express

Pay It allows you to make payments on small purchases that are less than $100 throughout the
month while still earning rewards. While Plan It makes it possible to split large purchases of
more than $100 into equal monthly payments with a fixed fee and no interest.
The research team found that many young adults were anxious about larger purchases, and
they missed out on rewards when using debit cards or cash for small purchases. The two
options of Pay It and Plan It were started in conjunction with each other to respond to both of
these insights and give people the tools to anticipate upcoming payments and take control of
their spending.

A. Empathise
This step is about understanding your users, their motivations, challenges, and needs. If you're
able to understand your users, you'll build products that solve real customer problems.
Surveys, customer interviews, and usability tests are some of the more popular research
methods that are conducted.

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 The research methodology can be split as per the following diagram:

But, before conducting the research, we need to understand the Target audience and have a
user persona.
Target Audience:

Definition:
A target group refers to a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its
products and services.

Example of a Target Group:

Consider a health product company that is working to build its distribution channels. To
determine if its health products will sell, it conducts research on its primary consumers.
It discovers that most of its consumers are in Switzerland, between the ages of 35-55.
Consequently, it may focus on advertising efforts in Swiss health-focused websites which then
cater to this audience. Target markets are used to gain a better understanding of a company's
current and potential consumer base. Once a target market is identified, it can affect a product's
price, promotion, and distribution. For instance, target groups may be useful when a company
is looking to expand its operations to an international audience. Meanwhile, a company may

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 choose to tweak a product, such as through its packaging, to attract a health-conscious
subgroup.

User Persona:

Example of User Persona:

Personas are fictional characters that help product managers make these decisions and guide
how the team will build features that customers love.
There are two main types of customer personas — buyers and users.
Buyer personas represent the ideal profile of a potential buyer, providing insights about the
people who decide to purchase your product or service. User personas represent the people
who directly use your product, bringing them to life in a memorable way that everyone can
understand. The buyer and user may be the same person — but they will have different priorities
based on their user persona and their buyer-persona. The key benefits of defining user personas:
- Explain the “why” behind product decisions

- Focus on the needs of the most important user groups

- Prioritize features that solve actual user problems

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 - Implement new functionality in line with how customers will use it

Deriving user insights from the research – Understanding JTBD Framework:

This framework helps us focus on the main problem or the “job” that the user is trying to get
done instead of the utility. For example, why does one buy a toothbrush? One might give the
reason as “It helps me brush my teeth”. But that is just explaining the utility. Instead, the main
problem or the ‘job’ that you are trying to get done is - to keep your gums and teeth healthy. If
you can find a way to keep your teeth healthy that’s more effective, less expensive, and takes
less time than brushing your teeth; it’s safe to say you’re not going to buy a toothbrush.
Refer to this video to understand how McDonalds used the JTBD framework to improve their
milkshakes
A template for how to write the JTBD statement:

Let’s try to use this template on Discord:

Discord JTBD: When I want to jump into my favorite game, but I don’t know if there are people
around to play, help me safely coordinate with a group of like-minded gamers, so I can easily

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 find a way to enjoy my favorite multiplayer game. This suggests features like making it easy to
find people through public or private servers and switching easily from text to voice chat as you
organize and jump into a game.

User Journey Map:

A journey map visualizes the process that a person goes through to accomplish a goal. In its most
basic form, it starts by compiling a series of user actions into a timeline and then fleshing this
out with the user's emotions and thoughts to create a narrative. Let’s take the example of Spotify
to understand the user journey map:
When Spotify wanted to improve the music-sharing experience for its customers, it hired a
marketing firm to create a customer journey map.
The goal of this user journey map is to determine where music-sharing features best fit into
the customer experience.

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 Throughout each stage and every touchpoint, the user journey shows what a customer is
engaging with, doing, thinking, and feeling (something that's commonly done with an empathy
map).
Steps to create the journey map:
- Define the scope: Decide how far you want to zoom in or out of the experience
- Choose a persona
- Outline the steps: This consists of any experience that the user has to go through within
the journey
- Adding lanes: Add images or texts to elaborate on each step

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 B. Define
In the define stage, the data that has been collected in the “Empathise” stage, is synthesized
for insights related to the user’s pain points and a problem statement is created. A problem
statement is a concise description of an issue to be addressed. It identifies the gap between
the current state and the desired goal to be achieved.
Refer to this video to understand the importance of defining the problem statement.

Using the JTBD framework explained earlier, a problem statement can sound like:
As a [USER];
I’m trying to [MOTIVATION];
So I can [EXPECTED OUTCOME];
But [PROBLEM];
Which makes me feel [EMOTION].

Example of problem statements:

Scenario Problem Statement

A Tiktok user is unable to save their videos As a [Tiktok user];

into a personal list of favorites
I am trying to [save a video I just viewed];

So I can [watch the video in my own time

or share it with my friends & family];

But [I am not provided with the option to

save];

Which makes me feel [frustrated]

A popular app you use does not have a As a [Slack user];

native Slack integration
I’m trying to [include Slack notifications
when certain actions are triggered in the
application];

So I can [be alerted when something

wrong happens];

But [I am not able to connect my

application to Slack];

Which makes me feel [stressed]

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 Hypotheses testing:
The idea of this is to validate or invalidate all the assumptions you have built through your
research analysis.
Components of a good hypotheses:

• What’s the change?

• What’s the impact?

• For whom?

• By how much?

• After how long?

Example: Reducing the signup steps from 3 to 1 will increase sign-ups by 25% after 1000
visits to the signup page
Refer to this video to learn in more detail.
Finally, while testing, ensure you are cognizant of the level of product analysis you’re
working on:

• Are you verifying that a problem exists? Are you testing a specific value proposition?

• Are you testing a feature that can deliver on that value proposition or solve that
problem?

• Are you testing a specific design that implements that feature?

• Are you testing the technical feasibility of a design or feature?

• Knowing which level you're testing at, helps us to draw better conclusions for our
experiments.

C. Ideation
This step focuses on quantity & diversity. Here, the quantity is prioritized more than the
quality and it is advised to generate as many solutions with as much diversity as
possible. Ensure that all the stakeholders involved in the process have a voice and share
their ideas. The trap we fall into as we seek to achieve a goal is to anchor to a
solution. When we do so, our activities and our perceptions are biased to make sure
that idea is "right." Even more challenging is when those we collaborate with are
anchored to a solution, which creates an echo chamber of repetition and social
pressure that can be difficult to identify or overcome.
Wrong ideas are dangerous, they squander resources and put our products, our teams,
our companies, and ourselves at risk. To combat the human nature of falling in love
with ideas, we need a framework to follow.

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 Framework: Outcome – Problem – Solution:

Outcome:
These are the fundamental drivers of your product or service. Outcomes can be of
various levels of specificity or organizational level, but they should represent the
output or result metric for your initiative.
Some examples could be: Grow revenue, increase margin, increase MAU, decrease
bounce rate, increase NPS, etc

Problem:
If we're looking for ideas it is because something keeping us from achieving that
outcome in the steady state of our current activities and product offerings. We
must identify the problems that are keeping our outcome from being realized.
Examples:
a. Outcome: Increase gross margin
Problem: We are losing deals based on price
Problem: Our bill of materials is extremely high
b. Outcome: Increase our conversion rate
Problem: We have a high bounce rate on our landing page
Problem: We have limited payment options

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 Solution:
Solutions are ideas that we will implement and validate. The anchor of your outcome
and a strong and complete list of problem statements are the context you need to not
only generate ideas but to meaningfully debate ideas, and measure their efficacy.
Example:
Outcome: Increase our conversion rate
Problem: We have a high bounce rate on our landing page
Solution: Add a more prominent call to action
Solution: Add a video to better explain our value proposition
Solution: Offer a trial option in addition to the buy call to action

D. Prototyping
This consists of designing the product/feature that is being proposed. It can be in the form
of multiple ways like:
Low fidelity High fidelity

Wireframes Mockups Prototype

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Wireframes vs Mockups vs Prototypes

E. Testing
In the 5th stage of the design thinking test, the final product from the previous stage
(prototyping stage) is thoroughly tested. Although this is the last step of the initial process of
design, in an iterative approach, the results often prompt potential problems and, therefore,
require re-evaluation.
The insights attained in this stage allow you to investigate how people use your product and
their feelings about it. This may also lead to revising the earlier design stages for betterment.
The entire gist of this stage is to gain a deep understanding of your offered solution and its users
for further improvements.

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 A/B Testing:
A/B testing, or ‘split-testing,’ is a method of testing variations of digital products. In order to do
A/B Testing, you start with a goal and test two versions of your product with similar audiences.
If there’s a clear winner, that version is picked.
Why should you run A/B tests?
A/B testing consists of creating two variants (let’s call them A and B) that should be slightly
different between them, testing how they behave under similar circumstances and
understanding which one performs better.
Example:
A/B test implementation on Duolingo
As per Gina Gotthilf, VP of Growth for Duolingo, there was a huge drop-off in the number of
people who were visiting Duolingo or downloading the app and signing up. And it's obviously
really important for people to sign up — it suggests they're going to come back and, second,
signals the opportunity to turn one visit into a rewarding, continuous experience. That means
notifications & emails could be sent to the users.
It was found that by allowing users to experience Duolingo without signing up — do a lesson,
see the set of skills that they can run through — the sign-up metrics could be increased
significantly. Simply moving the sign-up screen back a few steps led to about a 20% increase in
DAUs.
They looked at the design of the page itself, too. “At one point we thought, ‘Okay, we're moving
this screen around. What else can we do?’” says Gotthilf. “There was a big red button at the
bottom of the screen that said ‘Discard my progress’ — basically meaning ‘Don’t sign up.’” They
suspected that many people were conditioned to simply hit the most prominent button on a
screen without thinking about it — and that Duolingo was losing still-interested users. Sure
enough, swapping that design for a subtle button that simply read “Later” moved the needle.

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 Beta Testing:
Beta testing is an opportunity for real users to use a product in a production environment to
uncover any bugs or issues before a general release. It is the final round of testing before
releasing a product to a wide audience. The objective is to uncover as many bugs or usability
issues as possible in this controlled setting. Beta testers are “real” users and conduct their
testing in a production environment running on the same hardware, networks, etc., as the final
release. This also means it’s the first chance for full security and reliability testing because
those tests can’t be conducted in a lab or stage environment.
Beta tests can either be open or closed. In an open test, anyone can use the product and is
usually presented with some messaging that the product is in beta and given a method for
submitting feedback. In closed beta, the testing is limited to a specific set of testers, which may
be composed of current customers, early adopters, and/or paid beta testers. Sometimes they
are conducted by diverting a certain percentage of users to the beta site instead of the current
release.

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7. Product Management Frameworks
CIRCLES Framework

The CIRCLES method is a framework that product managers can use to respond thoughtfully to
any design question. It’s a method developed by Lewis C. Lin. CIRCLES is an acronym in which
each letter stands for the first word of the step and explains what you should do to answer the
question posed to you:

A. Comprehend the situation

B. Identify the customer
C. Report the customer’s needs
D. Cut through prioritization
E. List solutions
F. Evaluate trade-offs
G. Summarize your recommendations

During PM interviews, companies want to see how well you can articulate a product vision,
prioritize use cases, and overcome limited resources. The CIRCLES method gives you a framework
that allows you to showcase all these traits by taking the design question into full context. You
can refer to the following video for reference: video. Here’s how to think through an interview
question using the CIRCLES method:

A. Comprehend the Situation

A product manager should seek to gather as much information as possible about a

design question. During this stage, it’s a good time to ask as many questions as you

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 want to understand the context better: Who is the product for? What problem is the
product trying to solve?

Let’s say you have to answer the following product design question: "How would you
design an accommodation-rental app such as Airbnb?” Here are some questions you
can ask the interviewer to comprehend the situation:

• What is the average age range of the customers we’re targeting? What is their
income?
• Why are they looking for this type of alternative booking platform instead of
traditional hotels or hostels?
• What process will our customers go through to book their accommodation via
our platform?

If for whatever reason, the interviewer doesn’t answer your questions, you can make
assumptions instead. Even if they disagree, it’s the start of a conversation to better
understand the product.

B. Identify the Customer

The next step is to identify the customer you want to reach. That’s going to consist of
finding information such as their demographics, challenges, goals, income level, etc.
For example, here’s what our ideal customer will look like for our accommodation-
rental app:

“We’re targeting tourists and travelers from the ages of 18 to 60 who want to
experience a new country uniquely by living like a local. They travel around three to five
times per year and are either middle class or upper class.”

C. Report Customer’s Needs

“Report customer needs” means to identify what the customer wants to achieve with
your product and the problems they want to solve. You can use the user story format to
detail this information as follows:

“As a [type of user], I want/need to [perform an action] so that [the intended

result].”

In the case of our accommodation app, we can say that our customers’ needs are: the
ability to book a rental based on specific limitations, a way to book rentals in other
countries without speaking that country’s language, and viewing previous reviews on
an accommodation.

D. Cut Through Prioritization

To cut through prioritization means to rank which user need you want to solve first in
the product roadmap. You can prioritize user stories based on their impact on revenue,

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 customer satisfaction, and how hard it will be to implement features that meet those
needs.

To prioritize your user stories, you can use a grading score from A to F to rate them and
a GPA as an overall score. For example, here’s how we can prioritize the user stories
that we listed above for our accommodation rental app:

Impact on Revenue, Impact on User Satisfaction & Ease of Implementation (higher

score now means easier to implement): A to F have rating form (6 to 1 respectively).
Now, we will recalculate the "Overall Score" for each user story by adding the scores
together:

Impact on Overall
Impact on Ease of Overall
User Story User Score
Revenue Implementation Score
Satisfaction Calculation
Book a rental
based on
A (6) A (6) B (5) 6+6+5 17
location and
specific dates
Filter rentals
A (6) B (5) C (4) 6+5+4 15
based on price
View previous
B (5) A (6) D (3) 5+6+3 14
ratings
Translate
accommodation B (5) A (6) E (2) 5+6+2 13
listings

The "Overall Score" now represents a combination of the impact on revenue, the
impact on user satisfaction, and the ease of implementation, with higher scores
indicating a more favorable user story to prioritize.

Sometimes, you won’t have the time to go through each user story during the
interview. In this case, you need to discuss only the top-priority stories you listed.

E. List Solutions

Start listing solutions for each user story you created. These solutions must be features
you can include in the product that will solve your customer’s needs. For example, here
are the solutions that we can propose to meet the user stories of our accommodation-
rental app:

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 User Story Impact on Revenue

Book a rental based on location

Flexible booking
and specific dates

Filter rentals based on price Price bar chart

View previous ratings Include a review system

Translate accommodation listings Translation system

Keep in mind that it’s possible to list more than one solution for each user story. It all
depends on how complex the customer’s needs are.

F. Evaluate Tradeoffs

After listing your solutions, evaluate the tradeoffs of each solution. It involves thinking
about the benefits of each solution, along with the potential constraints that could get in
the way of building this solution.

For example, including a rating system as part of your accommodation app allows users
to look at reviews from previous guests on a booking so they know what to expect.
However, it could lead to cases where users drop dishonest reviews to claim refunds or
hurt the reputation of a host, which comes with the need for a moderation feature.

G. Summarize Recommendation

The last step is to summarize everything you discussed during the interview. During this
stage, Lin recommends simply telling which features you think are best for the product,
how they solve the user’s needs, and why you’d prioritize them over others.

Hypothesis Progression Framework

The Hypothesis Progression Framework (HPF) allows you to test your assumptions at any stage
of the development process. At its heart, the HPF breaks up the development of products into
four stages - Customer, Problem, Concept, and Feature.
Using the HPF, your team will:
- Formulate your assumptions into testable hypotheses
- Validate or invalidate your hypotheses by running experiments
- Make sense of what you’ve learned so that you can plan your next move
Let's use an example to illustrate how HPF works:
Example: Developing a Smart Gardening System

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 • Customer Stage:
• Assumption: Urban residents between the ages of 25-40 want to garden but
lack space and time.
• Hypothesis: If we offer a compact, automated gardening system, urban
residents will be interested in purchasing it.
• Experiment: Conduct surveys and interviews with urban residents to gauge
interest in such a product.
• Problem Stage:
• Assumption: The main barrier to gardening for our target customers is not
lack of interest but lack of space and time.
• Hypothesis: Urban residents will engage more in gardening if these barriers
are removed.
• Experiment: Create a minimal viable product (MVP), such as a small
automated planter, and observe how a test group interacts with it over a
month.
• Concept Stage:
• Assumption: Our smart gardening system can provide sufficient plant care
without user intervention.
• Hypothesis: The system can maintain healthy plant growth autonomously for
at least 2 weeks.
• Experiment: Run a controlled test with several units to monitor plant health
over 2 weeks without user intervention.
• Feature Stage:
• Assumption: Users want to monitor and control their gardening system
remotely.
• Hypothesis: Adding a mobile app for remote monitoring and control will
increase user engagement and satisfaction.
• Experiment: Develop a prototype app and provide it to a group of users, then
measure how usage patterns and satisfaction change.

Prioritization Frameworks:
There are many prioritization frameworks that you could use to decide on how to prioritize features
and decide what matters the most. Here are the most popular prioritization techniques:

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 RICE Framework

The RICE scoring model is a prioritization framework designed to help product managers determine
which products, features, and other initiatives to put on their roadmaps by scoring these items
according to four factors. These factors, which form the acronym RICE, are reach, impact,
confidence, and effort.
This scoring system measures each feature or initiative against four factors: Reach, Impact,
Confidence, and Effort (hence the acronym RICE). Here’s a breakdown of what each factor stands
for and how it should be quantified:

Then, those individual numbers get turned into one overall score using a formula. This formula
gives product teams a standardized number that can be applied across any type of initiative that
needs to be added to the roadmap.

After running each feature by this calculation, you’ll get a final RICE score. You can then use that
final score to rank the order in which you’ll tackle the idea, initiative, or feature

Value vs Complexity Prioritization Matrix

In simple terms, value vs. complexity is a framework that enables you to prioritize initiatives by
considering their inherent value and complexity of execution. It is a tool that you use for evaluating
ideas in light of their value to users and your business relative to how complex they are to
implement.

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 This model is one of many that product managers regularly use to prioritize product roadmap
initiatives. It offers a standard approach to decision-making. You will find it useful to be more
strategic about what initiatives to give attention to, especially when you have limited time or
resources.

How to Prioritize with the Value vs. Complexity

Value vs. complexity is a matrix featuring four quadrants, which form categories into which
you place initiatives. The idea is to identify low-hanging fruits you can start with. Let’s take a
look at how you prioritize with this framework.

Assign value scores

With your list of initiatives ready, work out a value score for each one. Several factors may
come into consideration when determining a score. You could consider value from more than
one perspective – at least, from yours and that of your users. For example, how will an
initiative benefit your business? How does it address your target audience’s pain points?
How many of the target users will the initiative affect?

Score each of the factors that influence value. Then add everything together to get a single
overall score. You may opt to weigh some subcategories higher than others.

Decide complexity scores

Next, determine how difficult your initiatives will be to execute by giving them scores as well.
Some product teams simply capture complexity as costs. The model becomes practically the
same as the Value vs. Cost framework in this case.

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 Other factors may also be considered in arriving at a complexity score. Among these are time
or development hours, risks, expertise constraints, and necessary customer support or
training. These can form subcategories that influence the overall score for an initiative.

Plot your initiatives

Use the value and complexity scores you have worked out to plot each initiative in a graph.
The matrix should be divided into four boxes. With “Value” on the Y-axis and “Complexity” on
the X, this gives you the following categories of initiatives:

- High value, low complexity (top-left) – Here, you have the initiatives that should
receive the highest priority.
- High value, high complexity (top-right) – These initiatives may be considered next after
those in the first category if their high complexity isn’t overwhelming.
- Low value, low complexity (bottom-left) – These initiatives don’t offer much value but
are worth considering since they’re easy to execute and may improve customer
satisfaction.
- Low value, high complexity (bottom-right) – You may be better off dropping the
initiatives here.

MoSCoW

What is MoSCoW Prioritization?

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 What or which Tasks/Projects should you manage?
MoSCoW Method is a framework to set goals more efficiently. Goal Setting is important, but setting
the right goals is crucial in the business area to not lose resources over a task that is less urgent,
unnecessary, or even irrelevant. The Method was designed by Software Developer Dai Clegg and
his main objective was to solve the problem of wasting time, especially during the development
stage of a product’s launch. (i.e., the features of a mobile app)

DVF
DVF - Desirability, Viability, Feasibility Framework
The DVF framework is a product prioritization method that helps teams evaluate three key aspects
of a successful product: Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility.
The DVF framework can help the design thinker to evaluate and prioritize ideas during the
innovation process and to assess which features and functionality are important to include in a
Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Desirability refers to how much people want the product and whether it meets their needs and
desires. Feasibility refers to whether it is technically possible to create the product. Viability refers
to whether the product is financially sustainable

Kano Model
The Kano Model (pronounced “Kah-no”) is an approach to prioritizing features on a product roadmap
based on the degree to which they are likely to satisfy customers. Product teams can weigh a high-
satisfaction feature against its costs to implement to determine whether or not adding it to the
roadmap is a strategically sound decision.

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 Using the Kano Model, product teams pull together a list of potential new features vying for
development resources and space on the roadmap. The team will then weigh these features
according to two competing criteria:
i. Their potential to satisfy customers.
ii. The investment is needed to implement them.
You can also think of the Kano Model as the “Customer Delight vs. Implementation Investment”
approach.

Basic (threshold) features:

These are the features your product needs to be competitive. Customers expect these features (such
as a car’s turn signal) and take them for granted. This means they must be included. And, if they
don’t work as expected, they may lead to dissatisfaction.

Excitement features:
Excitement features yield a disproportionate increase in customer delight as you invest in them. If
you don’t have these features, customers might not even miss them; but if you include them and
continue to invest in them, you will create dramatic customer delight. You can also think of these
features as the unique innovations and surprises you include in your product.
After the internal product team has made its own determinations about which of the potential new
features fall into which categories (including the two negative ones—indifference and
dissatisfaction), the team will then take the issue directly to users or prospective users with customer
surveys, questionnaires, and other feedback methods.

Performance features:
These are features that give you a proportionate increase in customer satisfaction as you invest in
them. One example would be increasing file storage capacity in an online app. These also feature

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 customers who know they want and weigh heavily when deciding whether to choose your product
or your competitor’s.

9. Metrics
These are quantifiable measures that indicate success or failure. For example, for Retention, a
reduced churn rate is a metric.

AARRR (Acquisition – Activation – Retention – Referral – Revenue)

AARRR (Acquire, Activate, Retain, Refer, and Revenue) is the acronym for a collection of five user-
behavior key metrics that product-led growth organizations monitor. AARRR achieves two objectives:
First, it teaches organizations how to focus exclusively on the metrics that have the potential to
significantly impact their company's health. Second, assist these companies in using the appropriate
data to assess the effectiveness of their product management and marketing activities, and then
improve the ineffective ones. By using the AARRR framework, product managers can identify the areas
of the product or feature that need improvement, and optimize the product for better performance.
The framework is known for measuring the effectiveness of your customer funnel. Of the 1000 people
that visit your website, how many end up as recurring paying customers? Without the framework, it’s
hard to determine where in the funnel you might lose them. Did your ad give a wrong impression? Is
there a bug in the mobile version of your website that makes it impossible to visit the homepage? Is
it too complex to sign up? The AARRR framework helps you to measure every step of the customer
journey and helps you to identify leaks and potential loopholes.

Acquisition
- People visit your website/app
- One metric that matters is to grow the number of app downloads. It's a measurable result
of targeting the right audience with messages in your ads & copy, Click-through rate and
Conversion Rate are other metrics

Activation
- They have a great first-time experience
- AHA- moment: The exact point in time when a user understands the value they get from a
product or service
- E.g., Facebook discovered that a user is most engaged when he/she connects to at least 7
friends in ten days

Retention
- Users come back
- The Metric that matters is the retention rate, as it is the best indicator for people coming
back to your app
- Other Metrics could be Churn rate, Daily Active Users, and Monthly active users

Referral
- Users invite others
- Number of apps installed through referral matters the most, as this is a measurable result
for users inviting others via application
- Other metrics could be Net Promoter Score (NPS), Number of invitations sent to invite
friends, Number of app installs per invite

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Revenue
- Users buy your product
- One Metric That Matters is the average order value because this is a measurable result
for users spending money inside your application and a conformation that they
understand your value proposition
- Other metrics for this phase could be Average order value per user, Customer Lifetime
Value (CLTV)

HEART
This framework is used to find valuable and user-centric metrics to assess User Experience. These
metrics, which form the acronym, are:
H - Happiness E - Engagement A - Adoption R - Retention T - Task Success
You now must identify Goals, Signals, and Metrics against each of the above categories.
- Goals: These are broad objectives. For example, under Happiness, increasing user
satisfaction could be a goal
- Signals: Indicators that may indicate progress towards achieving the goals. For example,
increased screen time on the app may be a signal under Engagement.

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North Star Metric
A North Star metric is the one measurement that’s most predictive of a company’s long-term success.
To qualify as a “North Star,” a metric must do three things: lead to revenue, reflect customer value,
and measure progress. If a metric hits those three points, and every department contributes to
improving it, the company will grow sustainably.
The image below shows the North Star metric of Spotify: Time spent listening to music.

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 User Journey
For a product manager, it is important to understand how users interact with our
products/services. The steps or actions users will go through, and the experience users get
while using the product should be known to the product manager.
How to think of User Journey: As the name suggests, to get an idea of the user journey forget
that you are a product manager (for some time) and put on the hat of the user. For each
application, the user journey will be different based on the intention of the user. A user journey
map is a tool that will help you to understand and document the user's touch points and pain
points.
The user journey starts even before the user interacts with our application or product. It also
extends after the user needs are met. So, the total experience can be divided into Before use,
During use, and After use. For each phase list the specific actions and steps taken by the user.
Before use there will be a trigger to use our app and other alternate application that users
consider using. During use each way the user interacts will our application is a touch point. In
this phase, it is important to access these touchpoints. Then understand the emotions the user
goes through while interacting with these touchpoints. This will give us the areas of
improvement or pain points.
Finally, after-use is important, for example, if you have a food-delivery app, the experience
does not end with the user completing the payment. It extends next to how we are providing
the notifications, the summary of the orders, the invoice generation, how are addressing the
concerns, and feedback collection.

10. Go-To-Market Strategy

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan designed to bring a new product to market and
drive demand. It helps identify a target audience, outline marketing and sales strategies, and align
key stakeholders. While each product and market will be different, a well-crafted GTM strategy
should identify a market problem and position the product as a solution.

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 Critical parts of a go-to-market strategy:
i. Identify Target Market: The customer is the centerpiece of any marketing strategy. As a
result, whether you are bringing a new product to market or refreshing an existing one, it
is imperative that you first research and identify the target market that will be most
interested in purchasing it.
ii. Clarify Value Proposition: A product’s value proposition is the benefit it provides
consumers and the problems it solves. In other words, your product’s value proposition
articulates why the target market should purchase the product. As you are preparing your
go-to-market strategy, you should have a clear understanding of the value proposition that
your product provides in order to direct your marketing efforts.
iii. Define your pricing strategy: A good price is one that fits your business objectives,
matches your customer profile, and makes you competitive in the marketplace.
iv. Craft your promotion strategy: Your promotion strategy is your action plan to promote
your product to your target customers. Here, you should craft a marketing plan that
outlines the exact steps you will take to reach your customer base. The techniques you use
to promote your product will depend entirely on the product or service you are selling.
v. Choose your sales & distribution channels: Sales channels are where consumers can
purchase your product, while distribution channels are the ways that your product actually
gets to your customer. Often, sales channels and distribution channels can be the same,
such as when a consumer buys directly from a manufacturer. In other instances,
distribution channels can be much more complex, such as when a producer sells to a
wholesaler, who in turn sells to a retailer who then finally sells their product to a consumer.
vi. Set metrics and monitor your performance: As your GTM strategy goes from idea to
reality, it is important to keep track of your metrics and make any necessary adjustments
as you go along. For example, if it turns out that you are paying more to acquire customers
than they are paying for your product, then you will need to adjust your strategy to reach
a better customer acquisition cost.

11. Product Pricing

Pricing is defined as the amount of money that you charge for your products, but understanding it
requires much more than that simple definition. Baked into your pricing are indicators to your
potential customers about how much you value your brand, product, and customers. It's one of the
first things that can push a customer towards, or away from, buying your product. As such, it should
be calculated with certainty.

What are Pricing Strategies:

Pricing strategies refer to the processes and methodologies businesses use to set prices for their
products and services. If pricing is how much you charge for your products, then pricing strategy is
how you determine what that amount should be. Some of the more common pricing strategies
include:
• Value-based pricing
• Competitive pricing.
• Price skimming
• Cost-plus pricing
• Penetration pricing

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 • Economy pricing
• Dynamic pricing
• Bundle pricing

Pricing is an Under-utilized Growth Lever:

Many companies focus on acquisition to grow their business, but studies have shown that small
variations in pricing can raise or lower revenue by 20-50%. Despite that, even among Fortune 500
companies, fewer than 5% have functions dedicated to getting pricing right. There's a missed
opportunity in the business world to see immediate growth for relatively little effort. Because most
businesses spend less than 10 hours per year thinking about pricing, there's a lot of untapped growth
potential in optimizing what you charge. Getting your pricing right is a more powerful growth lever
than customer acquisition. In some cases, it can be up to 7.5 times more powerful than acquisition.

Top 8 Pricing Strategies:

Let us now take a closer look at the eight pricing strategies that were outlined above.
a. Value-based pricing: With value-based pricing, you set your prices according to what
consumers think your product is worth. We are big fans of this pricing strategy for SaaS
businesses. Example: Apple
b. Competitive pricing: When you use a competitive pricing strategy, you are setting your
prices based on what the competition is charging. This can be a good strategy in the right
circumstances, such as a business just starting, but it does not leave a lot of room for
growth. Example: Pepsi and Coca Cola
c. Price skimming: If you set your prices as high as the market will possibly tolerate and then
lower them over time, you will be using the price skimming strategy. The goal is to skim
the top off the market and lower prices to reach everyone else. With the right product, it
can work, but you should be very cautious using it. Example: Tech giants like Samsung,
Sony, Apple, Tesla
d. Cost-plus pricing: This is one of the simplest pricing strategies. You just take the cost of
creating your product and add a certain percentage to it. While simple, it is less than ideal
for anything but physical products. Example: Restaurants
e. Penetration pricing: In highly competitive markets, it can be hard for new companies to
get a foothold. One way some companies attempt to do so is by offering prices that are
much lower than the competition. This is penetration pricing. Example: Reliance Jio.
f. Economy pricing: This strategy is popular in the commodity goods sector. The goal is to
price a product cheaper than the competition and make the money back with increased
volume. While it is a good method to get people to buy your generic soda, it is not a great
fit for SaaS and subscription businesses. Example: Retail giants like Costco, Target
g. Dynamic pricing: In some industries, you can get away with constantly changing your
prices to match the current demand for the item. This does not work well for subscription
and SaaS businesses, because customers expect consistent monthly or yearly expenses.
Example: Indigo, Amazon
h. Bundle pricing: Bundle pricing is a marketing tactic where multiple products or services
are combined and sold at a discounted rate, enticing customers with cost savings. This
strategy boosts sales, streamlines inventory, and encourages cross-selling. Customers
enjoy the convenience of obtaining various offerings at a lower overall cost, making bundle

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 pricing a common and effective approach in industries like telecommunications, software,
and retail. Example: Amazon Prime, Microsoft Office 365

Pricing Strategy Examples

Real-world pricing strategy examples are the best way for a business to better understand the above-
listed pricing strategies. Evaluating other businesses' approaches can be a good starting point but
keep in mind that your strategy should be based on math, market research, and consumer insights.

For now, let us look at some examples:

Streaming services: Have you noticed that you pay roughly the same amount for Netflix, Amazon
Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, and other streaming services? That is because these companies have
adopted competitive pricing, or at least a form of it, called market-based pricing.

Salesforce: When Salesforce first came out, they were the only CRM in the cloud. (It was not even
called 'the cloud' back then!) Armed with ground-breaking deployment and a target customer of a
large enterprise, Salesforce could charge what it wanted.
Later, after they had grown, they were able to lower prices so smaller businesses could sign up. This
is a classic example of price skimming.

Amazon Prime: Amazon's successful implementation of bundle pricing is exemplified through its
Amazon Prime subscription service. For a fixed annual fee, customers gain access to a comprehensive
bundle of benefits, including expedited shipping, exclusive deals, and a diverse library of
entertainment on Prime Video. This strategy not only fosters customer loyalty but also encourages
engagement across multiple services within the Amazon ecosystem, aligning with the company's
commitment to delivering value and convenience to its customers.

Uber: Uber employs dynamic pricing, known as surge pricing, to adapt to fluctuating demand. During
peak times, prices adjust in real-time to encourage more drivers to be available and to manage rider
demand efficiently. This strategy underscores Uber's flexibility and commitment to balancing supply
and demand dynamically in the ride-hailing market.

12. Software Life Cycle Models

Waterfall model
The classical waterfall model is the basic software development life cycle model. It is very simple but
idealistic. Earlier this model was very popular but nowadays it is not used. However it is very important
because all the other software development life cycle models are based on the classical waterfall
model. Waterfall project management is a sequential approach that divides the SDLC into distinct
phases as follows:

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Requirement Gathering and analysis − All possible requirements of the system to be developed are
captured in this phase and documented in a requirement specification document.
System Design − The requirement specifications from the first phase are studied in this phase and the
system design is prepared. This system design helps in specifying hardware and system requirements
and helps in defining the overall system architecture.
Implementation − With inputs from the system design, the system is first developed in small programs
called units, which are integrated into the next phase. Each unit is developed and tested for its
functionality, which is referred to as Unit Testing.
Integration and Testing − All the units developed in the implementation phase are integrated into a
system after the testing of each unit. Post integration the entire system is tested for any faults and
failures.
Deployment of system − Once the functional and non-functional testing is done; the product is
deployed in the customer environment or released into the market.
Maintenance – Some issues come up in the client environment. To fix those issues, patches are
released. Also, to enhance the product some better versions are released. Maintenance is done to
deliver these changes in the customer environment.
Implementation − With inputs from the system design, the system is first developed in small programs
called units, which are integrated into the next phase. Each unit is developed and tested for its
functionality, which is referred to as Unit Testing.
Integration and Testing − All the units developed in the implementation phase are integrated into a
system after the testing of each unit. Post integration the entire system is tested for any faults and
failures.
Deployment of system − Once the functional and non-functional testing is done; the product is
deployed in the customer environment or released into the market.

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The following are the benefits of the waterfall methodology:
• Straightforward planning and design due to the agreement on deliverables at the start of the
project
• Better design with a whole-system approach
• Defined scope of work
• Easier costing
• Clear measurements of progress
• Defined team roles
• Technology is understood and is not dynamic
• Dedicated resources can work in parallel for their specific tasks

Newer development methodologies were created because of known disadvantages of

the waterfall, including
• Rigid structure to allow necessary changes
• No allowance for uncertainty
• Limited customer engagement, resulting in poor satisfaction
• The sequential approach is not ideal for a large-sized project where the result is too far in the
future
• Not a good model for complex and object-oriented projects
• It is difficult to measure progress within stages
• Cannot accommodate changing requirements
• Testing is done only in the latter phases of the project.

Agile Model
The Agile model believes that every project needs to be handled differently and the existing methods
need to be tailored to best suit the project requirements. In Agile, the tasks are divided into time boxes
(small time frames) to deliver specific features for a release. An iterative approach is taken and a
working software build is delivered after each iteration. Each build is incremental in terms of features;
the final build holds all the features required by the customer.
The Agile Manifesto was written in 2001 by proponents of lightweight software development, which
aimed to combat traditional project management processes. A few months later, the authors added a
set of 12 Agile principles as an extension to the Manifesto.
Agile methods have been widely accepted in the software world recently. However, this method may
not always be suitable for all products. Here are some pros and cons of the Agile model.

The advantages of the Agile Model are as follows:

• Is a very realistic approach to software development
• Promotes teamwork and cross-training
• Functionality can be developed rapidly and demonstrated
• Resource requirements are minimum
• Suitable for fixed or changing requirements
• Delivers early partial working solutions

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 • Good model for environments that change steadily
• Minimal rules, documentation easily employed
• Enables concurrent development and delivery within an overall planned context
• Little or no planning required
• Easy to manage
• Gives flexibility to developers

The disadvantages of the Agile model are as follows:

• Not suitable for handling complex dependencies
• More risk of sustainability, maintainability, and extensibility
• An overall plan, an agile leader, and agile PM practice are a must without which it will not work
• Strict delivery management dictates the scope, functionality to be delivered, and adjustments
to meet the deadlines
• Depends heavily on customer interaction, so if the customer is not clothed, the team can be
driven in the wrong direction
• There is a very high individual dependency since there is minimum documentation generated
• Transfer of technology to new team members may be quite challenging due to lack of
documentation.

On the surface, it is easy to see why Agile and Scrum can often be confused, as they both rely on an
iterative process, frequent client interaction, and collaborative decision-making. The key difference

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 between Agile and Scrum is that while Agile is a project management philosophy that utilizes a core
set of values or principles, Scrum is a specific Agile methodology that is used to facilitate a project.

13. IT Terminologies
Scrum
Introduction: Scrum is an agile framework used for collaborative and incremental product
development, focusing on solving complex problems through team collaboration. It emphasizes
iterative work cycles, experimentation, and feedback to enhance learning and improvements.
Framework Components:

1. Scrum Team Composition:

• Product Owner: Manages product backlog and prioritizes features.
• Scrum Master: Supports the team, ensures Scrum adherence, and removes
impediments.
• Developers: Implements work to produce valuable increments each Sprint.

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 2. Scrum Events:
• Sprint: Time-boxed iteration (usually a month or less) for delivering product
increments.
• Sprint Planning: Team session to organize work for the upcoming Sprint.
• Daily Scrum: Brief daily meeting for activity synchronization.
• Sprint Review: Demonstrates completed work and gathers feedback at Sprint's end.
• Sprint Retrospective: Reflects on the Sprint to identify improvements.
3. Scrum Artifacts:
• Product Backlog: Prioritized project work list.
• Sprint Backlog: Selected items for the current Sprint.
• Increment: Cumulative completion of items representing the latest product version.
4. Scrum Pillars:
• Transparency: Clear process visibility for all stakeholders.
• Inspection: Regular progress and outcome assessments.
• Adaptation: Adjustments based on inspection insights.
5. Scrum Values:
• Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect, Openness: Essential for fostering trust and
effective team collaboration.

Concept Origin: The term "Scrum" is inspired by rugby, symbolizing teamwork to advance a project
collectively.
Empirical Process and Trust: Scrum is based on empiricism, focusing on observation and
experimentation. Trust within the team, guided by Scrum Values, is crucial for progress.
Key Principles:
• Incremental Delivery: Short cycle deliveries.
• Continuous Feedback: Regular feedback for adaptation.
• Team Accountability: Collective responsibility for Sprint deliverables.
• Stakeholder Involvement: Active participation in reviewing Sprint outcomes.

Conclusion: Scrum offers a structured, flexible approach for effective product development,
emphasizing collaboration, transparency, and continuous improvement.

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Kanban
Kanban is a widely embraced framework within agile and DevOps software development, offering real-
time communication of capacity and full transparency of work. At its core, Kanban relies on visualizing
work items on a Kanban board, enabling team members to track the status of every task and ensuring
a streamlined workflow. The origins of Kanban can be traced back over 50 years to Toyota, where it
revolutionized manufacturing processes by adopting a "just-in-time" (JIT) system inspired by
supermarket stocking practices.

Principles and Evolution:

Origin in Toyota's Manufacturing:
In the late 1940s, Toyota adapted the supermarket stocking model to optimize its engineering
processes. This JIT system aimed to align inventory levels with actual material consumption. The key
innovation was the use of "kanban" cards to signal real-time capacity needs between teams,
warehouses, and suppliers. This practice enhanced efficiency by minimizing excess stock and ensuring
the availability of needed materials.
Kanban for Software Teams:
Today, agile software development teams leverage Kanban's JIT principles by aligning work in progress
(WIP) with the team's capacity. Unlike traditional manufacturing, implementing Kanban in software
development is straightforward, requiring only a board and cards, which can even be virtual. Kanban's
core principles are timeless and applicable to various industries, with software teams finding particular
success due to its minimal overhead and adaptability.

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Key Components of Kanban:
Kanban Board:
1. Physical or Digital: A Kanban board is a project management tool designed to visualize work,
limit work-in-progress, and enhance efficiency. It can be physical or digital, with virtual boards
offering traceability, collaboration, and accessibility benefits.
2. Workflow Standardization: The board ensures the visualization of work, standardized
workflows, and immediate identification and resolution of blockers and dependencies. A basic
Kanban board typically includes columns like "To Do," "In Progress," and "Done."

Kanban Cards:
1. Visual Signals: Kanban, translating to "visual signal" in Japanese, represents each work item
as a card on the board. These cards provide critical information about the work item, such as
responsible team members, job description, estimated completion time, and more.
2. Visual Progress Tracking: The use of cards allows team members to visually track the progress
of work through its workflow, promoting focus, traceability, and quick identification of blockers
and dependencies.
Advantages of Kanban:
1. Planning Flexibility: Kanban teams focus only on actively in-progress work, allowing the
product owner to reprioritize the backlog without disrupting ongoing tasks. Fixed-length
iterations, as seen in Scrum, are not necessary.
2. Shortened Time Cycles: Cycle time, the duration from work initiation to shipment, is a key
metric. Kanban optimizes cycle time through overlapping skill sets, knowledge sharing, and
swarming on bottlenecks for faster output.
3. Fewer Bottlenecks: Work-in-progress limits reduce multitasking and highlight bottlenecks.
Limiting WIP ensures focus, identifies process issues, and promotes efficiency by minimizing
context switching.
4. Visual Metrics: Visual tools, such as control charts and cumulative flow diagrams, provide
insights into team efficiency and highlight areas for improvement. These visualizations aid in
the continuous enhancement of the workflow.
5. Continuous Delivery (CD): Kanban and CD complement each other seamlessly, emphasizing
just-in-time delivery. Continuous integration and delivery pipelines ensure frequent releases
with high quality, enhancing competitiveness in the marketplace.

In conclusion, Kanban is a dynamic framework that empowers agile software development teams with
flexibility, efficiency, and continuous improvement. By visualizing work, limiting WIP, and optimizing
workflows, teams can deliver value just in time, enhancing their competitiveness in the fast-paced
world of software development.

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API (Application Programming Interface)
An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of protocols and tools for building software and
applications. It defines the way different software applications communicate with each other. APIs
simplify software development and innovation by enabling applications to exchange data and
functionality easily and securely. They are crucial in today's interconnected digital ecosystem, as they
allow for the integration of different systems, fostering synergy and seamless user experiences. For
example, a weather application on a smartphone might use an API to fetch data from a remote server.
APIs are not only limited to web services; they also play a significant role in operating systems,
databases, and hardware interactions.

DevOps
DevOps is a software development methodology that combines software development (Dev) and IT
operations (Ops), aiming to shorten the development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with
high software quality. It focuses on collaboration, automation, continuous integration, and quick
feedback cycles to improve the efficiency and security of software development and deployment. By
aligning development and operations, DevOps helps organizations respond to market needs faster,
enhance customer satisfaction, and improve the resilience and scalability of their systems. Key
practices in DevOps include infrastructure as code, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and
monitoring and logging.

Edge Computing
Edge Computing refers to the computation and data storage that occurs directly at or near the location
where it is needed, instead of relying on a central data-processing warehouse. This approach reduces
latency, saves bandwidth, and improves response times by processing data closer to where it is
generated, such as in smartphones, IoT devices, and local edge servers. Edge Computing is essential
in scenarios where real-time data processing is critical, such as in autonomous vehicles, smart cities,
and IoT applications. It enables faster insights and actions, as well as more efficient operation of
technologies that require immediate data analysis.

IoT (Internet of Things)

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the network of physical objects—“things”—that are embedded
with sensors, software, and other technologies to connect and exchange data with other devices and
systems over the internet. These devices range from ordinary household items to sophisticated
industrial tools. IoT has transformed various sectors, including healthcare, agriculture, and
manufacturing, by enabling more efficient and automated operations. It facilitates real-time
monitoring, smart automation, and optimization of processes. Challenges in IoT include security, data
privacy, and interoperability across diverse devices and platforms.
Here are a few examples that illustrate the wide-ranging applications of IoT in day-to-day scenarios:
1. Smart Home Devices:
• Thermostats: Devices like the Nest thermostat learn your heating and cooling
preferences and adjust the temperature automatically, saving energy.
• Lighting Systems: Philips Hue lights can be controlled remotely via smartphones, set to
operate on schedules, or even change color based on certain conditions.

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 • Security Cameras: Ring doorbells and other smart security cameras allow homeowners
to monitor their property remotely and receive alerts for suspicious activities.
2. Wearable Health Devices:
• Fitness Trackers: Devices like the Fitbit or Apple Watch monitor physical activity, track
steps, heart rate, and sleep patterns, and provide insights into health trends over time.
• Smart Health Monitors: Wearable ECG monitors, blood pressure cuffs, and glucose
monitors provide real-time health data to users and their healthcare providers.
3. Smart Appliances:
• Refrigerators: Smart refrigerators can track expiration dates, suggest recipes based on
contents, and even order groceries when supplies run low.
• Ovens: Wi-Fi-enabled ovens can be preheated remotely, set to cook for a specific
duration, and notify you when your meal is ready.
4. Agriculture:
• Soil and Crop Monitoring: IoT sensors can monitor soil moisture, temperature, and
nutrients to optimize watering and fertilization schedules, improving crop yields.
• Livestock Tracking: Wearable devices for livestock can monitor health and location,
making it easier to manage large herds efficiently.
5. Smart Cities:
• Traffic Management Systems: IoT devices can monitor traffic flow in real-time,
adjusting signal timings and providing data to help reduce congestion.
• Waste Management: Smart bins can signal when they are full, optimizing collection
routes and schedules.
6. Automotive:
• Connected Cars: Vehicles equipped with IoT capabilities can offer real-time navigation,
traffic updates, remote diagnostics, and even the ability to summon emergency
assistance automatically in the event of an accident.
7. Energy Management:
• Smart Meters: These devices provide real-time information on electricity, gas, or water
usage, allowing for more efficient consumption and helping to reduce costs.

RPA (Robotic Process Automation)

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that automates repetitive and mundane tasks in
business processes. Using software robots or “bots”, RPA emulates human actions to interact with
digital systems and software. These bots can perform a variety of tasks, such as data entry, processing
transactions, and responding to simple customer service queries. The main advantages of RPA include
increased efficiency, reduced errors, and freeing up human workers to focus on more strategic,

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 creative tasks. RPA is widely used in industries such as finance, healthcare, and customer service for
its ability to streamline operations and reduce costs.

Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity refers to the practice of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital
attacks, which are usually aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information, extorting
money from users, or interrupting normal business processes. Implementing effective cybersecurity
measures is particularly challenging today because there are more devices than people, and attackers
are becoming more innovative. Cybersecurity is a critical component in safeguarding data privacy,
maintaining consumer trust, and ensuring the uninterrupted operation of systems and networks. Key
practices in cybersecurity include regular software updates, the use of firewalls, and anti-virus
software, and educating users about safe online behavior.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to a
website through organic search engine results. It involves optimizing web content and website
architecture to make the site more attractive to a search engine. SEO is essential for businesses as it
enhances online visibility and leads to more traffic, which can convert into customers and sales. The
process includes keyword research, content creation, link building, and ensuring the website is mobile-
friendly and has fast loading times. SEO trends are constantly evolving, thus requiring website owners
and marketers to stay updated with the latest search engine algorithms and best practices.

Quantum Computing
Quantum Computing is an emerging field of computing that utilizes the principles of quantum theory.
Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in multiple states simultaneously,
allowing them to process a vast number of calculations at once. This capability makes quantum
computers exponentially faster than traditional computers at solving certain types of problems, such
as cryptography, drug discovery, and optimization problems. While quantum computing holds
immense potential, it is still in the experimental stage, with significant challenges in terms of
technology, stability, and error rates to be overcome before it becomes widely applicable.

14. Product Requirement Document (PRD)

The Product Requirements Document (PRD) is an indispensable component of our strategic approach
to product development. It serves as the foundational blueprint that encapsulates the vision,
functionality, and technical specifications of the upcoming product. In PRD, we meticulously outline
the key elements that define the product and guide the collaborative efforts of cross-functional teams
involved in its creation.

The structure of a PRD looks like this:

- Title section: Project title and/or code, Responsible manager(s), Date of creation,
Document version
- Introduction: Background Information/Context, Problem Definition/User Needs
- Objectives: Vision, Goals, Product Positioning
- Stakeholders: Users, Purchasers, Manufacturers, Customer Service, Marketing & Sales,
External Partners, Regulatory Instances
- Use Cases: User Story #1, User Story #2

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 - Aspects: Hardware, software, design, user experience, interactivity, customization,
manufacturing
- Open Questions / Future Work: Highlight unresolved queries for further investigation.
- Milestones: Establish a clear roadmap with measurable checkpoints for development
progress.
- Resources: Specify human, technological, and financial resources required for successful
implementation.
- Appendices: Attach supplementary materials, charts, or detailed technical documentation.
- Glossary / Explanation of Terms: Compile a list of industry-specific terms, acronyms, and
provide clear explanations for better comprehension.

Example of PRD:

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15. Product Teardowns:

E-Hailing: Uber

E-Hailing
Ride-sharing boom: Before the pandemic, ride-sharing thrived due to convenience, cost-
effectiveness, and potential traffic reduction.
Diversification: Providers offered varied models like e-hailing, carpooling, and rentals, catering
to diverse needs.
Pandemic Impact: Lockdowns and work-from-home culture drastically impacted ride-sharing,
causing revenue declines for major players like Uber.
Adapting Strategies: In response, ride-sharing companies diversified into e-commerce, food
delivery, and last-mile deliveries.

About the App

Uber Technologies, Inc., commonly known as Uber, is an American technology company. Its
services include ride-hailing, food delivery (Uber Eats), package delivery, couriers, freight
transportation, and, through a partnership with Lime, electric bicycle and motorized scooter
rental. The company is based in San Francisco and has operations in over 900 metropolitan areas
worldwide. It is one of the largest firms in the gig economy.
Uber is estimated to have over 93 million monthly active users worldwide. In the United States,
Uber has a 71% market share for ride-sharing and a 22% market share for food delivery. Uber
has been so prominent in the sharing economy that changes in various industries as a result of
Uber has been referred to as “Uberisation”, and many startups have described their offerings
as "Uber for X".

Business Model

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 App Critique
Step 1:
The user must be able to find a way for the Uber driver to come to their location and pick them
up. The mapping of the input field is in a good location at the top of the screen and is marked
in terms users will understand “where to”.

Step 2:
Upon clicking in the “where to” box you can enter a destination or choose a recent location from
a dropdown field. This box uses a blinking blue line as a signifier, which affords the user to input
their location. You will also notice the “home” field is auto- generated to your current location.

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 Step 3:
If you input a reasonable location, such as my commute from my apartment in Vaishali to
Gazipur you will get immediate feedback with a screen that maps your intended ride. This visual
conceptual model of your Uber ride affords that if you click confirm you will get picked up from
your current location and brought to your destination.
Strengths:
• The user-centered design has been at the forefront of design and offers easy and quick
execution to the main objective of ordering a taxi with the ‘where to?’ option center of the
screen that detects the user's location automatically and clearly.
• Can be adapted for each user offering favorite locations such as a home address
• saved in the user’s account.
• The Start-up page is clear and minimal, offering straightforward questions to register or log
back in. This avoids confusion giving a seamless flow to the user.
• This keeps the main interface space clear of unnecessary options users may not need each
time they order a taxi, so even though it is accessible, it is not distracting for the users.
Weaknesses:
• It may be argued that the app can be hard to navigate for the older generation that does not
have a smartphone or does not use online apps or websites regularly, leaving a large audience
unable to use Uber.
• The color scheme can be argued to be plain and disengaging as a result of the recent change
from having a colorful overlay before the update, to a neater and more stylish design. Looking
at color theories, black and grey are associated with luxury and sophistication, which gives a
design a minimalistic feel. Although Uber has a big audience of business users that would
engage with the corporate style, the general public has been overlooked.

Key Metrics
1. Active Users:
• Metric indicating the number of users actively using the Uber app in a specific time
frame.
• Reflects user engagement and aids in evaluating market penetration.
2. Number of Trips:
• Total rides completed on the Uber app within a given time period.
• Evaluate the growth and success of Uber's primary service.
3. Completed Trips per Hour:
• Efficiency metric calculating the average trips completed per hour per driver.
4. Monthly Active Users (MAUs):
• Number of users completing at least one ride or transaction on Uber within one month.
5. Average Trip Duration:
• Measures the average time taken to complete a trip, assessing route efficiency and
service quality.
6. Average Revenue per User (ARPU):
• Average revenue generated from each user during a specified time period.
• Assesses customer value and monetization strategy effectiveness.
7. Churn Rate:
• Percentage of users discontinuing Uber service over a specific time period.
• Lower churn rate suggests better customer retention.
8. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC):

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 •
Total cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing expenses.
•
Assesses the effectiveness of Uber’s marketing efforts.
9. Trip Cancellation Rate:
• Percentage of trips canceled by driver or rider within a specific time period.
• A high rate may indicate a need for better user experience or service improvements.
10. Gross Booking Value (GBV):
• Total dollar value of all trips booked on the Uber platform in a specific time period.
• Indicates growth in demand and revenue potential.
11. Driver Utilization Rate:
• Rate at which drivers are engaged in trips as a percentage of their total logged-in time.
• Assesses operational efficiency.
12. Customer Satisfaction Rate (CSAT):
• Percentage of customers indicating a positive experience with Uber services.
• Measures overall customer satisfaction and identifies areas for improvement.
13. Revenue Attrition Rate:
• Rate at which customers reduce spending on the platform during a specific period.
• Low attrition rate suggests better customer retention and loyalty.
14. Net Promoter Score (NPS):
• Metric measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction based on the likelihood to
recommend Uber.

•High NPS reflects strong customer advocacy for the brand.

15. Driver Retention Rate:
• Percentage of drivers providing rides through Uber over a specified time period.
• Higher retention rates indicate higher driver satisfaction and loyalty.

E-commerce: Flipkart

E-Commerce

E-commerce business allows companies and individuals to buy and sell things online. It can be
divided into four major types:
• Business to Business (B2B) – IndiaMART, Udaan
• Business to Consumer (B2C) – Amazon, Flipkart
• Consumer to Consumer (C2C) – OLX, Etsy
• Consumer to Business (C2B) – freelancer, Desk

Growth:

• Projected to reach $200 billion by 2026 driven by:

• Increasing smartphone penetration (expanding access)
• Government initiatives like Digital India, Start-up India, and Make in India
• 42% increase in operating revenue in FY - 2023

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 Market Dynamics:

• Personal care, beauty, and wellness dominate sales.

• E-commerce competes with brick-and-mortar stores, prompting many businesses to
have both online and offline presence.

Consumer benefits:
• Convenience: Ability to shop anytime, anywhere.
• Increased selection: Access to products from across the globe.

Challenges:

• Inability to physically touch products before purchase.

• Lack of instant gratification due to delivery wait times.

About the Company & App

Flipkart was founded by Sachin and Binny Bansal in 2007. It is headquartered in Bangalore,
Karnataka. With initial investment from the Bansal brothers, Flipkart started as an online
bookstore website. Business growth led to funding from multiple businesses like Accel India,
Naspers Group, etc. In 2018, US retail giant Walmart acquired Flipkart for $16 billion. Myntra,
PhonePe, Ekart, and Jabong are some of the subsidiaries of Flipkart. In 2014, the company changed
its logo and identity design. In 2017, it started with the Private Brands business e.g., MarQ,
SmartBuy, and Perfect Homes. By bridging the need gap effectively, these brands are offering
customers immense value in terms of selection, price, and trust. They are also promoting the
growth of local manufacturing and SMBs.
Flipkart often provides the lowest prices as compared to the market with a selection from
thousands of sellers. It has easy-to-use UI features to browse, compare, and buy.
Some of the important features of the Flipkart app are:
- 24x7 customer service
- Flipkart Assured - badge for high-quality products
- Sell on Flipkart as a seller

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Business Model

App Critique
Login:
Simple login page with two login options:
• By mobile number
• By email

For login with mobile number option, mobile number is auto-detected followed by automatic
capture of verification code. This option is easy as the user doesn’t need to remember the app
password.

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Home Page:
Strengths: The home page provides easy access to Suggested items, deals of the day, and Special
Offers pages. Placing product categories at the top, directly in front of the user’s eyes, is a good
design choice. Consistent blue-yellow color palette with simple and elegant icon suit.

Weaknesses:
It may be argued that Flipkart’s home page looks unorganized compared to Amazon’s home page.
A bit cluttered interface with multiple options like a super coin, video, and quaint one place

Search:
Easy to use the search feature at the top of each screen. The search feature also provides the
‘Discover More’ option with a few options at the bottom.
• Some pictures with random/dark colour backgrounds convey a less uniform design
language.

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 Share feature popup UI is in line with the design of other application screens.

Checkout:

Strength - Clear 3-step checkout process with the step number mentioned at the top

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 Weakness - Free delivery eligibility text is difficult to read due to a lack of highlight

Key Metrics
A. Conversion Rate: This measures the percentage of visitors who make a purchase on the
website. A high conversion rate indicates that the website is effective at converting visitors into
customers.

B. Average Order Value (AOV): This measures the average amount spent by customers on each
order. A high AOV indicates that customers are spending more money on the website.

C. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. A low
CAC indicates that the website is effective at acquiring new customers at a low cost.

D. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): This measures the total value of a customer over their
lifetime. A high CLV indicates that the website is effective at retaining customers and generating
repeat business.

E. Cart Abandonment Rate: This measures the percentage of customers who add items to their
cart but do not complete the purchase. A high cart abandonment rate indicates that there may
be issues with the checkout process or pricing.

Food-tech: Zomato

Food Tech
The food-tech market in India is valued at INR 959.16 Bn in 2022 and is expected to reach INR
3509.5 Bn by 2027, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of ~29.53% during the
2023 - 2027 period. The food tech market in India is an emergent but fast-growing market that
has experienced remarkable growth from 2015 onwards. The majority of the key players are
startups and are at nascent stages of growth.

Some of the main players that operate in the market in India are Swiggy, Zomato, BigBasket,
Jubilant Foods, Freshmenu, and Licious.

Market Insights
Rapid urbanization, growth in the number of working youths, and increased adoption of the
internet and smartphones are a few of the significant factors that propel market growth.

Lucrative offers and discounts provided by various aggregators on their apps and the ease of
doorstep delivery are further driving the market. However, the dominance of unorganized
players across tier-I and tier-II cities and the significantly low penetration of the internet in tier-
III cities deter its growth.

Segment insights
Based on product type, the food tech market in India is broadly categorized into two segments
- online food delivery and online grocery. In terms of revenue, the online food delivery segment
dominated the food-tech market, accounting for 60.66% of the overall revenue in 2022. The

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 online grocery segment is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period and is
likely to dominate the market by the end of 2027, accounting for 42.73% of the sector.

COVID-19 impact analysis

During the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the market experienced a setback mainly
because the online food delivery market was severely impacted by the nationwide lockdown.
The frequency of online food ordering declined initially because consumers were concerned
about their health and the availability of delivery agents due to the scarcity of jobs and migration
of labor. However, many food service startups expanded their businesses beyond restaurant
food delivery to target new customers and retain existing customers with other types of delivery
services.

Furthermore, the increased penetration of the internet in tier II and tier III cities since the
pandemic has helped these companies reach out to more people and expand their delivery
services. The importance of online transactions and other online activities was realized during
the pandemic, both by customers, as well as investors. This will help the food-tech market to
grow throughout the forecast period.

About the App

Zomato is the fastest-growing restaurant discovery website, established in 2008 by Deepinder

Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. Initially, it was named Foodiebay but in 2010, it was renamed
Zomato. It provides not only information related to nearby restaurants but also provides
facilities such as online ordering, table reservations, and management. Zomato currently serves
3200+ cities across 24 countries having 1.4 million popular restaurants with 80 million foodies
every month as of March 2023. It is available in 10 different languages and has 10 million reviews
with 18 million bookmarks. It gives a platform to the restaurant owners to serve a large number
of users good quality food.

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 Business Model

App Critique

Login Feature: Zomato goes for simplicity, and provides options for login, i.e., via Mobile
number and OTP or Facebook, Google, and Email. Providing multiple options to the customers
helps users to log in quickly from low network coverage areas as well.

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 Account: Zomato’s account page is very engaging. It even has a profile of the user. Checking it,
many people have maintained their profile page, where they write reviews about restaurants,
and add photographs. You can follow your fellow foodie companions. Eating and updating
reviews add up to the stats.

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 Zomato has a few key tabs:

Delivery: Order food from restaurants at home

Dining: You can check amazing restaurants near you or anywhere, decide and rate the place,
book a table, read and write reviews

Zomato Gold: To get limitless dining privileges

BlinkIt: After its recent acquisition of Blinkit, there is a link that redirects to the Blinkit app as
well

Home Screen

Zomato’s home screen has high contrast, and saturated colors and is exceptionally captivating.
It has very little negative space.

Food Display

Zomato advertises and takes up a lot of space to display the food places available. The users at
one point will get tired of scrolling and may or may not settle with any restaurant.

Search

The search bar is available on top of the home screen. By placing images and a few options, it
has a clickbait that would want the users to click on a type of cuisine/restaurant, even if they
aren’t looking for anything specific.

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 1. Filter/Sort: Low discoverability — It is really difficult to find the filter options. Zomato
has more food choices in the filter.

Key Metrics
- NORTH STAR METRIC: Number of Successful food items deliver each week
- Acquisition - The number of people who are downloading the app, and then registering on
the app as a user. I would like to see this trending upward. month-on-month basis
- Engagement - Daily active users and monthly active users, session time (engagement
period) 5 mins /day, number of returning users, churn rate.
- Revenue metrics - Number of transactions done (order placed), number of preferences.
- Satisfaction metrics - App store ratings, reviews left by customers, support ticket log,
number of failed transactions

EdTech: Udemy

EdTech

Edtech, or educational technology, refers to the integration of digital tools and software into
educational environments to enhance learning and teaching experiences. It involves the use of
devices like computers and tablets, software, and online resources to support and improve
educational outcomes. Edtech aims to make education more accessible, personalized, and
efficient by leveraging technology to cater to individual learning styles and needs.

The Covid-19 outbreak created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for India's educational

technology ("EdTech'') sector. The traditional face-to-face interaction between a teacher and

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 students suffered a setback, and a paradigm shift to the unconventional mode of online learning
occurred almost instantly. This shift focused attention on the EdTech industry, which then
received the necessary financial and policy impetus to thrive throughout the fiscal year (FY)
2020-2021.

About the App

Udemy, Inc. is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider geared at working adults and
students in the United States. Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar formed it in May 2010.
The platform includes over 69 million students, 210,000+ courses, and 75000+ teachers
delivering courses in over 75 languages. Over 940 million course enrolments are completed.

Students enroll in courses primarily to improve job-related skills. Some courses can be used to
get technical certification credit. Udemy has made a concerted attempt to recruit corporate
trainers who want to offer courses for their company's employees.

Business Model

App Critique

Login: Simple login page with one login option – which is by mobile number. For login with
mobile number option, mobile number is auto-detected followed by automatic capture of
verification code

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 Home Page:
Strengths:
Simple and clean UI. Also, the home page provides easy access to Suggested courses and
featured courses. The page is neatly organized with all the courses which are suggested
based on the courses that are in demand or those which are similar to the one you have
enrolled in.

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 Search:

Strength: Easy to use the search feature at the bottom of each screen. The search feature
also provides ‘Top Searches’ and browse categories options with many different suggested
categories.

Weakness: Some icons of categories such as finance and accounting were blurred which
gives a less professional look. Having a common look for all item icons in the search result
would make it look better.

Share:

Share feature popup UI is in line with the design of other application screens

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Key Metric
- Teacher Attendance %:
- Metric crucial for tele-education companies to monitor teacher attendance.
- Solutions include sending proactive alerts to students/parents and operations teams
for timely information and analysis.

- Student Attendance %:
- Indicator of student engagement and potential dropout rates.
- Alerts and check-ins for absent students enhance engagement and reduce dropout
rates.

- Project Completion %:
- Paramount metric to ensure students' progress and sustained interest.
- Automated alerts for deadlines and informing operations teams about late
submissions for timely support.

- Cart Abandonment Rate:

- Essential for ed-tech companies to address and improve the buying experience.
- Tracking abandonment rates and implementing personalized follow-ups enhances
customer retention and growth.

- Feature Failure Rate:

- Crucial in addressing technical issues promptly to prevent student churn.
- Tracking and providing efficient customer support ensures quick resolutions and
enhances overall user experience.

- Class Cancellation Rate:

- Indicator of potential student dissatisfaction and churn.
- Monitoring cancellation rates helps identify reasons and develop strategies for a
consistent learning experience.

- Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures customer loyalty and satisfaction.

- Payment Failure Rate: Tracks issues for proactive management.

- New Demo Booking Rate: Reflects growth potential and customer interest.

Fintech: Google Pay

Fintech

India is amongst the fastest growing Fintech markets in the world. There are around 3085+
FinTechs existing in India as of 2023. The Indian Fintech market is expected to grow to $150 Bn by
2025. The payment landscape in India is expected to reach $100 Tn in transaction volume and $50
Bn in terms of revenue by 2030. The Indian Fintech ecosystem sees a wide range of subsegments
including Payments, Lending, Wealth Technology (WealthTech), Personal Finance Management,
Insurance Technology (InsurTech), Regulation Technology (RegTech), etc.

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 About the App:

Google Pay was officially launched in 2015 as Android Pay. It later merged with Google Wallet and
was rebranded as Google Pay in 2018. Google Pay’s revenue was reported to be Rs 1,265 crore
during FY22. It has 150+ million users with 500+ million downloads. It has a presence in 42 Global
markets and supports 43 banks.

Latest Features

- Bill Split Feature

‘Split an Expense’ allows users to easily distribute any transaction or expense in an existing
created group or a new group.

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 - UPI Lite

You can make payments on the Google Pay app without incurring any charges for amounts
up to Rs. 200 INR without needing a UPI PIN. There’s a maximum balance limit of Rs. 2000
INR, and you can spend a total of Rs. 4000 INR within a 24-hour period.

Revenue Stream

• Transaction Fees: Google Pay charges merchants a fee for processing transactions made
through its platform. This fee is typically a percentage of the transaction amount or a fixed
amount per transaction. These fees can vary depending on the merchant’s agreement
with Google Pay.
• In-App Purchases: Google Pay earns a commission or fee from in-app purchases made
through its platform. This is particularly relevant for apps that integrate Google Pay as a
payment method.
• Advertising and Promotions: Google Pay displays targeted advertisements and
promotions to its users, generating advertising revenue. These promotions may include
cashback offers, discounts, or incentives from participating merchants.

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 Competitor Analysis

Fig: Indian Fintech market share - 2023

Google Pay was at the second spot, processing 305.44 Cr UPI transactions worth INR 4.83 Lakh
Cr, or 34.75% of all transactions and 33.75% of the transaction value.

User Persona

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 User Journey

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 Metrics
- Acquisition:
a. CTR per month
b. Uptime
c. Error rate
- Activation:
a. # users making first payment by selecting either plan/week
- Engagement:
a. Avg no. of transactions done by a user in a month
b. DAU
c. Avg time user spent on the app per session
- Retention:
a. 30-day retention rate
- Revenue:
a. ARPU
b. Average transaction value

EdTech: Duolingo
About the App

Duolingo is a free online language-learning platform that offers courses in over 45 different
languages. It offers a variety of lessons and exercises to help users develop their vocabulary,
grammar, listening, speaking, and reading comprehension skills in the language they are
learning.
- Accessible for all levels of learners: Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced
- Gamified and Interactive Approach to make learning fun
- Personalized learning experience
- Features such as progress tracking, achievements, and social elements that allow users to
connect with friends and compete with each other.
- Free and Premium versions available

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 Business Model

App Critique
Login: Simple login page with one login option – which is by mobile number. For login with
mobile number option, mobile number is auto-detected followed by automatic capture of
verification code

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 Select Language: Too many options are given in various languages as we scroll down. Could’ve
been organized better.

Preliminary questions: No provision to select multiple options on one screen.

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 Goal setting and how this app works: No option to commit to a learning of more than 20
min/day.

Tutorial and demo lesson: The option to skip the demo lesson could have been given. The “Find
my starting place” option is not very clear.

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 Strengths
2. Interactive animations
Mascot builds an emotional relationship with the user
Mascot giving creative prompts at every step

3. Gamified interface is fun:

- A tutorial before creating a profile helps the user understand the app better and
make a decision to proceed further

- Information about the app’s motives and functions at several steps gives sufficient
insight to the user

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 4. Achievement Badges and Streak Counter:
- Gives a sense of accomplishment and reinforces the habit of daily practice
- Can share progress with our friends
- Progress bar on top of the screen Even though the sign-up process is lengthy, this
feature empowers the user to persist.

4. Revenue Streams
- Freemium model: Advertising, In-app purchases
- Premium model: Subscription fees

Key Metrics

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E-Commerce: Amazon

About the App

Amazon.com, Inc. is a U.S.-based multinational technology company that specializes in e-
commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. In
2017, the largest e-commerce companies in India were Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. In 2018,
Amazon beat Flipkart and was recorded as the biggest e-commerce in India in terms of revenue.

In Numbers:
- 4.0/5 ratings
- 9M reviews
- 100M+downloads
- Rated for 3+

User Persona
Seller Consumer Delivery Executive
• Brands (e.g., Cloudtail) • Serious buyers • Part-time delivery executive
• Shop owners (Lower cart abandonment • (can pick a time slot and
• Individual dealers/sellers rate) deliver orders)
• Casual buyers • Full-time delivery executive
• Window shoppers (can pick up orders
(High cart abandonment rate) throughout the day)
• Offer seekers
(High cart abandonment rates)

Business Model

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User Flow
A consumer typically goes through the following stages:

2. Research/Browse - Surfing the platform to find the best-suited product

3. Select – Pick an item of your choice after selecting the brand/colour/size/fit of your
choice
4. Schedule order and select relevant discount offers if applicable
5. Place order - Make the final payment using an online payment gateway or choose
COD.

App Critique

Visual Design:

5. Information Overload: The product detail page is cluttered with diverse information,
making the page excessively long and overwhelming for users.
6. Non-Intuitive Order: The order of details on the page is not intuitive, with essential
information like reviews placed towards the end, potentially leading to user
frustration.
7. UI Details: Outdated buttons and unclear icons, particularly the "buy now" icon, may
result in a less engaging and confusing user experience.
8. Swiping Inconsistency: Information alignment issues occur when swiping horizontally
through sections, creating a less user-friendly interaction.

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Basket Page:
1. Lack of Distinction: The basket page lacks clear visual distinction between products to be
purchased, those saved for later, and recommended products, causing potential user
confusion.
2. Misaligned Information: Similar to the product detail page, misaligned information and old-
fashioned buttons persist on the basket page.

Checkout Process:
1. Availability Notification: Users may experience confusion and frustration when a product
initially appears available but is later flagged as unavailable during the checkout process.
2. Shopping Cart Communication: Lack of clear communication during the "Proceed to checkout"
pop-up can lead to accidental purchases and user insecurity.
3. Assumed Purchase Intent: Amazon assumes all items in the shopping cart are intended for
purchase, potentially causing users who use it as a wish list to accidentally buy items.
4. Checkout Flexibility: Allowing users to check out certain items instead of the entire shopping
cart could provide more control and prevent unintended purchases.
5. Checkout Procedure Inconsistency: Varying checkout procedures for products with multiple
sellers can confuse users, impacting the overall checkout experience.

Strengths
- User-friendly interface: The navigation is straightforward, making it easy for customers to
browse through a vast range of products and make purchases with minimal efforts

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 - Personalized Recommendations: Amazon employs sophisticated algorithms that analyze user
behavior, purchase history, ad preferences
- Review helpfulness feature: the reviews have the option to mark whether it was helpful and
check how many other people found it helpful
- Secure payment options: The app provides multiple secure payment methods, providing users
with a variety of choices while ensuring the security of their transactions
- Text box suggestions: The empty text boxes have suggestive comments to direct users as to
what they could fill

Key Metrics

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Internet dating: Bumble
About the App
- Bumble is a mobile app and website for both dating and social networking.
- The app allows users to match with other people in their area, whether it be for a potential
date, a friendly hangout, or a professional meetup.

In Numbers:
- Active Users: 58 Mn (2023)
- Paid Users: 2.4 Mn (2023)
- Annual Revenue: $694 Mn (2022)
- Average Annual Revenue: $27. 93 / Paying User (Q1 2023)
- Gender Split: Male (67.4%), Female (32.6%)

User Persona

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Business Model

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User Flow
A consumer typically goes through the following stages:

Download and Onboarding:

- Start by downloading the app and creating an account. You can use Facebook or sign up
with your email.
- Bumble guides you through setting up your profile, including adding photos, writing a bio,
and choosing interests.
- You can customize your settings like age range, location, and filters for potential matches.

Exploring and Matching:

- Bumble uses a swipe-based system where you see profiles one by one and swipe left to
dislike or right to like.
- In heterosexual matches, only women can make the first move within 24 hours of
matching. This empowers women and eliminates unwanted messages.
- You can view more details about potential matches beyond their photos, including their
bios, common interests, and prompts they've answered.

Initiating Conversation and Dating:

If you both "like" each other, it's a match! You have 24 hours for the woman to send an
opening message. Once the ice is broken, you can chat, send voice notes, share photos, and
even make video calls. Bumble encourages users to move beyond messaging and suggests
date ideas within the app.

Beyond Dating:
Bumble offers two additional modes besides dating: Bumble BFF for finding friends and
Bumble Bizz for professional networking. The same basic user journey applies in these
modes, with swiping, matching, and chatting features adapted for their respective purposes.

Additional factors to consider:

- Bumble uses algorithms to personalize your feed and suggest matches based on your
preferences and activity.

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 - You can boost your profile for increased visibility and unlock additional features with a
Bumble Boost subscription.
- Bumble prioritizes safety and respect, providing features like reporting and blocking for
unpleasant experiences.

App Critique:

UI/UX issues:
- Confusing photo viewing: Users expect to swipe right on a zoomed-in photo to see more
pictures, but this functionality is missing. They have to exit the zoom and scroll, breaking
the expected interaction pattern. Refer to a zoomed image below:

Image: A zoomed photo

- Mapping problem: The "Don't show again" button on the accidental swipe reminder is
too close to the "cancel" button, leading to accidental clicks and repetitive viewing of
the reminder.
- Minimalist design sacrificing clarity: The clean and minimalist UI can sometimes neglect
legibility and definition, making it harder for users to understand certain elements.

Other critiques:

- Login page lacks originality: It's similar to other social apps, potentially offering a less
distinctive first impression.
- Annoying reminder: The accidental swipe reminder pops up too frequently, becoming
bothersome for users.

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Key Metrics
North Star Metric: Increase the Average Revenue per User (ARPU)

AWARENESS METRICS: The number of premium users interacting with the Al Recommendation
System per month.

ACTIVATION METRICS: The number of premium users making changes to the profile based on
recommendations and profile scores received from the Al.

ENGAGEMENT METRICS: The frequency with which a premium user interacts with the Al
Recommendation system in a week.

REVENUE METRICS: The number of Bumble freemium users who upgrade to premium to use the Al
Personalized recommendation to enhance their profile.

RETENTION METRICS: The number of users who update their profiles based on recommendations
received from Al at least once a month.

16. Miscellaneous:
A. Product Design Psychology
Product psychology exists solely in service to the people using your product. For product
design, this is about balancing the infinite possibilities of what you could build with the desires
of your customers. The most delightful products to use are the ones that effortlessly get you.
Some of the psychological terms used for product design are:

• Behavioral design

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 • Hooked model
• Mental model
• Cognitive load

Behavioral design:
Behavioral design combines Psychology, Design, Technology, and Creative Methods to find
out why people do the things they do and to figure out through experimentation how to
activate them to change their behavior.
Fogg Behavior Model- It’s a user-centered framework for developing software and apps. It tries
to let the user’s emotions and needs guide the overall development process while presenting
triggers to get the user to make a certain action.
Essentially, it follows the formula:
A user’s behavior = Ability + Motivation + Trigger

Here:
- Ability can be factors like time, money, and physical effort
- Motivation can be factors like seeking pleasure, seeking hope, seeking acceptance, avoiding
rejection, avoiding fear, etc
- The trigger is what prompts action. This happens when the user has sufficient motivation and
ability for the behaviour to occur.

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 Hooked Model:

The hooked model canvas explains the flow from triggers to action, rewards, and investment.
The experience is designed to connect the user’s problem to the created solution frequently
enough to form a habit.

1. Trigger (External or Internal): This is the actuator of behavior. It assists in initiating the
action that then builds a habit.

2. Action: Behavior executed in anticipation of the reward. Actions are what you’re looking
to turn into a habit.

3. Variable Reward: This step reinforces the cycle of behavior. Reward types include
Rewards of the Tribe (social rewards based on connection and acceptance), Rewards of
the Hunt (search for material resources), and Rewards of the Self (personal gratification
in the form of mastery or self-realization).

4. Investment: It’s easy to think that once a goal is accomplished, your job as a designer is
done. However, you want your users to form habits and keep coming back. Making the
users invest their time, efforts, and data would push them to keep coming back. For
example, it is extremely difficult for a user to leave WhatsApp because of their investments
in the form of chat history and other media shared.

Mental model

Mental models help explain the thought process of how something works. Our prior
knowledge exists as mental models or the patterns and behaviors we expect when
encountering an interaction or experience that’s similar to one (or more) from our past.

Mental models are not fixed — they can change over time, particularly as technology
develops. Humans are constantly influenced by external stimuli as well.

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 Jakob’s Law

Users spend most of their time on other sites, and they prefer your site to work the same way
as all the other sites they already know.

1. Users will transfer expectations they have built around one familiar product to another that
appears similar.
2. By leveraging existing mental models, we can create superior user experiences in which the
users can focus on their tasks rather than on learning new models.
3. When making changes, minimize discord by empowering users to continue using a familiar
version for a limited time.

Cognitive load

Cognitive load refers to how much mental effort it takes to complete an action. The more
complex a task is the higher the cognitive load is.

Cognitive load is closely linked with working memory. It means that the more information we
load at once, the slower we process the information, and we can’t store it for a long time.
Increased cognitive load makes it hard for users to successfully complete the task. So, what can
we do to Reduce unnecessary actions, friction, and noise which ultimately reduce the cognitive
load?

- Past experience and mental models: People already have mental models about how websites
work, based on their past experiences visiting other sites. When you use labels and layouts that
they’ve encountered on other websites, you reduce the amount of learning they need to do on
your site.
- Common design patterns: a design pattern is a general repeatable component that follows the
design trend over some time and acts as a mental model in the human brain.
- Progressive disclosure- shows users only a few essential options. Offer step-by-step
information to users, for example, user stepper/wizard.

Some laws and effects associated with Cognitive load:

Hick’s Law

This law implies that the time needed to make a decision depends on the available choices.
The more choices the user faces in a product or interface, the longer it will take to reach a
decision. So, always balance essential tasks and information.

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 Decision paralysis

It occurs when we have to select from options that are difficult to compare. Don’t overwhelm
users with too many choices it is also known as analysis paralysis or paradox of choice.

Overcoming decision paralysis:

- Limit the Options

- Make the Choices Distinct
- Avoid Complexity by Breaking Choices Down
- Encourage Fast Decisions
- Make a Recommendation
- Set Good Defaults

Von Restorff Effect / Isolation effect

The Von Restorff effect or The Isolation Effect says that people are more likely to remember
an object that’s even slightly different than other similar objects. That’s why CTA buttons
tend to have different colors than the rest of the design on a page.

B. Design Tool - Figma

Figma is a collaborative interface design tool that can be run entirely from a web browser and
is free to use.
Getting started in Figma is as simple as going to www.figma.com, clicking “Get started”,
entering your details, and completing a quick verification activity. Once you’ve done that,
Figma will guide you to a screen with a few more onboarding questions before throwing you
right into a project file with some examples of what you can create using Figma.

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 i. Menu: Unlike regular desktop design apps, Figma’s menu can be found by clicking the
Figma logo at the top-left of the screen. Take a minute to browse around this dropdown
and see what’s there! Here, you can also search for specific commands you need. Click on
the magnifying glass where it says “Quick actions…” and type in “rectangle” and you’ll
quickly find the Rectangle Tool.
ii. Tools: Here you can quickly access the tools you’re likely to use most often: move, frame,
shapes, pen, text, etc.
iii. Actions: This area shows extra options for whatever object you have selected on your
canvas. When no object is selected (as shown above), Figma displays the file name.
iv. Collaboration and View Options: The right side of the toolbar is where you can find the
file-sharing functions and see who else is viewing your file in real time. You’ll also find view
and zoom options.
v. Layers: Also known simply as the “left sidebar,” this is where every element in the file is
listed and organized into Pages, Frames, and Groups.
vi. Canvas: This is where you’ll create all of your designs.
vii. Properties: The properties panel offers contextual information and settings for whatever
object is selected. In the image above, we’re seeing options for the Canvas itself. By
default, you’re viewing the Design tab, but there is also a separate tab for setting up a
Prototype —we’ll cover this later in the week.

For a more detailed brief on Figma, please visit here.

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 C. Root Cause Analysis with Fishbone diagram

The Fishbone Diagram (also known as the “Ishikawa Diagram” or “Cause and Effect Diagram”)
is a well proven technique that helps you to effectively analyze, discover, and structure the
causes of any problem.
How to create a Fishbone Diagram
The diagram looks like the skeleton of a fish. It can be created in six steps:
1. State the effect:
Agree on and state the problem or the “Effect” (write it at the mouth of the fish) – the effect
could be “Sales below expectations”.
2. Categorize major causes:
Agree on major categories of causes of the problem (write the “Causes” as separate branches
or fishbones). It could eg. be “Staff/People”, “Planning/preparation”, “Environment/market”,
“Policies and regulation” or “Campaign”.
3. Brainstorm each category of causes:
For each major category of causes ask “Why does this happen”.
4. Categorize causes:
Register each idea/answer as a cause and draw it as a subbranch to the major category (or
"fishbone") – there may be many causes and even sub-causes.
5. Determine deeper causes:
For each cause/sub-cause keep asking “Why does this happen” until you get to the deeper
causes and ultimately to the Root Causes.

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 6. Identify Root Causes:
Register them on the diagram.
Use the Fishbone Diagram and all your notes and keep the focus on the Root Causes when
you go into “solution mode” and adjust your plans and efforts accordingly.

D. Platform Economy
Platforms are digital or physical spaces that enable or facilitate interaction between two or
more parties. They act as intermediaries, connecting users, services, data, or other resources
in a way that creates value for all parties.
The platform economy is a new economic paradigm driven by digital platforms that act as
intermediaries, connecting different users such as consumers, service providers, and
developers. Platforms create value by facilitating interactions and transactions between these
users, thus building a business model. Uber, for example, connects drivers and riders, Airbnb
connects hosts and guests, and Amazon connects sellers and buyers. These companies have
harnessed the power of platforms and network effects to build vast digital ecosystems of
users and data that create immense value.
How do Platforms make money?
We can summarize the most common digital business models for platforms as follows:
1. Commissions: Platforms charge a percentage for each transaction from the buyers or
sellers.
2. Platform fees: The platform charges a fixed fee either to the buyer or the seller.
3. Subscriptions: Platforms charge their users a recurring fee for access to a service.
4. Freemium business model: Basic services are offered for free, while advanced
features or services are charged for.
5. Advertising: Platforms offer free services and generate revenue by displaying ads to
their users.
6. Data monetization: Platforms collect and analyze user data and then sell these
insights to third parties.
7. E-commerce model: Platforms sell goods directly to consumers, often by aggregating
products from multiple sellers.

17. Product Management related courses & resources

• Nextleap PM Fellowship
• PM School Fellowship
• The Product Folks
• Udemy: Becoming a Product Manager
• Coursera: Product Management – An Introduction
• PM Diego Granados Youtube channel
• PM School Youtube channel
• Exponent Youtube channel

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18. Frequently Asked PM Interview Questions
1. In your opinion, what are the goals and purpose of Product Managers?
2. What mental models or criteria do you use to judge the success of a product?
3. What is your favourite product? How would you improve it?
4. What’s your approach to prioritizing tasks?
5. Explain API to a 5-year-old?
6. How do you determine what customers want and need?
7. Tell me about a time you had trouble building consensus and how you overcame it?
8. What changes would you suggest for our product? [Company specific]
9. Tell me about a time you handled a difficult stakeholder.
10. How would you handle negative user feedback for your product?
11. Tell me about when you used data to diagnose and solve a problem.
12. One of your highest-paying customers demands a feature from you. This feature wasn’t
included in the initial product roadmap. Describe how you will react.
13. How would you price a newly launched product?
14. Tell me about a time you used your analytical skills to solve a complex problem.
15. Tell me about a time you failed. What would you have done differently?
16. Tell me about a time you had to make a decision quickly.
17. Tell me about a time you handled a difficult stakeholder.
18. You are a PM and you are about to enter a product launch meeting with all the stakeholders.
How would you prepare for that meeting?
19. Why do you think Messenger is a standalone application? [Product Strategy question]
20. Should Google enter the cab services market? [Product Strategy question]

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19. References
- https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/11-products-made-using-design-thinking
- https://review.firstround.com/build-products-that-solve-real-problems-with-this-
lightweight-jtbd-framework
- https://alexlowe.io/product-ideation-framework/
- https://www.aha.io/roadmapping/guide/product-management/wireframe-mockup-
prototype
- https://igotanoffer.com/blogs/product-manager/product-design-questions
- https://uxplanet.org/the-bus-product-design-framework-4e9fb6f81bcf
- https://www.aha.io/roadmapping/guide/product-management/product-managers-
other-teams
- https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/google-s-heart-framework-for-
measuring-ux
- https://clevertap.com/blog/google-heart-framework/
- https://medium.com/@ginoarendsz/an-introduction-to-the-aarrr-framework-
b8570d6ae0d2
- https://growthrocks.com/blog/aarrr-framework/
- https://www.profitwell.com/recur/all/pricing-strategy-guide/
- https://canvanizer.com/new/lean-canvas
- https://medium.com/@steve_mullen/an-introduction-to-lean-canvas-5c17c469d3e0
- https://medium.com/sozial-monster/everything-you-need-to-know-about-customer-
pain-points- tomake-more-money-f4ec4160e2c5
https://medium.com/@claudiofuen/what-is-product-management-dfb5ead4d86c
- https://www.mindtheproduct.com/becoming-industry-agnostic-product-manager/
- https://igotanoffer.com/blogs/product-manager/product-design-questions
- https://uxplanet.org/the-bus-product-design-framework-4e9fb6f81bcf
- https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/india-food-tech-market-report-2021-
- https://bstrategyhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Business-model-canvas-
Flipkart.png
- https://thoughtoverdesign.com/work/flipkart
- https://www.apptunix.com/blog/how-does-udemy-work-business-model-revealed/
- https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/12-agile-manifesto-principles-how-to-
adopt-them/
- https://project-management.com/agile-vs-waterfall/
- https://www.productplan.com/learn/product-management-vs-program-management/
- https://www.productplan.com/learn/responsibilities-product-owner/
- https://formlabs.com/asia/blog/product-requirements-document-prd-with-template/
- https://helplama.com/bumble-revenue-usage-statistics/
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/richaranjann_product-teardown-on-bumble-product-
manager-activity-7080963418345668608-sKE3/
- Google Pay teardown
- https://www.productplan.com/glossary/kano-
model/#:~:text=The%20Kano%20Model%20is%20a,Tap%20for%20sound
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/identify-root-causes-product-management-get-
success-jens-lyager
- https://morethandigital.info/en/platforms-and-platform-economy-explained/
- https://review.firstround.com/the-tenets-of-a-b-testing-from-duolingos-master-growth-
hacker/

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