Day 14 - Product Strategy Question 2
Day 14 - Product Strategy Question 2
Practice product strategy questions with us...
Hello learners!
Welcome to the 14th day of the series 30 Days of PM Interview by Crework! Yesterday, we discussed the first exercise question for product strategy. Today, we will practice one more.
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Building Product Strategy!
As today is Valentine’s day, let’s make this a bit fun, your practice question for today is:
Should Meta build a dating platform?
Now, before we move on to “how should we approach it” part, I want you to try it. Come on, pause here for a while, bring a notebook and pen and try this question.
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Okay, now let’s talk about how we can approach this.
Step 1: Ask Clarifying Questions
Why does Meta want to build a dating platform? What do they want to achieve?
When we say Meta, are we talking about any specific app of Meta, or a new application?
Okay, so for this question, I will assume that Meta wants to increase its revenue from the current user base. We haven’t decided if we would build a separate app for this or use an existing application.
Step 2: Approaching the problem
To answer this question, we will take this approach:
Understanding the dating market
Does it align with Meta’ mission?
What results can Meta achieve with this?
Would the results align with the goals?
Understanding the dating market
The size of dating market by revenue in US is 4.3 Billion Dollars. The market is small compared to social media market that Meta serves, but is growing at a rapid rate.
Most of the people on dating applications are young. Age range 18-34 makes up 60% of the user demographic. The gender demographics is rather skewed though with 75% identifying as male.
The dating applications generally operate on freemium model where they let anyone create a profile, but also provide additional services for a monthly amount.
Aligning with Meta’s mission
Meta’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. Basically, they want to connect more and more people.
Dating platforms are closely related to this mission as people can build relationships with people using these platforms.
Results Meta can achieve
Meta has many advantages if it decides to go into the dating market:
Leveraging Existing Strengths: Meta has a wealth of data on user preferences, interests, and connections, which could be used to create personalized matching algorithms and enhance user experience.
Brand Recognition and Integration: Meta's brand recognition could attract users, and integration with existing platforms like Facebook and Instagram could offer convenience and network effects.
Large User Base: Tinder, the biggest player in market has 75 Million users with 10 Million paid subscribers. Meta’s app Instagram has 2 Billion active users monthly, hence there is a lot of potential to be unlocked.
Building a dating service inside Meta apps can help them increase average revenue per user by charging them a subscription fee. This will be an additional revenue on top of the advertisement revenue they already make.
Also, many users already use social media platforms to discover new people and initiate friendships, even with the intent to date, so this feature might be welcomed by the users, specially young users.
Challenges and Risks:
Intense Competition: The market is dominated by established players like Tinder, Bumble, and Match.com, making it difficult to gain market share.
Privacy Concerns: Integrating dating with Facebook data raises privacy concerns that could deter users and require careful handling.
Brand Dilution: Associating the Meta brand with online dating might not be well-received by all users and could dilute brand image.
Alignment of results with the goals
The results Meta can achieve by going into the dating market do align with their goal of additional revenue from users. So, my recommendation would be that Meta should enter the dating market with a dating product, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a separate app. It can be part of the already existing apps like Instagram and Facebook.
This was an example of how you can approach a product strategy question asked in a PM interview. There can be multiple ways of approaching the same problem, and there is no “right” answer. The interviewer wants to assess your ability to think and come up with a solution. The real answer is the process you use to come up with your solution.
I would love to see the solution you came up with. Please share it with us on twitter or reply to this mail.
Day 14 - Completed ✅
Congratulations on completing the 14th lesson of the series 30 Day of PM Interview. 🥳 Now, you know what to do. Share your learnings with the world and be accountable.
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