Analyze Two Flawed Products That Still Succeed Commercially and Why
Company: Stripe
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Pick two products that have obvious flaws but still succeed. For each one, describe what makes it a bad product, and explain why it is successful in spite of that.
```hint Bad for whom?
Be specific about the sense in which each product is bad and the sense in which it is successful, then look for forces other than product quality that keep customers choosing it.
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### Clarifying Questions
- Can I define "bad" myself (poor user experience, unreliability, weaker than the alternatives), or do you have a specific meaning in mind?
- Should success be judged by revenue, market share, or usage and retention?
- Must both picks be software products, or can one be a physical product or a service?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A clear, evidence-based description of each product's flaws rather than personal taste.
- The specific mechanisms that let each product succeed despite those flaws, and why rivals have not displaced it.
- Two picks that illustrate different reasons for success instead of the same lesson twice.
- A fair view of what each product does well that its critics overlook.
- A takeaway for building products, and what would make each product vulnerable.
### Follow-up Questions
- If you ran one of these products, which flaw would you fix first, and how would you avoid damaging what makes it succeed?
- What would a new competitor need to do to take customers from one of them?
- Name a product you think was good but failed. What separates it from your two picks?
Overview: A product sense interview prompt that asks a product manager to pick two products with clear flaws that are still commercially successful. It tests defining quality and success precisely, explaining the market forces that outweigh product flaws, and drawing a lesson that applies to product decisions.