Booking.com Lifetime Value: Scoping a Minimal Homepage Feature and Its Experiment

You are a product manager at Booking.com. Propose a minimum viable product for the homepage whose goal is to raise customer lifetime value. ```hint Pick the lever first Lifetime value grows only when customers book more often, spend more per trip or stay with the platform longer. Decide which lever the homepage can move most plausibly, and for whom, before you choose a feature. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Which homepage: the mobile app, mobile web or desktop, or all of them? - Should the MVP target signed-in customers who have booked before, or first-time visitors whose first booking starts their lifetime? - Can the homepage promote products beyond stays, such as flights, car rentals, airport taxis and attractions? - Is lifetime value measured as revenue or margin, and over what window, given how long it takes to observe? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Breaking lifetime value into levers and choosing the one the homepage can move, with the reason - A specific customer segment and the pain points it has when it reaches the homepage - A first version small enough to build and test quickly, with a stated hypothesis - How a slow-moving metric gets measured: leading indicators, experiment design and guardrails - Risks such as homepage space competing with search, bookings shifted rather than created, and suggestions that feel pushy ### Follow-up Questions - Lifetime value takes months to observe. How would you decide whether to ship after a few weeks of testing? - Suppose the MVP raises repeat bookings but lowers average booking value. Would you ship it? - How would you make sure the MVP creates new bookings rather than moving ones that would have happened anyway?