Product Case Prompt: Comprehensive Product Improvement Drill
Use Spotify, a music and podcast streaming app, as the reference product. Assume it serves free and paid users across mobile and desktop, with strong personalization and on-device playback.
Answer:
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Select a product you use frequently and explain why you like it.
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Describe the target users.
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State the product's primary goal and North Star Metric.
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Propose one new feature or major improvement and explain the user problem it solves.
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Walk through how you would design, build, and prioritize this feature within the roadmap.
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Define success metrics and experiments.
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List cross-functional partners and how you would persuade stakeholders to support the proposal.
Constraints & Assumptions
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Use Spotify unless you explicitly choose another product.
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Tie the improvement to a real user problem and measurable outcome.
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Include target users, MVP scope, prioritization, experiment design, and trade-offs.
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Avoid proposing a feature that only increases time spent without improving satisfaction.
Clarifying Questions to Ask
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Should I focus on music, podcasts, audiobooks, creator tools, or paid subscription growth?
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Is the goal engagement, retention, premium conversion, user satisfaction, or cost reduction?
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Which platforms and markets are in scope?
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Are offline playback, personalization, and licensing constraints relevant?
Part 1 - Product, Users, Goal, and North Star
Select the product, explain why you like it, define target users, and state the primary goal and North Star Metric.
What This Part Should Cover
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Product strengths and user value.
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Target user segments and jobs to be done.
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North Star Metric that reflects quality-adjusted long-term value.
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Guardrails such as churn, skips, complaints, battery/data usage, and creator or rights-holder impact.
Part 2 - Feature Proposal and Roadmap
Propose a feature or improvement and explain how you would design, build, and prioritize it.
What This Part Should Cover
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User problem, hypothesis, MVP, user flow, edge cases, and trade-offs.
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Prioritization using reach, impact, confidence, effort, and strategic fit.
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Roadmap phases and launch plan.
Part 3 - Metrics, Experiments, and Stakeholders
Define success metrics, experiments, partners, and stakeholder persuasion plan.
What This Part Should Cover
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Primary, secondary, and guardrail metrics.
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A/B test or phased rollout.
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Partners across design, engineering, data science, ML, content/licensing, marketing, legal, privacy, and support.
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Stakeholder narrative based on user pain, business impact, and risk mitigation.
What a Strong Answer Covers
A strong answer demonstrates product taste, clear user segmentation, a well-defined North Star, focused MVP design, experiment discipline, and the ability to align cross-functional partners around a measurable roadmap bet.
Follow-up Questions
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Why is your North Star better than total listening time?
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What would make you kill the feature?
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How would the feature differ for free and paid users?
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What licensing or content constraints matter?
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How would you prevent the feature from hurting discovery diversity?