Design a Consumer App for Discovering Nearby Happy Hour Deals
Company: Yelp
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Design an app that helps people find happy hours, the limited windows when bars and restaurants offer drinks at reduced prices. Explain which users you would build for, the problems they run into, what the first version would include and how you would know it is working.
```hint Mind the clock
A happy hour only matters for a short window, and the choice is often made on the spot. Think about what someone needs to know in the few minutes before picking a place, and who would keep that information correct week after week.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is this a mobile app, a website or both?
- Which market launches first, given that some US states and some countries restrict or ban discounted-drink promotions?
- Is this a standalone app, or a feature inside an existing local-discovery product that already has venue listings, photos and reviews?
- Should the design serve only consumers, or also give bars and restaurants tools, and is making money from venues in scope?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A clear definition of the use case and one chosen consumer segment, with reasons (for example after-work groups, budget-minded friends or visitors new to a city).
- Pain points along the path from deciding to go out to arriving and ordering, especially time pressure, unclear deal terms and seating for groups.
- How deal information is gathered and kept fresh, and what motivates venues to take part, since stale listings destroy trust.
- A prioritized first version with stated trade-offs, including legal-drinking-age and responsible-drinking considerations.
- A success metric tied to people actually going to a happy hour they found, plus guardrails such as deal-accuracy reports.
### Follow-up Questions
- Venues stop updating their deals after the first month. How do you keep listings accurate?
- How would you make money without making users doubt that the listings are neutral?
- How would the product differ for a visitor in an unfamiliar city versus an office worker choosing a regular spot?
Overview: A product design question about building an app that helps people discover happy hours at nearby bars and restaurants. It tests user segmentation, time-sensitive pain points, keeping venue deal information current, prioritizing a first version, and choosing success metrics that reflect real visits.