Designing a Marketplace App for Musicians to Book Live Gigs and Find Collaborators
Company: Spotify
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Design a mobile app that helps singers and musicians land music gigs and meet other musicians. Decide who the app is for, what problems it solves for them and for the people who hire them, what the first version includes, and how you would measure whether it works.
```hint Two sides, one first
A gig needs both a performer and someone offering the gig. Decide which side you must attract first, and what would bring early users on that side back before the other side has filled in.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is this a standalone app, or something Spotify would offer alongside the tools it already provides to artists?
- Which musicians are we serving: hobbyists, working musicians who earn part of their income from live shows, or full-time professionals who already have agents?
- Who offers the gigs: bars and small venues, wedding and party clients, companies, or bands that need a substitute player?
- Does meeting up mean finding bandmates and collaborators, joining jam sessions, or networking with others in the local music scene?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A clear goal, and a reasoned choice of musician segment, gig type and launch market.
- The needs of both musicians and the people booking them, and a plan for getting both sides onto an empty marketplace.
- Pain points mapped to features and prioritized into a focused first version that handles trust, scheduling and payment.
- How the gig side and the meet-up side relate, and which one the first version leads with.
- Success metrics with guardrails, plus risks such as bookings moving off the app, no-shows, payment disputes and safety when strangers meet.
### Follow-up Questions
- After a venue and a band have worked together once, they can rebook each other directly and skip the app. How do you keep them on it?
- In the first year, would you charge musicians, the people booking them, or neither? Why?
- If Spotify built this, how could an artist's listener data help a venue decide to book them, and what consent would the artist need to give?
Overview: A product design interview prompt about building an app that helps singers and musicians land paid gigs and meet other musicians. It tests two-sided marketplace thinking: choosing musician and booker segments, solving the cold start, designing booking, payment and trust features, and measuring success with completed gigs and guardrails.