DoorDash North Star Metric and the Order-Features vs. Restaurant-Signup Trade-off

You are setting product direction for DoorDash. Define its goals and North Star, then use them to make a prioritization call between two investments. ### Clarifying Questions - Should the goals cover all of DoorDash, or only the restaurant delivery marketplace, leaving out grocery and retail? - What horizon should the goals cover: the coming year, or several years? - Do the two investments compete for the same team and quarter, so that one has to wait for the other? - Is there data on where restaurants drop out of the onboarding funnel today, or should I reason about it? ### Part 1 — Goals and North Star Propose the goals you would set for DoorDash and the one North Star metric you would track, and explain why that metric beats the alternatives. ```hint Check every side The business works only when diners, restaurants and couriers all get value; test each candidate metric against what happens when one of those sides is underserved. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - Goals for each side of the marketplace and for the business - A chosen North Star with the case for it over the alternatives - Guardrails that would reveal the North Star rising for the wrong reasons ### Part 2 — Growing orders or easing restaurant onboarding Using your goals from Part 1, decide how you would prioritize between launching new features that increase orders and simplifying the onboarding funnel so that more restaurants join. ```hint Find the constraint first Ask what holds back orders today in the markets that matter most, and what evidence would show it. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A diagnosis of what limits orders, backed by the signals you would check - A comparison of the two options on expected impact, cost, time to effect and risk - A clear decision and the conditions that would reverse it ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A consistent line from the goals and North Star to the prioritization call - Marketplace effects: how more selection or more demand changes the other sides - How each option would be measured, including whether its gains are incremental - The risks of the chosen path and what is given up by deferring the other ### Follow-up Questions - The onboarding change adds many restaurants, but orders per restaurant fall. How do you read that? - Would your call differ between a dense city and a small suburban market? Why? - Leadership wants both shipped in the same quarter with one team. What do you do?