How do you determine whether your team is solving the right customer problem, and how do you decide what should be included in V1 or MVP versus a later release? Walk through your approach from problem discovery to scope definition, tradeoffs, launch, and success metrics. ### Constraints & Assumptions - Start from a customer problem and business goal, not a feature request. - Define V1 as the smallest useful version that can validate the core hypothesis. - Include qualitative and quantitative validation. - Explain tradeoffs and what gets deferred. ### Clarifying Questions to Ask - What business outcome are we trying to move? - Which user segment is the target? - What evidence suggests this problem matters? - What constraints exist around engineering, compliance, risk, operations, or go-to-market timing? - What decision should V1 help us make? ### Part 1 - Validate The Problem How do you know whether the team is solving the right customer problem? #### What This Part Should Cover - Customer research, funnel data, support tickets, behavioral data, segmentation, and problem statement. - Differentiating symptoms from root causes. ### Part 2 - Define V1 Scope How do you decide what belongs in V1 versus later? #### What This Part Should Cover - Hypothesis, must-have user journey, MVP criteria, risk, effort, confidence, and learning value. - Explicit cuts and deferred features. ### Part 3 - Align Stakeholders And Launch How do you manage tradeoffs and launch the first version? #### What This Part Should Cover - Decision criteria, cross-functional alignment, risk/compliance review, experiment or phased rollout, and communication. ### Part 4 - Measure Success And Iterate How do you evaluate whether V1 worked? #### What This Part Should Cover - Primary metric, diagnostic metrics, guardrails, qualitative feedback, and next-step decision. ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Validates problem before solution. - Defines MVP around learning and user value. - Shows clear prioritization and stakeholder management. - Uses metrics to decide whether to scale, iterate, or stop. ### Follow-up Questions - What if stakeholders disagree about V1 scope? - How would you handle compliance constraints? - What would make you kill the feature? - How do you avoid building a local maximum? - How do you decide between speed and completeness?