Improve YouTube for video creators: pick a segment, rank pain points, ship a fix

You are a product manager at YouTube. How would you improve the experience of the people who make videos on the platform? Choose which creators to focus on, identify their most important problems, propose and prioritize solutions, and explain how you would measure whether the improvement worked. ```hint Follow one video from idea to income Trace what a creator goes through for a single video (finding an idea, recording, editing, publishing, finding an audience, reading feedback, earning) and ask where your chosen creators most often give up. That stage is where an improvement matters most. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Which creators are in scope: people who have not uploaded yet, newer creators building an audience, or established creators who earn a living on YouTube? - Is there a format or device focus, such as Shorts, long-form video or live streams, or creating on a phone versus in the desktop studio? - What is the goal: more people starting to create, creators uploading more consistently, or creators earning more? - Are there market or timing constraints, such as a launch in one country or a first release within a set period? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A goal tied to YouTube's two-sided platform, where creator supply drives viewer value and advertising - Creator segmentation by stage, format and motivation, with a reasoned choice of one segment - Pain points across the creation journey, ranked by how often they occur and how strongly they make creators stop - Several solutions prioritized by impact and effort, with the chosen one described concretely - A success metric plus guardrails that protect viewers, and risks such as low-quality content or abuse ### Follow-up Questions - How would you keep your solution from flooding viewers with low-effort videos? - How would you test the feature when creators and viewers share one recommendation system? - How would your answer change if the focus were full-time creators whose income depends on YouTube?