Invent a New Product That Builds on Strava's Athlete Community and Activity Data
Company: Microsoft
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Propose a new product built around Strava, the app where runners, cyclists and other athletes record their activities and follow each other's training.
```hint Look past the core athlete
Think about which people, or which moments around a workout, get little from Strava today even though its community and activity records could help them.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Are you building this as part of Strava itself, or as an outside company that builds on top of Strava and its athletes' data?
- Should the result be a separate offering (its own app, service or customer), or can it live inside the existing Strava app?
- Is the main aim to bring in new athletes, to grow Strava's paid subscription, or to open a new revenue line such as businesses, brands or event organizers?
- How freely can the product use athletes' locations, routes and activity history, given that many athletes hide where their activities start and finish?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- Why Strava would want a new product, and a goal tied to its community-driven value, stated before any idea
- A chosen user segment, with concrete pain points found by walking through that user's journey
- A genuinely new product that uses assets only Strava has, narrowed to a prioritized first version
- Success metrics with guardrails for location privacy, safety and the core app
- How the product makes money or supports the business, and how to test it cheaply before a full build
### Follow-up Questions
- How would your product avoid revealing where athletes live or when they are reliably away from home?
- If the product succeeds but most of its users never open the main Strava app, would you count that as a win?
- What would you charge for, and to whom?
Overview: A product sense prompt that asks the candidate to propose a new product built around Strava, the social fitness app for runners and cyclists. It tests choosing an underserved user segment, using Strava's community and activity data, prioritizing a first version, and defining success metrics, privacy guardrails and a business model.