Product sense: getting people safely to a new home amid a COVID-style outbreak

You are a product manager asked how you would design a product that helps people relocate while a pandemic like COVID-19 is under way. Explain who you would build it for, which of their problems it would solve, what the first version would include, and how you would know it is working. ```hint Ask why people are moving People relocated during the outbreak for very different reasons, and each group's hardest step is different. Pick one group and find the step the pandemic made much harder than an ordinary move. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Who is building this: a government agency, a nonprofit, a startup or an established consumer company, and does the product need to make money? - Does "relocate" mean a temporary move back to family, a permanent move to a new city, or both, and is crossing a border in scope? - Which country or region, given that travel rules and access to testing differed widely from place to place? - Should the product only inform people, or also book transport, movers and tests for them? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A segmentation by why and where people relocate, and a reasoned choice of one group to serve first. - Pain points specific to moving during an outbreak (changing rules, exposure on the way, protecting the people at the destination) rather than generic moving chores. - A prioritized first version whose features map to those pain points. - Success metrics with guardrails, including one that protects public health and not only usage. - Risks such as wrong rule information, health-data privacy, and demand disappearing when the outbreak ends. ### Follow-up Questions - Health officials are asking people to avoid non-essential travel. How does your product handle that tension? - How would you keep travel and quarantine rules accurate across hundreds of jurisdictions that change every week? - What happens to the product once the pandemic is over?