Raise engagement or grow the user base of BlackBerry's BBM messaging app

You are a product manager on BBM, BlackBerry's messaging app. How would you improve it? The interviewer wants to hear what you would change either to deepen engagement among the people who already use it or to grow the number of users. Pick which of those aims to pursue, decide whom you are building for, then propose, prioritize and measure your changes. ```hint Pick one group, then walk its path BBM's current users and the people it hopes to win over want different things from a messenger, and each of those splits further. Settle on one group, walk through that group's path with BBM from what would make its members open the app to what would make them stop, and find the step where they are most likely to drift to another messenger; build your ideas around that step. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Are we improving the consumer app on iOS and Android, which competes with messengers keyed to the phone number, or the secure version sold to businesses? - Is the choice between deeper engagement and more users mine to make, or does the business already favor one? - Is BBM's PIN-based way of adding contacts a fixed part of the product, or open to change? - Is there a priority market or region? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A chosen aim, engagement or user growth, and the reason, including how the two interact for a messenger - BBM's current and potential users split into segments, with one chosen and the reason - Pain points drawn from that segment's journey, ranked by severity - Solutions prioritized with explicit criteria, including their effect on privacy and on what sets BBM apart from larger rivals - A primary metric with guardrails, and the main risks with mitigations ### Follow-up Questions - If most of a user's friends already use another messenger, what would keep that user opening BBM? - How would you tell whether the people your change brings in stay active, rather than producing a one-time burst of sign-ups? - If leadership decided to point BBM at business customers instead, what in your plan would change?