Zomato Product Sense: Discovering, Booking and Hosting Events in the App
Company: Razorpay
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at Zomato, the restaurant discovery and food delivery app, and you have been asked to design an Events feature for it. Walk through how you would approach the design: what the feature should achieve for Zomato, who it is for, what you would build first, and how you would measure whether it works.
```hint Start from Zomato's advantage
Ask what Zomato already has that a standalone event listing does not, on both the diner side and the restaurant side. That advantage should shape which events you list first and whose problems you solve first.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Which events are in scope: food experiences such as tastings, chef's tables, food festivals and pop-ups, or any going-out event such as concerts and comedy shows?
- Who can list an event: restaurants and professional organizers, Zomato's own team, or any user hosting a get-together?
- Will events be free, ticketed, or both, and should Zomato handle payment, tickets and check-in?
- Does the feature live inside the existing app, and does it launch in every city at once or in a few cities first?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A goal that ties events to Zomato's business, such as restaurant partners, diner engagement and revenue, rather than events for their own sake.
- Both sides of the marketplace, attendees and hosts, with a chosen starting segment on each side and the reasoning behind it.
- Concrete pain points for each side and a first release covering discovery, booking and trust, with later phases sequenced.
- Success metrics with guardrails such as event quality, refunds, and cannibalization of regular dining and delivery.
- Risks such as thin early supply, unsafe or fraudulent events, and operational load.
### Follow-up Questions
- In the launch city, few restaurants list events during the first month. How do you get enough supply?
- How would you rank events for a particular user, and what data would you use?
- Events begin pulling diners away from regular table bookings at partner restaurants. Is that a problem, and what would you do?
Overview: A product sense prompt asking how a Zomato product manager would design an Events feature in the app. It tests tying events to a restaurant discovery and delivery business, serving both attendees and hosts, scoping a first release for discovery, booking and trust, handling thin early supply, and picking success metrics with guardrails.