Deep Dive?—?Crafting the Perfect Response to PM Interview Questions on Improving YouTube (or Any Favorite App)

Introduction

One of the most recurring questions in PM interviews is, “What is your favorite app, and how would you go about improving it?” This is an all-encompassing, bar-raising question that can significantly impact your chances at the company. It offers deep insights into your thinking and problem-solving abilities. I would go as far as to say it’s equivalent to the “Tell me about yourself” question for PMs. Let’s attempt to unravel the different layers of this question and then look at one of my attempts to answer this question for one of my favorite apps, YouTube.

Strategic Approach

Below is how we will go about solving the problem:

1. Choosing the right application/tech/product of your choice. This is your first major decision. Selecting one of the leading billion-user apps risks encountering a PM who has spent considerable time on that app. However, this also presents an opportunity to display your brilliance by uncovering an improvement that impresses the interviewer. Conversely, if you pick a niche app, you might spend too much time explaining the app’s workings, its business model, users, and other details, potentially wasting valuable interview time. The key is to choose an app/product you’re familiar with, not just from a tech/feature standpoint but also its business model and GTM strategies. My choice: YouTube.

2. Build the user journey keeping yourself as the user first. Since you are the one answering, it’s advisable to start by considering yourself as a traditional user. This helps you intimately understand user touchpoints, features, and benefits. Next, expand your perspective to view yourself as part of a group of users with similar needs. This is where you start grouping users into actionable and targetable segments or clusters.

3. Identify and target the right segment. This is the second major decision you’ll have to make, depending on your deep understanding of the product and its business model. It’s crucial to categorize not just the user but also the product’s offerings to different user sets.

4. Don’t limit yourself to adding a new feature. This is a common pitfall for new PMs, who might immediately think of adding a new feature to the app. Experienced PMs agree that there are more ways to enhance an app. Establish the objective you want to achieve?—?whether it’s acquiring more users, increasing revenue per user, enhancing session times, or expanding into new segments. Once you have the objective, decide how to reach it.

5. There are fundamentally three approaches to any product development lifecycle: (i) adding new features to acquire revenue/users, (ii) improving/enhancing an existing feature with low adoption/value to increase adoption, or (iii) investing further in a performing feature with high value. This final decision will set your plan in motion. Next, it’s just about fleshing out the details.

Let’s summarize the 5 steps?again:

1. Choose an application you’re intimately familiar with.

2. Identify users and user groups targeted by your app.

3. Select the segment you want to target for your case study.

4. Establish your objective (e.g., increase revenue, more users).

5. Decide among adding a new feature, improving an existing feature with low adoption, or enhancing a high-value, high-adoption feature.

With these steps in mind, let’s break down YouTube and how I would respond to this.

Problem Breakdown

Application Overview: YouTube YouTube, a video streaming and sharing platform with over 450 million users, is owned by Alphabet Inc. (Google). It has generated recorded revenues of over $30 billion, highlighting the platform’s success since Google’s acquisition in 2006 for $1.65?billion.

- Business Model: YouTube allows free video sharing, enabling creators to earn through ad revenue, subscriptions, and community memberships. Premium plans offer ad-free viewing and other features, catering to users who wish to support their favorite creators without ads.

- Content Sharing: Originating as a platform for sharing informative videos on various topics, YouTube has seen significant growth in content creation and viewership as consumer preferences shifted from text to video.

- Content Library: With over 100 million channels and an average of more than 10 videos per channel, YouTube’s extensive library covers educational, entertainment, and more, bolstered by high ROI for advertisers and partnerships that have expanded the content available.

User Types &?Virality

YouTube’s platform thrives on the diversity of its user base, each interacting with content in ways that uniquely contribute to and are impacted by the phenomenon of virality. Understanding this dynamic is essential for creators and the platform itself to foster content that resonates across user segments, driving engagement, and growth.

- Content Creators: This group is at the forefront of producing content with the potential to go viral. Their deep engagement with analytics and trend analysis allows them to tailor content that meets current viewer interests, increasing the likelihood of achieving virality. Viral content significantly boosts a creator’s visibility, enhancing subscriber growth and revenue potential. For creators, virality is not just about luck; it’s about strategic content creation that leverages community engagement and collaborations to maximize shareability and emotional appeal.

- Searchers: These users are on a quest for information and are particularly influenced by viral content that educates or informs. Viral trends can guide searchers to new topics and creators, expanding their knowledge base and engagement with the platform. For searchers, the appeal of viral content lies in its ability to present information in an engaging, easily digestible format, making learning and discovery a more dynamic experience. Content creators targeting this segment can achieve virality by focusing on content depth, clarity, and relevance to current interests and needs.

- Doom Scrollers: Primarily motivated by entertainment, doom scrollers are most impacted by the entertainment value of viral content. Their casual, aimless browsing makes them susceptible to engaging with content that captures their attention through humor, novelty, or emotional resonance. For doom scrollers, virality enhances the entertainment experience on YouTube, introducing them to a wider range of content and creators they might not have actively searched for. Content creators can tap into this segment by crafting videos that are shareable, relatable, and aligned with trending cultural moments or memes, thus increasing the chances of content going viral among this audience.

Strategies to Leverage Virality Across User?Segments

- Tailored Content Strategy: Creators should develop content strategies that cater to the unique preferences of each user type while keeping an eye on the elements that generally contribute to virality?—?emotional appeal, shareability, and trend alignment. This includes creating informative content that captures trends for searchers and entertaining content that hooks doom scrollers. ? - Enhanced Community Engagement: For all user types, community engagement serves as a catalyst for virality. Encouraging interaction through comments, live streams, and community posts can create a sense of belonging among viewers, increasing content shareability and the potential for viral spread.

- Strategic Collaborations: Collaborating with other creators or influencers across different niches can introduce content to diverse audiences, increasing its viral potential. These collaborations can be particularly effective in reaching searchers and doom scrollers by mixing educational and entertainment value.

By understanding and integrating these dynamics, YouTube can further enhance its platform for creators and users alike, promoting a rich, engaging, and varied content ecosystem where virality plays a key role in content discovery and engagement. This approach not only benefits individual content creators but also strengthens YouTube’s position as a premier destination for video content across the internet.

Objectives: Enhancing Revenue and?Value

The strategy focuses on leveraging niche, high-value content from content creators to generate additional revenue and increase the platform’s value to searchers seeking informative content. 1. Increasing User Engagement: By introducing and improving features that resonate with users’ needs and interests, particularly in the realm of online learning. 2. Boosting Revenue Opportunities: Through targeted strategies that enable content creators to generate more income while also offering valuable content to users. 3. Expanding Content Diversity and Quality: By encouraging the creation and dissemination of high-quality, educational, and engaging content that has the potential to go viral, thereby attracting a wider audience.

Utilizing Underused Features for High Revenue Potential

1. Learning Playlists: Although YouTube offers playlists, the concept of learning playlists for structured educational content is underutilized. These can be optimized to create a more classroom-like experience online, guiding users through a series of videos that build on each other educationally.

2. Interactive Quizzes: YouTube has the capability to embed links in videos, but this could be expanded to include interactive quizzes directly within or at the end of educational videos. This would not only engage users but also help reinforce the learning material.

3. Live Q&A Sessions: While live streaming is popular among gamers and event broadcasters, its potential for real-time interaction between educators and learners is not fully tapped. Scheduled live Q&A sessions within the learning playlists can mimic the interactivity of a classroom.

4. Community Tabs for Learning Channels: The community tab is often used for announcements and engagement but could be tailored specifically for educational channels to share additional resources, updates on upcoming content, or homework challenges.

Solution: Online?Learning

1. Content Curation and Discovery

?—?Identify Underrepresented Niches: Utilize YouTube’s data analytics to spot gaps in the online learning content, focusing on high-demand topics with limited high-quality resources.

—?Promote Expert Creators: Highlight creators with proven expertise and the potential for producing viral educational content. This involves supporting them with resources to improve production quality and content delivery. ?

—?Improve Search and Recommendation Algorithms: Tailor algorithms to better recognize and recommend educational content that aligns with user interests and learning goals, increasing the likelihood of virality through targeted discovery.

2. Community Building and Engagement

?—?Interactive Learning Communities: Foster the development of topic-specific communities where learners can engage, share experiences, and discuss content. This communal aspect can lead to higher content engagement and shareability.

?—?Creator-Learner Interaction: Encourage creators to interact with their audience through comments, live Q&A sessions, and community posts. This interaction not only builds loyalty but also increases the chances of content being shared, contributing to its virality.

3. Gamification and Incentives

?—?Learning Challenges and Badges: Introduce gamified elements such as challenges, quizzes, and badges to reward users for engaging with educational content. Gamification can enhance the learning experience, making it more enjoyable and shareable.

?—?Creator Incentives: Provide incentives for creators to produce viral-worthy educational content, such as increased visibility, monetization options, and access to exclusive resources or features.

4. Collaborations and Cross-Promotions

?—?Cross-Channel Collaborations: Encourage collaborations between educational content creators and influencers from other niches to tap into new audiences and increase content’s virality. ?

—?Partnerships with Educational Institutions: Form partnerships with universities, online course providers, and educational organizations to co-create content, lending credibility and potentially boosting virality through association.

Implementation Plan

1. Pilot Program for Niche Topics: Launch a pilot program focusing on a select few underrepresented educational niches. Measure engagement, learning outcomes, and virality metrics to refine strategies for broader implementation.

2. Creator Support and Development: Establish a creator development program offering workshops, analytics tools, and community management training to enhance content quality and virality potential.

3. Feedback Loops and Continuous Improvement: Implement mechanisms for ongoing feedback from both creators and learners to continuously improve the content, platform features, and learning experience.

Benefits Revisited

- For Learners: A richer, more engaging learning experience on YouTube, with easier access to high-quality, relevant educational content.

- For Creators: Increased opportunities for growth, visibility, and monetization through the production of educational content that has a higher chance of going viral.

- For YouTube: Strengthening of YouTube’s position as a versatile platform that not only entertains but also educates, attracting a wider audience and fostering a deeper user engagement.

Conclusion

This exploration into enhancing YouTube’s platform serves as a comprehensive case study on the multifaceted approach required for product improvement in today’s tech landscape. The journey through identifying user needs, understanding the essence of virality, and leveraging underutilized features underscores a pivotal realization: innovation extends beyond mere ideas or features. It encompasses a deep dive into the specifics of who will use the enhancement, why they would choose to engage with it, and the value it brings?—?whether it’s worth their investment or attention.

Building solutions with the end in mind, and strategizing backwards from desired outcomes, is a skill that distinguishes impactful product managers from their peers. It’s about vision, as much as it is about execution. By navigating through the initial five steps outlined, one can ensure that any feature added or improved upon isn’t just good but is the right fit for the platform, its creators, and its vast array of users, securing buy-in from all stakeholders through clear value propositions and structured thinking.

To encapsulate the insights?gained:

1. The process of articulating how you would enhance a platform like YouTube mirrors the introspective depth of “Tell me about yourself,” revealing not just personal preferences but strategic acumen.

2. Successfully answering this question demonstrates a holistic grasp of the product lifecycle?—?from the spark of ideation, through development, to the nuances of launch, retention, and beyond. It’s a testament to one’s ability to oversee a product’s journey in its entirety.

3. It allows you to showcase a methodical approach to problem-solving, breaking down broad challenges into actionable, segment-specific objectives.

4. The exercise emphasizes the importance of understanding a product’s business model, arguably as crucial, if not more so, than the technology that powers it. The goal is to enhance the application’s profitability and competitive edge, focusing on creating value for users and the company alike.

5. It reinforces the principle that introducing new features should be a thoughtful decision, prioritizing the enhancement of high-value existing products or the increased adoption of lesser-used features. This strategic mindset is vital for navigating the product lifecycle effectively, ensuring each feature’s introduction, evolution, or retirement contributes positively to the product’s success.

In summary, this analysis not only highlights the complexities involved in proposing enhancements to a platform as dynamic and influential as YouTube but also illustrates the profound impact of structured, strategic thinking in the realm of product management. Through such exercises, we learn not only about the potential for innovation within digital platforms but also about the thoughtful deliberation required to make those innovations meaningful and successful.

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