Look at how intense these PM interviews have gotten that a guy who literally wrote a book on the topic might be (let's face it) weeded out for not tapping into any one of a million possible things that an interviewer might want to hear from him.
Honest feedback, this is one of the weaker interviews on the channel. Candidate started off with basics on identifying customers (Parents & Preschool kids), identified a minimal product (Parents-controls, Kids-games/messaging) but failed to identify it's VIABILITY in the market (What's the competitive edge for the product). Even the User Journey was more a User Experience, what benefit do Kids gain from this? Candidate mentions he doesn't want his kid to not have too much screen time, so why break that rule for this product? What are kids trying to do that's not there in the market today? One avenue, I would have taken, PreK kids see their younger Cousins/Aunt/Uncles constantly on their phone texting, and want to engage them more but haven't figured out typing yet, how can we bridge that gap? - Technical PM at Fortune 100
Love these interviews. I do feel like this candidate did jump into solutions pretty quickly. I would have liked to hear some more on how this would align with a company strategy (is this a competitive edge? Could this be valuable enough for parents that they would be willing to pay?) I also feel like this skipped a lot of the empathy building - yes, kids are the users, but parents of young kids are the purchasers! I would definitely want to hear how empathy is built - maybe by shadowing parents with kids, interviewing parents of young kids, and maybe even sending out a survey. That would really help define the problem you’re trying to solve, which could guide you in the right direction when you move onto ideation.
Agree, felt quite scattered and all over the place in terms of logical leaps, and not very empathetic or even aware of concrete real-world needs. What preschooler types messages? I heard very little on goals or prioritization either. The ideas seemed subpar and off topic and mostly an explanation of existing Messenger capabilities. Highly doubt that this would pass the bar.
Teenagers Since parents are on business travel. Or at office. Less physical presence in their life. It's important to keep a tab on kids career growth. An app where kids could post their school progress or extracurricular progress, also ambitions , future needs, where they can post permission requests for night overs, app can show their total nite overs in the month, major milestones achieved in life. It can be a 2 way process and have a holistic approach. Parents can set certain tasks for the day and kids can mark them as complete with photos.
As a product manager myself. I must say, You guys provide very good quality content. One of the most underrated channel. I hope with time you get the glory you deserve. Hats off to you guys.
