Deel · Strategy · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

Where should Deel focus in global hiring?

Deel helps companies hire, onboard, and pay workers in different countries. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Strategic thinking
Prioritization
User empathy
Tradeoff analysis
Metrics design

The situation

Deel's leadership has asked you, a PM on the core product, for a recommendation on where the company should focus its next major product investment. More companies want to work with talent across borders, but the experience is messy: employers face different local rules, paperwork, onboarding steps, and payment flows, and workers often feel the process is slow and confusing. At the same time, Deel could chase several adjacent opportunities, from point tools for payroll and compliance to broader HR workflows. Assume the team can fund only one major product area over the next 12 months. The CEO wants a strategy that can unlock strong growth, but the Head of Product is worried that spreading across too many workflows will create a shallow product that does not solve any painful job completely. Your task is to recommend which problem space Deel should prioritize, how broad or narrow the initial scope should be, and what evidence would show the choice is working. The hard part is balancing market size against the need to solve a severe, frustrating customer problem end to end.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page strategy memo.

Your answer must

Define the primary customer segment you would target first, and the specific job to be done within cross-border hiring and payments.
Lay out 2 to 3 plausible product focus options for Deel, including one broader platform option and one narrower workflow option.
Map the end to end user journey for your recommended focus area, and identify the highest pain points to remove first.
Make a clear recommendation on scope, what Deel should build now, and what it should explicitly not build yet.
Propose success metrics, key risks, and a 90 day validation plan to test whether the strategy is working.

Constraints

Stay within Deel's real product domain of hiring, onboarding, compliance, and paying international workers.
Do not rely on acquisitions, building a bank, or becoming a staffing agency.
Assume limited engineering and compliance capacity, so the plan must center on one major bet, not several parallel bets.

Format

Use headings: decision, target user, options, recommendation, metrics, risks.

How Deel actually played it

Looks at why Deel grew so fast by making an unbearably annoying process, hiring and paying international workers, easier.

Pick a hated process
Make it simple end to end
Speed of growth follows a clear pain

Built from How Deel became the fastest-growing startup in history by User Obsession.