Letterboxd · Strategy · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

Clarify Letterboxd's core job for new users

Letterboxd is a social app for people to log, review, discover, and discuss films. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Product strategy
JTBD framing
Prioritization
Activation metrics
Trade-off analysis

The situation

You are the PM responsible for new user activation at Letterboxd. The founders ask you for a strategy recommendation before the next quarterly planning cycle. The product has passionate film fans and strong word of mouth, but many first time users seem unsure what the app is mainly for. In onboarding, people can encounter an intro carousel, a prompt to add films, multiple actions on movie cards, and labels such as Watchlist, Diary, and Journal. The team hears different interpretations from users, movie tracking tool, recommendation app, review community, or social network for film lovers. Assume recent interviews and funnel data show many signups leave the first session without logging a film, building a habit, or engaging socially, and return rates are much better only when users quickly understand the product's value. Design wants to simplify the onboarding flow, engineering wants small changes first, and leadership worries that supporting too many use cases at once is making the product feel scattered. You need to recommend how Letterboxd should define and sharpen the product area for new user activation.

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page product strategy memo.

Your answer must

Define the target new user segment for this decision and state the primary job to be done, plus at most one secondary job if needed.
Identify the 3 most important causes of confusion or friction in the first session, tied to the user's job rather than generic UX critiques.
Recommend a focused product area strategy for the next quarter, including what Letterboxd should emphasize, what it should de-emphasize or defer, and why.
Propose 2 to 4 concrete changes across onboarding, navigation, and first session experience that fit your strategy.
Specify a measurement plan with 3 success metrics, including one leading activation metric and one retention or habit metric.
Call out the main trade-offs and risks of narrowing the experience for a specific audience or job.

Constraints

Do not assume a full rebuild of the app or a major expansion into a new business model.
Stay within Letterboxd's existing domain, films, logging, reviews, watchlists, and social features.
Your recommendation should be testable within one quarter by a small cross functional team.
Do not rely on paid acquisition or external partnerships to solve the core problem.

Format

Use headings and concise bullets: context, target user and job, diagnosis, strategy, priorities, metrics, risks.

How Letterboxd actually played it

Uses Letterboxd's focus on movie lovers to show how clear jobs-to-be-done sharpen product-market fit and feature choices. Gives a model for narrowing a product's job.

A clear job defines what to leave out
Product-market fit is easier to see with a narrow audience

Built from Letterboxd: How to nail product market fit with clear Jobs-To-Be-Done by Growth.Design.