Strategy question
Create a subscription plan for Google Maps.
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Tests monetization strategy for a free, high-usage utility product: can you find value worth paying for without breaking the core free experience most users rely on.
How to approach it
- Clarify the constraint: Maps is free and central to Android/iOS usage, so a paid tier must add clear incremental value without degrading core navigation.
- Identify segments willing to pay: delivery drivers, field sales teams, and small businesses needing advanced routing, offline maps, or fleet features.
- Design the paid tier: multi-stop route optimization, offline maps with traffic caching, and business analytics like visit history, for a Maps Plus or Business tier.
- Price by segment value: a modest consumer add-on versus a higher B2B fleet tier, mirroring how Google already segments Workspace pricing.
- Protect the free tier explicitly: core navigation and search stay free, since removing that value risks backlash and antitrust scrutiny.
- Define success as paid conversion within the target segments and incremental revenue, not overall Maps usage, which stays free.
What a strong answer includes
- Explicitly protects the free core experience, showing awareness that mishandling a deeply embedded free utility is reputationally costly.
- Segments the paid opportunity by real use case, delivery and field sales, rather than a vague 'premium for power users'.
- Draws a parallel to Google's existing Workspace tiered pricing as a grounded reference point.
- Picks conversion within the target segment as the metric, not overall Maps engagement, avoiding a mismatch.
Common mistakes
- Proposing to paywall core navigation or search, which would badly damage user trust and Google's broader ecosystem strategy.
- No clear target segment, treating 'subscription' as generically valuable without naming who would pay and why.
- Ignoring the antitrust and brand-reputation risk of monetizing a product seen as a public utility.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you price this tier relative to competitors like Waze or dedicated fleet software?
- What would you do if free-tier users started feeling nickel-and-dimed by ads promoting the paid tier?
- How would you validate demand before building the full feature set?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop