Product design question
Design a product to help users find a handyman. Assume this is for a start-up and that Facebook does not exist. It needs to be launched in 6 months - what's the MVP?
- Meta
- Product design
- Hard
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
Start a mock interview on this question · Mock interview from a job description
What this question tests
Product design under constraints: building a scoped MVP for a real problem within a hard 6-month deadline.
How to approach it
- Clarify the target user: homeowners needing repairs versus renters, and pick homeowners for a focused scope.
- Identify the core pain point: finding a trustworthy, available handyman quickly without Facebook's existing reach.
- List must-have MVP features: search by task and location, verified reviews, and in-app booking.
- Explicitly cut features that don't fit 6 months, like in-app payments or a loyalty program, and defer them.
- Define success as completed bookings per week or repeat booking rate within the first quarter.
What a strong answer includes
- Explicitly separates MVP-must from nice-to-have, showing real prioritization discipline under the deadline.
- Solves for trust first (verified reviews, background checks) since that's the category's core barrier.
- Names concrete numbers as assumptions, e.g. launching in one metro with 200 vetted handymen.
- Explains a go-to-market wedge, like partnering with existing handyman associations for initial supply.
Common mistakes
- Ignoring the supply side (getting handymen onboarded) and only designing for demand.
- Building a feature list that clearly can't ship in 6 months.
- Not addressing trust and safety, the hardest part of this marketplace.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you solve the cold-start supply problem?
- What's the single most important feature to nail for launch?
- How would you price the service?
More product design questions
- You’ve just joined Meta and have been tasked with launching a new product to help people at home during emergencies. What would you build?Meta · Product design · Medium
- How would you improve the Facebook Timeline?Meta · Product design · Easy
- Build a volunteer product for Facebook.Meta · Product design · Medium
- Design an application launching in the US marketplace that enables patients to find doctors.Meta · Product design · Hard
- Design a washing machine for Google.Google · Product design · Hard
- How would you make WhatsApp more user-friendly for the elderly to use?Meta · Product design · Medium
More questions from Meta
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 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop