Strategy question

Given the COVID-19 situation, cult fit has a 6-month runway for its business. How would you extend the runway to 18 months?

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Strategic crisis response: can the candidate propose concrete, prioritized levers to extend runway under a real, time-bound constraint.

Clarify the constraint: extending runway from 6 to 18 months means either cutting burn by roughly two-thirds, raising new capital, or both.
Assess the market context: COVID-19 shut down in-person fitness, so cult.fit's core studio business collapsed overnight, forcing a pivot.
Identify the company's advantage to lean on: existing user base, trainer network, and brand trust that could shift to a digital product.
Propose options: pivot quickly to at-home digital fitness content and equipment, cut non-core costs like studio leases, and raise a bridge round if the digital pivot shows early traction.
Recommend prioritizing the digital pivot first since it preserves revenue and the core asset, the trainer relationships, while cost cuts alone only slow the burn.
Flag risk: a rushed digital pivot could underperform if the at-home fitness market is already crowded, so recommend fast, cheap experiments before full commitment.

Grounds the answer in what actually happened in this space, fitness companies pivoting to at-home digital and app-based content during COVID lockdowns.
Distinguishes cost-cutting levers (studio leases, headcount) from revenue-preserving levers (digital pivot) and sequences them correctly.
Flags competitive risk in the pivot, since digital fitness apps proliferated fast during this period, rather than assuming the pivot is a guaranteed win.

Proposing only cost cuts without addressing how to preserve or grow revenue.
Ignoring the competitive landscape shift that made digital fitness suddenly crowded.

What would you cut first if you needed results within 30 days?
How would you validate the digital pivot before committing significant resources to it?