Product design question

How would you design a competitor to IMDb?

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

Competitive product design: identifying a differentiated wedge against an entrenched incumbent with strong network effects.

Clarify the angle: a general movie database, or a niche wedge like international film, anime, or crowd reviews.
Identify IMDb's weaknesses, such as cluttered UI, weak personalization, and reviews that skew toward a narrow demographic.
Pick a target user underserved by IMDb, for example younger viewers who want short-form, social-style recommendations.
Design core features: clean search and ratings, social watchlists shared with friends, and personalized recommendations based on viewing history.
Address the cold-start problem for ratings and metadata, since content databases need scale to be useful.
Define a differentiated success metric, such as watchlist-to-watch conversion, rather than trying to beat IMDb on raw traffic.

Names a specific wedge (social recommendations, niche genre focus) instead of trying to out-database IMDb directly.
Addresses the cold-start data problem with a concrete plan, like licensing metadata or importing user watch history from streaming apps.
Explains why Google is asking this, tying it to Google's existing knowledge panels and Search real estate.
Proposes monetization aligned with the parent company, like affiliate links to streaming services or ads.
Flags that IMDb's moat is decades of user reviews and ratings, which is hard to replicate quickly.

Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.