Strategy question
How would you grow the number of Instagram users?
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What this question tests
Growth strategy thinking, requiring the candidate to identify a specific, high-leverage lever for user growth rather than a generic list of marketing ideas.
How to approach it
- Identify the current growth bottleneck: whether the constraint is new-user acquisition, activation of new signups, or retention/reactivation of lapsed users, since the right lever depends on where the funnel actually leaks.
- Propose a targeted lever for the likely bottleneck, e.g. improving new-user activation through a smarter, interest-based onboarding flow that gets users to a relevant, engaging feed faster.
- Consider a viral/network lever specific to Instagram, like making it easier to cross-post from other apps (e.g. TikTok-style content) to lower the content-creation barrier for new users.
- Address international/underserved-market growth, since much of Instagram's remaining growth likely comes from markets with lower penetration, requiring lighter-weight app experiences for lower-bandwidth regions.
- Define success as new-user activation rate (reaching a meaningful first-session engagement threshold) and 30-day retention of new cohorts, not just raw signups.
What a strong answer includes
- Identifies where in the funnel growth is actually bottlenecked before proposing a lever, rather than jumping to generic acquisition ideas.
- Proposes a platform-specific mechanism, like a smarter onboarding feed or lighter-weight app for emerging markets, not a generic 'run more ads' answer.
- Defines success with retention-adjusted metrics, not just signups, which can be gamed.
Common mistakes
- Proposing only top-of-funnel acquisition ideas (ads, influencer marketing) while ignoring activation and retention, where a mature app often has more real headroom.
- Measuring success by raw signups instead of activated, retained users.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you decide whether the growth bottleneck is acquisition, activation, or retention?
- How would you prioritize growth in emerging markets against risk of lower ad monetization there?
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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