Product design question
How would you increase the growth rate of Uber?
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
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What this question tests
Tests growth strategy for a mature marketplace, requiring the candidate to identify whether the lever is new users, new markets, or increased usage frequency, and build a specific plan around it.
How to approach it
- Break growth into components: new rider acquisition, expansion into new geographies or use cases, and increased ride frequency among existing riders.
- Assess where Uber has the most headroom today: frequency growth among existing riders in mature markets is often cheaper and faster than new user acquisition in a saturated category.
- Segment existing riders: occasional riders (airport, special occasions) versus habitual riders (daily commute), since the lever differs.
- Propose a specific initiative: expanding low-cost modes (like Uber Moto or shared rides) to convert occasional riders into habitual ones by making Uber viable for everyday short trips.
- Address a new-market or new-use-case lever as a secondary path: growing non-ride use cases like Uber Eats cross-sell to deepen the relationship without needing brand new users.
- Define success as rides per active rider per month and cross-service adoption rate, not just total new signups.
What a strong answer includes
- Breaks growth into acquisition, expansion, and frequency instead of treating growth as one vague goal.
- Identifies frequency growth among existing riders as the likely highest-leverage, lowest-cost lever in a mature market.
- Uses illustrative numbers as assumptions: assume habitual riders take 4x more monthly rides than occasional riders, making conversion between segments the biggest opportunity.
- Proposes a specific mechanism, low-cost modes for everyday trips, rather than a vague more marketing plan.
Common mistakes
- Defaulting to new user acquisition or marketing spend as the only growth lever.
- Not segmenting riders by usage frequency before proposing a fix.
- Ignoring cross-service growth (Eats, other verticals) as a way to grow within the existing user base.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you convert an occasional rider into a habitual one specifically?
- What's the trade-off of pushing lower-cost ride modes on overall revenue?
- How would you measure cannibalization between UberX and lower-cost modes?
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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 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop