Strategy question

Launch a strategy for Uber for one city.

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

Go-to-market strategy for a two sided marketplace entering a new geography, sequencing supply and demand correctly.

Clarify the city context: is this a brand new market with no ride-hailing presence, or one with an established competitor, since strategy differs significantly.
Identify the chicken-and-egg problem: riders will not use the app without enough available drivers, and drivers will not sign up without enough ride demand.
Propose a supply-first approach: recruit and subsidize an initial base of drivers in high-demand areas (downtown, airport) before heavily marketing to riders, ensuring a rider's first experience has low wait times.
Propose demand generation once supply is seeded: targeted promotions (discounted first rides) concentrated in the same high-density areas to build initial usage habits.
Prioritize a geographically concentrated launch (one dense neighborhood or district) over a city-wide simultaneous launch, since concentrated liquidity creates a better first experience than a thin city-wide presence.
Define success as average rider wait time in the launch zone and driver utilization rate, both indicating marketplace liquidity has been achieved before expanding further.

Correctly sequences supply before demand, recognizing the chicken-and-egg problem central to any two sided marketplace launch.
Recommends a geographically concentrated launch rather than spreading thin city-wide, a well established real world playbook for marketplace liquidity.
Picks wait time and driver utilization as the specific metrics that indicate real liquidity, not just raw signup counts on either side.

Launching marketing to riders before ensuring enough driver supply exists, leading to a bad first experience and rider churn.
Spreading initial supply and demand efforts thin across an entire city instead of concentrating for early liquidity.

How would you decide when the launch zone is ready to expand to the rest of the city?
How would you handle a well established local competitor already operating in this city?