Strategy question
You are a Growth Product Manager at Earnest focusing on acquisition, top of the funnel metrics. How would you engage and acquire more students to sign up for student loan at Earnest?
- Earnest
- Strategy
- Medium
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What this question tests
Tests growth strategy for a top-of-funnel acquisition problem in a specific, trust-sensitive financial product, requiring channel and message prioritization.
How to approach it
- Clarify the target: prospective and current college students considering a student loan, a high-consideration, infrequent financial decision.
- Identify acquisition channels: campus partnerships and financial aid office relationships, referral programs from existing satisfied borrowers, and targeted digital content addressing loan and refinancing confusion.
- Identify the core barrier: trust and financial literacy, since student loans are complex and students often do not know what questions to ask or who to trust.
- Propose the top lever: educational content marketing (comparing loan terms, explaining repayment options) paired with a low-friction pre-qualification tool that shows rates without a hard credit check.
- Propose a second lever: partnerships with universities and financial aid offices, a high-trust, high-relevance channel for this specific audience.
- Define success: cost per qualified applicant, pre-qualification to funded-loan conversion rate, and channel-level attribution to prioritize spend.
What a strong answer includes
- Identifies trust and financial literacy, not just awareness, as the core acquisition barrier for a first-time student loan decision, which shapes the entire channel strategy.
- Proposes a soft-pull pre-qualification tool specifically, a known effective growth lever in lending since it removes the biggest friction point (fear of a hard credit inquiry).
- Names university and financial aid office partnerships as a high-trust, targeted channel appropriate for this exact audience, rather than generic paid acquisition.
- Chooses cost per qualified applicant and funded-loan conversion as metrics, tying acquisition directly to Earnest's actual business outcome, not just top-of-funnel traffic.
Common mistakes
- Proposing generic paid acquisition channels without addressing the trust and complexity barrier specific to student lending.
- Measuring success by raw traffic or signups instead of qualified, funded loan conversion.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you measure the long-term value of students acquired through university partnerships versus digital channels?
- How would you balance an aggressive acquisition push against responsible lending given the target audience is often financially inexperienced?
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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