Strategy question
You are a product manager of an app which consumers use for requesting barber service. The business wants to address another problem through the same app (which is ordering water bottle-20L). Will you develop another feature within the same app? Will you develop another app to address this? How would you arrive to this decision?
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Strategic decision-making on product scope: same-app feature versus a new standalone product.
How to approach it
- Clarify the business goal behind adding water delivery: is it cross-selling to existing users or building an independent new revenue line.
- Evaluate user overlap: do barber-service customers actually need bulk water delivery, or are these two distinct target audiences.
- Evaluate operational overlap: does the same delivery workforce, logistics, and scheduling infrastructure support both services efficiently.
- Weigh same-app pros (cross-sell, one CAC, shared trust) against cons (bloated, confusing app scope, diluted brand).
- Recommend a decision framework: if user and operational overlap is high, add as a feature; if low, spin off a separate app or brand.
- Define a validation step: pilot water delivery to the existing user base before committing to either path.
What a strong answer includes
- Names the two decision axes explicitly, user overlap and operational overlap, rather than a gut call.
- Gives a concrete recommendation path, e.g. pilot within the existing app to test demand before investing in a separate product.
- Flags brand dilution risk, since a barber app is not naturally associated with bulk water in users' minds.
- Proposes a specific pilot metric, like cross-sell attach rate among existing users, to make the decision data-driven.
Common mistakes
- Answering with a gut preference instead of a framework for the decision.
- Ignoring brand coherence and user mental model mismatch between the two services.
Likely follow-up questions
- What data would convince you to reverse your initial decision?
- How would you pilot this without a large upfront investment?
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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