Product design question
You are the PM of a Media Company. Your CEO ask you to create an app for the company's newspaper. What would you do?
- Microsoft
- Product design
- Medium
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
Product judgment on whether to build at all, checking you push back constructively before committing to an app.
How to approach it
- Clarify the actual goal behind the CEO's ask, likely increasing reader engagement or subscription revenue, not literally 'having an app' for its own sake.
- Ask what's already been tried, for example a mobile web experience, and whether data shows a specific gap an app would fill, like push notifications or offline reading.
- Assess the target user, distinguishing loyal subscribers who might want a dedicated app from casual readers better served by a fast mobile website.
- Propose validating the opportunity first, for example checking mobile web engagement and drop-off before committing engineering resources to a native app.
- If validated, define a lean scope for a first version, focusing on the specific gap, like push notifications for breaking news, rather than replicating the full website.
- Define success as engagement or subscription lift among app users compared to mobile web users, and set a checkpoint to confirm the investment was worthwhile.
What a strong answer includes
- Pushes back constructively on the premise, asking what specific gap an app fills that mobile web doesn't, rather than building reflexively because the CEO asked.
- Proposes validating with existing mobile web data before committing to a native app build, showing resource-conscious judgment.
- Names a specific differentiator for the app, like push notifications for breaking news, as the wedge reason to justify a native build over mobile web.
- Sets a clear success checkpoint, comparing engagement lift between app and web users, to justify the ongoing investment.
Common mistakes
- Building the app immediately without questioning whether it's the right solution to the underlying goal.
- Not distinguishing what an app can do that mobile web cannot, like push notifications or offline access.
- Skipping any validation step before committing significant engineering resources.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you convince the CEO if your data suggested an app wasn't worth building yet?
- What would be the single most important feature to get right in a first version?
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More questions from Microsoft
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