The PM Pocketbook XL
The PM Pocketbook XL
The PM Pocketbook XL
Interview Experiences
Microsoft ......................................................................................................................... 35
Komal Prasad – H19085 ................................................................................................... 35
Utsav Shah – B19045 ....................................................................................................... 36
Anand Deshpande – B19134............................................................................................. 36
Eshan Varma – H19019 .................................................................................................... 37
Sukul Bagai – B19114....................................................................................................... 38
Product Management as a discipline has caught up in India only in the last decade and thus
there is a lack of quality material on Product management in Indian context. The inspiration
for this primer came due to a lack of any such concise material in Indian context. This book is
primarily divided into two sections: First one covering important aspects of popular products
and Second is an in-depth overview of what is asked in PM interviews, straight from the PI
candidates at XLRI themselves.
You can consider this book as a cheat sheet, which will assist you to quickly get a refresher
into a lot of topics and you can wish to deep dive into stuff that interests you. We would
request you to go through it if you are preparing for PM roles this placement season and also
if you like reading about PM and problem solving in this space.
And finally, just as product is never “done,” we hope this book will never be either. If you have
suggestions, feedback, questions or just want to say “hi,” do not hesitate to drop us a note
- Team ProdUX
• The Indian E-commerce market is expected to grow to US$ 200 billion by 2026 from US$ 38.5
billion as of 2017.
• In India, cash on delivery is the most preferred payment method, accumulating 75% of the e-
retail activities.
• In 2017, the largest e-commerce companies in India were Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon.
• In 2018, Amazon beat Flipkart and was recorded the biggest ecommerce in India in terms of
revenue.
User persona
User Flow
Questions
You're a PM at Amazon. You found out on Monday that searches decreased by 10%. What
would you do?
This is a typical question which could be asked for any product. The basic clarifying question
would be:
• Clarify metric: Is the searches number per user or overall? Is this drop compared to last day
or average?
This question could be asked differently to add new feature. Framework to follow: CIRCLES. Eg.
• Goal: Increase revenue/converts (could be acquisition/activation/engagement)
• Customer: Frequent buying young female users interested in fashion and beauty products
• Pain points: Can’t find or visualize perfectly matching products
• Possible Solutions: Club products and offer set (including make kit and jewellery), Create a
customization dashboard to visualize products together.
• Trade-offs: Time spent for buying would increase, cart abandonment rate could go up.
Launch:
• Design MVPs (could be a launching page, a blank button or partial implementation)
• Customer training
• A/B testing (decide your focus customer segment as the highly active users)
• Focus on acquisition and activation metrics
Post launch:
• Focus on growth
• Retention, referrals and revenue metrics to be checked
Business Objective: Acquire new users + drive more engagement from existing users + increase
revenue from advertisements
Videos
• Reels - 30 secs: Can be considered TikTok of Instagram → Users can show Creativity
• IGTV - 1 min or more: YouTube of Insta but with vertical orientation → Can be shared to Stories
• Feed Video - upto 1 min: Upload the video as post
Chats:
• Simple messaging
• Form groups to message
• Create video chat rooms(latest feature)
Others:
• Photos
• Stories-Original/Reshare (Stay for 24 hours)
• Close Friends Feature for restricted sharing
• Advertisements (via Business Accounts)
• Live Broadcasts (with Video feed)
1. Live videos' time extended from 1 hour to 4 hours, owing to the content they have been creating in
the COVID-19 lockdown period.
2. Updates in chat section:
a. Option to change color for different chat windows- allows users to identity chats better.
b. Facebook Messenger and Instagram's DM section merged, for cross-
platform messaging.
c. React to a message with different emojis by long-pressing a particular message.
d. Create selfie stickers and send your personalized stickers to people.
3. Updates in Reels
a. Businesses and creators will be able to tag products when they create Reels. Viewers can
now tap a “View Products” button to either buy, save or learn more about the featured
products.
b. Creators can add a “Branded Content” tag to their Reels to be transparent about when
they’re working with a brand to promote their products, which is a form of paid
promotion.
4. More on other Feature Changes: Article 1 , Article 2, Article 3 and Article 4
Competitor Analysis
Both professional and Both professional and 140 characters- Short and fast-
non-professional
non-professional non-professional paced environment
Doesn’t allow
Tells # of active hours
screenshots-> Sense
for each user
of Privacy
• Clicking a good picture → Applying filters and editing the pic right → Adding captions and
hashtags → Post → Get likes and comments
• Click a picture/Share a picture → Apply filter & edit → Add
captions/hashtags/polls/questions/location/time/music → Story → Show for 24 hours
• Your ID tagged in a story → Share the story to your profile
• Create/upload a video → Reels for 30 secs (edit 30-second multi-clip videos with audio,
effects and new creative tools) OR IGTV (>1 min & <60 min) OR Feed Video ( Upto 1 min)
Assessment Metrics
Cost Per Lead (CPL), Cost Per Acquisition (CPA or CAC), Return-on-Ad-
ROI
Spend (ROAS), Average Order Value (AOV), Customer Lifetime Value (LTV),
Calculations
Lead-to-Close Ratio (LTCR)
Caption Recommendations
High
Low High
Impact
Low High
Impact
Low High
Impact
13 Product Management & User Experience Association at XLRI
Microsoft Teams
About
Microsoft Teams is a dedicated team chat and collaboration tool that helps teams to stay connected
and share information right away.
Competitor analysis
Delight:
1. High customizability
2. Tightly integrated with other Microsoft Teams apps
3. Plenty of other integration options and tools, especially with Outlook and OneNote
4. Included with Office 365 business account
Complaints:
1. Not fundamentally intuitive
2. Microsoft for education as a teaching platform is difficult to comprehend without a demo
3. Not as friendly to non tech-savvy users
• Edit
This feature allows users to edit the content being shared. For example: Students will be able to
make notes in real-time and mark important points as and when shared. Whenever required a user
can download their annotated version of the shared content.
• Download:
Real time download of content being displayed or streamed that enable easy access and use.
• Pause and Play:
User Persona
User Journey/Case
Let’s start with first understanding what the basic use cases these two products are trying to support
are:
• User wants to watch a show or a movie.
• User needs to have a bunch of options to choose from, and needs some basic info like IMDB
rating and interesting trivia to make a final call.
• User needs to watch a trailer to avoid switching Netflix and go to YouTube.
• User wants to watch ad-free content and a smooth streaming.
• User wants to see what movie/show he was watching earlier to continue from there in future.
Basic Features
Content Wise:
Prime has Quantity but Netflix has Quality | Prime has 5x content compared to Netflix, but lacks
quality.
Trivia
Amazon Prime search recommends shows that doesn’t even exist on Prime. Such blunders turn-off the
viewing experience.
Monetization models
• Ad-supported free content - (Netflix - No, Disney+ - Yes, Prime - No)
• Subscription (monthly & yearly) - (Netflix - Yes, Disney+ - Yes, Prime - Yes)
• Subscription (yearly only) - (Netflix - No, Disney+ - No, Prime - Yes)
Value Wise
Pricing - Monthly
Type Screens Netflix
Mobile - 480p 1 ₹ 199
Basic - 480p 1 ₹ 499
Standard - 1080p 2 ₹ 649
Premium - 4K+HDR 4 ₹ 799
Success Metrics
1. Bit Rate & Play Rate - If a video has a higher than average bit rate, it typically means a higher
resolution (quality) image. This means bit rate helps identify the number of bits of a video that
can be transmitted over a certain period of time. An HDTV typically transmits between a bit rate
of 8–15 Mbps, while for Netflix it’s 6 Mbps.
Recommended Features
1. Let user subscribe to part of Netflix collection (High Impact, Medium Effort)
a. Give user an option to choose and pay only for genres I am interested in.
b. Give user an option to choose languages I am interested in
4. Also, Give user an option subscribe for their own flexible time (High Impact, Medium Effort)
a. Subscribe for 2 days/7 days.
b. Give user an weekend option (8 days a month i.e. 4 weekends a month).
5. Adopt the new payment methodologies like UPI (pre-paid ) than credit card/debit card
( Medium Impact, Medium Effort)
Success-Metrics
Goal for Improvement : To increase engagement on the platform and make people spend more time
watching content on the platform
Users Persona : -
1. Baby Boomers
2. Millennials
3. Post Millennials
Millennials and Post Millennials are more active on the platform. So I would pick these sets of users.
Some improvements :
Allow users to connect their Facebook or Google account with Netflix and add friends.
1. Recommend/Share a movie/show to a friend
Now these friends can immediately share or recommend a movie which users can add to their
watch list.
2. Video Lists
Users can create video lists based on different criteria : it can be based on genre, movies/shows
to watch with kids, movies/shows to watch alone etc, top rated movies, top rated shows, binge
worthy shows/movies etc. They can make these lists visible to their friends by sharing. The
friends can see these lists and add the whole list or some of the movies to his/her watchlist.
The users can also make these lists public and people can see a new section called “Lists”.
The users can see the lists from their friends and other users.
We are more likely to watch and like similar content to our friends
4. Points/Badges System
Users would be given different badges based on points they accumulate
• When they watch different movies or shows from different genres.
• When their friends watch a show/movie recommended by them and like it.
• When friends add movies to their list from their lists of movies.
• When other users add movies/shows to their list
To summarise, We can add the social angle to Netflix by allowing users to connect their Facebook
account or Google Account and adding friends. By making users share content with each other and
creating watch lists, we can help them discover content to watch. By adding badges / points system,
we gamify the experience and make them watch content even more.
Overview
• Founded in 2014, achieved ‘unicorn’ status and is valued at $ 3.6 billion.
• Founders: Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimani.
• Acquisitions: 48East, Suprdaily, Scootsy and Kint.
• Online food delivery market in India is expected to generate a revenue of Rs. 1,335 billion and reach
300 million+ users by 2024 with a CAGR of 30.55% between 2020-2024.
Customer Segments
Key Partners
Value Proposition
Key Resources
• Push Notifications
• Email Marketing • Local Food Delivery Boys
• Social Media Marketing • Connection with Restaurants and
• Offering deals and discounts on Stores
special events • An Easy-to-Use Mobile App
• Continuously improves in customer • Large Database of Customers and
engagement and satisfaction Restaurants
2. Variable Cost
Channels
• Acquisition of Various Companies
• Transportation • Mobile Application
• Returns and Refunds • Website
Competitor Analysis
Swiggy Zomato
60% market share 55% market share
Partnered with Netflix to show trailers Can view menus, reviews, ratings, pictures, etc.
User Personas
• Lazy Foodies - Customers who want to explore f ood but don't want to eat out. Foodie who
wants to experience different cuisines at home/ trending items. Prefers ordering food
• Bachelors - Bachelors who don't have maids to cook food - pref er to order f rom f ood delivery
apps
• Socializers - Get together at home and order f rom app
• Of f ice Lunch time – People during office lunch hours looking for quick meal/ package/ thali/ etc.
• Late night Workers - Working class late from office and don't have time to cook
• Budget - Value customers looking for offers/ discounts
• Specialists - Specific f ood/ cuisine/ dish lovers (Biryani, Pizza, Desserts, Donuts, Ice Cream,
Shawarma, etc.
User Journey
Logging in
Selecting
and Choosing
Ideas to providing from the Making
the menu and the Order Receiving
order food the tracking the order
restaurant placing the payment
delivery
location order
▪ Delivery times get changed (Notifications are sent that the delivery executive is running late, or
the restaurant is running busy).
▪ Delivery executives ask for extra money when the wait is longer or the location which you
entered is incorrect.
▪ Delivery executives not adhering to COVID-19 precautions.
▪ GPS tracking of delivery executive doesn’t update frequently to show the correct location in real
time.
▪ The orders are often poorly packaged.
▪ Problem of plenty. The choice of a lot of restaurants to order from, at times can confuse the
users.
▪ The menu of the restaurants is not well organized and sometimes requires a lot of scrolling to
reach to the preferred items. It lacks any options for filtering.
▪ The option to apply coupon does not show the coupons outside and user needs to click on it
to view coupons and apply.
▪ For frequent orders, it should also save the instructions for them and suggest them or show
them in the recommendation.
• Recommendations
• Food Cart No. of items per order
• Discount Coupons
• Reminders
• Flash Offers (Special
Occasions) Orders per month per user
• Notifications
• Automated refunds
(full/partial) % of orders where food is
• Customer chat delivered on or before time
• Warehouse & Logistics
1. Add filters in the menus of the restaurants. When viewing the list of food items for a restaurant,
there can be a basic filter to sort out the items. For eg. A filter than sort items on the basis of
price, servings, etc.
2. Although Swiggy shows the ratings, there is no option to either collect or view ratings for
restaurant. A feature like this can help users in getting more information about the restaurants.
Zomato has both reviews and ratings.
3. Social media feature to see what friends are eating and from where they are ordering. The idea
is to engage more people on the platform. When a user goes to a certain restaurant page, it can
show the name of their friends and their respective ratings for that place. This can help to
increase popularity of some food items as well as some restaurants that will lead to more
orders. Another way can be to have a dedicated social media section where the restaurants as
well as the users can post pictures and updates, in a similar fashion to what Magicpin has done.
4. Swiggy can include gamification in the process and get users to play games and quizzes, for
which they will get discounts or some credit in the form of Swiggy Money.
Swiggy Genie
Swiggy Genie is a section within the Swiggy app that lets you either transfer items between two
locations or deliver items like groceries, flowers, etc. to your home. It competes with Dunzo as well as
traditional players like Grofers, Big Basket, etc. It operates in the hyperlocal delivery space.
User Personas
User Journey
• Last ride of the day for the driver should have the destination close to his house
• Have a feature to navigate to nearest essentials for drivers – petrol pump, public toilet,
parking area, affordable eateries – or have own meal fulfilment facilities
• Congruence between drop-off point and the building (or society) of passenger
• Have more reasons listed in the ‘reason for cancellation’
Un ique Features
Suggested Features
Metrics to track
Assumption: We need to improve the revenues of the entire company in India in 1 year.
3. Increasing the number of users on the platform: Users can be increased on the platform by
any of the following methods:
• Expanding into new territories
• Target a different set of users
• Decrease the prices to gain share from the competitors. However, care must be taken to
not reduce the prices up to a certain limit.
4. Increasing the usages of the app by the existing users: Usages can be increased on the
platform by any of the following methods:
• Start providing hyperlocal delivery services wherein a user can book an Uber driver to do
regular household chores like
bringing laundry clothes, purchasing "paan" at night, etc.
• Bundle the cab and food delivery services. For example, for a specific number of rides
made on Uber, you get some discount off food orders
Start providing hyperlocal delivery Can use existing infrastructure by May require a considerable initial
services making certain changes investment
A good strategy to increase number Will work only for those customers,
Bundle the cab and food delivery
of food orders as well as cab rides who are potential users of both the
services
Easy to implement services
Assumptions: For ridesharing, Uber has 2 main users – the drivers and the riders. For the purpose of
this exercise, let us stick with acquiring more riders. This also seems like the first logical choice
because a higher demand from riders will result in more drivers (to make money) and not the other way
around.
Let’s pick the Young professionals who want to party as the user because of the following reasons
• Higher income range – leading to better tipping,
• More likelihood of uber X
• Longer trips (they typically won’t go to the same neighbourhood places and round trip
opportunities – they must come home late when their best option is Uber).
• A large market – if you assume ages between 21-35 and assuming an 80-yr lifespan and
uniform distribution, your market size in the US is (15/80)*320 million = 60 million.
• Partnerships with Opentable – Uber could tie up with reservation systems to provide discounts
to users going to that location.
• Detect DUIs before they happen: Uber could provide handheld machines at all bars that users
can use for free (or minimal service) before checking out. If a user checks at > $0.08, Uber
should volunteer to provide a car for the user to get home or suggest to the user to wait. It
would be legally impossible to detain or report the user against his or her will. This is easy to
implement – devices are available, generally makes the roads safer and has a clear way of
increasing customers. Since this is at peak time surcharge rules apply allowing for higher
monetization
• Strategic partnerships with Live events: Most live involve large groups of people, space
constraints and parking challenges. For e.g., Uber could partner with the IPL to be the preferred
transport mode for fans to and from the stadiums. This reduces traffic congestion, eliminates
parking problems and allows Uber to demonstrate the value of the product and retain more
customers.
Metrics:
• Guaranteed ride – A rider is guaranteed a ride within a predictable time to their desired
destination.
• Tracking – The rider can even track the driver as he/she is en-route to pick the rider.
• Cashless – The rider does not need to pay with cash/credit card. The payment is known up-
front and is the rider’s Uber account is charged after the ride is completed.
• Feedback – Uber lets the rider leave feedback for the driver for driving, cleanliness, behavior
etc so that the experience can be improved over time
• Safe – Uber does background checks of drivers and guarantees the safety of the Uber rider
(this has been in question lately with customers complaining about crimes/assaults during
Uber rides)
We might ask the interviewer what the purpose of the improvement should be? If they ask you to
assume, you can say given all the exposure that Uber has come under with customers complaining
about safety issues with Uber, I recommend focusing on the user segment – rider and trying to solve
for their compromised safety perception of Uber
UPSTOX
Fin tech
• Financial Technology can apply to any innovation in how people transact business, from the
invention of digital money to double-entry bookkeeping.
• General products in Fintech: Cross-border way to transfer money, a new way for people to file
taxes, send and receive money, dispense credit, buying and selling of financial instruments,
establish credit ratings, payment gateways, POS, Digital Wallets.
• Fintech usually operates on lean margins and allow very narrow margin of error. It is riddled
with strict regulations to be delivered in stringent timelines. The products need to be
accurate, secure and efficient.
Empathy:
1. Know customers better than they know themselves
2. Appeal to the emotional needs of a customer.
3. understand the motivation of all stakeholders.
Business Mindset:
1. Go beyond the problem statement and solutions.
2. Understand e2e ramification to the business, legal, finance, compliance risk.
Domain Knowledge:
1. Understand the fintech industry well.
2. Good finance know-how, Understand the key regulation differences globally.
Tech Stack
Utilities
Business Tools
Business Model
The Osterwalder’s business model framework is utilized to compare and analyse Upstox platform.
Business Activities
Channels
Website Maintenance
Employee Salaries Website
Technology Mobile Apps
Alliances
1. Login Page:
The login page takes a lot of time to load, once the details are entered, The time taken on the app
is more as compared to website. Currently the app takes around 5 sec to successfully logon the
user.
3. Stock Watchlist:
The watchlist feature needs UI revamp, the current layout does not allow the user to compare
multiple stocks, and in order to purchase a stock it has to be added to the watchlist, which should
be an option ideally. The data points highlighted on the watchlist should be optimised and the user
should be given an option to select the desired ratios.
5. Learning Academy:
To increase user engagement, and time spent on the website/app, a new section can be introduced
which would have documents and video tutorials for technical and management analysis. This
feature can later be used to sell training modules once we have enough traction on this feature.
• Komal Prasad
• Utsav Shah
• Anand Deshpande
• Eshan Verma
• Sukul Bagai
• We were asked to design an Enterprise Chat Application. Started with need identification for such
an application/interface in any company. Created multiple personas of the company along with the
needs.
• Gave a brief analysis of the existing Enterprise chat applications or platforms and marked what
essential features they are covering and what are the gaps.
• Based on the understanding listed features – which would be necessary to form a robust
application + what features can act as a differentiator (against competitors) along with driving
value for the customers. [Further added that there would be a comprehensive primary and
secondary research involved at this stage and outlined some specifics for them]
• With the suggested list of features, outlined some of their technical nuances and the needs for the
same. For every added feature in the MVP – gave reasons from Consumer, UX and tech
perspective.
• Drew rough wireframes suggesting the possible designs in the mobile and web application.
• Charted the plan for an unbiased UX research with users, to gather their true feedback on the
product and then based on development viability studies, proposed a tentative pipeline for the
features (with stated assumptions in the process)
Questions asked – I was asked questions regarding my MVP creation and how and
why I zeroed on those features. Some questions were asked on my competitor
analysis and sources for citing the information.
Round 2: Interview
Duration – 20 minutes approx.
• I was mostly asked about my previous work experience as it was a PM role. I was asked to narrate
my leadership and team working experiences with the firm and times when I had taken on initiative
single-handedly.
• I was then asked to state as to which app I liked the most with respect to UX and which I disliked.
Had to specify my reasons for the same.
• I was then asked as to how Microsoft can benefit from the LinkedIn acquisition.
No further rounds.
Round 2: Interview
Duration – 15 minutes approx.
• Asked me about my work experience and about a product that I use everyday. Then asked me the
feature set I would add to that product.
• Told about mood analysis of the user and suggesting food items based on the mood that day.
Asked me how I would determine the mood of the user, I said that I would ask him when he opens
the application. It was more of a discussion where he was helping me with the solution
Round 3: Interview
Duration – 15 minutes approx.
• Asked me that what are the features of LinkedIn that I like and why. Then asked me how I would
increase its traction among people. He was asking me about the features or some other strategy.
My answer was to provide a desktop version along with Windows that should come installed. And
should provide facilities to actually test if a person if he claims that he is good at a particular skill.
• The last question that he asked me was that why Edge is not gaining as much traction as Google
Chrome. I told that maybe because of its similarity with the logo of Internet Explorer.
Round 4: Interview
Duration – 2 minutes
Brief Introduction – Computer Engineer from NIT Nagpur, worked as Senior Software Engineer with a
successful startup
Round 2: Interview
Duration – 20 minutes approx.
No further rounds
Pointers:
• Should have a detailed understanding of the features for 3-5 popular apps. Should be able to talk
about adding/removing features from these apps with ease.
• Showing your familiarity with tech helps, but do not overuse it as it would imply that you’re
compensating your lack of product knowledge with tech skills.
• Always keep the end-user in mind when designing any feature for a product.
• We were given a problem statement to design a product to “Improve the quality of education in
Rural India”.
• We were given 2 A4 sheets for the task, during the round, 2 Microsoft PMs sat with me and asked
me about what I was building.
• Their focus was on my thought process and my approach of the problem rather than just the
product itself.
• They also suggested to focus on the long-term sales aspect of my design.
• In this round you have complete freedom to design anything you want, an App, a software, a
physical product etc. Focus on showing your problem-solving approach.
• And I followed this approach while giving my solution. I first comprehended the situation – I wrote
down what it’ll do, who it is for, why they need it and how they’ll intend to use it.
• Once this picture was clear, I went down to identifying the customer & reporting their needs – I did
this by creating segments and how each user role in the organization would use it, and their primary
purpose would be. This gave a sense of what’s important to each customer so it can be tailored for
them
• Next, based on the needs, I listed down the key features needed and circled common & important
ones, and separated them from the nice-to-have. This gave me a feature set that I wanted to have
for the MVP stage of the product
• Wherever a feature was cut, I wrote alternatives as to how we can achieve that experience for the
customer.
• Then I designed mocks of the chat window, including features in a clean layout from my
understanding
• There were MS people roaming around and going to people to ask how they were doing; my turn
came somewhere towards the end of the hour, so I was mostly done with all this when the
interviewer came to me for my discussion. I discussed in detail why I did what I did, as has been
written above
• This interview was mainly to get to know me and my motivation towards PM role. I told them my
story and why I was motivated to enter PM. That’s all they’re looking for, a keen interest with an
affinity towards understanding how things work
• There was a small discussion on my work projects as well, I was asked about something that didn’t
work out during my job, so I explained how working in an away team was a challenge and how I
overcame it
• One more thing that was asked was how I would improve LinkedIn and link it with existing services.
I chose a target segment and spoke on how it could be integrated with OneDrive & OneNote. The
key again here was identifying what need someone who uses LinkedIn would have – for example
college students would want to show off their presentation skills (LOL) so they can directly
integrate with OneDrive just like SlideShare. Or while scrolling through feed, someone would want
to save something, so you can just press a button and it’ll be added as a note into OneNote.
Key Takeaway
Focus on each individual customer segment, and how you can make little change to make their than
one task infinitely easier. FOCUS on that one flow, do not swing around in all directions. As a PM, the
task at hand is to make big change with small well-researched improvements that strike the right note.
• Anurag Sharma
• Santhosh Revuluri
• Raj Gopal Tripathi
• Immediately after 1st round, the first interviewer personally took me to the second interviewer
• Tell me about yourself
• Case discussion in previous interview complete run down
• Factors which would be critical in implementation and success of the product
• Much more formal discussion and the interviewer was frank about the solutions I was proposing
They announced the results directly to me and were quite chill once the interview was over and asked
if I was interested to work for PhonePe.
Phone Pe PPI
There were two rounds of Interviews for PhonePe PPI, one hour each. One was Problem solving round
and the other was Product thinking round.
Problem Solving Round.
Interviewer would drive the discussion based on your answers and expect cross questioning for
whatever you say. I tried to first list down all the factors both on demand and supply side of the platform
and map out the customer journey map. Try to focus on getting as much data as possible from the
interviewer by asking clarifying questions and do not assume anything. They are looking for structure
and not for the end solution.
Product thinking:
• You want to build a learning platform like a MOOC, how would you go about it?
• What are the customer segments you would target and why?
• What should be the MVP?
• How would you decide what goes into MVP?
• How would the features in MVP solve for different problems?
• What is the goal of MVP in this case?
• How would you go about achieving the goal of MVP?
• What are the metrics you would track for this goal?
Brief Introduction - Aerospace Engineer from IITM with research projects in DRDO
• Now, the interview shifted to why PhonePe should take up such a project?
• Was asked to list down advantages and disadvantages of taking it up
• Mentioned how this can be leveraged to improve customer base rather than looking at it purely
from revenue point of view.
• Follow up question – what about the costs involved as PhonePe needs to get merchants on board
beforehand?
• Suggested taking up a pilot project in one of the cities and then scaling it up
• Another question on how it would affect PhonePe’s brand image – as this project will be going in
the opposite direction of increasing digital transactions?
• Interviewer was satisfied at this point and asked to meet HR to know further details about the
internship.
Interviewer: So, you are a chemical Engineer. Can you tell me the name of inert gases?
Me: I told the inert gases I could remember like Helium, Neon, Argon, Xenon etc.
Interviewer: Showed me a list of 10 cases written on an A4 sheet and told me to select one?
Me: I selected a case on Dream 11 as I was aware about it and sports
Interviewer: Okay. Now you have identified the revenue streams, how will you attract customers on the
platform. Can you give some product ideas for the same?
Me: To attract customers, the first thing will be to create awareness among the users. This can be
achieved through advertisement. The advertisement can be done during popular cricket events like
World Cup, IPL etc. Awareness campaign can be run on the popular social media platforms like
Facebook and Twitter etc.
Interviewer: Okay. Once you have created awareness, how will you attract users to the platform.
Me: The big players in cricket or other events command a big fan following. So, we can bring them on
the platform. The players can create their own dream 11 teams and compete with other users. This will
ensure traction with the users. Also, to further create traction and buying from the users we can create
competition among the big players on the platform. I think that we can bring Virat Kohli and Mahendra
Singh Dhoni at the beginning as they have huge fan following. The cricket players can post their game
results on their Facebook or Twitter page to generate the hype.
Interviewer: Good. The idea is interesting. What else can you do?
Me: I had run out of ideas by that time. I told that we can make the interface as simple as possible.
Interviewer: He explained about the startup culture at PhonePe and the expectations from a Product
Manager. Would you like to ask anything else?
Me: No sir.
He told me to wait outside the room for 5 mins. After 5 mins, he called me and told that I had been
offered the role of Product Manager. He congratulated me and made me meet the HR manager of the
company.
• Apoorva Rastogi
• Puja Shankar
• Ankush Kumar
• Some light-hearted conversation about the process since the interviewers were both XL alumni.
• Ask us any questions you have related to Amazon or the role or our experience.
• What are your thoughts about Amazon?
• Why did you peck MLDP highest?
• Do you have any parting thoughts?
This interview was held next morning. There was only one interviewer. She informed me that I had
successfully completed the first round of interview and was selected for this round.
• She started by asking me about the interview experience held the previous evening and any
suggestions to make it better. She also asked for an overall feedback on the interviewers and the
whole process of recruitment in general.
• Next question was about the MLDP program for which I was being interviewed. She asked me what
I knew about the program. I had read the Job description provided by them and so told that.
• There are different roles in rotation offered under the program. So, she then proceeded to ask me
if I knew about the responsibilities of each role. This I felt needs a little research on the student
behalf and if they come prepared with points different from that mentioned in the JD, that may be
an advantage. This part consisted of a few follow up questions and then she told me to wait outside
and the results would soon be declared.
My conclusion
Have a good knowledge about the role. Read through the job description provided by them thoroughly.
• Impact on the end customer of the work mentioned in the CV– customer centric questions
• 2-3 Instances where decision making and stakeholder management in the work experience
• How did you solve conflicts with other teams with opposite goals?
• How do you define common themes across teams to successfully collaborate with one other?
• Saransh Kejriwal
• Harshit Jain
• Kriti Chandra
Brief Introduction - Worked for 3 years as a Software Developer at Citi, across multiple programming
languages. Worked on ML, Digital image processing and Computer Vision in college.
Round 2: CV Based PI
Panel – The senior evaluator from Round 1 (Has about 26 years of experience) Time – Second half of
Day 0
• My interview was just after his lunch. When I was asked to enter, his plate was still on the table, so
I asked politely if I am interrupting his meal (This is a high-risk-high-reward move. Do not try this if
it does not come naturally to you.)
• He asked me to start with a brief walkthrough of my CV. I spoke for 2 minutes. My CV was in front
of him, so he glanced over it and asked specific questions on some of the points, as to “why this
approach?”, “why not that…?”, “what if…?”
• Discussed on my Udemy course for some time – why did I choose Udemy as a platform, why not
anything else etc.
• Key success factor – critically evaluate your own CV and have a high-level reasoning for why you
did what you did.
• Asked a generic case about how a typical general store would survive in an e-commerce world –
Hyperlocal 101. Made recommendations on partnering with ecommerce channels, a moon-shot by
collaborating with other stores, and putting up billboards on how
Round 3: Final PI
Round 2: CV Based PI
• Panel – 2 interviewers. The senior evaluator from Round 1 (Has about 26 years of experience) Time
– Around 11am
Round 3: Final PI
• Time: 5am (yes, am)
• Panel – Two people via VC, only my video was on, no idea who they were
•
• Again, a “Tell me about yourself”
• A quick discussion on work-ex; a small scenario given where I was asked how I would handle a
major severity outage in one of the company’s software solutions.
• Asked me a bit about what I feel is the most interesting thing in technology right now.
• Just ensure you are bright eyed for this interview.
The case gave us a generic distribution structure that HUL implements, had to answer three
questions: -
1) what would you change in the current process
2) how can you use technology for the proposed changes
3) what key metrics would you use to measure the success of the change
• I remember that the GD started without a structure. So i jumped to try to give a structure. Cannot
remember what structure I had given
• My strategy was to remind people that some problems can be solved without the buzzwords of ML,
AI and blockchain and tried to bring in some simpler but impactful strategies. (Talked about a B2B
ordering app or tele sales sort of thing for the smaller ticket sized customers. One of the main
problems we identified was reduction in sales cost and since the problem was to reduce costs, I
reminded them that all the strategies with hi-fi technologies would maybe increase the immediate
costs and to think about those repercussions.
Round 2: CV Based PI
Panel – 2 interviewers. The senior evaluator from Round 1 (Has about 26 years of experience)
Duration – 20 minutes approx.
• Tell me about yourself was the first. Do remember to have a well-practiced tell me about yourself
and add a sentence or so relevant to the kind of role
• The interview was quite CV based. I had non-coding non tech work experience. So, one of the main
points for me was why do you want to shift to IT. I had a well-prepared answer about how I had
liaised with the product team at my company often and really liked that job.
• Do remember to sound excited and happy. I remember clearly that while answering I was thinking
about the back and forth, I had done with the product team to make sure that my customers’
requirements were being passed on and how I had genuinely enjoyed that and wanted to be on the
other side of the equation
• If you had to design a mobile app for HUL internal users what could be the possible use cases. I
will be honest my answers here were slightly gassy. But I gave myself a few minutes and tried to
think of more things. They were not the happiest with this answer.
• They asked me for my opinion/understanding about Industry 4.0. This I had read a little bit about
so gave some answers trying to list both pros and cons
Round 3: Final PI
Time: 5 AM
Panel – 1 person, only my video was on
Duration – 15 minutes approx.
Case background
“You’ve been onboarded as a product consultant for AroundYou.com, a product that is similar to
nearbuy.com in terms of set of features and offerings. As a strategic decision maker, you have to
work towards building a USP for your product as well as aim towards growth in revenue.”
Interview Round 1
• Asked some basic info (kind of introduction). Tell me something about yourself questions.
• Brief description about work-ex and role.
• Asked to explain the case submission done - features' details, metrics, revenue, price, user journey.
Asked some clarificatory questions
• Some questions regarding AdTech :
o What are the cookies (Explain to someone in the product team + explain to a 5-year-
old)? First and third party? Retargeting?
o What are eye frames? Friendly and unfriendly?
o What is CPM?
o Basic stuff about what happens when website is loaded.
o Some question where cookies can be used to solve the problem
o Something about contextual and non-contextual ads
• Puzzle: Why is the population still growing even when the fertility rate has come down to 2?
• Questions about basic software systems (web browsers, web servers, cookies, completely
walkthrough of a feature, etc.) Just go through these, can be asked. Discussion went on for some
time.
• ‘Nearbuy’ revenues are going down. Why?
• Live project that I worked on (game development) : objective, flow, metrics
• Design a dashboard for Jeff Bezos
• Any questions for us?
Interview Round 2
Guesstimate/problem solving:
• Can ask in either of the rounds. A major part of the discussions focused on guesstimates.
• Not anything outlandish, but the interviewer would try and pose various scenarios and try to gauge
your thinking/approach to the problem.
• Major chunk of the interview
• Guesstimate:
• Number of travelers to and from Mumbai airport in an year
• No. Of WhatsApp stories per day in Delhi
• Bookings on “bookmyshow”
• footfall on Bangalore airport
• No. of uber rides in a day in a city of your choice
• Size of parking lot outside Mumbai airport