Transcription
Hi everyone, I'm Diana, former PM at Meta and Stripe. And today, we have Austin, who AC'd his Meta interviews and now is a PM at Meta. So, can you do a short intro about yourself?
Sure, um, happy to. I'm Austin. I'm currently a new PM at Meta, working on cameras across all their XR portfolios. Um, I used to work at Apple, um, in the Vision Product Group, as well as NCH, which is a Google spin-off for AR glasses, and most recently, also a startup working on AI and LLM aspects as a product manager. Um, super excited to help. And, you know, Diana here has helped me so much throughout, uh, my interview prep process. I watch all her videos multiple times, took lots of notes for each video, and, yeah, it really helped me a lot. I have a tip at the end, um, to share, but, you know, very excited to be here today.
Austin was a star student, taking notes religiously, and he'll share his tips at the end using ChatGPT to use those notes to teach him even more. Awesome. So today, we are gonna get into a product design question.
Great. Let's dive in. So, Austin, you're an APM at Google Maps. We're thinking about building a parking solution. What might you build and why?
Sounds good. And, um, before we get started, I'll ask some clarifying questions. But I'm used to sharing my screen. Is that okay?
Yeah, sure, of course. May I take a moment just to type down my approach so we can be aligned there? And I'm, I'm going to ask my clarifying questions.
Yes, great. Awesome. So, my approach on a high level would just be, you know, making sure that I understand we are on the same page what Google Maps is, and also what we mean by parking solution. Then, um, I would love to just quickly address Google's sort of moat, their strength. If there's any opportunity for them, um, and then come up with a goal. Like, right, what is the benefit, um, of having a parking solution for Google, for Google Maps? Then we can anchor our sort of following response to that. Um, I'll go through the larger ecosystem, supply and demand side, talk about the user segments, um, and then go through, you know, prioritize them, go through the user journey, identify pain points, and making sure that a solution addresses both the goals and the pain points. How does that sound?
Yeah, that sounds great. Let's get into it.
Awesome. Um, so for clarifying questions, um, I just want to ask, when we think about parking solution, are we thinking about just improving, sort of enhancing that Google Maps app with a parking solution, or a parking solution that's really blue sky, sort of infrastructure-changing, uh, for Google?
Yeah, no limitations for my side. Let your creativity run wild. Let's do focus on, yeah, what the pain points might be and go from there.
Makes sense. Um, cool. So, let's, let's make sure again, we're on the same page for what Google Maps is today. Um, my understanding of Google Maps, like most people use it, it's a versatile platform, um, that really empowers users to navigate, um, from point A to point B, and also discover, uh, new places, right, when you're traveling, and also engage with local businesses, um, seamlessly, right? If you, people are giving reviews, looking at ratings, and seeing whether a business is open or not. Um, there's other really cool features that allow a driver when they're driving to click, hey, I'm looking for a coffee shop or gas station, or even, I believe, perhaps parking spots, but usually they only show, um, certain, like parking garages today.
Yeah, exactly. Um, so hopefully we're aligned there as to what Google Maps is today.
Yes. Awesome. Um, in terms of, you know, Google's strength and mission and so forth, um, for Google Maps specifically, um, it has a lot of data and a lot of user base already today, right? It has a large user base. We have the GPS locations of all these locations, um, and, um, even business reviews, as I said. Now, Google has their own moat, recently focusing on AI, LLM, and Gen as well. So all of this will merge together, um, as something that would make Google Maps stand out from competitors. And speaking of competitors, we of course get Apple Maps, we have Waze, and so forth, as map competitors. In terms of parking solution competitors, um, or people in the ecosystem, there's apps like SpotHero, or I believe, PayByPhone, where people can, you know, pay for their spots or look for long-term parking solutions.
Thank you for sharing that. Cool. So, so let me, uh, spend maybe a moment just to type down the goals, um, of what we're trying to do today. Like, why, why is this beneficial for Google? Why is the parking spot solution something that Google wants to look into, right? Because as a product manager, if this doesn't make sense, maybe we don't want to get into the parking space, right? So give me a moment, please.
Okay, cool. So, for, for, for the goal, um, right, ultimately, a parking solution is one of many benefits, uh, of Google Maps, right? It increases its value, its utility for users. Ultimately, what we're trying to do, um, I believe, is, right, we can increase the engagement for our users, so they can spend more time there, um, making them want to use Google Maps more, increase the user satisfaction at the same time because they're spending more time on it, right? We're gathering more data to, uh, address, you know, our strength and our moat, our differentiation of having more data to improve our Gen long-term. Um, another really important point, I believe, is, um, Google's highest revenue is its ads business, right? Now, we have more user data to understand where they're parking, what sort of their behavior is, and perhaps be able to target ads better based on where they're going, um, and what they're doing in that parking, um, aspects. Um, yeah, and tied to monetization, I think that also has its, um, benefit in making sure people are using the Google Pay, um, aspects more. And with payment, right, Google can better monetize from all types of users as well.
That's a good point. Okay, awesome. All right, let's keep going. So, next up, I want to talk about, uh, the ecosystem before diving into the user segmentation. Um, when I think of ecosystem for most questions, I think about, you know, the supply and demand side, as well as sometimes the middle player, which in this case, um, is Google, right, gathering data, providing support. Um, but from the supply side, we have the, on a high level, parking space providers. And on the demand side, sorry, it's wrong, demand side, we have the drivers looking to park, as is. Um, usually, I would pick one side of the ecosystem and dive deep into user segmentation, but I think for this sort of, uh, new feature, it's important to consider both. You need to help the ecosystem for this to work. So, let me go into, uh, user segmentation. Give me a quick moment to type it down so I can verbalize it better.
Okay, cool. Um, so when I think about user segmentation, I often think about maybe the behavior or motivation. And one, one good way to think about it is, uh, how frequent is this space, uh, being, I guess, either addressed or used? And that helps me create a mental model, right? Like, from the least frequent, sort of users or or user segments to the most frequent user segments. Um, and that helps me brainstorm easily during interviews. Um, on the supply side, I'm thinking like the most common ones on the street is like the public street spots, right? So that's usually owned by governments. And, and on the least, more or less frequent side, we have the private aspects, right? We have malls that only exist, like maybe just one or two malls in in a city, um, depending on city size. So we have that, and also private spots, like parking lots that are owned by private owners or private businesses. Um, the fourth one, um, I believe there's a lot of them, but it's spot owners where, um, I own, for example, an apartment condo, um, and I own a spot in a parking lot, right? That's, that's another opportunity, um, for as, as a parking space providers. Um, in that space, we can also think about maybe a plaza that has like restaurants, and then the restaurants' extra spots, extra spots there, right? Um, that can also be an avenue for the restaurant to provide parking spots for people.
Interesting. These are all the supply sides. So on the demand side, we have drivers looking to park. There's on the high urgency side, where people are looking for, um, a spot for a short term, let's say when they're going on a last-minute dinner date, or looking to shop, or looking to, uh, meet a client immediately. Then we have on the other side, like super long-term parking, where I know, uh, ahead of time that I'm switching to a new job, and there's not much parking space, I need a long-term parking solution there. And then in the middle, um, it could be someone like me, who's a renter, looking for a long-term parking spot for one year or two years, um, because the apartment complex or wherever I'm renting doesn't have, doesn't provide a parking spot. That's, I'm thinking about a demand side.
Which would you prioritize?
That's a good question. Um, yes, um, before prioritizing, I want to write out sort of the criteria that I use to prioritize. Um, I would anchor on reach, you know, sort of that market size, frequency of use, and, um, underserved population. But in this case, we wouldn't call parking space providers population, maybe just underserved, uh, users. Um, in interest of time, I, you know, during the interview, I wouldn't, uh, create like a table, it takes a little bit of time. So here, I'll just, like, quickly type the ranking next to them.
Okay, sure. Yeah, take a second.
Yeah, thank you. Something I just want to quickly elaborate, um, is that we again, we need a healthy ecosystem for this to work because if you have a healthy amount of supply, then the demand side can find your parking spots, right? But if you don't, then we, we still reach this, uh, sort of economical problem of finding a spot, and that doesn't serve, uh, Google Maps at all. So I want to make sure that, uh, we address both sides. And oftentimes, we want to jumpstart, sort of that supply side to make sure that, um, people looking for a spot can actually find a spot. That's why I might put a little bit more focus on the supply side as well.
Okay, that makes sense. Cool. Um, let me explain a bit. In interest of time, I would just focus on the ones that I, uh, ranked highly, and then if you have more questions, we can, I can help justify the other ones as well. Okay. For, so for the parking space providers, um, I highlighted, uh, spot owners, um, because, you know, compared to public street parkings, right, they have fewer, um, reach, but still a decent amount, that's not addressed today, which is, uh, where I rank as extra large. You know, they are underserved. I don't believe there's existing solutions for spot owners to broadcast or advertise their spots. Um, in terms of frequency of use, what, what I mean is that how, um, frequent is the spot available? And for spot owners, maybe like, again, like an apartment complex condo owner or a business owner, their spots are not always taken, right? Maybe they go out on vacation, maybe they go out, um, working, or they're just extra spots laying there. So I would say, like, it's not the largest, it's not the smallest, it's medium. Um, so that's why I'm highlighting this. Um, on the demand side, right, um, I think the highest, most obvious one is short-term parking. People who are, um, constantly, there's a lot of people, so the reach is high, who are looking for last-minute parking solutions. And then frequency of use is high too. I think even within the night, if you're driving, you could be, um, looking for a parking spot twice, if you're going from point A to point B and point B to point C. Lastly, um, the reason why I rank them as underserved user as medium is because, um, today, people are still able to find parking spots with, um, you know, I believe there are existing apps that show like general parking availability. I believe, like, even on the payments that we have to pay by phone as an app to, uh, address that. So, um, that's a medium there.
And I'm curious, between spot owners and government, back to the supply, we are seeing large and large for region frequency of use. Yeah, so I guess why did we prioritize number four over number one? Was the main?
Yeah, that's a hard one. Um, so frankly, yes, it has high reach, it has high frequency of views today, um, on a public spots perspective, but I think the thing to highlight is that, right, again, it has, it's, it's this base is already sort of, um, overserved. That's why it's put, put as S, right? That people can easily find the spots out there. And this is owned by government, it's a little bit hard to, um, address that space.
I see. And when you say it's already served, I guess in that case, people are still struggling to find spots. The government ones, they are available, right? So I'm addressing of the supply side, basically, right? Um, because, um, they don't have a problem opening up a spot, I guess. Oh, I see. A lot of them there. I see. Okay. There's already a lot of existing out there. Okay.
Let's keep going. Cool. All right. So after sort of prioritizing these two, as I mentioned, I would, my focus on the supply side a little bit more to sort of jumpstart this, um, ecosystem. So, um, I'm going to focus on the spot owners, but also keep the short-term parkers in mind as I'm going through. Um, so next up is, uh, user journey and pain points. Um, let me take a moment to, uh, think about that, jot that down, and, uh, demonstrate sort of that user journey and the pain points within that. So, um, again, even for user journey and pain points, I also want to mention, uh, it's important to have the criteria down so we know what to prioritize. Um, from a user P, user journey perspective, um, if we think about a spot owner, first of all, usually they, if, if I'm a private spot owner, it's like someone who owns an apartment complex with a parking spot. Usually, I work, maybe go on vacation, um, and then I notice that I have, um, unutilized spots. Sorry, let me type this down. Unutilized spots, um, and I'm not, I might not be sure whether, uh, this is something I can monetize, right? So there's an awareness or uncertainty part. And next up, I want to be able to share and promote, uh, these empty spots, and also set up pricing because again, there's a bunch of uncertainty in terms of how this might work. Um, if I were to be in an apartment complex, there's also access issue, right? People need to enter their parking spot, parking lot, and, you know, I want to make sure that I can monitor the space to make sure that the person parking is, um, you know, isn't, I guess, trashing the spot in an urban city, or making sure that they are driving the car away, um, so when I return from my vacation or my job, I have my spots ready. Um, cool. And then I want to make sure that I can collect payment, um, right, to monetize this. That's why I'm do, um, incentivized to do this thing. And then finally, um, collect reviews and make sure that just recurring parkers are coming back, so this becomes a long, long-term avenue of revenue, basically. Um, this, this also applies to, um, spot owners who, let's say, even own a business, because at the same time, I want, I want to make sure that these apply as well.
Mmm. Yeah, I guess I'm curious, for the first user journey, they leave from work. I think what, what do you think would motivate people to be like, aha, I could monetize this extra spot?
Trying to, I think the motivation may be, especially in the urban city area where like housing prices is high, people are paying mortgage. It's, it's cool, it's good to know that they have like another avenue, um, of, uh, sort of offsetting their mortgage, for example. And from a small business perspective, um, yeah, I think from a business perspective, they just want to increase revenue, right? So this is another reason why, you know, they, if they have unutilized spots and they can monetize it, there's, there's motivation there.
That's a good point. Yeah, when I was living in San Francisco, I did have a garage, didn't have a car, so it was just empty there. And knowing people are paying $500 per month for garage space.
Yes, absolutely. And even if you have a car, right, it's not always utilized. That empty spot, if you're driving out during the day. So, fa.
Cool. All right. So, for the pain points, um, when people are leaving for work, right, again, they have, as you mentioned, just now, they have no idea that they can rent out a spot and get income. So I think it's a high awareness thing, um, for them to understand that there's an avenue for them to utilize the spot and monetize. Um, and then the second thing is that, um, if they are aware already, there's a desire to reach more people to again, maximize that, uh, income revenue potential. Third, um, in terms of pricing, people aren't sure how much to charge, right? If you charge too much, no one's going to come park. If you charge little, you're missing out on monetization opportunity. Moving on to access and sort of monitoring, I think there's a lot of trust issues here, right? You're in an apartment, uh, garage, or you have your own parking spot that you own. You don't want people again to go trash them or not leave the spot, and, um, you don't want strangers that have strangers who, um, might have mal-intentions to be, uh, you know, doing harm to your property. So there's some security and sort of access type of pain points there as well. Moving on, um, right, in without, without a payment solution, right, how does one handle payment? Do you do like a private Venmo-ing? Do you exchange cash? So there's uncertainty on how to handle the payment as well. Finally, right, once this is set up, you want to make sure that people come back again and again, and, um, have to make sure that people love the spots you're providing. Maybe it's a spot that's big enough for the type of cars they have, for example. So building that trust is important.
Awesome. So these are the pain points. And I took some time, um, to rank them, and I just want to highlight the, the few that I, uh, believe has sort of the higher, highest pain point in terms of severity of pain and no existing solution today.
Okay. When you say severity of pain, explain that to me a bit.
It's, it's a little bit, frankly, subjective, right? It's like how painful it is for, um, these parking providers today.
I see. Okay. Um, in terms of no existing solution, um, right, that's the opportunity space where Google can come, um, address, right? If there's no existing solution, that means user satisfaction, user satisfaction isn't being addressed today.
Okay, okay. So, yeah, these are the ones I highlighted. Um, maybe justification why I highlighted them is again, I guess for awareness, people may or may not want to earn income, but I would say like it's in the middle, that's why it's a medium. Um, right, because if someone owns an apartment and they have enough money, perhaps they don't care whether they have this small extra stream of income. In terms of existing solution today, I don't think there's any, uh, for private spot owners, that's why I rank medium. And large for pay, how to handle payment. I think this payment side is a huge trust issue, right? When we talk about money, so severity of pain is really high. And if there's any existing solution, yes, you can have offline demoing, Zelling, or cash exchange, but, so there's some existing solution, but it's not like they're the best. So I rank a medium, for example. Oh, and I missed this one. So, uh, I want to make sure I can get my spots back. If I'm a spot owner, I want to make sure I can come back, have my spots ready for the next person, or have my own car, uh, be able to park there when it's available. And this is like one of the highest pain, and also there's no existing solution as well.
Cool. I guess that one is especially pertinent for the short-term parking, right?
Right. And that also addresses that, uh, sort of demand side as well.
Okay. So, what might we build? And feel free to spend some time on the solution side. Let me. So before I brainstorm, what I like to do normally is to go back to our goals on the top, so making sure solutions, uh, address that goals as well as the pain points we just identified. So let me take a moment, type that down, and brainstorm.
Okay, alrighty. So, in terms of goals, Google wants to build a parking solution for urban parking spot owners and short-term parking seekers to increase Google Maps' utility value and engagement. So here, I'm addressing both the user side we prioritized, as well as the goal we talked about up there. And the pains to address, um, the three pains we were addressing are the ones I highlighted, which is awareness, right, letting people know that there's an additional income stream. Trust, making sure that people trust that they can get their back, uh, parking spots back, uh, for the next customers or for themselves to use. And finally, to handle payment, right, to make sure this transaction actually goes through, and there's again, trust in that, um, process. Okay, clear. So, yeah, the three solutions I came up with, um, I'll just go high level first before diving down. Level is to utilize existing Google Maps for the parking spots owners to indicate that there's a parking spot, show them the setup flow, right, entering how many spots they have, what the address is, um, how big, maybe the XYZ dimension of the parking spots, um, and then on the demand side, right, we can have people switch the view when they're driving, off the Google Maps to look for those spots and look at the pricing, and making sure that both sides work. Um, the details here is that how do we address, um, whether a user can get their spots back or not? So my suggestion here is to take pictures, um, for drivers and owners to show their spots or show that their cars have left the space, um, to make sure that we build trust there. And then they, uh, can address that payment aspects, right? We enter the credit card information or bank account information, and then making sure that transaction happens ahead of time. H. Um, the next one is heat map. This is just to show, um, you know, what area has the highest supply and demand, um, to help match, sort of, uh, drivers seeking for parking spots and owners trying to rent out their spots. Um, the idea here is also, like, over time, we can build a, um, rating or trust profile for the spot owners, sort of like those small, medium-sized businesses or restaurants that they have, like ratings and reviews. And this allows us to better match, um, and also highlight areas where there's like highly trusted parking spots for the drivers. Um, and finally, I think, you know, Google has this moat and also, um, owning several hardware in their ecosystem, just Google Nest cameras. I think we can utilize the camera to capture empty spots and license plates to again address that trust, um, and maybe Google has its own, you know, R&D department that can think about some blue sky solution to create, I see that maybe it's not a camera, but can identify whether a car is there or not. Even, even more wild, like a motorized platform in a garage that helps maximize empty space, provides end-to-end payment when a driver is entering, and also trust, right? Because we're managing that motorized platform within a parking garage, for example. So the third solution I thought of is, um, you know, utilizing Google's hardware moat. Google has, has their Nest cameras, has their IoT products, and I think, for example, the Nest cameras can help, um, the spot owners address, sort of, the trust issue that we identified, right? We can now know whether a, uh, parking parker, basically, are they driving their cars away? Have they parked their cars? What is their license plate? To increase that, right? If they're, um, trashing the spot or not leaving the spots, we have the license plate, we tie the parkers to the payment system, now we can make sure that there's sort of a type of insurance, making sure that they leave the spot. You would charge it more or provide a, you know, get a penalty, basically, to compensate the, the supply side. Yeah, I'm kidding. Yeah, basically. And then another little bit bigger idea is to just for Google to create a completely new hardware product to help detect the car. Doesn't have to be like the Nest cameras, maybe it's, um, overpowered for its use case, maybe we just need an proximity sensor, sensor, perhaps like a, um, NFC for people to pay on the spot, if that's not tied to the Google Pay system. So, yeah, basically, this is a hardware play solution. All of these three solutions, right, the way I would prioritize them is with the criteria of, just high level, like impact and effort. But in terms of impact, I want to make sure that the impact is related to what our goal is, which again, is increase the utility or even engagement of Google Maps app. And that's how I would do them. Um, if, if, okay, I can take some time to like, sort of rate criteria quickly.
Yeah, yeah. So, based on the criteria of impact and effort, and again, impact is engagement or, um, value provided in terms of parking solutions, um, the one that I'm prioritizing is the Google Maps, uh, parking indication solution, sort of that, versus like heat map or hardware play. Right? For example, hardware play probably requires a lot of effort for us to rent our hardware equipment or even build new hardware from the ground up. Heat map, I think it's a small impact and small effort because, in terms of effort, right, we already have a map out there, we have the infrastructure for people to reviews and all. We need to do is to show how, populate, how populate, how popular it is for someone to indicate that they're renting out a car, a parking spot, or how popular it is for someone to be looking, uh, for a spot. So the heat map solution is quite simple, but, and I, I don't think the impact is as high as a sort of brand new solution as number one.
Awesome. So let's beef up number one a bit more. So I get on the driver side, that seems pretty straightforward. For the parking owner side, what is the MVP for the user flow you're thinking? How do we get started?
Yeah, um, first of all, it's, I think we need to start maybe from a smaller region that's like an urban city, maybe a localized solution versus like launching this around the world. So let's take San Francisco, for example. Maybe Google can, well, Google knows where the user is, right? Based on their Google Maps data. If I know that these people are based in San Francisco, I can target them and first have a notification showing that, hey, here's a beta idea for you to potentially monetize your spots if you have a parking spot. If you're interested, let's opt in, right? So we address that awareness issue, sort of educating them through a first-time user experience.
How would they know who to target? Is it just all everyone in San Francisco?
That's a good question. I wonder. So, there's a few ideas, right? One is, if, if I'm a recent Google user, um, I have my Google Home setup at home, and it knows exactly my address and probably has as to whether this area has like parking spots or not, based on whether maybe Google View, if it's like an outdoor one, or Google reviews of the apartment complex, then they know there's a parking garage already. So the data there, Google would have more confidence in terms of who might be a parking spot owner. Okay. Now, we don't have to go that route either. We can just broadcast it to entire San Francisco and have people, they want one time or two, two times, a little bit of a user distraction, but hey, this is a new product, we're not launching to the whole world yet.
Okay, okay. So we have the awareness part down. Once people opt in, the spot owner, um, might have need, might need to go through a first-time setup flow, basically entering the XY dimension of their parking spot and also the Z height of, let's say, the maximum height the garage can take, right? That's important information for parkers looking to park. How much they want to charge, potentially, or even, right, their payment information, like the bank account information, so they can get paid. And of course, importantly, when the spot might be available, right? We can indicate like Monday to Friday, the spot is always recurring available between 9 AM to 5 PM because the owner drives out to work. And then if there's any sort of access criteria, like whether they need a specific code to enter a parking garage, be one thing too. For my garage, it uses a QR code, so perhaps like we can scramble and generate a new QR code every time, if that's the access need. And then, once that's set up, you can have drivers and drivers coming in to park their spots. I think the important thing is to set up a process for them to show that, hey, the parking spot is, uh, being taken out by this car, so Google can use Google Lens or have users upload those photos into this system for for this transaction to work. Um, um, yeah, and then lastly, it's just Google Pay, making sure that the payment system works.
H. Yeah, I do think here, to make it more automated, the camera stuff you're talking about at the bottom probably needs to be incorporated because people having to take a photo of, like, what would they take a photo of? Them not being in the spot? It's like, okay, it's free now. So yeah, how do you think about number one and three?
So, in terms of MVP, I think number one would be fine if you trust users to use their phone. If it's the parking spot owner, they use their phone to take a photo of the parking spot, right, to show people, hey, this is a clean parking spot, it's big enough, for example. Um, for the driver, though, they are, uh, maybe taking the photos for the first time of the car they're parking in that spot, so it shows that I parked my car, this is my parking, uh, this is my car's driver license, and perhaps when they leave, this is a photo of what that spot looks like empty, I guess, so you're not damaging the spot, right? For example.
I see. Okay, that's the MVP. The hardware play would be like, over time, right? If we show that the MVP works, then we can start renting out, either Nest cameras, developing hardware, um, to make this user experience better. As you hear, just now, that user experience is a little bit iffy. I see. Goes into sort of that dispute pipeline, that maybe Airbnb has, for example. And you have the payment information, so if there's any damage, you can, like, again, serve penalties on top of that. A lot of these, if you're talking about an apartment complex, I would imagine there's cameras already installed. So if there is some disputes, you can actually check through the tape.
And absolutely infrastructure.
Awesome. All right, good work. Let's end it there. Good work.
So I want to talk through some of the strengths and some of the opportunities in Austin's answer. This is a great answer to this common question that's asked at top tech companies like Google, Facebook. So let's start with the strengths. So one, I think this really stood out. The first thing was just a solution that you came up with was very novel. It's taking into consideration the, what do we call this, the sharing economy, right? But with parking, sharing economy. Yeah, this is pretty new, right? And that is applying that concept, which I think is a really creative solution. So was served well. And his solutions part, he had a combination of this is the more practical one, and then the last one with the hardware play is the more beefed-up moonshot version. So in a lot of these answers, they want to see a PM can be able to think of both something that you can implement quickly, and those that are more long-term that could take three to five years. Awesome job there. The second big strength, which I think inspired this idea that then when I've asked this question before, people didn't come to, was the user segments. So identifying this extra one of spot owners was very unique that then led Austin to be able to get to the solution and the pain points that most people didn't get. Most people will stop at one, two, and three. So I think this was another area where Austin stood out here.
All right, let's talk about opportunities. So also, two opportunities I would pinpoint here in the user journey pain point section. So here he did a great job of calling out the user journey. Here, this is contentious, but I usually say try to think of pain points that create pain versus needs. So I would have loved to hear some of these needs, like desire to reach more people, as to how do I frame that in what's painful today, what's the obstacle? For example, an example where he did that well is, I'm unsure how to charge, so that sounds like a pain point. So again, not a deal breaker at all, but something I would have liked to see.
Yes, that's something I, like, struggle with, um, I believe. And sometimes I think about it as, in the past, I think about it as psychological needs, which is like the emotional needs, and also functional needs. But I realized if I can truly empathize with the pain, then that, you know, helps us come up with better solutions as well.
So, yeah, things of a good point. I always say, at the end of the day, if you feel the emotional pain and frustration, is when you, when it really clicks that, oh, now I'm motivated to solve this. And that's why we always talk about user empathy. So the second opportunity area, and the last one, is around prioritization itself. So if we look at maybe the pain points area, we have the different medium, low. So Austin did a great job of calling out the criteria. You always want to call out the criteria first to show that you're data-driven, think thinker. But maybe us walking us through why something was medium, large, because at the end of the day, you really have to convince the interviewer on why there's no existing solution by providing some examples of subpar solutions, or that there really is none. So in this case, for example, there actually were some competing solutions here. And maybe even if the interviewer doesn't know of it, um, I think the interviewer might jump in. And this is where you might have to consider, okay, I've seen similar solutions. So I would say, be careful in the prioritization portion in providing strong rationale and being open to be proven wrong. And this is the area where most people, uh, where the interviewer interjects the most. So I would practice this section. But overall, great job, and no surprise that Austin got the offer at Meta.
Austin, any last tips for the rest of the folks still striving to beat the interviews?
Yes, um, two things. Lots of practice, of course. Keep mocking. There's many platforms to do that. You can mock with your friends and so forth, and through this, you can meet new people as well. The second thing that really, really helped me is watch through every single Diana's video, type down the notes, really just type down notes as detailed as possible. And then open ChatGPT, just use ChatGPT, prompted to say, like, this is what I'm trying to do. I'm a product manager practicing for interview, and dump into the notes section by section and summarize, seeing what, you know, logic Diana uses to go through her interviews with multiple of them. It, I, I end up having a really good framework that guides me through. So for each interview, I just make sure that I go through that framework, um, and understand why Diana uses these framework, uh, for that.
Is so impressed. Wait, so you dumped in the notes from the videos into ChatGPT, and then how did you use it? And then what did they?
It takes some time to prompt it back and forth. Um, so, for example, for a product sense, I could just, I just want to focus on how do I use a segment better. So you can just tell ChatGPT, like, hey, I want to practice segmenting users better. Here's the prompt, here's how Diana segments the user, and here's the why she segments these, and you give multiple examples, and now ask it to, hey, come up with a general structure on how I see, how to how to segment users and how to think about that.
Is a great tip. You can build the Diana chatbot. I thought about it. But basically, hey, this cannot be done if there wasn't great initial data, and that those came from your great, uh, YouTube videos.
I'm so happy to hear that. And again, so huge congrats on getting the offer. Since then, Austin has moved to San Francisco. B. So I hope you're enjoying the job. And for others who are still like, Austin mentioned, lots of practice, watching lots of videos. If you guys want to watch another video on product sense, take a look at this video where we have another folk, someone else that got an offer at Meta, going through product sense, answering the question, what would you build in the travel space? All right, and I'll see you guys later. Thank you, Austin. Bye.