How Would You Grow Spotify By 20%? Product Strategy Question | PM Interview
1. Clarifying Questions
1. Could you clarify what you mean by “grow Spotify”? Are you referring to increasing the number of users, engagement, subscribers, or revenue?
Interviewer-You decide.
2. What is the time frame within which you would like to see a 20% growth in Spotify? Is it a quarterly, or annual goal?
Interviewer- Annual Goal
3. Are there any specific regions or markets where you would like to see this growth, or is it a global goal?
Interviewer-Global goal
4. Are there any constraints or limitations that need to be considered in achieving this growth goal, such as budget, resources, or regulatory constraints?
Interviewer-No
2. Overview
Alright!! I would like to give you an overview of how I am going to proceed as follows-
1. Before developing any strategies, it’s important to have a clear understanding of what Spotify does, who its target audience is, and why users choose it over other music streaming services.
2. Once the product is defined, we will set goal of achieving a 20% growth rate. This goal will be aligned with the company’s overall mission and values.
3. To achieve the growth goal, we will identify various strategies that can be implemented to increase Spotify’s user base, revenue, and engagement.
4. After developing the strategies, we will evaluate them based on various criteria
5. No growth strategy is perfect, and there may be some trade-offs that need to be considered.
6. To track progress towards the growth goal, we will define success metrics that are aligned with the company’s overall mission and values.
7. Finally, I will summarize the proposed growth plan
3. Describe Spotify
Spotify is a music streaming platform that offers on-demand access to millions of songs, podcasts, and audiobooks. It provides users with a personalized listening experience that adapts to their preferences and listening habits. Spotify’s primary objective is to provide users with easy access to high-quality audio content, while also supporting artists and creators by paying them for their work. Spotify’s primary target audience is music lovers and audio enthusiasts who enjoy listening to music and other audio content on the go.
Spotify has expertise in music streaming technology, data analytics, etc. It has also built strong partnerships with major music labels and media companies, which has helped it to build a vast music library and attract a large user base. Spotify faces intense competition from other music streaming services, such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music.
4. Business Goal/Objective
To determine the metrics that should be focused on for Spotify’s growth, it’s important to consider the company’s mission and product life cycle.
With Spotify’s mission of enabling creative artists to thrive and inspiring billions of fans, and product life cycle is at mature stage, it’s important to consider metrics related to user engagement. This means that growth strategies may need to focus on expanding the user base by enhancing user engagement and increasing revenue would be the by-product of it.
So finally our goal is to grow user engagement by 20% in Spotify in the next one year for worldwide users. Is this fine?
Interviewer-Yes
5. List down Strategies
Here are some creative and advanced strategies that could potentially increase user engagement in Spotify by 20%:
1. Personalized Recommendations: Improve the accuracy of personalized recommendations for users by leveraging machine learning algorithms to analyse listening patterns, search queries, and user behaviour. This could help increase user satisfaction and drive repeat usage.
2. Social Features: Enhance social features on the platform, such as the ability to share playlists, follow friends, and discover new music through social connections. This could increase user engagement by creating a sense of community around the platform.
3. Gamification: Introduce gamification elements to the platform, such as leaderboards, badges, and challenges. This could increase user engagement by adding an element of competition and incentivizing users to spend more time on the platform.
4. Exclusive Content: Offer exclusive content, such as live performances, behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with artists. This could help differentiate the platform from competitors and drive user engagement.
5. Improved user interface: Enhance the user interface to make it more intuitive and user-friendly. This could increase user satisfaction and encourage users to spend more time on the platform.
6. Voice assistants: Integrate with voice assistants, such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, to allow users to control the platform through voice commands. This could make the platform more accessible and convenient, increasing user engagement.
7. Collaborations with influencers: Partner with social media influencers or celebrities to promote the platform and increase user engagement. This could help reach a wider audience and create buzz around the platform.
8. Podcast Summary Option: Upon concluding the podcast, the audience has the option to obtain a PDF summary of the content for future reference. So the next time users don’t need to come and listen the whole long podcast again.
9. Inclusion of Q&A Feature: After listening to the Podcast, if user is having any doubts or queries or feedback, they can ask there which the content creator can subsequently address.
10. Rating Capability: Upon completion of a podcast, users can rate the content, allowing future listeners to gain insight into its quality before engaging, optimizing their time and enhancing their listening experience.
Overall, these strategies could help increase user engagement in Spotify by 20% over the next one year by offering a more personalized, social, and engaging experience on the platform.
6. Evaluate Strategies
To effectively prioritize solutions, we will utilize the RICE framework for evaluation. This framework involves assigning numerical values of High (5), Medium (3), or Low (2) to each of the Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort metrics.
Following our evaluation, we have identified the top priority strategies to be 1, 2, 5, 6, and 10. We would appreciate your feedback on whether these align with your expectations, or if you have any additional strategies that you would like to suggest for consideration?
Interviewer- No. That’s fine.
7. Trade-offs
Implementing the aforementioned five strategies may present us with several trade-offs. Let me highlight the top three significant ones.
1. While personalized recommendations can increase user satisfaction and drive repeat usage, there may be privacy concerns associated with the use of machine learning algorithms to analyze user data.
2. Integrating with voice assistants can make the platform more accessible and convenient, but it may also require significant resources and effort to develop and integrate the necessary technology.
3. Allowing users to rate content can provide valuable feedback and enhance the listening experience, but it may also lead to biased or inaccurate ratings and may not be relevant or useful for all users.
8. Success Metrics
Here is some potential success metrics for each of these strategies could include:
Primary success metrics:
- Increase in the number of songs listened to per session
- Increase in the number of playlists shared by users
- Decrease in the time it takes for users to complete a task
- Increase in user satisfaction with the voice assistant integration
- Increase in the average rating of podcasts
Secondary success metrics:
- Increase in the number of users who discover new music through social connections
- Decrease in the number of clicks it takes for users to perform a task
- Increase in the number of tasks completed by voice commands
- Increase in the number of users who listen to a podcast after reading reviews
9. Summary
At this stage, I would like to present a comprehensive summary of the strategies that have been identified to achieve our goal of increasing user engagement on Spotify by 20% for worldwide users within the next one year. I have highlighted five strategies that will be implemented, the trade-offs that need to be considered, and the success metrics that will be used to track progress towards the growth goal.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this analysis. I value your feedback and would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this topic. Please feel free to share your insights in the comments section below. For more insights on product management, I encourage all aspiring PMs to follow me, as I will be regularly sharing my learnings here. Also you can read the Product Design, Improve, root cause analysis , Metric question and PM question framework post here.
You can connect with me via LinkedIn and email-rahul.sikder3@gmail.com
