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'How will you build a gaming community for a Zero to One Product like Frontrow?'
'How will you build a gaming community for a Zero to One Product like Frontrow?'
Published in June 2021
Greetings, everyone! Welcome to an exciting blog where I share my journey of securing a Product Role at Frontrow, a remarkable online learning platform with a funding of $17M. In this blog, I'll delve into the final round assignment for the internship, focusing on the intriguing challenge of building a gaming community from scratch. Join me as I share my experience and insights that ultimately led to my success.
In the summer of 2021, as a Civil Engineering student who wasn't inclined towards coding, I decided to explore the world of product roles. With a genuine curiosity and a passion for learning, I shoot emails to various product managers and founders (Fortunately received many reverts from multiple startups and companies, blog on email writing some other day).
Frontrow, an innovative platform for creative arts, hobbies, and sports, was one of the first companies that responded. They presented me with an assignment, which I completed and eventually received an interview call which turned into an offer later. Although I declined the offer due to personal reasons, the entire experience proved to be invaluable.
I approached the interview without overcomplicating it as a product interview, relying instead on common sense and business acumen, the reason being: till then I was honestly not sure about what a product role actually is. Many aspiring product managers struggle to find the perfect structure or framework for their answers, but the key lies in developing one's own unique thinking style and refining it through observation and iteration until you yourself feel confident enough to sound like a PM.
Without further ado, let's dive into the assignment itself, which is often a crucial step in the hiring process for product or consulting roles. Properly documenting your thoughts is essential, and my personal rule is to ensure readability and storytelling qualities. To keep a check on this, keep asking yourself - Is it in sync? means is it easy to read or does it sound like a story that I can listen for long or not? Iterate it till you are not satisfied. Iteration is key until you're satisfied. The assignment revolved around scaling a gaming community from 100 daily active users to an impressive 10,000, with a strong emphasis on retention. The user background consisted of beginners eager to improve their gaming skills. The questions required a step-by-step process, envisioning a healthy learning community, identifying user segments, and proposing engagement ideas and product features for each segment.
The Assignment Questions were -
Let's say you're leading the Gaming community in the 0 to 1 phase. Here are the questions you need to answer-
How will you scale it from 100 daily active users to 10K daily active users, while focusing more on retention? Please mention a step-by-step process to do so. User background: Currently 100 daily active users are beginners who are not very good at Gaming but want to improve
What will a healthy hobby learning community look like on a scale of 10K daily active users?
What are the different types of users you believe will exist in the community and why?
How will you serve each of those segments? (Think of engagement ideas and product features)
This is the actual assignment I submitted which landed me the final interview and role at Frontrow -
I'd like to share the actual assignment that propelled me to the final interview and ultimately secured my role at Frontrow. Although I didn't follow a specific framework, I approached it as a conversational story, aimed at capturing the reader's attention and leaving a lasting impression. To add credibility, I incorporated numbers and case studies to support my hypotheses, showcasing my dedication to user research. While I regretted not focusing on design and representation in this particular document, I emphasize the importance of creating a visually appealing piece with colourful graphs and images. Remember, content matters most, and it's crucial to refine your case study until it includes at least one standout point that elicits a "WOW" reaction from both you and the reader. Seeking feedback from peers and industry professionals is highly beneficial, as it helps identify blind spots that we may overlook due to subconscious biases.
You can go through the above assignment to see how I have answered, the outline being:
No Particular framework has been followed but one - It is a story, and it sounds like I am in conversation with the reader (Psychological Reason to use such language to keep the reader hooked, also the reader will remind you after going through multiple similar assignments. WHY? Because your document was not just any document but a person talking to the reader).
Numbers & Figures - All case studies, assignments or even any general conversation among friends make sense only when numbers are attached to support the hypothesis, It gives a sense of authenticity to the content as well as shows the tester that you had been dedicated enough to conduct user research for a mere assignment - Brownie Points.
Design and Representation - I ignored the design and representation in this document, don't make this mistake, that's the very important part, a colourful (not forced flowers etc) document with graphs and images is more readable and more expressive to the reader.
Content Matters - You need to keep working on your case study or assignment till when you are getting at least one point that makes you or the reader go - WOW!
Ask for feedback from your peers and people in similar industries - It helps great. We always do bias in favour of our content subconsciously, hence a third reader's point of view can highlight those points which you might have missed.
Interview Question -
Scaling Monthly Sales In addition to the assignment, I faced a similar case study in the interview. This time, the task was to devise a strategy as a Growth PM at Grofers to scale monthly sales from $0 to an impressive $500k, focusing on opening the first Grofer Store in a Tier 2 city with allocated funds. The experience of tackling this challenge was invigorating and pushed me to think creatively.
Give this topic a try on your own!
To all aspiring product managers out there, The journey to securing a product role is unique for each individual. By sharing my experience, insights, and the strategies that worked for me, I hope to inspire and guide you in my capacity. I will try to constantly post on this blog.
Good luck on your path to becoming an exceptional product manager!
Thanks for reading.
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