What's Your Favorite Product?
What is your favorite product, and why?
This is one of the most classic product management questions, and it’s one that you should already have a rehearsed answer to.
Pick a product you actually use. I also generally try to pick a product that isn’t completely dominant in the market, and that reflects my interests (e.g. Foursquare, Lyft, etc.). What makes the product great? Why do you use it over its competitors? How is this product’s future roadmap going to change the future of the industry?
The most common follow up to this question, and one you should also prepare, is “What is the product lacking, and how would you improve it?” For this question, imagine you’re the PM of the product. How could the user experience or user interface be improved? How could this product engage more, or expand to a new customer segment? How would you adjust the product’s 10-year vision?
Is this a product you actually use? If not, the interviewer will be able to tell.
Why do you use this product over its competitors? Do you know of the product’s major competitors?
Why do you think this product will change its industry? What can other products learn from its success?
Approach
Pick a product that you love and think of compelling reasons that it's so great. Do the research and understand its competitors. One of the most critical aspects to a successful answer is passion - show that you legitimately love this product, and explain why you think it's so amazing. Below is a simple answer to this question as an example.
What product do I love?
The NYT Crossword app is an amazing product. Playing crosswords in the digital age thus far has been a major issue due to the cramped format of a crossword on a mobile device. The NYT Crossword app makes it seamless and fun to play crossword puzzles on the phone. Furthermore, the app brings in fresh content daily, has statistics for game speed rates, and is often an educational experience.
The mini-crosswords are brief and simple and released on a daily basis. This leads to a healthy habit formation, encouraging users to play puzzles on the daily. There's potential here for the NYT Crossword app to expand to become a general puzzle platform, by sourcing high-quality puzzles from a variety of authors and artists. Eventually, the NYT Crossword app could be the premier daily puzzle platform on smartphones, a currently undominated space.
What is the product lacking, and how would you improve it?
That said, the NYT app could expand more in terms of new types of content. While I go to the NYT crossword app on a daily basis, I usually interact with it for two minutes, and am done. The app could do a better job of filling up my idle time by offering other puzzles outside of the usual crossword. An example for inspiration is the place where crossword puzzles originated—the newspaper puzzle section. The app could include cryptograms, jumbles, and even some comics.
Another area for improvement is around social features. When I play the crossword puzzles, it’s usually in isolation. It would be an awesome experience to share my scores and compete with others in my social graph via the app. The NYT Crossword app could leverage existing social network logins like Facebook authentication, but this might be a conflict of interest for the NYT. Another approach could be to have an internal social system in the application. One advantage of including social features could be increased sharing and customer acquisition online.
Clarify
"What do you mean by favorite product? Are you thinking specifically hardware, software, or a feature within those, or something non-electronic? Dealer's Choice.
"Are you asking why I love this product, or to explain why this product is a market leader independent of how i feel about it? Talk about why YOU love this product.
Rephrase Question
With all that in mind, i want to rephrase the question. "What is your favorite software product and what features in this product do you use that make it your favorite?
Approach
1 <take 60 seconds to gather thoughts>
2 Favorite Product
One of my favorite products that I use almost daily is JEFit. JEFit is a workout tracker on both mobile and desktop that allows users to create, track, and record weightlifting and cardio exercise sessions. JEFit also has a social component. As part of their profile, users can track body measurements, share progress photos, and share the workouts they created.
3 Top features in Product
Any questions so far?
4 Measurable ways it's improved my life
5 Improvements to JEFit