00:00you're the pm for facebook lite how
00:06hey everyone uh we're here today to do
00:10exponent mock interview we're going to
00:12be doing a product management interview
00:15um abed first can you just introduce
00:17yourself for everyone
00:18hey thank you for having me um so my
00:20name is albert i'm an incoming product
00:24i was actually a client of exponent and
00:26it was really helpful for me
00:28before that i was at kareem karim is a
00:32ride-hailing and the super app of the
00:34and it was acquired by uber i think last
00:38and before that i worked on different
00:39startups in different industries
00:42in the middle east region awesome well
00:44we're super excited to have you all bet
00:46it's so cool to hear that exponent has
00:47worked well for you for those of you
00:49watching if you want to learn more about
00:52coaching and community you can go to try
00:55um now i want to jump into this facebook
00:59interview we're going to be doing an
01:00execution style interview so it's going
01:02to be focused more on analytical type
01:04uh things like that and abed should be a
01:06pro given that he just went through
01:07the interview process um and so the
01:10question that i'd like to ask you today
01:12about is you're the pm for facebook lite
01:14how would you set goals
01:17facebook lite great um
01:21so just a couple of like
01:24confirmations and questions that i would
01:27like to to kind of like um
01:29um check with you so facebook lite
01:32is basically the light version of
01:36it's catered to like developing
01:39countries people with
01:41um less powerful phones and
01:44like in terms of limited connectivity
01:46whether on the speed or the download
01:48is that correct yes that's exactly right
01:52to help people of all bandwidth access
01:56in the experiences and i think my my
01:59other question is that
02:00um i'm going to set the goals for
02:03today not assuming that i'm going back
02:06in time with facebook launched like
02:08is that correct that's right yeah we're
02:10focusing looking forward for the goals
02:12um how would we set up the goals but not
02:14backwards cool cool cool um so just give
02:17me a second to kind of
02:19um articulate the mission um if that's
02:22that sounds great um and in the meantime
02:24for those of you watching
02:25please do like and subscribe if you like
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02:50great so the the mission uh for facebook
02:54um give the people to the tools to um to
02:58connect and kind of like bring the word
03:03and my understanding or the way i see
03:07is at the code of that mission because
03:10if you think about it facebook light is
03:13the people who are kind of like in
03:16slightly underprivileged
03:17circumstances and i think um facebook
03:20being a champion for
03:22um inclusivity um and just ensuring that
03:26everyone is served with
03:27that service uh is is
03:30being kind of like the code of the
03:32mission and facebook being true to this
03:35i think it's it's a it's uh one of the
03:38key pillars to kind of like
03:39bring on board the people who are in
03:42developed countries with
03:43uh certain technology limitations
03:46so that's where i feel light is quite
03:50and it's it's actually one of the most
03:57facebook adoption kind of saturated and
04:00in the developed world in the developed
04:02countries and if facebook needs to grow
04:05kind of needs to to get more users on
04:08and i think those users are in those um
04:11developed countries sorry underdeveloped
04:15countries or developing countries
04:17so if facebook wants to bring the next
04:20billion users i think light could be one
04:24different strategies could be um the
04:28um the uh the drone that is beaming
04:31internet or just like allowing more
04:34areas so i think that could be one of
04:36the strategies to bring
04:37more users on board got it um now just
04:41push back a little bit so uh yes we
04:45goals of inclusivity which i love that
04:48um but at what point do we know that
04:52no longer providing the same facebook
04:55i could imagine an argument being made
04:57like hey maybe facebook should be
04:59we can print the newsfeed on newspapers
05:01um and we can put the news feed on
05:02newspapers we can distribute them to
05:04like all of people around the world but
05:07i might be worried about that because
05:09it's not really providing the same
05:11as what facebook is known to provide or
05:14it's not the same thing so how would you
05:16think about whether or not light
05:18falls into that category of kind of
05:20being more like a newspaper
05:21or less like the actual facebook
05:23experience and trading that off with
05:26great i think that's a great question
05:30like exercise to think about it the way
05:33about light is is pretty much
05:37it's it's it's hoping to be
05:40the cool experience of facebook and
05:44i think most of us when we're using
05:46facebook we're using some core
05:49maybe um looking up at
05:52certain pictures or messaging people or
05:54just like updating our status
05:57so it's still connected to the same
06:00facebook environment so you're not out
06:01of the facebook environment
06:03you're just contributing differently so
06:05i think that's one way
06:06the other thing for facebook lite it's
06:10it's just probably a temporary solution
06:14if you think about it the word is is
06:17adopting to new technologies faster so
06:20let's say there is a country that
06:22doesn't have the support for
06:24um broadband internet but this country
06:27will get broadband internet next year
06:29so you're kind of introducing them to
06:30the facebook ecosystem and then
06:32once they sort of like graduate to to
06:36to become eligible for the full facebook
06:39um this is where they can use the uh the
06:42so it's not a completely disconnected
06:44experience it's just kind of i would say
06:47more focused on the basic needs that you
06:50given the limitation of technology got
06:54okay um great response and yeah i think
06:56it sounds like what we want to do is go
06:59facebook light as an on-ramp into the
07:00facebook experience then also
07:02facebook late should really represent
07:04the core experience of facebook
07:05and um i like that point as well and a
07:09does not quite get at the core
07:10experience of facebook although it could
07:12be a pretty cool idea
07:13um so okay so we so we have this mission
07:16or kind of the high level
07:17objectives but can we talk a little bit
07:19more about what specific goals that we
07:21would set for facebook light and how we
07:23picking those goals um and and even like
07:26would love a consideration at some point
07:27in your answer about the tam or the
07:29total adjustable market
07:30that we might have here um without this
07:33got it so i think at this point um
07:36facebook lite has been there for years
07:38so as a product it i would say it has
07:42reached maturity in terms of like
07:44product itself um but i think
07:47the core mission of this product is
07:50to ensure that we're really solving that
07:52problem that we said we want to solve
07:55the people who are um like have those
07:59and for that i want to measure
08:03my success as the pm in terms of the
08:06the adoption rate for this app so
08:11looking at the number of people who are
08:14um versus the total addressable market
08:19so almost like everyone who needs the
08:21app versus how much actually we're
08:23supporting and how much we're
08:24we're serving in this new app got it
08:28so we're going to look at the um
08:30leftover users or the users that may not
08:33should be able to access or provide that
08:36overall adoption of this facebook like
08:42okay um that makes a lot of sense i
08:45guess how would we think about
08:47um why do you think people are not using
08:51what is the barriers to facebook like
08:53that we want to address or focus on
09:01i think first of all the what's what's
09:04unique about facebook and generally all
09:06the social networks is that
09:08this network effect where you need your
09:11friends to be on facebook to kind of
09:13like be motivated to be on facebook
09:16so it's it's more or less like a
09:19snowball effect where
09:20you want to really advocate certain
09:23that who just maybe recently came online
09:27started to get more people connected to
09:30certain devices so i think
09:34one of the things we want to look at is
09:37try to get more users on boarded on this
09:40um i'm not sure maybe maybe it's it's
09:44it's an education challenge of people
09:46not knowing about facebook
09:48but i think most of us back when
09:50facebook launched we
09:51knew about it through friends so once
09:53your friends are there
09:54you'll be there i mean it's just like
09:58people who might not um have this um
10:01like powerful smartphone etc
10:04so the way i would i would look at this
10:08basically trying to onboard these people
10:10and the way i would look at the total
10:14is looking at everyone
10:17with um with let's say a less powerful
10:22and this data i might get from the
10:26um like number of ship devices etc
10:29and when it comes to to the network
10:32um and connectivity challenges
10:36i'm gonna try to look some data from the
10:39if if the company can provide us with
10:42that would give us the estimated total
10:44addressable market that we're gonna
10:46benchmark our um numbers against
10:50got it so we're gonna look at that to
10:52kind of get the total adjustable market
10:54it sounds like you know maybe the telco
10:56it sounds like what we're gonna look at
10:58bandwidth constraints on phones given
11:01the different telcos
11:02and the data that they have or the data
11:03that we have with telcos
11:05um so i think that makes a lot of sense
11:08um and so we can kind of like understand
11:12these users or how we can target these
11:15but i i do want to kind of come back to
11:16the bigger question of the goals so like
11:19um what what exactly is our goal here
11:22and how are we going to
11:23achieve that goal or how what are the
11:25the action steps for that goal
11:27um with regards to the sector that we're
11:30great so i would say our goal is
11:33to ensure that our adoption
11:37is is is as good as it can be in terms
11:42number of users who are using this app
11:46in the proper way and this goal we can
11:49define as i mentioned
11:50basically the number of active users
11:53monthly active users
11:54divided by the total address of the
11:56market so if this number is going up
11:59then it means that we're actually i'm
12:01getting closer and closer to our
12:06that's that's when we're talking about
12:08the goal i think in terms of
12:10steps talking about the product itself
12:14um i think the product
12:17has already proved that it's uh it's a
12:21for many people so it's about growing
12:25and in terms of steps
12:28as i mentioned i believe it's basically
12:33allowing more people to use it and that
12:36snowball effect and the network effect
12:38that more people will
12:39come on board once their friends are on
12:43um so i love this like now over tan
12:45metrics the monthly active users over
12:47the total adjustable market
12:49um can you tell me like what's the
12:51downside of that approach or that goal
12:53basically like if we just focused on
12:55that goal is there something that you
12:56might be worried about or a trade-off
12:58that we need to consider
13:04one thing going back to uh to as you
13:07mentioned the newspaper and what kind of
13:09solutions that we want to
13:11to bring um we shouldn't think about
13:14the facebook light um in vacuum it's
13:19connected to the normal app and
13:22i think it's it's allowed to install
13:24facebook light and the normal app
13:26um in different countries so i think
13:30one downside of just looking at now is
13:35it's um it's it's mixed between the
13:39um actually part of the tam people who
13:43um on less powerful phones or connection
13:47limitations with the people who are
13:50not part of that group so maybe um
13:53an iphone 11 user would download
13:57maybe someone with a powerful android
13:59phone or with good connection with
14:01facebook live and that could skew our
14:03numbers in terms of monthly active users
14:06so we need to figure out a way um to
14:10remove that noise and focus on the
14:14um the daily monthly active users
14:17that we care about that kind of like
14:21they fit with with our um town
14:24got it yeah that's a great point i i
14:30all the users that might interact with
14:31the products is really important here
14:33um so that's great um so it sounds like
14:36you know just repeat us again so we're
14:38kind of like ensuring that adoption is
14:39as good as it can be um
14:41for facebook and we've considered some
14:43trade-offs we've considered the metrics
14:45that we want to look at or evaluate
14:46um i think one thing one question that i
14:50um you know it sounds like we're gonna
14:52partner with telcos and kind of
14:54um do you think the main approach here
14:57it sounds like there's
14:58maybe two approaches i'd love to hear
14:59which one you think is better one
15:01approach is we can really
15:02improve the product experience for
15:04facebook light maybe make it more rich
15:06like like uh powerful things like that
15:09and um we could add more features into
15:11it that are low bandwidth
15:12for example let's say that we don't have
15:14um you know as much as good animations
15:16maybe we can make the animations better
15:19the other path we can go down is that we
15:21can really just try to make
15:23facebook light itself a lower bandwidth
15:26um like we can take let's say it takes
15:28some number of megabits per second like
15:30to download or to use we can reduce that
15:33um how would you consider these two
15:35approaches when thinking about facebook
15:38because both seem to fit into the idea
15:40of expanding access and assuring
15:42adoption is as good as it can be
15:44one making the product so excellent that
15:46people are talking about it and sharing
15:48another making the bandwidth so low or
15:51constraints um not a problem anymore so
15:53that users can access it
15:55uh more readily so how would you think
15:57about these two paths for the product
15:59i i think um given the situation that
16:02um that we're here now and today
16:06the product is mature and i think a lot
16:09brilliant pms have worked on it and kind
16:11of like really understood what the users
16:15users who fit in this persona with those
16:18those opportunities so what i believe is
16:23there is a product market effect for
16:26it's just about scaling the product into
16:31probably either not aware or people with
16:34even like um different limitations
16:38so we might assume that the limitation
16:42one megabit um connection maybe there
16:45are people who are left out at
16:47128 kilobyte like per second
16:51so maybe on on the product innovation
16:55to understand first if we really need to
16:59more um to capture a bigger market
17:02my hypothesis for now i think
17:05that is not the case i think it has been
17:07optimized and there is a good product
17:09market fit when it comes to how can we
17:12make this product a greater success
17:14um it is about how to scale the product
17:18the hand of users um basically
17:22trying to understand what cities have
17:25yet developed this network effect of
17:28facebook and how can we
17:30tap into these communities
17:33but from a feature perspective i think
17:37are quite a good representation of
17:41what a typical facebook user would use
17:45it's it's really a great thing to see
17:48um it's it's not about what you add it's
17:51not about what you cannot remove
17:52so i think facebook light has has
17:56like fine fine line between those things
17:59awesome um i want to ask one last
18:01question before we kind of jump to
18:02feedback and all that kind of stuff
18:03um what so i want to take us so we're at
18:06a very high level talking about goals
18:07i want to take us to zoom in on a
18:09certain city let's say that we've
18:11discovered we've partnered with the
18:12telcos we've discovered that there's a
18:14that is um does not have facebook light
18:17majority of usage maybe one percent of
18:19the users use facebook lite
18:20um and this city let's just call it um
18:27you know cityville or something um so
18:30uh has one percent of users that use
18:34um majority of the users in that city
18:37do have bandwidth constraints uh
18:40how would you think about going about
18:42expanding into that region or
18:44you know allowing more user adoption um
18:46you don't necessarily have to say like
18:47what specifically you'll do but just
18:48what questions would you ask and like
18:50how would you think about that because
18:52it seems like that's part of the core
18:53strategy here um but i'd love to hear
18:55maybe like the concrete steps that you
18:58uh kind of like think about cityville
19:01and how it plays under the facebook
19:03got it got it and i think um like being
19:07um the middle east i think some cities
19:11um strategies done by facebook on this
19:15and i think that's more or less like a
19:17universal strategy that can be
19:19um tailored to two regions so i think
19:22i've seen two strategies that i think
19:24they are brilliant and i would
19:26do them as well um one is
19:30um partnering up with um like
19:33manufacturers of phones
19:35um so basically you have facebook lite
19:39i think that removes a lot of the
19:40friction and it makes discoverability a
19:44so you buy a new phone and then you have
19:46facebook lite already installed
19:48so that's a lot easier from going and
19:50downloading and figuring it out
19:52the other thing is a partnership with
19:56local telcos so i've seen this
19:59in different cities and in different
20:00areas where basically
20:03telcos would would tell you that if you
20:05use facebook lite then it won't
20:07be um calculated against your overall
20:11so that gives you another motivation and
20:15that's like advertisement plus
20:17motivation to actually
20:19go and explore facebook live and and use
20:22engage more with the app the more you
20:26pretty much you'll have more friends who
20:27are trying to get on board as well
20:30and um that's a win-win for telcos and
20:33for facebook as well got it um that's
20:36uh it sounds like the partnerships are
20:38really key there with the manufacturers
20:39and the telcos and that might be part of
20:41your strategy when you actually kind of
20:45um okay albert is there anything else
20:47that you think would be important to
20:48share about this interview question
20:49before we move on to feedback and
20:51talk a little bit about how it went yeah
20:54there is one point that i wanted to also
20:56mention that i wrote down
20:57um and that is the overall trade-off and
21:01um the the basically the example that i
21:04someone with a powerful phone might
21:06install this facebook light
21:08i think that's that's something that um
21:12could uh potentially uh pose a threat
21:14here in terms of like
21:16cannibalization um so
21:20we might have people migrating from the
21:23normal facebook app to facebook light
21:25and that could signal a problem that we
21:28to measure first and then ideally we
21:32what's driving that behavior if that
21:36over sell facebook light maybe
21:39more people would actually start using
21:41it that wouldn't have
21:43the ultimate facebook experience a
21:46b it might have less um
21:49i don't know maybe like um advertising
21:53a monetization potential um so it's it's
21:57um a a very sensitive thing that
22:00face that like i as the pm of facebook
22:03lite need to figure out with the rest of
22:06with the rest of the pms on the normal
22:08facebook app to figure out
22:10what's what's our strategy in terms of
22:13go full in on facebook like how would we
22:16handle those situations where you have
22:18someone who's on facebook light and you
22:20push them to normal facebook app so i
22:23think there is a lot of
22:24um trade-offs that we need to make here
22:28the overall ltv or the overall
22:30experience for our customers it's
22:31at at its best yeah that makes a lot of
22:36it sounds like you might be watching
22:37that metric as the expansion
22:39occurs like as you bring more users on
22:41you might be watching that ltv metric or
22:42you might be watching
22:43to see the experience of the different
22:45sets of users to make sure that that
22:48um cool well abid uh thanks so much for
22:51doing this interview we can kind of take
22:52the interviewer hat off and
22:54i want to just first off hear from you
22:56in your own words like how do you think
22:58um a little bit of self-reflection on
23:00the interview and then i can share my
23:02feedback as well and
23:03again for those watching do please like
23:05and subscribe if you thought that this
23:06video was helpful or valuable to you
23:08it was an amazing conversation and
23:12i think it went really smooth however i
23:15wish as an interviewee i had
23:17more structure to kind of like
23:20anticipate the questions that you will
23:22raise and address them in my answers
23:25um this way i sound more prepared and
23:28kind of like thought through
23:30um one thing that i felt i didn't do a
23:34i did not pose and and really think
23:36strategically about the questions
23:39i i was maybe a little bit
23:42too excited to hear this problem because
23:45it's a relevant problem for me and then
23:48i was giving answers very quickly
23:50i think one advice um is to slow down
23:55structure my answers in a proper way
23:59um god i mean all great points and uh
24:01yeah i think pausing is one of the
24:04so unnatural but it's so so important
24:05for interviews and i tell everyone
24:08uh that you can totally pause it's okay
24:10to pause and it's not a problem
24:12um so i i wanted to run through some of
24:14the notes that i wrote down that i
24:15thought were really effective about what
24:18um you started with the mission it was
24:19really fantastic the way you started you
24:21were saying like you know
24:22facebook is about inclusivity and that's
24:24why this is part of our product
24:26and now we're going to bubble down to
24:27here and i even asked you kind of a
24:28tough follow-up on bump and newspaper
24:30stuff and i think you handled that
24:32um i will say like at some points in the
24:35starting to get lost in terms of the
24:37structure or in terms of like what
24:39exactly is the goal or what exactly is
24:40your justification for that goal
24:42um and are there multiple goals or are
24:44there not multiple goals and it just
24:45helps to kind of set up front and say
24:47like hey this is my goal this is the one
24:49goal that i think we should focus on
24:50um or these are the two goals that i
24:52think we should focus on things like
24:54um and then i think uh you also did a
24:56really good job of kind of like
24:57talking through all the different
25:01experiences that you had so i thought
25:03there was towards the end we had a
25:05example of like hey you know from where
25:07i'm from like this is some things that
25:08i've seen that were effective
25:10um and i thought it was helpful to bring
25:12in that knowledge and bring that
25:14show that you are thoughtful about
25:15products um you know if we had more time
25:17i would even encourage you to double
25:18down even more on that and say like
25:20this is what i thought was effective
25:21about telcos versus manufacturers you
25:24telling me something a little more
25:25interesting or a little more in-depth
25:28knowledge could be really really
25:29effective um and then another tactic
25:31that i thought you did that was very
25:32effective is that you
25:33assumed that much product was mature and
25:36you used that as kind of like a
25:37justification for the product decisions
25:40and i think that makes sense because
25:41honestly you're going to have to pick
25:43kind of like making that assumption seem
25:45like a reasonable one given that
25:46facebook light has been around for quite
25:48um so i thought that was a pretty
25:49effective approach as well
25:51um and i did ask um a lot of follow-up
25:54questions in this one so i do want to
25:55acknowledge both for you and for the
25:57um this is uh more of a conversational
25:59type of interview and these can
26:01totally happen in interviews it's a
26:02little hard to tell sometimes the
26:03interviewer will give you a lot of space
26:05sometimes the interviewer will keep kind
26:07of pushing you and pushing around and
26:09trying to see if you
26:10uh can handle some of the follow-up
26:12questions and so i think you did a
26:14really effective job uh
26:15keeping your calm and answering those
26:16follow-up questions and navigating
26:18through that interview
26:19um any reactions thoughts or comments to
26:23no no 100 i think um you're absolutely
26:27i think in my experience as you
26:30i'm in my experience i had both types of
26:32interviews i had the
26:34conversational interview where it felt
26:36like i'm just chatting
26:38with a friend who's like super
26:40interested in this technology and we're
26:42thinking about it like like someone has
26:44appeared in my company
26:46and it actually went great and sometimes
26:49you need the structure
26:50so it depends um and i think yeah both
26:54well thanks everyone for watching thank
26:56you so much abit for being on the show
26:58again for those of you who want more
26:59content like this visit try exponent dot
27:02um and good luck on your upcoming
