Product Management interview question [Product Design]: Design a native language OTT Platform.

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Clarify scope -

• What age group users are we building the product for? — All age group users
• What is the platform for what we are building this product for? Web? App? Laptop OS Native App? — App
• Is it an Android or an iOS App? — Both
• Is it just for a single language or can it be configured for several other languages from the setting? — Single for now

Goal-

The goal is to create an OTT app — Android and iOS, to stream content in native language. The goal at this stage is to acquire customers as it is a new product in the market

User-

The users for this app will be the users from all age groups from a particular native language speaking community.

Let’s categorise these users in these segments according to their age groups -

1. Toddlers — Age 1–5
2. Kids — Age 6–12
3. Teens — 13–18
4. Young Adults — 19–25
5. Adults — 25–50
6. Seniors — Above 51

Another categorization for user groups is according to their watching habits. They can be segmented into -

1. Novice — Watch <10 hours a week
2. Bingers — Watch 10+ hours in a week

The target user group for the product are the Teens, Young Adults, and the Enthusiasts as they will be the ones helping us to penetrate in the market, as they are present in most numbers in our population, and also Enthusiasts are the ones who will consume the content heavily and eventually become product promoters.

User Journey -

1. The user downloads the app from the App Store (Android & iOS)
2. The user sign-ups on the platform via phone number, email id, or via Socials (Gmail/Facebook)
3. The user selects their favourite actors, genres, directors etc in a small questionnaire (Spotify like)
4. The feed gets populated with the curated content as per users’ selection.
5. User selects a movie/series/music video etc and can start watching right away.
6. They can cast to their secondary screens.
7. The user can upvote for a movie when they like it or can downvote if they don’t like it.
8. The users can share recommendations on social media if they like some content.

Assumptions -

1. First assumption is that there is already sufficient content created in the respective language that we are going to make a product for, as we’re making a product to curate content, not the content itself.
2. Second assumption is that our users are versed with technology enough to use mobile apps.

Pain Points -

1. No single product where all the content for a specific language is present. People have to go on various sites or torrents if they want to watch their favourite movies.
2. Regional production houses face a similar situation where they don’t get penetration in the market, and not many people are able to view their content.
3. Less accessibility to urban users, as the regional cinema movies are generally sold as pirated CDs and DVDs in tier 3–4 cities.
4. Regional cinema is watched by users from tier 2 cities and smaller and many of them are not able to use apps in English, as these are not present in local languages.
5. Regional cinema is usually released in theatres for a short period till they are eventually replaced by big budget bollywood movies.
6. No place to view which movies are trending, going to release, in production etc. This basically lowers the discoverability of the movies, where users can find what to watch.
7. Very less number of TV channels that cater to audiences who watch regional cinema.
8. Even if there is an audience to watch regional content, there aren’t very large numbers of content creators in the ecosystem.
9. Status shaming involved with watching regional local content, by people watching English movies or “quality” content, (Yes! It’s a real problem).

Prioritisation — Usually the pain points are prioritised, but since this is already a niche product and has a limited number of features catered for a limited audience we can work on all of these Pain Points. Had it been asked to design an OTT product, we could have prioritised these pain points as to what to solve for.

Solutions -

1. To create an OTT app and partner with regional production houses to get a licence to broadcast their content on the platform. This helps production houses to penetrate into a huge market, and also helps users to get access to regional content.
2. Localization of the app can be beneficial as people who are not well versed with English can easily navigate in the app.
3. Embedding a YouTube viewer in app to let users view content exclusively from regional content creators.
4. Created a curated list of movies, series, music in-app to let users see what is trending, what is not, what is about to release etc. Basically an IMDB for regional content.
5. Creating a feature which lets users to view 15–30 seconds of videos like reels and shorts to let them discover content creators.
6. Having a recommendation engine which recommends users the content which suits them the best according to their initial questionnaire, and learns as the users go on watching the content.
7. A customer loyalty program to get tickets for movies or special screening of regional movies to the loyal users.
8. A content creation portal where even the users can create content in the form of small videos and share with their peers. They can like, comment, and share with their social media friends. This will not only solve the issue of lack of content creators, but also help in users adapting to content in regional languages.

All of this might sound like an impossible combination of Netflix, YouTube, TikTok and IMDB, but this is actually the state of content in regional languages. It is calculated that almost 97% of the Indian population has at least one regional language, which is equal to almost 134 crores users and no single product to cater to such a large audience.

Prioritisation -

Success Metrics -

1. DAU/WAU/MAU
2. Average daily watch time on platform.
3. Conversion percentage
4. Number of different titles viewed per week
5. Number of new titles added per week
6. Number of videos watched (for YouTube/ short videos)
7. Number of videos added to the product per week
8. Average watch time per user per day.

Summary -

We discussed how to create an OTT app for regional languages, for all the age groups, and discussed the target user segment. We discussed the user journey and the pain points that these users have. We didn’t prioritise the pain points as this is already a niche product. We discussed the possible solutions for the same, and prioritised those solutions and finally defined the success metrics for the product.