Company: Facebook

Me (M): Why is FB interested in creating a smart shoe? What is the definition of “smart” ?

Interviewer (I): Facebook wants to generate a connected community of athletes. The shoe will have embedded sensors and also connectivity via a short range radio.

M: Followup: Is FB planning to develop this inhouse or are you going to license the technology? I need to understand whether I also need to think about a potential make vs. buy decision? Will it be a dedicated app for this?

I:  Assume that the FB app can communicate with the shoe. We are still open about make v. buy. How would you go about making that decsion?

M: Well, I would first understand whether the product fits with the overall mission of the company. Second, I would see whether creating a vertical would be in FB’s current wheelhouse of expertise. The answer to the first question (based on my initial thoughts) is potentially yes, feeding data from the sensors into the user’s FB page could increase the engagement and also be a valuable resource that could be used by groups associated with various types of physical activity (running, walking, hiking). The answer for the second question would definitely be a no for me, based on what I know of FB’s expertise. I would therefore develop the technology and license it, thereby also creating a licensing revenue (as an option). I will also focus on the shoe for this discussion. Would that be ok?

I: Ok that sounds good.

M: So what kind of sensors are you thinking of putting in?

I: What do you think should be in?

M: For deciding that we need to look at the customers and their pain points. In other words, I will do discovery and prioritize their needs and then bring it back to the technical team to decide the associate sensors.

Customers can be segmented as follows:

Companies who will be our partners

– Licensing deal (H) – exclusivity , royalty etc

– Cost of components (H)

– Advertizing help (M)

– Professional athletes

Pain points (issues)

Measuring performance –

–  speed, calories burned, distance travelled, measuring impact on various parts of the feet.  (H)

– lightweight – (H)

– make sure that the shoe fits well all the time while the activity is happening (H)

– injury prevention (H)

– dynamic arch support a (M)

– Fashion (M-H)

– Send information to trainers/team doctors etc (H)

– Price (L)

– Active amateurs

– Speed, calories  (H)

– Lightweight -(H)

– dynamic arch support and inury prevention (M-L)

– Fashion statement (M) – Colors,

– Connectivity  to FB via phone, potentially connect to doctors (H)

– Detect various foot diseases (L)

–  Odour removal (L)

– Price (M – H )

– Power supply (M-H)

– Less active amateurs

– Casual people.

Of these four categories, active amateurs are likely to be more involved in participating in a social network and engage with their peers.

So I would focus on that segment initially.

Prioritizing

– Speed, calories – the shoe has sensors to measure weight and in conjunction with the app on the user’s phone, measure distance. (MVP)

– Shoe will be made out of a range of materials so that we can cover a reasonable spectrum of purchasing power. (MVP). We will support at least three skus

– Connectivity to phone: BlueTooth (MVP)

– Power supply: Low powered sensors which are powered by the amateur’s movement.  (MVP)

– Price: 3 skus, based on the material and color options – $100, $150, $200. This is not a major issue for FB as we are going to license it. But, I have it more as a way to describe the market viability to our partners.

– dynamic arch support – a minature pump that automatically inflates the insole of the shoe based on the user’s feet to provide optimal arch support. (post MVP). Injury prevention. Detect and support ankle when it is about to twist so that injury is minimized (post-MVP)

– Odour removal – sensors that detect odour and use a minature capsule filled with Febreeze or something like that to neutralize the odour or create ozone to neutralize the odour, (post-MVP)

Risk: People are concerned with privacy and potentially not want all details to be captured and viewed by FB.  Shoe partners decide to create their own apps and not push data to FB.  We need to make siure that the licensing deal has detail to mitigate this risk.

Pre-launch, will contact channel partners  Nike, Adidas, Reebok and potentially give them exclusivity in regions NA, Europe, Asia etc.

Post-launch will track metrics – Improved engagement, increased specialized FB group, stories, Live activity, checkins, messages,

This is my attempt:

Thank you for the question. I am first going to ask you some questions to clarify the scope of the question and the product. I will then think of some user personas who would be interested in buying this product, I will choose one of them and brainstorm some needs/usecases for them. Then I will focus on one need/usecase and brainstorm some solutions for it. Lastly, I will prioritize one solution to focus on to begin with and summarize my answer.

Clarifying questions:

1. Who is designing this? – A shoe company, a tech company like Google, a startup etc – important for strategy
2. What does “smart” exactly mean here? Are there peculiar meanings? – Assuming tech should be involved
3. Is there a particular segment we are designing for? Assuming I can choose
4. What is the goal for designing this?- increase utility/revenue etc? If not mentioned, I will assume revenue
5. Are there any competitive products for this shoe? or is this the first of its kind? – Assuming first of its kind

Personas:

1. Young office going professionals
2. Sports enthusiasts
3. The elderly
4. The handicapped
5. Kids
6. Fitness enthusiasts

Amongs the above personas, I think I will be going ahead with the fitness enthusiasts as I think tehy might have some unique and diverse needs that the shoe might be able to fulfill.

Who is a fitness enthusiast: Fitness enthusiast is anyone who spends a lot of time exercising, like running, jogging, doing yoga, zumba, hiking etc – and is regular at it. They love spending time doing their favrit activity and constantly want to achieve their set goals and get better at it.

 

For this persona, I will now think of some usecases/needs.

Usecases/Needs

1. Automatic adjustments to pre-set workouts. Want to make sure they were able to deliver on their pre-set goals and want to keep a track of progress- with the ability to keep increasing the difficulty levels over the upcoming days.

2. While running, may encounter some rough terrains, rain etc. So would need some adjustment accordingly.

3. Want a tech-based shoe for fashion purposes- may be somethign with LED lights/small screens

 

I want to prioritize one usecase/need based on the following criteria keeping the goal in mind which is to increase more revenue:

As this is a first of its kind, in order to finally increase revenue, we want to make sure this shoes gets the most adoption and market share.

Criteria is:

– Customer value (impact on the user)

– Utalitarian purposes for different fitness needs

 

In my opinion, #2 and #3 above as very niche needs and #1 is something is the most respresentative of the needs that most enthusiasts may have.

So I am going to go ahead with #1.

 

Please give me a minute while I brainstorm some solutions.

 

Solutions:

1. Ability to pre-set the shoe based on available workouts on a fitness app (or we launch an app for this). Based on the pre-set workout and the pace and form of the user, the shoe will be able to nudge the user when to increase the speed and when to decrease it using short vibrational nudges under the sole. Similarly, based on the user’s hear rate, the shoe can recommend the user to increase or decrease speed based on the workout.
2. Integration with Google Maps/offline maps for trails: For users who love hiking/jogging on pre-set trails, the shoe will be able to suggest which turn to take next. User can even tap on the ground two times in a row to get the next direction. This will solve the problem of getting lost on trails or having no internet connection while in the mountains if connect to Google Maps.
3. For users who do yoga, zumba, dancing etc, the shoe keeps a track of user’s movements  (using motion sensing) and at the end of the pre-set routine, gives users a summary of how well they succeeded in doign that set/routine. For eg: if there were 5 jumps, 6 skips, 3 lunges and 50 steps, the shoe will track these based on the intensity that it was tapped on the floor with, the intervals between each step etc. It can even be taken a step further where the app keeps a track of the difficulty level achieved by the user and adjust the same the next time user wants to do the routine based on what the user’s goal is – this will require some ML to recommend to the user.:

 

Now that I have 3 solutions, I would like to prioritize these based on the following criteria:

 

	Impact to customer value	Implementation costs/Tech effort	Time to develop	Impact on revenue
Solution #1	High	High	More	Medium
Solution #2	Medium	Medium	Less	Low
Solution #3	High	High	More	High

Solution #3 turns out to be high impact and high revenue in my opinion. Even though the tech effort involved is also high (due to latest technologies like motion sensing, ML) and time involved to develop will be more, I think since it is a first of its kind, it will be important that we do this right the first time. There is alsways scope to diversify the features and add more later.

Summary given of the same re-iterating the problem to be solved, goal assumed, persona selected, use case selected and soluton selected based on prioritizaton.