Data Analyst Interview | Uber Eats Market Expansion Strategy

0:00 So in this video we are going to be answering an analytics problem solving interview question. The question is Uber East is considering expanding its restaurant product in Montreal, Canada. How would you test the impact and viability of this expansion before a full-scale launch? So I think the the first part is understanding where are we as a business in this market. so is it is it a new launch? Have we been there for a few years? Is it mature? Is it profitable?

0:32 so getting an understanding of of where we are and then also getting an understanding of where do we want to go as a overall business in our different markets. there's also a competitive landscape to consider. What competitors are are present? What is their size of the market versus our size of the market? and then also what is the demand from a a consumer perspective? If it's a new product in the new market, do they know about us? have they tried similar products before? If we're mature, again, what is the size of the market? And are are users coming back more often than than going to different products? are they price sensitive?

1:11 Getting an understanding of of our consumers is really important to to understand what are our growth goals and how do we launch in this market. Amazing. I think that's a great thought process over there. A few clarifying question just wanted to poke deeper. You did mention to understand a little bit more about the consumer behavior and what data points you will be collecting to learn a little bit more or what kind of resource would you consult to make sure you polish your understanding? Yeah, I would get a a time. okay, let me let me respect that. I would look at the data on a week-by-week basis and a month-by-month basis. And again, if we have historical data, we'll get a perspective. If not, we'll start this from scratch. but on a weekly basis, for example, I would want to understand how many new consumers are coming to the platform.

2:06 a second perspective would be for consumers that have already ordered on the platform, are they coming back? how often are they coming back? For both those cohorts, I would want to understand how much money they're spending. and so therefore, you can create an analysis of different groups of of spending power, who's spending what cohort is spending the least amount, what cohort is spending the most amount, what cohort is ordering fewer than the average, what cohort is ordering more than the average.

2:37 and therefore we can create kind of targeted approaches to different cohorts. what other data would I want to understand? maybe if we have a membership program, how many of our consumers are are paying for the membership? that allows you to understand one, are people happy with the membership? Two, are we more profitable because of the membership? And what should the membership be offering? And then if possible try to get an understanding of are are are consumers also using our competitors? Why is that happening?

3:17 how can we differentiate ourselves for our consumers? What are they looking for in the product that we might not have that maybe our competitors have? And so therefore we can influence what the product is offering. Amazing. Yeah. And just also touch upon one thing you mentioned around looking at the week over week or month over months data when we first launch in Montreal. Let's say in the in the third week of launching the new product the new user number suddenly dropped 50%. So that's kind of the case you're given like how would you go about in investigating this type of issue? Yeah, I would want to get an understanding of were we doing any promotions or marketing that might have stopped. I think especially when you're looking at new users that might not know a product, you you tend to overinvest in in marketing and promotions. and so if that was the case, let's look at can we continue marketing in a different way?

4:16 Can we continue doing promotions? try to understand do we stop this for financial purposes? Do we what was the cause of of stopping a product like that? if again I keep going back to competitors, but maybe our competitors give a better offering than what we're giving if if we are continuing promotions and so we need to make a decision of do we match that? do we try to beat it? Do we keep doing what we're doing?

4:44 maybe there's a a new competitor that came on the platform that wasn't there before and so people are trying them. I think there's a creating a hypothesis to what happens is important to test against and typically when it comes to new users that are that are dropping then you know maybe there's also a situation where you've penetrated enough of the market that there are enough there aren't as many consumers to go after after a certain period of time. I think in your example three weeks is quite soon but that might happen after three years and so we would take a different approach to trying to grow the market. so when we talk about penetration what are kind of the metrics or proxy metrics or information that would you use to guide your like investment into certain geographic area.

5:34 Yeah. The the first thing is total addressable market also known as TAM. So when we approach a market, typically we'll know what the tal is going into it, which is why we're investing in getting into the market, hiring people to to to sell into the market. and so after a certain period of time, you can see what is the revenue being generated compared to the TAM. And so if that's a very high number compared to the 10, then we think that we've penetrated 80% plus of the market versus if there's still 50% of the market to go after then then we know that there's still a lot of growth left to do.

6:12 From I think revenue is a great point for learning about TAM. Any other just in the Uber East business? any other metrics or aspect that you would think can be considered as part of the total addressable market beyond revenue? Yeah, the the number of users is important. so obviously the users generate revenue but if if we think that we can still get growth from from the number of users then then that's an important metric. again go back to membership being an important piece of the puzzle because you can get new users but if they're not coming back so retention is a very important metric then then we want that to happen and then also generally a business wants their users to be spending more money over time as well and so looking at you know ebreeds for example they started their business with restaurants on the platform and then they've grown to a new product in groceries in retail in in different things that they can deliver to to their customers. So by giving a new product a new vertical then they're allowing their consumers to spend a bit more money and purchase more things through their product.

7:28 Amazing. Thank you so much Luka. So now we're going to reflect on the answer that Luca just did for the analytical problemolving question. So this analytical problem solving question it's around growth and strategy. If you're applying for role that are growth analytics or related to strategy team they might want to assess your ability to make decision or recommendation on example like market expansion or improving on some operational strategy in certain area. One thing that I do wanted to share that Luca did super well is in the beginning he shared his approach to this question as well as listed detailed potential area that he could look into to answer this question.

8:22 For example, he share we should be learning and looking into competitor's landscape as well as the behavior of our consumer. Those are definitely great points of when we are thinking to expand our market or grow certain product in certain market. In addition, Luca also showcase his domain knowledge. When we talk about metrics and when I ask additional follow-up question about being specific to what metrics he would look at, he did mention a lot of relevant metrics that are Uber E or food delivery domain or industry are generally interested in. for example, either retention or the membership percentage like those are definitely some of the key metrics that Uber Eats or other company related to the food delivery industry wanted to grow. So he definitely demonstrated in his answer about his domain knowledge and expertise. If you are applying to a different domain or industry than the one you are currently worked at, you might want to consider to either read the company's earning if they're public or just do a research around what kind of metrics and information that this industry are particularly benchmarking on. That will help you to be more relevant to the company and the role that you're applying for.

9:54 Other things you might want to consider is whenever you get a question like analytical problem solving or growth and strategy question in the beginning before you even share your approach you might want to ask additional clarifying question for example in this case you might want to ask interviewer of so what does restaurant product mean in this case or have we expand to other cities in Canada besides Montreal. What are these some of the learning in Canada we can already leverage? So those question will be super beneficial to guide the thinking of the interviewer and also showcasing to the interviewer that you are a person who can ask clarifying question and to really define the scope of the problem a little bit more clearly. Thanks Luka for your answer. If you are enjoying this video, be sure to check out explan complete data analytics interview preparation course. Analytical problem solving question are one of the toughest questions candidate may get stuck. You can watch more mock interview like just this one. Please visit tryexponent.com. Good luck on your next interview.