Design a customer application for a bike sharing business
Product Manager Interview Questions With Answers

Design a customer application for a bike sharing business
- To further clarify the question, I would like to know which problem statement are we actually solving –
- Bike pooling app – Bike with 2 seating capacity where the owner/driver can offer the vacant seat to a rider
- Bike renting app (AirBnb of bike) – Bike can be shared/rented to people by the owner
- Do we need a mobile or desktop application?
I will try to answer both the above mentioned problem statement. In an interview you can ask the interviewer before moving forward with the solution. Assumption is we will build mobile app as desktop won’t be convenient for these use cases.
Bike Pooling App
For the initial design, I am assuming that the driver of the scooter is the owner as this would reduce complexity in design. Also, I believe we are not focusing on monetization for the business as of now. However, I will address the payment issues between driver and rider.
Now that we know about the business, I will come up with user segments. I will then find their needs, build user stories, create solutions and evaluate them to create an MVP.
User Segments & Personas
There are 3 user segments for our application
- Driver
- Rider
- Customer Support
I will focus on driver because if we cannot get the driver on-boarded the other two won’t matter. Uber also did the same while launching – focused on on-boarding drivers.
Since we are focusing on driver, we can first define their persona. Mostly, the driver will be a person around 18-35 years of age looking for extra cash. He will be comfortable in riding with a stranger. The reason for age chosen being the assumption that above 35 years of age, people would be earning enough to not rely on the additional cash coming from pooling. Also, senior citizens might be looking for cash but they will not be comfortable to ride with strangers. There would be some outliers but we can ignore them for now.
User Stories
Few of the needs of drivers would be
- Finding and confirming rider
- Deciding a pickup point
- Estimated fare
- Payment and ride completion confirmation
- Security
- Hygiene
Since we are focusing on MVP, I will look at the most needed features which are 1, 3, and 4. So my user stories as an owner are
- Find riders and send them a confirmation so that I can start my ride
- I want to know the fare I will get so that I can decide whether it is meaningful for me or not
- A way to tell the system that I completed the ride and will be paid so that I can drive without any hesitation
MVP
Usually I would pick one of the user stories and build MVP. But for this case all 3 are important to build a MVP.
Solution to User Story 1 (US1):
- Display the list of interested riders near the driver’s location.
- Provide capability to the driver to find the rider using their username
- A matching algorithm to find the rider who wants to go in driver’s direction
Solution to US2:
- Option for driver to send the fare to rider
- Fare estimation based on
- Distance
- Fuel cost
- Time consumed
- Past data for similar drops
Solution to US3:
- Ride completion notification to be sent from rider
- Auto tracking using GPS co-ordinates of both driver and owner
- Auto deduct money from rider’s wallet/bank. Provide a daily settlement into driver’s account
I will evaluate solutions in each story on customer impact and ease of implementation. After the evaluation, I will select 1 in US1, 2 in US2, 1 and 3 in US3 for the MVP.
Bike Renting App
I will assume that we are creating an app for users to rent their bikes.
User Segments & Personas
We’ll have 2 main user types:
- Lender: owner of one or multiple scooters who is willing to lend them with specific conditions. Reasons for lending could be to gain additional income with convenience.
- Borrower: a person who’s seeking to borrow a scooter for a certain period.
- Scooters enthusiast: experiencing new and unique scooter models without the need of large investment or long term commitment of buying a scooter.
- Tourist: a person who wants a convenient, relatively cheap, and fun way of transportation within their period of stay in a city.
- College Students or employees: seeks a relatively cheap, safe and convenient way of transportation without the need of doing quite active, sweating movements as in cycling. They might be looking for an extended period of borrowing.
User Stories
Again, my focus would be on lender. The critical lender needs will be –
- List my bike/s with a picture, textual details, and available lending times
- A medium for communication with the borrower
- A reliable payment solution to receive the payment for the service
Now, I will focus on the user stories for building my MVP. The most important features would be 1 and 3.
MVP
Solution to US1:
- Lender can list their bikes on app by taking photos.
- Lenders can provide the price for borrowing per day and the location for pick up and drop-off.
- Borrower gets to find scooters by showing them all listed scooters with description and picture.
Solution to US3:
- Lender specifies daily rate and borrower pays with cash once they see.
- Lender specifies daily rate and borrower pays online post the drop.
I will evaluate solutions in each story on customer impact and ease of implementation. After the evaluation, I will select 1, 2 in US1, 1 in US3 for MVP.