If you were a startup founder and a VC asked you to build an AI career coach, what would you do?

So the answer overall would would be a higher. Imagine you are a startup founder and a VC asks you to build an AI career coach. What would you do?

Why don't you um quickly tell me about yourself before we get started? >> Yeah, of course. My name is Sid.

I've been spending the last two years working as a consultant in the consumer industry and starting as a PM in Fang Glitter the Sway. >> Sounds great. Cool.

Nice to meet you. I'm Mouhammed. I'm an AI product manager at startups.

before I also used to work in big tech. So yeah, excited to get it started. Let's get into it.

So the question for today in this mock interview would be imagine if you are a startup founder and a VC ask you to build an AI career coach, what would you do? >> Awesome. Uh is it okay if I share my screen?

>> Yeah, please go ahead. >> Perfect. Okay, so the question was if I was a startup founder and a VC asked me to build an AI career coach, what would I do?

So I think to start a couple of clarifying questions come to mind. Um first when we think about this AI career coach to clarify are we sort of building a feature or sort of like an entire like product around you know cougar coaching or is that up to my interpretation? uh this out for you to define.

Think about it more of a a bigger picture rather than just a feature, but also curious on what's your reasoning going either way. >> Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.

And can definitely get into that down the line. Um, and then maybe just to make sure we're on the same page, when I hear AI career coach, I'm thinking about a platform that helps either individuals or businesses upskill in their current job or transition to another industry. Does that align with what you were thinking when you had this question in mind?

>> Yeah, sounds about sound fair. Okay, awesome. And then maybe just the last question is are there any constraints on like whether we're thinking about this from you know a B2B or a B to perspective or is that also up to me to define?

>> That's up for you to find as well. >> Awesome. So I think from here what I want to do is maybe take 30 seconds just think about how I want to sort of lay out this problem.

Ben would love to get back to you and maybe share a little bit of that structure. >> Sounds great. Take your time.

>> Yeah. So thinking about how sort of like my road map for this question, I think I want to start by just spending a little bit of time on the mission and sort of why building this product right now makes a lot of sense. From there, I think we can think about, you know, all the potential users in this market before narrowing down one we really want to focus our product around.

After that, I think it makes sense to maybe think through a couple of pain points and then pick what feels most relevant for that user group and then think through a couple of solutions before maybe landing on one as MVP before wrapping up with some metrics that we would probably want to keep top of mind as we launch this product. and then if we have time maybe we can get a into some of the more details for the ev. Does that sound good with you?

>> Yeah, sounds about right. >> Awesome. Yeah.

Um, so would love maybe a minute to just like think a little bit about the mission before we dive into Lucas. >> Sounds great. >> Yeah.

So when I think a little bit about the mission, I think the guiding principle for the startup would likely centered around really helping people make that next big career step or jump in their journey anchoring on a lot of personalized feedback and guidance given that this is going to be a more AIdriven platform and doing so in a very cost-effective model. So we want to have a pretty widespread reach I would say with our initial product. And so when I think about why it makes a lot of sense to start building this out now, I think traditional career or job oriented platforms today like a LinkedIn or an inddeed usually lack personalized feedback and are really centered around sharing you know surface level posts or tips or tricks when it comes to career changes.

And so when we think about the other side of the market, so not those generalized platforms and focus on say like human career coaches, I think these are likely pricing out a large part of the total addressable market. But I think on top of that, oftentimes they give pretty dated advice, especially if the career coach hasn't been in the industry for a number of years. And so I think those two reasons are would sort of be the foundation as to why we're interested in even building an AI career coach today.

>> Got it. What other reason do you think would um would make the why now more relevant as well to our question today? >> Yeah, I think off the top of my head, I would say a number of industries are rapidly changing with the rise of AI.

And so I think an AI career coach is probably better suited to handle the taste of changes in those industries compared to either like a human career coach or those more generalized platforms. especially when platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed, I think are sort of dating uh a notorious rep for mass applying without necessarily any responses which can make you know the career switch or transition feel a lot more frustrating for the applicant in that scenario. >> Cool.

Sounds good. Makes sense. >> Yeah.

So, now that I think we have a little bit more framing around our mission, I want to focus a little bit on the users. And I think there's a lot of different directions we could go here. So would love maybe a minute or two to think through that.

>> Sounds great. Take your time. >> Yeah.

So thinking about the users, I think there's really two potential sides to this market that we could pursue. So I think you have the direct to consumer market where you're more focused on helping individuals make that next step in their career and you have the B2B angle which I think is more focused on really upskilling and helping companies sort of raise the talent level um in their business. And so when I think about these two angles, I think to start, I'm inclined to go after the B2C market for a few reasons.

I think one, there's probably a lot of existing enterprise solutions for upskilling their employees. And I think those companies that have existing, you know, upscaling platforms are probably it'll probably take a while for them to transition to a brand new platform. So in that sense, they're much more like sticky customers.

But I also think there's probably more demand in the BTOC market. Um because I think career transitions are almost an inevitable step in everyone's journey. And so I think there's a large potential market here.

And so when I think about the different roles in the BTOC market, I think there's three broad buckets. I think you have, you know, college students slash newrads. These are individuals that probably have anywhere from say like zero to two years of experience.

They're in their first job out of college. I think you have mid-career professionals. So these would be individuals with say anywhere from like 3 to 10 years of experience.

They've been in their industry for a number of years. They have a certain number of connections, but they still might be looking for that next job or to make a change. And then finally, I think you have, you know, your senior leadership or sea suite.

And so I think we can broadly think about this as individuals with 10 or more years of experience in a given industry. They're probably at say like some sort of director level or equivalent. Um, and they're definitely like higher up there in their respective company or industry.

And so when I think about these three different buckets in the consumer segment, I think there's three main levers I would really use to prioritize them. I think the first is scale. So just thinking about like how big is this market.

I think the second is sort of value to user. So like how much value ad does this have for a specific group? And then I think third just recognizing you know their willingness to pay especially from the perspective of a startup founder that has a VC interested in this idea.

And so when we think about new grads, I would say this is definitely a very large market that is always going to be present. But I think the value to user probably isn't as high here just because I think this market can definitely tap into resources say at their college or with peers around their age group to sort of get entry-level jobs. And I also think their willingness to pay is probably a bit smaller than the other two buckets.

When we think about senior leadership, I think the scale here is obviously a lot smaller. And I also think value to user is a bit smaller here because I'd say for senior leadership, making that next career jump or transition relies a lot more on your network rather than just like career training or coaching. Um, even though their willingness to pay I think would be a lot higher.

And so I think the segment I really want to focus on to start out with is really that mid-career professionals bucket. So like 3 to 10 years of experience. I think the scale here is definitely very large.

I think there's very high value to user because I think across you know the first 10 years of your career journey people are more than likely to make one if not multiple transition points in their career. And then I think finally there's definitely a high willingness to pay uh especially in this market to make that next transition smooth. And so I want to pause there and see if you have any questions on either the buckets I have stood out or sort of how I prioritize these groups.

No, I think that makes sense. Uh I like your B2C. You were thinking about it as businesses where they're hiring and the C here is the job seekers and the segmentation is very clear.

I think I have a few question about your B2B segmentation a little bit and what does this really refer to? From what I what you said I think I understood you're referring to companies who are training their internal employees to do something be better in their career upscale their career like can you explain a little bit more about your B2B definition uh a little bit more? >> Yeah definitely.

So when I think about AI career coaching from the B2B perspective, obviously they're not trying to have their current employees leave their job. And so I think it's much more focused around upskilling uh and having the employees they do currently retain maybe have a wider skill set or really hone the skills that are important to their specific job. Um, so for example, if we take the first bucket of startups, you know, I think startups are very famous for having people wear multiple hats in one role.

And so I think there is potential for a career coach there where you can sort of coach a new hire to function in all these different roles or across departments rather than what they're just familiar with from prior job experience, let's say. >> Got it. That makes sense.

Okay. And why did you go with the B2C route? I understand this is for the job seekers, but curious on wouldn't the B2B would make more sense from a monetary standpoint as a startup um going that route since you're training and you're dealing with customers.

So having like a a large size deals per se. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think there's probably more monetization potential um on the B2B side.

I think there's probably also more competition on the B2B side. And I think there's a lot of incumbents that exist in the market that honestly have sticky platforms. So it would be hard to get, you know, a lot of those larger corporations or even startups away from those existing platforms.

Um, and I think the other reason is that I'm not convinced necessarily that employees in these, you know, companies that have upskilling platforms really use them to their full potential. Whereas I think there will always be and is existing demand for a more AIdriven career coaching platform to help with that transition step or next jump in your career. >> Gotcha.

That makes sense. Cool. >> Awesome.

So I think from here we've talked a little bit about our mission on helping people take that next career step and we sort of narrowed down our user group into those mid-career professionals as a group we want to prioritize. So I think what we could do now is really think about pain points that are specific to that mid-career professionals bucket and think about what we want to focus on. >> And so we love maybe a minute or two to look at.

>> Yeah. So thinking through some of the pain points, maybe just taking a step back before we dive into the specific pain points I listed out, I was really trying to think through sort of the journey of finding that next job or taking that next step in your career. And I think it starts with trying to understand if your profile is even competitive for whatever that next industry or next role you're looking for is.

And so I think that's where the first pain point really comes in where a lot of mid-career professionals often struggle to know if they're a competitive applicant or know what their specific worth is for in a specific job market. Really just struggling to know how to start making that initial career jump. But I think from there once they you know say find a few roles they might be interested in I think oftentimes they might struggle with really framing their career story for a specific role.

So understanding how their past experience sort of applies to that next role and might be a good fit. I think from there once they have that story sort of locked down say they landed an initial interview they might struggle to find resources for interview prep to really make sure that they can nail either first or second round interviews. And I think finally when if they're able to land an offer, I think oftent time mid-career professionals can struggle to negotiate that final offer successfully into say a higher band or a higher position than their current job.

And so I want to pause there and make sure these pain points make sense. And if they do, I think what I'd like to do next is talk through sort of how I prioritize them. >> Yeah, they make sense.

Yeah, let's uh let's see which ones you think I'd like to prioritize and go from there. Okay, awesome. So, when I think about prioritization, I would say there's really three main levers I'm trying to pull.

I think the first one is magnitude. So, you know, how big of a problem is this for mid-career professionals in particular? I think the second lever is really around frequency.

So, how often does this problem occur? And I think finally, just acknowledging existing solutions, especially given that we are trying to be an AIdriven platform. So, we want to make sure that we're not solving for something that already has a solution out there.

And so, when we land on this first pain point on, you know, struggling with an applicant struggling to know if they're really competitive or able to make a realistic job switch. I would say this is a pretty large problem, especially for mid-career professionals trying to pivot industries rather than lateral somewhere else to a similar low. I think the frequency is somewhat there.

I think it's common, you know, across the first 10 years of your career to say shift job titles to maybe an adjacent role. And I honestly don't think there's a lot of great existing solutions out there. I think a lot of the information that might be on the internet today is very disperate.

It's not in all one place and that can make the start of the career transition a lot more frustrating. I think the second pain point around you know really being unable to frame their career story. I think it's definitely you know a frequent issue and it can be impactful to your overall job search but I think there are existing solutions out there today.

I think especially with you know the use of chatbt or CO to help prepare with interviews. I think either of those platforms really solve and solve for really understanding what your career story should look like as you apply for specific roles. I think similarly when we think about being unable to find resources for interview prep, you know, definitely an important step in the preparation process for any career transition, but I'm not sure how frequently that's occurring, especially with how much information is out there today on, you know, a wide variety of industries.

And so I do think there are, you know, existing solutions. And then finally, when we think about being unable to negotiate that final offer, it's definitely a very big problem to have, but I'm not sure how frequent it frequently it occurs, just given that a lot of companies might not negotiate at all. Most of the time, you're probably applying for roles that are either in the same band or have higher pay than your current role.

And I do think there are, you know, some existing solutions out there. And so when I think about these pain points, I think I'm inclined to prioritize that first pain point which is sort of top of funnel when we think about the journey of making a career transition or a career switch. And so I think I want to prioritize this first problem around you know helping applicants understand if they are competitive and what their worth is in this job.

>> And so I want to and yeah make sure you're aligned. >> Yeah. Yeah.

I think that makes sense. Uh I was just curious about C when you were saying people are unable to find resources for interview prep. However, in your reasoning you mentioned that there are existing solution and you mark this as large.

I was curious about would you if you would reframe that pro like painpoint a little bit differently. How would how do you go about that? It seems like there are resources then there are a lot but is it like how would you think about this pain point a little bit differently if there are still resources out there but they're still not fully utilized?

Oh yeah. So just to clarify, maybe this is confusion with how I'm ranking it, but when I say large for existing solutions, I am trying to say that there are a large amount of existing solutions out there, but let me know if that's not directly answering your question. Yeah, I'm just curious on there.

I feel like there are a lot of resources for interview prep like out there. There's like mock interviews, there are um resources online that people can also like read. some people experiences as well.

Uh but would you do didn't you think maybe these resources are not like tailored personalized in a way uh they're not like people cannot really utilize these sources in their current format would that maybe another pain point as well within that drill? >> Yeah, I think if we were to like drill into that third point around not finding resources. I think to your point there definitely are a lot lot of existing websites out there for interview prep.

I think the problems arise in that they're all very disparate. So, you have to like do a bunch of web searches to find out like what interview prep is out there, what fits your style of learning. I think the second problem is probably that a lot of these are likely dated and so they might not be the most relevant information or the most relevant, you know, interview advice um if they're from a few years ago.

And I think those two pain points are really why people struggle with, you know, finding resources that are fit for a specific role or job that they're applying. >> Okay. Yeah, cool.

That makes sense. So, we're going with the uh first option, the first pain point that's struggling um to know if people are even competitive or know their words in the in the specific job market. So, let's let's go with that one.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And so I think from here what I want to do is maybe take a few minutes to think through different solutions then would love to come back and present them to you and from there we can talk about how we would prioritize these potential solutions.

>> Sounds great. >> Just for the interest do you want to walk me through your thinking process a little bit more in this one? >> Yeah definitely.

Um, so thinking through a few solutions, um, I think the first idea I landed on was sort of like this conversational AI coach. And so this would be a personalized, it's a chat assistant. It's trained on career advice for specific industries.

It can remember say like your profile, your resume, any career goals you have. And so this would be available, you know, 24/7 and can really help you say like sort of get your bearings for starting your career transition or career jump. I think the second idea is more of like a community marketplace.

And so here individuals would sign up to be connected to vetted mentors on our platform who have either made that same transition that they are looking to make or have experience in their desired industry. And I think maybe the AI angle here could be summarizing sort of like crowdsourced advice. Um, and then I think the final idea is probably something around like a personalized positioning engine.

So like you can input your resume, some target roles, maybe it can scrape your LinkedIn and it can sort of produce an initial report on, you know, how your profile stacks up compensation bands that are realistic for your next role and maybe a few preliminary like stretch versus roles. And so when I'm thinking about how to prioritize uh you know the some of these solutions, I think there's three main levers I'm looking at. And so the first would be engineering effort.

So you know how much effort is this tip going to take our team. I think the second is impact. You know like how impactful is this to the user in terms of actually helping them find that next job.

And then finally just relating it back to the mission which we defined as really helping people make that next career step with really personalized feedback. And so would love to take maybe 30 seconds to just think about how I want to prioritize these if that's okay with you. >> Yeah, sounds good.

Yeah. So when I think about these three solutions um through the lens of like effort, impact, and mission, I think I'm leaning towards my last solution around a personalized positioning engine. I think the effort here is somewhat on the medium side.

I think a lot of it is doable today in that a lot of the inputs for the user would just be, you know, their resume, their target roles, maybe their LinkedIn. Um, and I think the AI platform should be able to get a solid understanding of their past career history and where they want to go in the future. I think the impact is pretty large, I would say.

I think it really helps you sort of get your bearings, understand how to start, you know, that career transition. And I think the mission of helping people with that career transition while being an AI forward company is also there with the solution. So I think I want to prioritize maybe my last solution but happy to talk a little bit more around why I didn't prioritize maybe some of the other solutions if that's >> yeah I think my yeah I think my two questions would be um like the slight differences between the first and the third solution would love to get more insights on that um and also a followup as well uh if you're going with the third solution would curious with everything happening in the world right now with chat GVD like claw um how are you seeing this is different from something that someone can how do you stand out from a competitive standpoint per se with what's happening in the AI scene?

>> Yeah, I think that's a good question. Do you mind if I have a second to think about that? >> Yeah, of course.

>> Yeah. So in regards to your first question on sort of like how the first and the the first and the third solution are different um I do think the first solution now that I'm looking back on it reads a lot like say u a chat GBT wrapper. So I don't know if there's that much differentiation there um between you know existing solutions on the market.

When I think about the third one around this like personalized positioning engine, I think the way to differentiate between you know a lot of the LLMs that are out there today would be to really emphasize personalization as a mode. So you know having users say upload a resume when they sign up for our platform for example. So we already have that background information.

Um, and then maybe training it on specific market data for popular industries that mid-career professionals are often looking to break into. Um, and so I think those are some initial ideas on how we could maybe try to differentiate from Chad PT for example. But I do agree that this is definitely something we should think about further um, in terms of making sure there's like enough differentiation there.

>> Got it. Okay, cool. So, for the interest of time, why don't you quickly let me know how you'd measure success for for that product?

Um, like what are you going to be the main metrics you're going to be looking at um to make sure that you're successful and then we can close at that. >> Awesome. Yeah, that sounds good.

Would love maybe like a minute to talk about that. >> Sounds good. >> Yeah.

So thinking through some metrics I would maybe want to measure for the platform, I think the northstar metric I landed on is number of users who reach a successful career outcome, which I think in this case we could define as say an offer received per quarter. And so when I think about this northstar metric, I think it makes sense because it really intersects with the true sides of the marketplace really well. And so as this metric goes up, we know users are getting value because they're having the opportunity to make real career switches.

And so they're gaining value from our platform. And then on think on the company side, this is validation that the information we're providing is really helping with tangible career changes. And I also think in the long term, it acts sort of as a positive feedback loop and really helping future career coaches because we know what information is necessary in helping people start that journey.

I think other metrics I'd want to look at as sort of just like a new platform on the market would be activation rate of users. So like percent of users who successfully are onboarded and able to start their career journey. I think looking at monthly retention metrics would also be really important.

And then maybe a more specific metric for this platform would be number of target role analyses per active user. So like how frequently is the platform being used? And then a couple of safety measures.

I think for counter metrics, we could look at time to first value. So like how much time does a user need to spend on our platform before they maybe get that initial interview process or offer. And then I also think it would be important to track chat volume in the sense of we want to make sure users aren't just going through the motions and having basic information spit out to them on our platform but that we're actually creating value additive information to their career journey so they can make that transition.

And I think finally as a guardrail you know monitoring the hallucination rate or accuracy rate of the chat responses would also be really important for the solution. Sounds good. Yeah, these all make sense.

Thank you so much. >> Great job on the mock interview, you two. Um, we want to introduce the viewers to this uh how we got this question and then have you all understand a little bit better, give you some common tips and tricks and mistakes and then just the hiring decision for this interview.

So to give you all a little bit of background on this question, this is a product strategy question that is recently asked at uh DeepMind from uh Confirmed Reports. uh this was a final round question that they had and um it's pretty it's pretty unique um not only is it an AI question specifically but this framing of the the founder aspect is making the scope wider so overall a really interesting question and um Muhammad I would love for you to kind of walk the people through that are watching this like when you think about this problem what do you think are the important things that folks should know when they're going to approach it on their own in their practice or in their own interviews. >> Yeah, of course.

So, the question is pretty vague by design and this a lot of people kind of like freak out when they hear like a vague question just design AI career coach. However, like the the main tip is there's no like specific right answer but really what the interviewer is looking for is how you really structure and reason throughout your flow like if you're going specific direction when you're prioritizing why you're actually doing that and the good part about this has been with everything happening in the market. It's an AI career coach.

So everyone there is so many LLMs people are talking JGBT talking Gemini claude all day to do what this startup is building and all starters are facing this challenge as well. So thinking about from a startup founder how you can really stand out when you're answering this question. So definitely being proactive and highlighting the challenges in the competition the market like the why now is a very strong question that you need to definitely hone down on.

LLMs are getting better. you can actually build an AI career coach today versus before it was one of the moonshot ideas that people were like answering when they're think of solutions versus now this is a basic foundation for the question starts. So definitely keeping this in mind when you're thinking about competition, how you really stand out from the other compet other tools out there in the market would be a great a great tip to start with >> in terms of like common t like mistakes common mistakes that candidates can make or tips when you guys think about this problem.

Um what comes to mind? >> Yeah, I think something that comes to mind for me is being able to almost anticipate some of the questions your interviewer might ask. So like in this example I was asked towards the end like how does how is my solution differentiated from say chat gbt or cloud and I think something I could have done a better job on or you know even improved on is really differentiating the boat for example maybe that's trust maybe it's you know personalization of information but being able to explain that in a clear manner to your interviewer I would say is really >> what about um what about you Muhammad what comes to mind for like a tip or a common mistake that folks might make when they're when they're doing this on their Yeah, one of the things that there's definitely a structure and framework of steps that people are following in order to stand out when it comes to these is really to try to make it more personalized on how your current experiences is is when you're job searching.

You're literally interviewing. So, you are in the in the process of having a career coach that the pain points definitely you're relating to it. So, think about the mission when you're building this kind of question.

um make it more relatable to to you to the people in the market people in the space everyone need a career coach at a certain level of their career whether they're job job searching whether they're in their career want to upgrade the level it's a very common relatable problem so in order to stand out when it comes to these question for a good answer would be take yes to have the framework definitely keep your structure in there when you're answering but try to add this personal note to it um to make it relatable and relevant to something that you have experienced your interviewer interviewer have experienced and that I think will definitely help people stand out. >> That is so cool. Yeah, that is so cool.

Um, one thing that I just wonder I would I would love to get your take on on this from either either either of you all, but this this founder framing of like you're a founder. How does that how does that kind of change the problem from if they if they didn't say that just in terms of like how how might a candidate approach it if they don't have that framing versus if they do have that framing? Not because it applies to this problem, but I just think that's a unique I look at a lot of interview questions and I rarely see a company say, "Hey, imagine you're a founder.

" They usually say, "Imagine you're a PM here. " Um, I think that there's some aspect here of one of the highest value skill sets in the AIdriven era for PMs is like zero to one experience. So, part of me thinks they're really optimizing on just like, hey, I want to see how you think zero to one.

And maybe that's the piece here that's different, but I want to hear what you guys think of of of that just like founder framing. Yeah. >> Yeah.

For for this question specifically, I'm thinking it would definitely help. Um, think about that you don't have that much resources. Like it's different than building a feature for Gemini or Chad GBT as an AI career coach.

They have unlimited resources of funding and money to like build whatever. However, you're a startup founder. You need to think of what niche you're going to be focusing on to really stand out against these players that exist in the market.

Um so having this limitation of like resources, capacity, um how many talent you have as a startup founder. Um you can touch upon that of course during your answer but definitely when you're think about this is a main constraint that you're having and your main goal is to acquire as much users as you want like some of your metrics and success metrics would definitely be highly influenced versus you're building this as a feature to something that's already big and you're really don't care about the monetization aspect as much as the usage and adoption. So it's really gonna be focusing on the metrics as well as how you're overall approaching the solution, how you're taking on that.

>> Muhammad, uh this is the big question everybody wants to know, you know, what would be your your hiring decision and why and also where would you put the the level for this candidate? >> Yeah, I think the answer was pretty structured. Uh it went very well through the flow.

You said was checking in with me pretty uh frequently. So making sure that I'm following and so the answer overall would would be higher. Um, I think the level would would be around like L3 uh level at that company.

Just making sure you're hitting all the right check boxes. Uh, maybe moving this up a little bit would be more proactive towards the competition, getting more into the LLM side and maybe with the solution getting a little bit step up when it comes to like how creative this can be to stand out as something that's not really traditional. Uh, but definitely that would be higher.

>> Cool. All right, that's all we got. Um, good luck in your interviews out there.

Thanks for watching.