Diagnose a drop in conversion rate
Last updated: August 20, 2025
Quick Overview
The activation rate dropped by 15% this week. Walk through your investigation process.
Morgan Stanley
August 20, 2025134
6
2,792 solved
The activation rate dropped by 15% this week. Walk through your investigation process.
Product questions at Morgan Stanley test your ability to think like a product leader. This Take-home Project question evaluates how you balance user needs, business goals, and technical constraints when making product decisions.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Demonstrate strategic product thinking beyond feature-level decisions
- Analyze second-order effects and long-term ecosystem impact
- Balance multiple stakeholder needs with clear trade-off rationale
- Design experiments to validate key assumptions before building
- Consider platform effects, network effects, and marketplace dynamics
- Propose a phased rollout strategy with go/no-go criteria
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Start with the user. Who are they, what problem do they have, and what is their current workaround?
- Use a prioritization framework: impact vs effort, RICE scoring, or ICE scoring.
- Define success metrics using the AARRR framework: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral.
- Consider second-order effects. A feature might boost short-term engagement but hurt long-term retention.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- How would you decide to kill this feature if it's not working?
- How would you sequence the rollout across different user segments?
- How would you validate this idea before committing engineering resources?
Sharpen Your Skills on Codemia
Practice similar problems with our interactive workspace, get AI feedback, and track your progress.
Browse Product QuestionsSample Answer
Problem Framing
To scope the issue of the 15% drop in activation rate at Morgan Stanley, we must first define activation clearly. Activation in this context refers to the completion of key onboarding steps in our inv...
User & Market Context
The primary users affected by this drop are retail investors and wealth management clients who rely on our platform for investment decisions. Key factors for these users include ease of use, trust in ...
Submit Your Answer
