Interview Question: Meta - Livestream

Why would we build this?

How would we set goals for this product?

What would be our success metrics?

1. Assumptions

You can stream to friends and public feeds

Live video is automatically saved and can be posted to page

You can comment and reacting

2. Product Rationale

Company Mission: build the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible

Direct competition: clubhouse, TikTok live, twitch

Indirect competition: reels, tiktok, live TV, twitter, etc.

Why does this exist?

• Live events or breaking news, having it be real time could be very valuable
• Interacting with people live (Gaming, influencers/fans, celebrities, live shopping)
• More engaging and more connection if live vs recorded

Weaknesses/Threats?

• Knowing when to “tune in” to a livestream and being available can be tough
• Not good for - funny video, ted talks, updates to friends…

Life cycle: New-ish product with meaningful adoption but small relative to total minutes on Meta

3. Entities

Creators

Audience

Advertisers

Meta

4. Objectives

Increase social connection and engagement through livestream

• Encourage users to create livestreams
• Help viewers find interesting livestreams
• Encourage followers and streamers to connect with each other

Help influencers get new followers

Help new users try out livestreams

Help advertisers find the right audience at the right time for their products

Don't let ads distract too much from core experience

5. Potential Metrics

Joint

• Total person hours spent watching livestreams

Creators

• # of events scheduled
• # of invites sent
• # livestreams created

Content creator retention rate

• # created
• Hours created

Audience

• # of livestreams viewed
• # of comments, likes on livestreams
• # of follows resulting from livestream
• # of new follows through livestream
• DAPs
• DAP retention rate
• Hours of livestream / DAP

Advertisers

• # of advertisers on platform

Monetization

• ARPU

Health

• # of livestreams reported violations
• % of content that is an ad

Product marketing and adoption

• % of FB, IG, DAPs that use Live
• Audience
• Content creators (major influencers vs small)

6. North Star Metric

Total person hours spent watching livestreams

7. Leading indicators / Secondary Success Metrics

# of DAPs that watch livestream

Hours of livestream watched / DAP

# of livestreams created

# of comments, likes on livestreams

8. Health / Guardrail Metrics

DAP retention rate

• Creators
• Viewers

# of livestreams reporting violations

Total person hours spent on other meta platforms (e.g., Reels)

9. Tradeoff questions

What would you do if there is a 10% drop in FB videos time watched but a 10% increase in FB live time watched?

• FB videos is much large in absolute terms so this would be net negative
• FB Video Pros
• Bigger business already
• Easier to monetize than livesteams because advertisers don't know what will be on livestream
• Depends if it is from major celebrities vs normal people
• Cons
• May have more competition from others (e.g., tiktok,netflix, etc)
• Established product that may be on decline vs new product with big opportunity
• Live is more defensible because of network effect