Product Evaluation
Duke Applied Machine Learning
Placement Interviews
20-minutes to present your product evaluation and 10-minutes for questions
2 technical questions (1 software and 1 machine learning)
Evaluation
What is the product?
Who uses the product and what value does the product deliver to them?
Who are the biggest players in the market the product is in?
Where does the product stand in that market?
Feature Pitch
How does your feature add value to the product and its users?
What are use cases (potential ways to use your product) for your new feature?
What is a minimum viable version of your idea?
What does your idea look like in its finished state?
How would you measure the success of your feature?
How difficult do you imagine this feature being to implement?
Timeline
Finish course before you present
Presentation materials due Thursday 9/24 at 11:59pm ET (1 week from now)
Project placement interviews Friday 9/25 to Sunday 9/27
Project preferences due Wednesday 9/30
GroupMe Evaluation
Group Messaging Competitors
Company | Max Group Size | Monthly Active Users (US), MM | Video/calling |
GroupMe | 500+ | 10 | No |
256 | 26 | Yes | |
iMessage | 25 | 85 | Yes |
Messenger | 250 | 106 | Yes |
Users
Colleges
Student organizations and courses
Events
Festivals, school trips, conferences
Cross platform
Communicate with friends and family across operating systems
GroupMe Pay
Why
Maintain and increase user base and engagement
Capitalize on GroupMe’s prevalence in colleges
Revenue through transaction fees
What
System for tracking and settling payments among groups of all sizes
Use Cases
Roommates
Easily share grocery, cleaning supplies, rent, and other monthly bills by quickly assigning payments amongst friends.
Fundraisers & dues
Solicit funds from your groups in the place where your groups already exist.
Betting
Set odds for a competition amongst your risk-taking friends and discuss the game before making bets.
Minimum Viable Version
Add transactions between users
Create new payments between two individuals or split it among a group
Pay debt to other users
Mark a transaction as settled outside of the app
Automatically create Venmo or Cash App transactions
Full Launch
In-app Payments
Pay another user without leaving GroupMe
Dashboard
Users can view their past payments
Admins can track and manage payments for their group
User Impact
Group owners | Quicker, less awkward payment collection One-time setup works forever |
Participants | One payment covers all Reduced time tracking payments |
Technical Challenges
Payments Integration | Integrate with Venmo and Cash App API for first release In-app payments through Stripe or Plaid |
App integration | Design changes and usability testing |
Measuring Success
Total number of transactions
Average number of transactions per user
Dollars sent in transactions
Daily active users
1
2
3
4
What we are looking for
Thoughtful analysis of the product
Feature solves a real problem and aligns with product’s vision
Demonstrated a basic understanding of how to execute feature
Timeline
Presentation materials due Thursday 9/24 at 11:59pm ET (1 week from now)
Project placement interviews Friday 9/25 to Sunday 9/27
Project preferences due Wednesday 9/30
Questions