Company Context
ClipStream is a short-form video consumer app with 45M monthly active users, monetized through ads and creator revenue share. It has grown quickly through referrals and paid acquisition, but leadership is concerned that rapid growth may be lowering content quality and hurting long-term retention.
Problem
Over the last two quarters, ClipStream increased new user sign-ups by 28% and daily uploads by 40%. However, 8-week retention for new users fell from 31% to 24%, average session satisfaction scores dropped from 4.2 to 3.8, and reports of low-quality or repetitive content rose by 22%. The team believes there is a tension between maximizing content volume for growth and maintaining a high-quality feed that keeps users engaged.
You are the PM for the core consumer experience. Your task is to define how you would think about the relationship between content quality and growth, and what product strategy you would recommend.
Deliverables
- Define what “content quality” should mean for ClipStream from both the user and business perspective.
- Identify the most important user segments and explain how quality affects acquisition, engagement, retention, and creator ecosystem health.
- Propose a product approach to improve growth without degrading feed quality, including what you would prioritize for an MVP.
- Define the key metrics, trade-offs, and decision principles you would use to balance short-term growth with long-term product health.
- Explain how you would validate whether quality improvements actually drive sustainable growth.
Constraints
- You have one quarter for MVP delivery.
- Engineering capacity is limited to one ranking team, one trust & safety team, and one creator tools pod.
- Leadership does not want to reduce total content supply by more than 10% in the near term.
- Any solution must avoid a material drop in ad impressions during the first 8 weeks after launch.
