Business Metrics and Unit Economics Questions

Evaluate a candidates ability to analyze the financial drivers and per customer economics that determine business sustainability and growth. Core concepts include revenue streams and pricing, gross margin, contribution margin, operating margin, customer acquisition cost, lifetime value per customer, lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio, payback period, average revenue per user, churn and retention rates, and metrics for subscription or recurring revenue models such as annual recurring revenue, monthly recurring revenue, expansion revenue, and contraction effects. Candidates should be able to perform back of the envelope calculations and sensitivity analysis, interpret trade offs between growth and profitability, link marketing product and channel activities to financial outcomes, explain how metrics vary by customer segment or acquisition channel, and make strategic recommendations such as pricing adjustments, segmentation strategies, acquisition channel shifts, or investment versus efficiency decisions. Interviewers may request simple calculations, scenario analysis, and prioritized actions grounded in metric changes.

MediumTechnical

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An analyst proposes to sum total lifetime revenue per customer and call that LTV. Critique this approach and outline a more robust method to estimate LTV using cohorts, retention curves, and discounting. Provide at least three specific improvements and why each matters.

MediumSystem Design

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You are asked to design an automated dashboard to monitor unit economics for the executive team. List the 8 widgets/tiles you would include, the primary audience for each tile, the update cadence, and one alert rule for each tile that should trigger a review. Prioritize simplicity and actionability.

EasyTechnical

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A merchant marketplace tracks take rate and gross merchandise volume (GMV). Define GMV, take rate, and explain how take rate interacts with gross margin and contribution margin for the marketplace. Give an example calculation where GMV = 1,000,000, take rate = 12%, and variable transaction cost = 3% of GMV.

MediumTechnical

0 practiced

Propose three prioritized data-driven recommendations to improve retention for users with below-median engagement who make up 30% of active users but 10% of revenue. For each recommendation estimate expected direction of change for churn and LTV, data you need to validate impact, and a metric to run in a pilot.

HardTechnical

0 practiced

Write a short SQL snippet to compute the CAC payback curve: for each cohort by acquisition_month, show cumulative contribution margin per acquired user at months 1..12 and indicate the month where cumulative contribution first exceeds CAC. Assume tables: acquisitions(user_id, acquired_at, channel, cac_amount), revenue(user_id, month_date, revenue_amount), variable_costs_pct (value).

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