← Stream
Stream role-play cheat sheet
For the mock cold call at the end of most SDR interviews.
What they sell, in one line
Developer APIs and SDKs that let apps add in-app chat, video calling, activity feeds and AI moderation without building them.
Who you'd be calling
VP/Head of Engineering, CTOs, product managers and mobile/app leads at app companies, marketplaces, social, fitness, dating and telehealth startups
Your opener
“Hi Sam, this is Alex from Stream. I know I'm calling out of the blue. We help app teams add chat and video without building it themselves. Do you have 30 seconds to see if that's even relevant for you?”
Problems you solve for them
- Building chat from scratch takes engineers months and is hard to keep reliable at scale
- In-app messaging that lags or drops messages hurts user engagement and retention
- Moderating user content (spam, abuse) is costly and hard to staff
- Engineers spend time maintaining infrastructure instead of building core product features
Discovery questions to ask
- Do your users talk to each other, or to your team, inside the app today? How is that handled?
- Is chat or video something your engineers built in-house, or did you bring in a vendor?
- What's on your product roadmap this year that your engineers would rather spend time on than messaging infrastructure?
Objections they'll throw at you
“I'm busy right now.”
→ Totally get it, I'll be quick. I'm only trying to learn whether in-app chat is on your roadmap. Can I grab 15 minutes later this week instead?
“We're not interested.”
→ Fair enough, and I don't want to waste your time. Out of curiosity, is that because you already have chat covered, or it just isn't a priority right now?
“We already use something / built it ourselves.”
→ Good to know, plenty of teams start that way. How much engineering time goes into keeping it running and scaling it these days?
“Just send me an email.”
→ Happy to. So I send you something useful, what's the main thing you'd want chat or video to do in your app? And would Thursday work for a quick follow-up?
Competitors worth knowing
Sendbird, Twilio, PubNub, Agora
Interview tips for this company
- Be ready to explain in plain words what an API is: a ready-made building block developers plug into their app instead of coding it.
- Name-drop the well-known apps the company lists (Strava, Bumble, eBay, Patreon) only as they appear in the job post, and learn the four products: Chat, Video, Feeds, Moderation.
Written from public information about Stream to help you practice. Ask an insider what their role play looked like; it's the best prep there is.