Product Management Expertise

I’ve been Head of Product at two software startups, and consulted for 5+ companies. I’ve also done UX/UI design work for my own startups.

Guided Compass

May 1, 2018 – present

Guided Compass is a robust career development platform that powers workforce programs to help career-seekers from career exploration to goal setting to career training to landing paid opportunities. Clients include Los Angeles Unified School District, Detroit Public Schools, UNITE-LA, Mountain Area Workforce Development Board, and Options for Youth Charter Schools.

While workforce programs pay to use the platform, individuals can sign up at any time to use the platform to explore career paths, set goals, collaborate with like-minded individuals, and get referred to paid opportunities.

I am the solo founder: building and iterating on Guided Compass with workforce clients using the MERN (Mongo, Express.js, React.js, Node.js) tech stack. Guided Compass is a web app with five portals, and it has an iOS and Android app built with React Native.

HackHive

January 1, 2018 – May 1, 2018

 

HackHive was a portfolio web app for developers, designers, and data scientists, allowing them to showcase their projects, connect with other builders, and gain work opportunities. I worked on growth and product while Varun Bhartia focused on product and software development. HackHive landed $300K in pre-seed funding, and we onboarded hundreds of developers and showcased projects.

Although we found some people to add their projects, we ran into some trouble. We focused on user growth and secondarily placements rather than revenue. This in and of itself may have been a huge mistake. Here are some of the issues we ran into:

  • There wasn’t a compelling pitch to recruiting developers to the platform because we didn’t recruit employers to the platform until later on (i.e., they weren’t getting hired). 
  • Although developers, designers, and data scientists trusted HackHive with projects learned in coding bootcamp, some didn’t when it came to more advanced projects since they can turn into a business at some point. 
  • We initially targeted partnerships in coding bootcamps, which were entering a decline at the time. Many employers didn’t trust them over other avenues of recruiting software engineering talent.
  • Varun and I had disagreements on the strategy to find product-market fit.

Fitspot Wellness

December 1, 2016 – June 1, 2017

 

Fitspot is a Techstars company that raised over $2MM in outside funding. It’s original B2C business allows people to book a personal trainer for a 1-hour workout session at a nearby location; it’s burgeoning B2B business charges businesses to offer group instructor-led workouts for their employees. Fitspot clients include Tinder, Johnson & Johnson, NCR, Mailchimp, ExpressJet, Buzzfeed, Uber, and TrueCar. I led product strategy and execution. During my tenure, Fitspot grew from $8,700 in monthly revenue to $71,000.

Optimized Existing Product

  • Increased conversion rate 30% on $20K monthly advertising budget by recommending design changes.
  • Increased conversion rate another 10% by A/B testing copy and images on messaging across channels.
  • Conducted over 30 customers interviews and distributed over 50 surveys to create five core personas.
  • Created dashboard from analytics tools that allowed employees to track and improve monthly performance.

Created New Product

  • Conducted interviews with over 30 employees to create requirements and user stories for B2B web app.
  • Worked with engineering to create product requirements document and define the MVP (+ iterations).
  • Created wireframes (Balsamiq) and created / tweaked designs (Sketch) for the B2B web app.

Drive + Leadership + Scrappiness

  • Screened, interviewed, onboarded, and managed 10+ developers and 2 designers.
  • Configured & analyzed sales data (Salesforce, Hubspot, Outreach, and Salesloft); developed sales strategy.
  • Identified use cases, conducted SEO keyword research, and helped create content strategy with Marketing.

Emmasson

June 1, 2017 – December 1, 2017

Emmasson was a shell company that hired 20+ employees, contractors, and vendors to create software that allows creators to have stronger controls and greater security when sharing their intellectual property with others. In my role as Head of Product, I:

  • Identified seven products that solve key hypothesized user problems.
  • Conducted over 20 customer interviews to validate hypotheses.
  • Worked with a designer and 5 software engineers to prioritize features and build MVP.

The project unraveled after Sheldon Ramon Johnson, who previously claimed he raised a $175MM round of funding, continuously promised to pay 20+ employees and vendors, but failed to do so for months at a time. Everyone seemed to be paid for the first month, but not for following months of work. As of December 2022, I still have not been paid for months of work.

HDLV & WeDesyn

March 1, 2016 – December 1, 2016

I provided product and software development strategy consulting services for this e-Commerce socially-conscious clothing store. Projects included competitive analysis, webpage redesign, and SEO strategy. I also devised Timeless, a designer platform that allows the company to scalably add designs to its store.

I also led the design, development, and launch WeDesyn as part of Spooler. This was my fifth mobile app. WeDesyn allows communities to design their own clothing in a forum where they can upvote and downvote ideas. WeDesyn was launched to my old high school. They used the product to design their class shirts.

 

Catnip

January 1, 2016 – June 1, 2016

Oversaw marketing strategy as my co-founder built this incredibly groundbreaking mobile app. Catnip provides funny cat videos that people can swipe through. Swiping right means you like, Swiping left means no thanks. Slogans include “Tinder for Cats” and “Join the Litter”.

All right-swipes are saved to be viewed at your pleasure. I created This Hilarious Cat Video as part of this project. 

Compass (1.0)

June 1, 2014 – December 1, 2015

This is the very first mobile app I ever designed, built, and launched. Don’t judge.

To build Compass (1.0), I conducted interviews with career coaches and their customers, learned how to code mobile apps, designed, built, and launched the app myself. The app even included a Newsfeed and Find Friends algorithm. I learned how to build apps using AppCoda, YouTube, Udemy courses, and Stack Overflow.

The most glaring issue with the app was design, since people didn’t know what to do. But looking back, there were all kinds of issues. My assumptions were flawed about how to grow the product, my algorithms were slow, and the code app wasn’t very scalable. While the entire project was humbling, it also opened my eyes to the possibilities in app development.