A guide to working with me. If we work together, I want to understand your beliefs and working norms too.
I’ve been in product management since ~2015, currently at Webflow, where I lead teams focused on bringing our visual development platform upmarket.
Before that, I was at Gusto, where I led teams that built the Accountants product (~30% of revenue) and integrations. I joined when Gusto was about 200 people / $20M ARR, and saw it scale to over 1,600 people / $150M ARR.
Previously, I worked in ad tech, first at a startup (Interclick) in New York, then at Yahoo for a couple years after our acquisition. I have a degree in statistics, and started my career as a data analyst; data continues to guide a lot of my decision-making today.
On the personal side, I’m originally from the East Bay, but grew up abroad, spending a total of 8 years living in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Now I live in Russian Hill (SF) with my fiance wife, Stephanie (she’s a PM too!).
Enjoying some delicious hawker food and Tiger beer on a trip back to Singapore (2019)
I’ve played sports all my life, and a sense of team and common purpose is key to me. There's a magical feeling when a small, hungry team is locked in on a problem, customer, or feature. I want to optimize for that feeling.
There are lots of products out there that are ‘nice-to-have’ or serve a customer set that I have trouble relating to. I derive much more energy from helping everyday people or businesses with a fundamental need.
I try to be myself and encourage others to do the same. Trying to fake it or look good for your peers, family, or boss just doesn't work in the long run.
The journey of company- and product-building requires thousands of decisions to be made across many vectors. While we should rigorously debate the big, irreversible ones, there's no substitute for shipping and learning with real customer data. Let's avoid endless debates, and focus on what we can do to prove or disprove our theories in the wild.
<aside> 📷 Alternatively: “a prototype is worth a thousand meetings” - Tom & David Kelley of IDE
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Written documents are the primary means by which big ideas should be exchanged and debated: company strategy, goals, process improvements, customer learnings, etc. When this is done well, it leads to fewer meetings and endless jousts on Slack.
<aside> 🏠 This is 10x more important and impactful in remote work mode.
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