For founders building the future of work
I spent years buying and implementing HR tech at Figma, Sonos, and Wayfair, and I now design and build AI products myself. I bring the buyer, user, and builder perspective to the decisions that shape the product.
The person approving the purchase and the person using the product every day want different things.
A customer is interested enough to run a pilot, but the product does not become part of the way the team works.
One customer asks for one feature, another asks for the opposite, and both requests begin shaping the roadmap.
The product works in a demo, but breaks down when it has to fit the customer's normal workflow, data, and approvals.
The AI feature produces a useful result, but the user cannot see why it made the decision or what to do when it is wrong.
The positioning describes a bigger product than customers can reliably use today.
At Figma, Sonos, and Wayfair, I bought and implemented HR technology inside the kinds of organizations many Future of Work founders want as customers. I know what has to be true for a product to get approved, adopted, and kept.
I work across product design, design engineering, and AI systems. I can use the product, inspect how the interface and underlying system work together, and build a prototype when that is the fastest way to answer a product question.
As a Venture Partner and member of a due-diligence team, I have evaluated early-stage startups across the market, team, differentiation, and early customer signal. My MBA work at Columbia focuses on strategy, entrepreneurship, product management, and AI transformation.
Why a promising pilot is not becoming part of the team's normal work, and where the product is fighting that workflow.
Where AI belongs, what should remain predictable, how users review or correct the output, and what has to be tested.
Which requests reveal a broader pattern, and which are still one customer's preference.
Whether the promise matches the product customers can use today and the problem they will pay to solve.
Startup experience
PeopleTech Partners brings together experienced People leaders who have served as buyers and decision makers for workplace technology. I advise founders, evaluate early-stage startups through its due-diligence team, and lead community work around AI and the future of People technology.
Read my PeopleTech Partners featureVITALIZE is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on B2B software and the future of work. As a Venture Partner, I evaluated startups across the product, market, team, differentiation, and early customer signal.
Current company advisory
Send the product, relevant customer material, and the decision in front of you. I will use the product and review the surrounding workflow before we meet. We will work through what I see, then I will send a written assessment, recommendation, and next test.
Two calls each month, with reasonable asynchronous access between them. Use the time for product, roadmap, positioning, and AI decisions as they come up.
In either case, you receive a written assessment of what I see, my recommendation, and the next decision or experiment.
This is most useful when customers are already using the product and you are deciding what to build next, which feedback represents a pattern, or whether the promise has run ahead of the product.
This is not
Start with the decision in front of you
The newsletter
By subscribing you agree to Substack's Terms of Use, their Privacy Policy, and their Information Collection Notice.
