Turn customer problems into products.
Before you’re ready for a full-time Senior Product hire.
I join early-stage AI teams when founders and CTOs can’t keep owning Product on the side.
You probably don’t need another Product Manager.You need someone to take Product off the founders’ plate.
Product has become too important to stay a side job.
Customers pull in different directions, and engineers wait on decisions only the founders can make.
A full-time Product Lead might still be premature.
That’s the gap I fill.
Companies usually bring me in when…
- Founders still make most Product decisions.
- Engineers keep asking what matters most this sprint.
- Every big customer wants their own version of the product.
- You’ll hire a PM eventually, but decisions can’t wait until then.
- You have more opportunities than capacity to build them.
Ways we can work together
What do you need to move forward?
Ongoing leadership
Fractional AI Product Lead
Product still sits with the founders, and you need someone to own it.
Clear direction. A team that knows what to build next.
- Customer discovery and prioritisation
- Strategy, roadmap and AI prototypes
- Delivery, alignment and learning
Usually two days a week. I can also support your existing PM.
A focused four-week engagement
30-Day Product Sprint
Validate an AI use case, define an MVP or decide what to build next.
One important question. A concrete answer.
- Customer and stakeholder discovery
- Opportunity analysis and validation
- A clear decision and next steps
Includes a prototype where useful. Question and scope agreed upfront.
Ownership through transition
First Product Hire Bridge
Product ownership now, while you find the right permanent PM.
Product keeps moving. Your new PM inherits clarity.
- Day-to-day Product ownership
- Discovery, roadmap and foundations
- Role definition, interviews and handover
Ends with a clean handover to your permanent hire.
Product + Design + Engineering
Embedded Product Trio
A new product or major AI initiative, without the team to validate and build it.
One team, from customer problem to shipped product.
- Product strategy and customer discovery
- UX, prototyping and technical exploration
- Development, launch and measurement
I lead the Trio and own the Product outcome. Scope depends on the challenge and your capacity.
You always work with me directly. I work with a maximum of 2–3 companies at a time.
From customer conversation to shipped product.
I work inside your team and own the result with you.
- Discover
What is actually worth solving?
I talk to customers and check what they say against your data and goals.
Your team getsA clear problemWho it affects. Why it matters. - Decide
Where should we focus next?
We pick one Product bet and agree what success looks like.
Your team getsA focused directionPriorities, scope and success metrics. - Prototype
Does the idea hold up with users?
I build a rough AI prototype and put the riskiest assumption in front of users.
Your team getsEvidence to act onBuild, refine or stop before investing more. - Ship
Did we make things better?
I ship with your engineers and let results shape what comes next.
Your team getsA release we learn fromMeasured outcomes and the next decision.
Short loops, together. Engineers are in the room from the first customer call, and we change course when the evidence says so.
AI changed how Product should work.
- Customer
- PM
- Requirements
- Design
- Engineering
- Prototype
- Learn
- Customer
- Product + Engineering
- Prototype
- Learn
- Engineering
- Ship
I use AI to put an idea in front of real customers in days, before anyone commits weeks of engineering time.
I don’t just manage teams building AI products. I build with AI too.
That way engineers spend their time on ideas that have already earned it.
Selected Product work
Three problems, and the decision that moved each one.
From one customer’s request to a reusable platform.
A large customer asked for a custom integration before renewing. Building it only for them meant one more special case to maintain.
The Product decisionA year of requests showed that six of our ten largest customers wanted the same thing, so we built three reusable building blocks any of them could plug into.
Read the Candidly storyTurning a stalled AI feature into a tool auditors actually used.
Auditors couldn’t easily check the changes the AI suggested, and each stakeholder wanted a different redesign.
The Product decisionFirst find out why auditors didn’t trust it. Then show the AI’s changes apart from their own edits, and ship only what fixed those trust issues.
Read the PwC storyMaking a marketplace work for more of its suppliers.
Buyers were searching plenty, yet a third of paying suppliers never heard from one, and those suppliers renewed at under half the usual rate.
The Product decisionLook at how buyer contacts were spread across suppliers instead of the average. Then match on what buyers really filter by, and show good suppliers who were being missed.
Read the Foursource storyHey — I’m Javi.
Senior Product Manager in AI products, with six years in international tech companies.
I like being close to customers, and I prototype before asking engineers to build anything.
I also founded The Impostor PM, a community helping Product people cut through the noise, build confidence, and turn AI and emerging ways of working into practical skills they can actually use.
Some things I believe
- Doing beats knowing. You understand something much better once you’ve built it, broken it and fixed it.
- Simple is usually harder (and better). Adding complexity is easy. Knowing what to take out is the hard part.
- Freedom comes from responsibility. I earn ownership over my time and decisions by being someone people can trust to deliver.
- Who you work with matters as much as what you work on. I’d rather build something small with good people.
- Share what you learn. Knowledge is worth more when it’s passed around.
- Everyone feels like an impostor sometimes, and that’s fine. The best people I know are still asking questions.
Let’s make sure your engineers build the right thing next.
Product becoming a bottleneck, but a senior hire feels premature? Let’s talk.
In 30 minutes we’ll see what’s stuck and what support makes sense. If I’m not the right fit, I’ll tell you.