Who you are
You are a SaaS Services Platform that enables service organizations to better serve their guests, patients, travelers, clients across their journey:
- Discovery
- Experience
- Purchase
- Communication
- Ongoing relationship
What you could improve
You had the original market insight about who your customer is (maybe it was yourself) and what the product should be (maybe you and a few others built it).
Now it’s time to move from MVP to a market-leading product by deeply understanding the customer, communicating the true value to her, and building the right product & service so that she can achieve her goals!
I bring Product & Service Strategy with a bent towards Sales & Marketing. I see design as a tool to better serve users, whether that’s building a user-centered product or delivering on user needs across their buying journey.
These are the blog posts, webinars, and/or lectures that I’ve given within my areas of strength. They’ve been used to communicate my vision, drive projects, and ultimately improve the products and services of SaaS businesses.
- Product Strategy: All-in-one vs. Best of Breed
- Service Design: Crafting Services General Assembly Workshop
- Business Process: Designing Growth into your Service Operations Webinar
- System Architecture: Current and Future Agency Workflows
- Service Experience Design: A Traveler’s Journey
- User Interface Design: B2B and B2C Trends
- Buying Journey: How SMBs Can Evaluate SaaS Software With User Stories
- Product Demos: Accelo Overview
- Personas & User Stories
- Product Marketing Webinars: What is Service Operations
- Sales: Selling Enterprise Software to SMBs is Tough Memo
- Got-to-Market Roll-out: Sound of Silence Memo
- Competitor research and market positioning (can share offline)
- Authentic guest experience
My Professional Journey
Here’s a bit more about me beyond my LinkedIn and my resume.
I hail from Portland, Oregon growing up amongst the mountains and waters of the Pacific Northwest.
I have a passion for service – both the industry and the act of helping others – and much of my story follows this.
I grew up traveling. My father founded and ran a travel company called Grand European Tours, and guess what? They ran tours throughout Europe (but later Asia, Africa, and beyond). He would bring his family – myself included – on many of his business trips abroad! From a very early age, I experienced the transformational power of travel and the good and bad that tourism can bring.
My first job was at Starbucks at age 16, where I was the youngest employee by 8 years. I was also the only dude, so I quickly got the nickname Rone… short for Testosterone. I was kindly asked to leave after I told them I’d be gone for a month to attend a summer program out in New York. It was at the Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, which I would later go to once I graduated high school.
At college, I was always exploring my passion of travel and tech. Learning about the people and places of the world through classes like Houses of South East Asia, Ghosts and Spirits of Asia, World Religion, and Cultures & Cuisines. After I realized that I – as well as most of my friends – didn’t know how websites like Facebook worked, I started taking as many tech classes as possible: Web Design, Communications & Technology, Systems & Processes, Hospitality Information Systems. These skills later helped me re-design my fraternity’s website and move into Product at SaaS Service Platforms.
In every job, I tried to bring as many service SaaS platforms to improve the customer experience. At Jackson Lake Lodge, I create an operating manual for their Property Management System; at Orbridge (a travel company), I implemented Assistly (now desk.com) to handle guest issues on trips; and at Weill Cornell Medical College, I helped with the implementation of ServiceNow (a ticketing support system).
After college, I shifted into working on the Product & Sales side of the SaaS Platforms. At PAR Springer Miller, I helped position their new small hotel SaaS tool and was the lead analyst on a potential credit card integration. Internally, I designed the partnership selling flow within the CRM (Salesforce.com) for their spa software in the Middle East.
I wanted to move faster than hotel software, so I tried my luck applying to a start up through Craigslist (an odd recommendation from a friend in the Bay Area). After talking to the CEO for 15 minutes on the side of the road (I was driving all day to my girlfriend, now wife’s, graduation), I took a job at Accelo as the second sales team member.
There was no formal Product Team, so I quickly took on more product responsibilities. I paired up with the CEO in the US as well as the Head of Design and Head of Engineering in Australia, to write user stories, position against competitors, prototype, validate flows with business owners, and plan roadmaps. As the bridge between marketing & sales, I trained new sales team members on upcoming features and how to pitch the product in demos (as well as running our biggest presentations and calls with prospects); I ran marketing webinars and set the framework for how our best practice webinars ran. Additionally, I trained and supported our emerging consulting partners across the world… which made for some fun early mornings and late nights!
During this all, my wife (Kelsey) pursued design at UCLA at their Interior Design & Architecture program and I transitioned working remotely out of Los Angeles (or wherever we happened to be), traveling to SF and increasingly Denver (new office) to work closely with the team and train new members on product.
Los Angeles was where I learned about new cultures through cuisine. Living between Little Ethiopia, Koreatown, Mexican, Persian Jewish, Chinese, and Thai food. Local trips to the farmers markets added great ingredients to our meals.
Moreover, I improved my design thinking skills there, joining the General Assembly UX program. I stayed involved, coming back to run workshops in the emerging field of Service Design which was something I began to work on with customers of Accelo as well as internally within the organization.
Kelsey recently graduated from UCLA, so we are exploring what’s next in this adventure! We are currently living on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Next challenge, overnight bike trip along the Pacific Coast.
Looking forward to hearing from you.