Alex C.

Alex C.

Product Owner

San Francisco, United States of America
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About Me

With a degree in understanding how people think (aka neuroscience) and a passion for crafting experiences that sell, Alex's background isn't traditional. You'll find Alex's work at the intersection of design and commerce, helping his clients convert leads into sales.

Work history

Apple
Product Manager
2019 - 2021 (2 years)
Remote
  • Collected stakeholder requirements to lock down the scope and write software product specifications for Apple.com and Apple Store App.

  • Worked with design, engineering, content, and ops teams to launch products for hundreds of millions of users around the world.

  • Managed the product roadmap and project scope of work.

Wynd Technologies
Product Manager
2017 - 2019 (2 years)
Remote
  • Led a team of seven to create two new home environment IoT devices: Wynd Halo and Wynd Home Purifier.

  • Oversaw the marketing effort to launch an IoT device on Kickstarter and raised $916,644 towards the manufacturing of new products.

  • Gathered stakeholder requirements, conducted market research, analyzed existing product usage, and worked with users to craft a one-year product roadmap and specifications for product features.

  • Shipped three products using agile methodologies to launch: Air Bubbles mobile, Air Bubbles macOS, and What’s in Your Air website.

Expedia
Product Manager
2015 - 2017 (2 years)
Remote
  • Led a six-person product development team utilizing agile methodologies and human-centered design through the ideation, prototyping, user testing, and development life cycle to launch internally.

  • Conducted market and competitive analysis in the travel mobile app space to determine market gaps to fill by creating an app that specializes in personalized packaged flight and hotel booking.

  • Created user personas, product specifications, and app wireframes based on user needs identified during surveys, user interviews, and team meetings analyzing the data.

  • Balanced user and Expedia stakeholder requirements to create an on-time and on-budget product.

Ohana
Product Manager
Present (2024 years)
Remote
  • Designed, managed the development, and launched an iOS app to simplify communication for the elderly (like Whatsapp for grandparents).

  • Interviewed the elderly to understand their biggest hurdles in using modern technology.

  • Applied findings to craft an intuitive user experience that is usable for 90% of tested users within five minutes.

  • Led a team of seven designers, marketers, and developers to acquire users and improve the app over time.

Portfolio

Expedia | Just Go! App

Our Expedia stakeholders tasked my team and me with creating a travel package booking app for college students. We set about interviewing college students to determine what their most significant pain points and frustrations were when booking travel. After conducting 30 interviews, we created and sent out a survey. We got over 500 responses and were able to assign quantitative values to how many people faced similar problems in travel. Taking this data, I went on to conduct a competitive analysis of over 50 travel apps to determine what gaps existed in the mobile travel market. From finding the most significant pain points and gaps existing in the travel market, we were able to make a few solution proposals to our Expedia stakeholders. We suggested focussing on personalizing the travel experience and recommending packages customers were likely to be interested in. We got approval and began testing UI designs towards this solution. By May 2016, we were able to lock down the plans and start development with user testing conducted every two weeks. By August, we finished our MVP and began the process of launching internally. Then we launched in October 2016 and iterated on the product based on feedback through 2017.

Ohana

Our goal was to target the often neglected user group of seniors who were 75+ years old. Technology and user interface design is moving quickly and dropping many of the helpful hints new users used to rely on. We wanted to start from scratch with a UI design specifically designed for and with older adults. To begin the process, we surveyed ten people to see how they communicate with their older loved ones. We found that most of the adults we interviewed do not talk to their grandparents or parents as much as they'd like. We then crafted a survey that we sent out to 100 users to assign more quantitative values to the problem areas we were noticing. Once we got the survey back, we saw that communication with older adults was the biggest pain point, so we started designing some user interfaces for older adults. Once we had a few different designs ready, we partnered with a local assisted living home and tested the designs with older adults there. Initially, we were not doing so well, but over the weeks as we honed the design we were able to craft a design that 90% of users could learn to use within five minutes. We began development in April 2017 and launched on the app store in August 2017.

Wynd Halo from Idea to Launch

Wynd Halo has ten sensors to monitor allergens, smoke, germs, pollution, and more. It features an innovation called Air ID, which classifies the actual pollutants in the air so that you can take the right course of action. Wynd Halo pairs seamlessly with the Wynd Home Purifier to remove any contaminants from your environment quickly and automatically. I surveyed our existing users to understand what about their air they were most interested in. I then presented the research and suggestions to our hardware and software teams. We then defined the possible specifications for what would become the Wynd Halo could do for our users. From there, I worked with our users to pound out the specific features they were interested in for the device. This device's key selling point became its ability to control other devices and use its ten sensors to understand your environment and automatically tweak it for you. That means lights on when you come into a room and sleep suggestions based on how bright or loud your room is. I then led our design and software teams to create the Halo's interface and iOS/Android apps—ultimately resulting in the launch of the device in October 2019 to over 3,000 of our Kickstarter backers.

Education

Education
Bachelor's Degree in Neuroscience
University of Michigan
2013 - 2016 (3 years)