Aaron Batchelder
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since August 6, 2020
Aaron is a seasoned product leader with a track record of building top-rated digital experiences as far back as 2012. As an entrepreneur, consultant, and in-house product manager at companies as small as four and as large as 15,000, he's learned to thrive in all organizational complexities. He's consistently demonstrated the ability to execute with cross-functional teams of all sizes, driving results and enabling those around him to do their best work in building world-class user experiences.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Product Management
- B2C
- Data Analysis
- Digital Product Management
- Iterative Development
- Mobile
- Product Management
- Product Strategy
Work Experience
Group Product Manager, Automations
Teachable
- Created a vision and strategy for shifting the organizational DNA from a closed to an open platform. I obtained organizational buy-in to create three new teams focused on scaling our third-party ecosystem to retain customers at a higher rate.
- Rebuilt a legacy authentication system from the ground up, resulting in a 75% reduction in customer support tickets and the adoption of modern platform access features by customers.
- Led the discovery and development of an API product's first version. The product smashed expectations by hitting our monthly goal in three days and surpassing our annual goal by 10x. As a result, we saw a significant increase in customer retention.
- Functioned as Director of Product for three months during a significant leadership churn while also leading a pod. I kept the teams focused and eased the transition to new leadership.
- Developed a revenue and growth model to achieve unit profitability for the automations group within 12 months.
- Worked successfully with multiple challenging teammates by practicing radical candor.
- Designed a short-term strategy and long-term vision for the Teachable mobile app that was used as justification for a new dedicated pod.
Lead Product Manager
WeWork
- Shipped features 4x faster on average than other squads by using lean tests to prove customer value.
- Created and executed an App Store rating strategy for the WeWork iOS app that increased the rating from 1.8 to 4.7 stars in the UK and Japan.
- Shifted product thinking in the mission away from Waterfall development to an Agile, iterative approach.
- Replatformed legacy Android and web experiences to new greenfield architecture, which improved performance, user experiences, scalability, and data insights.
- Drove product strategy and execution for the end-to-end conference room and daily desk booking products across mobile and web, which was the second-highest revenue generator for the company outside of office leases.
- Managed the entire lifecycle of workstreams for design, mobile, back-end, and web engineers, ensuring all teammates had the opportunity to achieve their full potential.
Senior Product Manager
Prolific Interactive (acquired by WeWork)
- Identified key user behavior patterns that uncovered the actions of power users, resulting in a 3x increase in revenue and a strong re-engagement strategy.
- Engaged as lead product manager for the full product development lifecycle of the first versions of the TB12 Method app, which has a 4.8-star App Store rating, and the Clear mobile app, which landed a 4.5-star rating in 2019.
- Managed the back-end team that developed a highly scalable architecture to accommodate traffic spikes from NFL media coverage, resulting in nearly 100% uptime.
- Served as product lead for discovery engagements with Vanguard to understand opportunities in the gig economy to help workers prepare for retirement.
- Acted as product lead for discovery engagements with AT&T to understand how to best position their THANKS app in the market.
Co-founder and Head of Product
Laughable
- Led the strategy and execution of the Laughable iOS app, which is currently one of the highest-rated podcast apps in the store.
- Acted as lead researcher and designer for the product's first version, which was and has consistently rated above 4.5 stars.
- Identified and designed new UI architecture that increased user engagement by 300%.
Founder and Product Manager
Social Mason, LLC.
- Served as product lead for a team of three developers and one designer through all aspects of the product development lifecycle for 30+ mobile applications, generating over 7 million downloads in 2014-2015.
- Reached the App Store Top 200 organically for a category 20 times using App Store trend data.
- Exited after selling out an equity stake in the company.
- Maintained an average of 4 stars and above for all 30 mobile apps in the store over multiple years by focusing on quality, user needs, and user pain points and raising the bar on the competition.
Project History
TB12 Fitness App for iOS and Android
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tb12/id1259881753Lead product manager for full product development lifecycle of v1.0 TB12 Method app (4.8 stars in the App Store).
As product lead for the project, I played a combined role; product manager, product owner, project manager, and account manager. I closely collaborated with a cross-functional team ranging in size from six to 14 at its largest at the height of production. My focus was on product strategy, project delivery, the success of the engagement, and ensuring the product had a laser-focused value proposition for v1.0 throughout all stages of the product development lifecycle.
CLEAR - Fast, Touchless Access on iOS and Android
https://www.clearme.com/mobileappLed a fully cross-functional product team from discovery to production using a modern design thinking approach to create a new biometrics-based mobile experience.
When the team came to us, they had some early designs and an initial build of the product. It was our job to take their complex business processes, a variety of identity service vendors, and designs at that point, and focus on creating a beautiful and seamless mobile experience.
WeWork's Flagship: The Conference Room and Hotdesk Booking Experience on iOS, Android, and Web
Shipped features 4x faster on average than other squads by using lean tests to prove customer value resulting in six potential solutions to pain points tested within two months.
Coming into the product, my main focus was to conduct a thorough needs and opportunities assessment. From there, it was to understand the product development culture and how it can be improved. With both of those in mind, I arrived at a huge opportunity to improve team morale and deliver customer value more frequently by adopting a more iterative approach to development.
Education
Bachelor of Science Degree in Health Science
SUNY Cortland - Cortland, New York, USA
Certifications
Scrum Master Accredited
International Scrum Institute
Skills
Tools
Jira, Pivotal Tracker, Slack, Asana, Xcode, iTunes Connect
Paradigms
Agile Product Management, B2C, Iterative Development, Scrum, Agile, App Store Optimization (ASO), B2B2C, Design Thinking, Iterative Design, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C)
Platforms
Google Ads
Other
Product Management, Product Strategy, Stakeholder Management, Mobile, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Digital Product Management, User Engagement, Sprint Planning, Mobile App Development, Roadmaps, Product Consultant, Customer Journeys, User Conversion, People Management, Presentations, Data Analysis, Web UX, Mobile UX, Project Management, User Interviews, Public Speaking, Strategy, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Market Research & Analysis, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Technical Product Management, Revenue Strategy, UI Design, UX Research, Airtable, Google, Mentorship, Financial Modeling, Team Leadership, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Product Vision, Organizational Design, Mobile Apps, iOS, Android, A/B Testing, Team Management, App UX, Agile Product Delivery, User Research, Account Management, Web, Datadog, Quantitative User Research, Qualitative Research, Amplitude, Marketing, Lean Product Manager, Market Research, Google AdMob, App Store, App Store Acceptance Process, App Store Marketing, B2B, B2B Partnerships, Remote Team Leadership, Unmoderated Remote Usability Testing, Remote Usability Testing, Research, Business Modeling, Business Models, Entrepreneurship, French-English Translation, Discovery, Leadership, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Product Roadmaps, Backlog Management, Product Discovery, Project Planning, Web & Mobile Applications, WordPress, Data-driven Dashboards
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