AJ is available for hire
Hire AJAJ Balance
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Location
San Francisco, CA, United States
Toptal Member Since
April 23, 2020
AJ is a hands-on entrepreneurial product and business leader, with ten years of experience with startups and large companies. He has an MBA from Stanford and was the co-founder of Dispatcher, which sold to Uber. He led the product management of Uber’s driving team and oversaw the shipping features with more than $1 billion of business impact. He has experience in mobile/web software, hardware, AI/ML, innovation, business strategy/planning, transportation, gig economy, and media/entertainment.
Expertise
Work Experience
Lead Product Manager
2016 - 2019
Uber Technologies, Inc.
- Led the Uber driving product team (a cross-functional team of 40 people) and managed three product managers.
- Launched user experience and back-end features for Uber drivers with $1 billion of total business impact (revenue increases and cost reductions).
- Fixed a critical driver experience feature, which increased global Uber trips by over 1% ($500 million).
- Manufactured and launched a new hardware device for drivers with wide adoption and hundreds of thousands of units produced.
- Designed and launched a new driver incentive which increased spend efficiency (cost) by $100 million/year.
- Launched an experimental new ridesharing product and scaled to $50,000 monthly gross revenue.
Co-founder and CEO
2014 - 2016
Dispatcher, Inc.
- Identified the opportunity to bring technology to long-haul freight trucking, set the company vision, and led early product iteration to find product-market fit.
- Raised $2 million of seed capital from top Silicon Valley investors such as Harrison Metal, XSeed Capital, and Stanford University.
- Scaled the business to an annual gross revenue of $13 million with thousands of users and enterprise customers.
- Built and managed a team of eight full-time employees and 23 full-time contractors.
- Negotiated contracts and partnerships with major enterprises including Anheuser-Busch, White Castle, and Exactuals, LLC.
- Led and negotiated the company’s acquihire to Uber technologies.
Product Manager
2011 - 2013
Gigwalk, Inc.
- Led and managed new feature development, metric tracking, and design and implementation for all Gigwalk products–web, iPhone, and Android.
- Oversaw the design and development of a self-serve job-posting product, growing self-serve revenue from $500 to $50,000 per month.
- Designed, implemented, and launched a worker-job matching algorithm, doubling customer-worker transaction rates system-wide.
- Spearheaded the design and implementation of a comprehensive worker reputation and incentive system, decreasing worker flake rates by 60%.
- Developed a skill and endorsement system to promote viral user acquisition, reaching 30% engagement across an active user base.
Corporate Strategy Analyst
2009 - 2011
The Walt Disney Company
- Built the valuation and merger integration analyses for Disney's $4 billion Marvel Entertainment acquisition, $600 million Playdom acquisition, and $4 billion Lucasfilm acquisition.
- Led and developed the corporate China strategy for gaming, mobile, film, TV, digital, and whitespace investments in Shanghai (February-May 2011).
- Assisted in the development of a comprehensive 5-year corporate growth framework with supporting strategies and analysis for Disney's 5-year strategic plan (presented to the board of directors).
- Developed growth and market strategies and analyses for ESPN International, Disney in China, ABC Television, and Theme Parks Divisions.
Investment Banking M&A Summer Analyst
2008 - 2008
JP Morgan
- Prepared, created, and managed buyer materials, management presentations, process documents, and data room for live M&A deals.
- Built and developed a full financial model and bid analysis model for live sell-side M&A transactions involving special purpose acquisition companies.
- Assisted in the development of full financial models for live sell-side M&A transactions.
Education
2013 - 2015
Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA)
Stanford University - Palo Alto, California, USA
2005 - 2009
Bachelor of Arts Degree in International Relations, Management Science, and Engineering
Stanford University - Palo Alto, California, USA
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