
Andy Shanks
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
London, United Kingdom
Toptal member since July 9, 2019
Andy is a digital product specialist who has delivered over 200 tech projects. He enables teams to move forward quickly with purpose and confidence, making smarter, more strategic progress. He is a pragmatic problem solver who has been delivering results with digital technology for startups, agencies, and corporations for 20 years. Andy has co-founded two startups and built a wealth of experience across product, service, user experience design, innovation, entrepreneurship, and marketing.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Product Management
- Digital Product Management
- Healthcare
- Healthcare Product Manager
- Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
- Product Management
- Product Strategy
- Startups
Work Experience
Chief Product Officer
Eargym
- Co-founded the business and led product development through prototype to MVP to scalable product.
- Raised £1.2 million in investment and grants, including over £500,000 in crowdfunding.
- Delivered over 550,000 hearing checks for users in 157 countries, featured by Apple.
- Achieved medical device certification, NHS and DHAF accreditation, and Cyber Essentials Plus.
- Collaborated with a research team to scientifically validate the product's value proposition.
- Built and delivered a strategic roadmap to test and support B2C and B2B commercialization strategies.
- Worked closely with the user research team to test ideas and iterate product development to meet user needs.
- Built a highly insightful and flexible data analytics platform to inform user engagement, retention strategies, and B2B data reporting.
- Consulted with a range of stakeholders and specialist advisors to inform product development across hearing, audio design, audiology, behavioral science, and marketing.
Founder
Zinc
- Worked with a range of talented founders to explore opportunities and potential to co-found a company.
- Took a bio, psycho, and social approach to analyze and research problems and opportunities in the healthy aging space.
- Prototyped and pitched startup business ideas to investors and founded Eargym, making it easy to care for your hearing.
- Was one of 50 participants selected from 500 applications. I was elected to graduate into the accelerated phase, and 12 of 30 businesses were selected.
Founder | Managing Director | Product Director
Ideas Made
- Oversaw and directed the delivery of various digital products, services, and experiences for well-known brands and lesser-known startups.
- Specialised in building digital products quickly to validate ideas.
- Managed the business, clients, team, and key projects.
- Launched Red Bull Racing's digital content fan hub.
- Launched a premium £1 million brand experience for Google and Sainsbury's.
- Build most of The Guardian's business supporting digital infrastructure.
- Worked closely with geo-location and IoT technology.
- Prototyped a fridge-based beer button for Peroni, who ordered more beer.
- Helped a range of startup founders build MVP roadmaps and innovate with digital technology.
Mentor
D&AD
- Mentored at D&AD's creative startup school, helping young and ambitious entrepreneurs shape their ideas, design their brands, build MVPs, and plan the execution and funding of their ideas.
- Helped design the course program and created much of the learning content.
- Spoke at the workshops and mentored individual businesses through the program and their pitch days.
Product Owner
- Oversaw the delivery of a brand partnership product launch between Google and Sainsbury's (grocery) to use technology to tackle food waste.
- Directed and coordinated the full team across client, partner, and production agencies.
- Managed detailed contract negotiations and delivery of partnership.
- Tested the product and generated development feedback.
Digital Marketing Consultant
Red Bull
- Managed the F1 teams' digital marketing channels and campaigns while they looked to hire a full-time manager.
- Led the requirements gathering for a new fan website.
- Oversaw the design, management, and delivery of the new web platform.
- Helped interview, shortlist and hire my replacement.
Digital Producer | Project Manager
Various Global Digital Agencies
- Acted as a project manager on digital advertising and marketing campaign projects.
- Worked as a contract senior digital producer at Tribal DDB, TBWA/Tequila, Host, Lowe, and Three Drunk Monkeys in Sydney.
- Contracted at Mother, Agency Republic, and Work Club in London.
- Worked for brands such as Volkswagon, Google, YouTube, Adidas, BBC, Mercedes, and Bankwest.
Digital Producer | Product Tester
Harman Pro
- Supported, as a semi-pro DJ at the time, the product development department to design, develop, and test a range of new digital DJ mixers.
- Worked in the marketing department on digital project management, advertising, and events.
- Collaborated with ambassadors to test and feedback on the products we were designing.
- Performed research in retail outlets and reported back on key findings.
Project History
Eargym, the Easy Way to Check and Improve Your Hearing
https://www.eargym.world/try-eargymFounded this health tech startup, led product development and growth, delivering over 550,000 hearing tests so far.
Collaborated with the research team to scientifically validate the product's value proposition.Built and delivered a strategic roadmap to test and support B2C and B2B commercialization strategies. Worked closely with the user research team to test ideas and iterate product development to meet user needs.
Built a highly insightful and flexible data analytics platform to inform user engagement, retention strategies, and B2B data reporting. Consulted with various stakeholders and specialist advisors to inform product development across hearing, audio design, audiology, behavioral science, and marketing.
Red Bull Racing's Website
https://www.redbullracing.com/int-enLed the re-design of the Formula One's fan website and successfully delivered the launch.
NINE App | A Visual To-do List
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nine/id990993490Launched my own app product which now has 250,000 users and has been featured by Apple in over 27 countries.
After we launched the product to market, Apple featured it in the best new utility apps across 27 counties, helping it reach 250,000 users and still growing.
Launching a Fintech Web Platform MVP
https://www.floww.io/Led the design and development of an innovative startup investment platform MVP that raised $1 million to develop the full product.
Launching a Health Tech MVP
https://territorystudio.com/project/biosay-tedx-presentation/Led and managed the design and development of a complex AR-powered wellbeing app.
Press for Peroni | IoT Button
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/peroni-ocado-trial-iot-purchases/1413423?bulletin=campaign_1805Led the design and development of a prototype Amazon Dash-style "beer" button field-tested with 200 beta testers.
The button enabled users to connect to their WiFi and online grocery account and, when pressed, select the type of beer product they wanted. It had several LED states, a support app, and a website.
I managed and directed the project team, liaising with product design, project management, customers, and the client.
This project was delivered by Ideas Made, the digital product studio I founded.
Sainsbury's Food Rescue Powered by Google
https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/news/latest-news/2014/05-06-2014Led a challenging brand partnership project between Google and Sainsbury's to tackle food waste in the UK.
It was a large team across companies and several agencies with many legal and logistical challenges. I pushed through to launch the product successfully, spawning a whole new community of Food Rescuers for Sainsbury's.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Marketing
Aston Business School - Birmingham, UK
Certifications
altMBA
Seth Godin
Skills
Tools
Trello, Asana, OmniGraffle, Slack, Basecamp, Xero, Google Docs, Skype, Jira, Microsoft Project, GitHub, Zoom
Paradigms
Agile Product Management, Scrum, Kanban, User Testing, Augmented Reality (AR)
Industry Expertise
Healthcare, Food & Beverage, Automotive
Platforms
ProductPlan
Other
Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Digital Product Management, Product Management, Project Management, Web Platforms, Business Analysis, Requirements, Product Strategy, Product Roadmaps, Go-to-market Plans, User Research, Business Models, Product Design, Product Marketing, Product Frameworks, Innovation, Product Ownership, Product Discovery, Healthcare Product Manager, Digital Marketing Product Manager, iOS, Web, Digital Advertising, Digital Marketing, Startups, Mobile, Prototyping, Finance, Waterfall Delivery, Internet of Things (IoT), Media, Business Development, Account Management, Strategy, RealtimeBoard, Virtual Reality (VR), Machine Learning, Dropbox, Mentorship, Waterfall Methodology, Miro, Notion, Pitch Presentations, Analysis, User Experience (UX), Sales, Marketing, Creative Tech, Ideation, Pitch Decks, Sales Growth, Startup Funding, Fundraising, Leadership, App UX, Grant Proposals, Chief Product Officer (CPO), CTO, Fractional CTO, Lean Startups, Early-stage Startups, Crowdfunding, Decision Analysis, Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), Planning, Collaboration, Consumer Behavior, Advertising, Product Owner, Web App Development, Google Voice, Stakeholder Management, App Growth, UX Design, MVP Design, IoT Protocols, Hardware Design, Project Scoping, Program Design, Social Media, Consulting, Agile Delivery, Event Planning, Research, Medical Devices, Task Management, Wireframing, Technical Product Management
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