
Jake Kozonis
Verified Expert in Product Management
Growth Product Manager
San Diego, United States
Toptal member since December 24, 2019
Jake is a B2B2C SaaS product professional who centers problem-solving around real, impactful customer issues within the constraints of the business. He is experienced in market validation, product solution discovery, go-to-market strategy, and innovation delivery.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Business Strategy
- Market Research
- Market Research & Analysis
- Product Management
- Product Vision
- Project Scoping
- SaaS
- User Interviews
Work Experience
Group Product Manager
AppFolio, Inc.
- Built strategy and vision to better serve the core customer base, leading to a material cost of revenue reduction, both short and long term.
- Trained, coached, and mentored new product managers with no experience in the role. Provided dual-track development framework implementation for young, energetic development teams full of raw talent but lacking real-world experience.
- Developed solutions to drive faster time-to-value for new customers through fast and efficient onboarding, shortening days in onboarding by 7% in the first six months within the role.
- Worked with key stakeholders across multiple disciplines to clearly understand their outcomes and message our product approach effectively, generating buy-in to the strategy and vision.
Senior Product Manager
AppFolio
- Spearheaded market validation, product solution discovery, and the go-to-market strategy.
- Oversaw the risk assessment (tech feasibility, business viability, interaction usability, customer value), and the long-term strategy assessment and planning.
- Ran product team coaching, usability testing, and customer interviews.
- Performed industry analysis, pricing strategy, data analysis, ROIC, and profit-loss proforma creation.
- Handled innovation delivery including product go-to-market coordination with marketing, sales, and services teams.
Senior Product Manager
MyCase Inc.
- Spearheaded market validation, product solution discovery, and the go-to-market strategy.
- Oversaw the risk assessment (tech feasibility, business viability, interaction usability, customer value), and the long-term strategy assessment and planning.
- Ran product team coaching, usability testing, and customer interviews.
- Performed industry analysis, pricing strategy, data analysis, ROIC, and profit loss proforma creation.
- Handled innovation delivery including product go-to-market coordination with marketing, sales, and services teams.
- Led conception to launch of credit card payments offering built in-house generating material revenue for the business.
Senior Add-on Services Sales Representative
AppFolio
- Performed the sales strategy assessment, sales scripting, and consultative sales technique training.
- Oversaw the creation of the buyer persona, sales deck, cold email template, drip campaign, and alternate outreach campaign.
- Managed the pipeline and objection handling.
Project History
Payment Processing Platform Creation
Led design, launch, and iteration of payments and billing platform generating multi-million yearly run-rate revenue service.
Data Insights Dashboards
Insights platform launched across the product, generating 50% customer adoption within two months.
Elasticsearch Implementation
Migrated our global search for millions of records from homegrown solutions to Elasticsearch.
Custom Calendar Implementation and Integration
Identified core competency gap with existing product line existing in 25% of new deals lost as well as a 20% driver of churn. This virtually disappeared once we launched the new calendar with integrations to Google and Outlook.
Education
Bachelors Degree in Business Economics and Accounting
University of California - Santa Barbara, California, USA
Certifications
Product Prioritization Framework
Product Habits - Hiten Shah
Technology Entrepreneurship Management
University of California
Skills
Tools
Pivotal Tracker, Google Docs, Jira, Trello, Sketch
Paradigms
Agile, B2B2C, Agile Product Management, Usability Testing, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Agile Project Management, Iterative Development, Kanban, Scrum
Industry Expertise
Legal Counsel, Real Estate
Platforms
New Relic, Mixpanel
Other
Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Roadmaps, Backlog Grooming, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Product Vision, New Products, SaaS, B2B, Go-to-market Plans, Product-market Fit, Product Discovery, Product Owner, Product Management, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), User Interviews, Competitive Strategy, Competitive Intelligence, Payment Processing, Electronic Payments, Business Strategy, Company Strategy, Microsoft Office, Product Delivery, Microsoft Excel, Pendo, Sales Strategy, Digital Product Management, Data Analysis, A/B Testing, Market Research & Analysis, Market Research, Product Conceptualization, Mentorship & Coaching, Business Coaching, Product Leadership, SaaS Product Management, User Onboarding, Product Strategy, Dual Track Agile, Online Payments, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Product Frameworks, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Validation, Innovation Strategy, Leadership, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Validated User Research, B2B Product Management, Agile Leadership, Cross-functional Collaboration, Startups, Continuous Discovery, Discovery Workshops, Design Sprints, Fintech, API Integration, Churn Management, Software Integration, Budgeting, Impact Mapping, Negotiation, ACH, Credit Cards, PCI DSS, CRM Systems, iOS App Design, SQL, MySQL, Pricing Strategy, Salesforce, Project Scoping, ROI, Profit & Loss (P&L), Accounting, Technical Product Management, Software Project Management
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