Jerome Coppens, Product Manager in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Jerome is available for hire
Hire Jerome

Jerome Coppens

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Location
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal Member Since
March 29, 2019

A product and strategy leader with an engineering background (MSc), Jerome has the skills to ideate, design, and launch new application products. He is extremely versatile, quick to ramp-up on new topics, and communicates very well across teams and all levels of seniority within organizations. Jerome enjoys combining his strategic thinking and customer-centric approaches to help companies build innovative products that better people's lives.

Project Highlights

Weather App for Fire TV
Designed a Fire TV app for a weather services company with 20 million monthly active users.
Mobile Loyalty App for Crocodile Baby
Researched, designed, and developed a custom mobile loyalty solution to reward loyal customers and promote featured products.
Hyperlocal Air Quality Feature for a Mobile Weather App
Designed a hyperlocal air quality feature for WeatherBug, leading to very high engagement growth and App Store recognition.

Expertise

Work Experience

VP Product and Strategy

2017 - 2019
WeatherBug
  • Built and owned the two-year product roadmap balancing short term projects (quick wins), long-term strategic initiatives, and revenue optimizations.
  • Launched five major new features across platforms (iOS, Android, web) and released three new applications (Fire TV, Windows 10 and TV Display app).
  • Designed a voice user interface (Alexa skill).
  • Researched the market and competition and prepared the go-to-market strategy for international expansion in Japan and Brazil.
  • Redesigned and implemented new product development processes, governance, and reporting tools.

Founder

2017 - 2017
Huddee
  • Conducted preliminary research: customer problem interviews, market research, competitive analysis, etc., following Lean Startup principles.
  • Defined the solution, crafted mockups, and tested mockups with potential customers.
  • Wrote detailed technical requirements (product requirements document).
  • Prioritized user stories and defined an MVP based on customer impact and level of effort.
  • Interviewed web application developers and agencies.

VP Operations

2015 - 2016
LocalSphere
  • Redesigned the operations organization and processes from the ground up, allowing the company to triple its ARR.
  • Researched, negotiated, and managed partnerships with outsourcing vendors.
  • Built several mobile apps for local businesses to improve their customer loyalty.
  • Participated in the due diligence process in the context of a merger.
  • Presented Operations updates to several board meetings.

Consultant

2011 - 2014
Boston Consulting Group
  • Built business cases for a dozen of strategic projects for various industries from finance to energy and transportation.
  • Presented key findings and recommendations to ExComs of some of the top 40 largest companies in France.
  • Conducted market research and interviewed customers and field experts to generate impactful recommendations.
  • Worked and built strong relationships with people from all levels of seniority and responsibility from operators to heads of business entities overseeing thousands of people.

Weather App for Fire TV

Designed a Fire TV app for a weather services company with 20 million monthly active users.

WeatherBug is a leading weather application in the United States with around 20 million monthly active users across its iOS, Android, web, and desktop applications.

As the VP of Product and Strategy for WeatherBug, I had, among other things, the responsibility to explore new opportunities and launch applications on emerging platforms to ensure the company remains ahead of the competition. In this context, I decided to design and launch an application for the Amazon Fire TV, a device with a very fast growing user base (currently well over 30 million active users).

Building a great app for a new platform requires a lot more than copying/pasting an existing successful app from another platform. Indeed as the display and the interactions with the device differ widely from platform to platform, the use cases are platform specific and so do the features, the information architecture and the UI/UX.

In coordination with my UI/UX team, I led the initial research and the design of the app, created the detailed product requirements, and finally oversaw the development of the application.

Mobile Loyalty App for Crocodile Baby

Researched, designed, and developed a custom mobile loyalty solution to reward loyal customers and promote featured products.

As I was leading the operations of a digital media agency, one of our clients tasked me to come up with a cost-effective and easy-to-deploy digital solution to replace their old punch card loyalty system.

Rewarding loyal customers and turning them into repeat customers is key for retailers in today’s world, where they face fierce competition from online pure players. I managed to design and build a solution that not only rewards customers but also allows businesses to re-engage with their existing customers as well as promote news, featured products, and store events.

I was involved up to the launch of the mobile app, as I created the App Store's assets, the in-store signage to promote the application, and the training material and an in-depth FAQ for in-store employees.

The app was soon a big success for Crocodile Baby: a great tool to re-engage (notifications) and reward (loyalty points) their customers, requiring very little maintenance on their end and being extremely user-friendly for their staff and customers. It was also a great success for the agency I was working for, as we managed to productize this solution and sell it to a dozen other retail businesses.

Web Application for a Library-like Service

https://milamalo.com/

Designed and built an MVP web application for a startup operating as a library of baby clothes

Just as you can borrow books from your local library, Mila Malo offers parents the opportunity to borrow baby clothes so that they always have the right size, style, and fit for their little ones.

As a co-founder of Mila Malo, I was in charge of designing a web application to support the business operations as well as selecting the technical solution. Following the definition of the business needs and the identification of the customer journeys, I wrote detailed product requirements, prioritized user stories, defined MVP functionalities and, finally, worked with a UI/UX designer to create high fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes.

The objective was to build an MVP that allowed us to test product-market fit and grow the business up to CAD $1 million of annual recurring revenue. With the current MVP, customers can get a membership online, browse the catalog of baby clothes, and select the items they want to enjoy at home. At any time, members can access their account and see the items they currently have at home as well as the ones they borrowed in the past and also select the next clothes they want to get for their babies.

Web Solution to Help Companies Connect with Their Employees

Ideated and designed an innovative solution to help companies connect with their employees in less than five minutes a day.

I believe in the power of people’s connection in the workplace. Employees who feel that they belong to the company and feel that the company cares about them are more engaged, more loyal, and eventually more creative and more productive, which results in significant savings and increased revenue for companies.

When companies grow, one of their biggest HR challenges is to keep their employees connected with each other, connected with the leadership team, and connected and aligned with the company’s goals, mission, and vision.

Huddee’s vision is to build a solution that helps organizations to foster people’s connections and reinforce alignment with organizations’ core values.

As the founder of Huddee, throughout extensive market research and customer discovery interviews, I have designed a web application that allows companies to informally check-in with their employees every day while conveying light and short downward communication from leadership—all of that in a very lightweight and fun format requiring less than five minutes every day.

The project is currently in stealth mode pending completion of the MVP development.

Hyperlocal Air Quality Feature for a Mobile Weather App

https://itunes.apple.com/app/weatherbug-radar-forecast/id281940292?mt=8

Designed a hyperlocal air quality feature for WeatherBug, leading to very high engagement growth and App Store recognition.

As a leading weather application in the United States with around 20 million monthly active users, WeatherBug constantly needs to innovate and improve its existing product in order to differentiate from the competition and keep growing its user base.

When I was VP of Product and Strategy for WeatherBug, I saw an opportunity to develop a hyperlocal air quality feature. Indeed, with nearly 40% of the US population living in areas with unhealthy levels of air quality, monitoring the air quality and being alerted when it reaches unhealthy levels becomes a growing concern in the US.

I was involved in the project from ideation to launch. The solution we created used artificial intelligence and machine learning to compute live air quality data at a street-level precision, comprehensive pollution insights, and recommendations as well as a global air quality map so that our users could know at any time if it is safe to go out for a run or to let the kids play outside.

Launched just before the spring season, this feature encountered great success, allowing WeatherBug to generate double-digit engagement growth and get the app featured as the iOS App of the Day a few months later.
2007 - 2011

Master's Degree in Engineering

ISAE Supaero - Toulouse, France

Collaboration That Works

How to Work with Toptal

Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.

1

Share your needs

Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2

Choose your talent

Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3

Start your risk-free talent trial

Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.

Top talent is in high demand.

Start hiring