Travis Knepper, Product Manager in Woodville, OH, United States
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Travis Knepper

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Bio

Travis is an accomplished startup founder, product manager, and leader with extensive experience creating, launching, and managing successful digital products across multiple industries. As an expert in product strategy, user research, and entrepreneurship with a passion for innovation, collaboration, and customer-centricity, he leverages data-driven insights to create competitive advantage and exceptional customer experiences.

Project Highlights

RideHop
Led the development and expansion of a B2B2C SaaS Ride Tracking startup across the United States by growing the business from an idea to profitability in 24 months.
Innovation Program Leadership – New Transportation Solutions
Developed and led a corporate innovation program focused on design thinking and Lean product development in the Transit industry, resulting in a 0-1 launch of a successful new product.
IoT-connected Safety Vest for Rail Workers
Developed an IoT-connected safety vest to save rail worker lives.

Expertise

Work Experience

eCommerce Product Manager

2023 - PRESENT
SimpleTire, LLC
  • Led the successful development and launch of multiple white-label and co-labeled eCommerce solutions, fostering significant revenue growth via industry partner and affiliate websites that transition from catalog to online sales.
  • Orchestrated collaboration across marketing, engineering, UX, research, and BI analytics to ensure cohesive product vision and streamlined execution, contributing to enhanced digital consumer experiences and a 200% increase in conversion rate.
  • Leveraged data-driven insights and lean and agile methodologies to deliver impactful enhancements and operational support for the eCommerce platform, directly aligning with sales strategies and business objectives.
  • Led and coordinated cross-functional teams across diverse geographies and time zones, managing internal and external stakeholder relationships to ensure seamless collaboration and platform efficiency.

Senior Product Manager

2021 - 2023
7-Eleven
  • Created the customer support vision, strategy, and roadmap, including automated appeasements and conversational AI support for customer service agents, 6,300 retail stores, and 13,600 daily mobile app users.
  • Collaborated with cross-functional teams to optimize user journeys and implement improvements to the customer support experience (CX). This collaboration increased the net promoter score and reduced the cost per ticket for support issues.
  • Led fraud detection refund reduction initiatives. Created real-time transaction screening, approving or denying automated refunds based on customer transaction and fulfillment data.
  • Acted as a product manager, product owner, and scrum master in an 8-member Agile Scrum team comprised of React and Python developers, designers, and QA engineers.
  • Led chargeback reduction initiatives. Integrated transaction and fulfillment data with chargeback dispute service APIs to automate and streamline the chargeback dispute process.
  • Leveraged Mixpanel, Microsoft Power BI, and Zendesk Explore to generate insights and support data-driven decisions from user data and customer feedback.
  • Managed the user experience for mobile and desktop users, including requirement documentation, market and user research, building roadmaps, writing epics and user stories in Jira, planning releases, and creating documentation in Confluence.
  • Prioritized initiatives, epics, and stories based on the business strategy, return on investment (ROI), and level of effort (LOE).

Director of New Product Initiatives, Transportation

2018 - 2021
Trapeze
  • Built, supported, and coached a portfolio of four transportation industry product teams that operated in remote and hybrid work environments. These teams included product managers, designers, business analysts, QA engineers, and developers.
  • Owned product research, vision, strategy, execution, roadmap prioritization, commercial business plans, go-to-market plans, contract negotiations, 3rd-party partnerships, vendor management, and P&L for four transportation industry products.
  • Collaborated with engineering and design teams on journey mapping, solution design, rapid prototypes, roadmaps, and development estimates.
  • Collaborated with designers and product managers to conduct UX research, including competitive market research, focus groups, A/B testing, field studies, surveys, and interviews.
  • Prioritized initiatives based on reach, impact, confidence, and effort score (RICE) and internal rate of return analysis (IRR). Prioritized features based on RICE and Kano models.
  • Took responsibility for preparing and reviewing quarterly financial presentations that included financial ratios and metrics, revenue forecasts, resource plans, customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), market insights, and strategic plans.
  • Led a next-gen re-platforming initiative focused on moving a legacy on-premise solution to the cloud.
  • Created and led an internal incubator and accelerator program that leveraged empathy, design thinking, and lean startup methodologies to uncover market insights, develop validated business cases, and qualify sales funnels for new products.
  • Created a customer co-innovation program leveraging on-site and remote collaboration that led to problem-solution fit, business plan validation, and a qualified sales funnel for multiple new products.
  • Created and taught an "Ideation Bootcamp" open to all employees that evangelized customer centricity, design thinking, and lean startup concepts.

Founder and CEO

2015 - 2017
RideHop
  • Led a fleet tracking startup for passenger transportation through ideation, lean product development, launch, and growth across the United States. This idea went from 0 to 1 and achieved profitability in 24 months.
  • Leveraged Google Analytics, Tableau, and Custom Dashboards to generate insights and support data-driven decisions. I was directly involved in data architecture, database management, and data warehouse strategy.
  • Conducted UX research, created roadmaps, wrote epics and user stories, ran scrum ceremonies, including standup, backlog refinement, sprint planning, sprint review, and retrospective, and planned and QA-tested releases.
  • Managed day-to-day operations while leading cross-functional team scrum and Kanban teams (18 people), including sales, marketing, design, Agile software development, customer support, and project delivery.
  • Established a customer-centric product culture and vision that resulted in 98% customer retention and upsold contract values up to 220%.
  • Maintained and reported on the profit and loss statement (P&L) to investors.
  • Represented the business as a thought leader in numerous startup pitch competitions and industry events.

Product Manager and Intrapreneur

2012 - 2015
Quicken Loans
  • Led a product team of business analysts, designers, software engineers, and mobile developers to interview stakeholders, then design and implement web and mobile solutions that improved customer experience by 90%.
  • Used Lean Startup methodology and qualitative and quantitative analysis to prioritize features, validate business models and create product-market fit.
  • Led UX design, product strategy, customer collaboration, full-stack Agile web and mobile development, and pilot project deployments.
  • Collaborated across multiple teams, stakeholders, and organizations to lead the spinout of RideHop, LLC as a sister company of Quicken Loans.
  • Selected as a participant in the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps) startup incubator program.

Business Analyst

2012 - 2014
Quicken Loans
  • Created and implemented new roles, workspaces, processes, workflow automation, hardware, software, and 3rd party API integrations to create a 76% productivity gain that scales with loan volume.
  • Drove multiple successful customer-facing and internal enterprise projects, including API integrations, workflow automation, middleware, back office tools, reporting, and full-stack web and mobile development.
  • Participated in agile scrum teams using the SAFe model. Created PRDs, conducted research, created multi-year roadmaps, wrote epics and user stories, ran scrum ceremonies, and planned releases.
  • Spearheaded the internal adoption of business analyst and project manager best practices.
  • Selected for and participated in an internal leadership training and development program.

Business Analyst

2011 - 2012
The City of Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Provided Tier 2 customer support for courts, police, and community TV as the system admin.
  • Designed a court audio and video recording system to comply with state requirements.
  • Designed and implemented a covert audio and video recording system for police interrogation rooms.

President

2006 - 2011
Digicam Solutions
  • Designed, sold, implemented, and supported CCTV, audio, and video system integrations and IT managed services for the university and government sectors.
  • Coached and managed highly effective sales, installation, and application support teams.
  • Designed and implemented remote video streaming solutions that allowed nursing students to view and replay nursing instruction from remote locations.

RideHop

Led the development and expansion of a B2B2C SaaS Ride Tracking startup across the United States by growing the business from an idea to profitability in 24 months.

As the founder and CEO of RideHop, a SaaS startup, I utilized Lean/Agile methodologies to lead the company from ideation to product launch and iterative growth. We developed and launched multiple mobile apps, hardware integrations, and web applications, leading cross-functional teams of developers, designers, and QA throughout the product lifecycle. We achieved profitability in 24 months.

Innovation Program Leadership – New Transportation Solutions

https://www.trapezegroup.com/incident-management

Developed and led a corporate innovation program focused on design thinking and Lean product development in the Transit industry, resulting in a 0-1 launch of a successful new product.

The RISC incident management tool, Trapeze Group's newest transportation product, was successfully developed through the innovation programs I created and led during my tenure as the director of new product initiatives.

The journey began with the ideation boot camp, an employee-wide program to foster customer-centricity, design thinking, and lean startup concepts. This boot camp catalyzed the generation of ideas and the identification of market opportunities. This program provided the initial insights and hypotheses for the RISC product.

The idea was then transitioned through internal incubator and accelerator programs. These phases further nurtured the development of the RISC incident management tool. The collaborative efforts of cross-functional teams also ensured user feedback and market research incorporation into the development process.

Through these programs, the product underwent rigorous testing, validation, and refinement, resulting in validated business cases, a qualified sales funnel, and the successful transition from ideation to launch (0 to 1) for the new product.

IoT-connected Safety Vest for Rail Workers

Developed an IoT-connected safety vest to save rail worker lives.

I have led a personal safety-related IoT initiative involving IoT-connected safety vests for rail workers. This wearable technology alerted workers of oncoming trains and tracked the wearer's position in GPS-denied areas. The project required the integration of IoT sensors into the safety vests and the development of a mobile app that fed data into and out of the physical products. This experience demonstrates my expertise in designing wearables and IoT apps and my ability to collaborate effectively with hardware engineers.

Geospatial Targeted Marketing

Led the design and development of geospatial targeted marketing capabilities for B2C Android, iOS, and web apps.

The RideHop platform displayed context-relevant advertisements to transportation users. These ads were targeted by rider type, time of day, geofence, and transit route. Examples include promoting a discount on coffee to morning commuters or promoting the destinations like the Florida Keys to skiers in Colorado.

7-Eleven Omnichannel Platform Initiative

Increased the net promoter score (NPS) and reduced the cost per ticket for support issues.

Devised the vision, strategy, and roadmap for merging three contact centers into a unified omnichannel platform. This entailed an integration of AI, a shared CRM, and automated customer appeasements, consolidating data from various sources and systems.

Order Fulfillment Process Redesign

Led the design and implementation of a new mortgage fulfillment process, resulting in a 76% productivity gain that scales with loan volume.

Directed a collaborative process to design and implement new roles, workspaces, processes, and technologies to improve mortgage fulfillment logistics, resulting in a significant productivity gain that scales with loan volume.

iOT Mobility initiative

Led an iOT mobility startup from zero to one and achieved profitability in 24 months.

At RideHop, I spearheaded an IoT mobility initiative from inception to commercial launch, which involved tracking bus fleet positions in GPS-denied areas. This project required IoT sensors, mobile apps, and data visualization tools. As the startup founder and CEO, I managed the day-to-day operations and led cross-functional teams in design, Agile software development, customer support, and project delivery.

Refund and Chargeback Reduction Initiative

Spearheaded an initiative that significantly curtailed the risk of refunds and chargebacks.

I led a project that significantly reduced chargebacks and refunds by creating real-time transaction screening rules and partnering with Stripe for fraud detection analytics. I then aggregated data from logistics partners and payment processors to create automated API integrations with a chargeback dispute service. This culminated in a streamlined chargeback process and an automated customer appeasement protocol, combining mobile app workflows, back-end verification, and refund processing.
1992 - 1996

Undergraduate Coursework in Computer Science

University of North Texas - Denton, TX, USA

JUNE 2023 - JUNE 2025

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

Scrum Alliance

APRIL 2023 - PRESENT

Generative AI for Business Leaders

LinkedIn Learning

APRIL 2023 - PRESENT

Change Management: Roadmap to Execution

LinkedIn Learning

AUGUST 2021 - PRESENT

Creating a Product-Centric Organization

LinkedIn Learning

JULY 2021 - PRESENT

Design Thinking: Understanding the Process

LinkedIn Learning

JULY 2021 - PRESENT

Design Thinking: Implementing the Process

LinkedIn Learning

JULY 2021 - PRESENT

Azure Administration Essential Training

LinkedIn Learning

JANUARY 2019 - PRESENT

The 4 Essential Roles of Leadership

FranklinCovey

Tools

Jira, Slack, Visio, MURAL, Atlassian, Tableau, AWS SDK, Confluence, Google Analytics, Microsoft Power BI, Figma

Paradigms

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Rapid Prototyping, Agile Product Management, Requirements Analysis, Design Thinking, B2B2C, User Testing, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Agile Project Management, Change Management, Data Product Management, Acceptance Testing

Platforms

Zendesk, Blockchain, Google Ads, Twilio, Shopify

Industry Expertise

Music, Marketplaces, Financial Services, Healthcare

Other

Lucidchart, Vision Development, Strategic Planning & Execution, Product Management, New Product Development, Collaboration, SaaS Product Management, User Flows, Business Cases, Financial Modeling, P&L Management, Coaching, Product Vision, Strategy, Leadership, Lean Product Management, User Requirements, Prototyping, Innovation Strategy, Process Flows, Work Process Design, Automation, User Workflows, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Process Design, Solution Design Management, Lean Startups, User Empathy, Data Synthesis, System Requirements, Business Requirements, Facilitation, Stakeholder Management, Customer Support, Execution, Integration, Sales, End-to-end Implementation (E2E), Project Management, Contract Review, Product Research, Process Documentation, Business Analysis, Business to Business (B2B), Microsoft PowerPoint, Scope of Work (SOW), Technology, Product Strategy, Product Discovery, Discovery Workshops, Feature Prioritization, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Requirements, User Stories, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Roadmaps, Project Planning, Business Model Canvas, Innovation, Go-to-market Strategy, Customer Experience, Data, Operations, Tools, Consulting, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Financial Forecasting, R&D, Communication, Team Leadership, Product Development, Strategic Planning, Mentorship & Coaching, Roadmaps, Backlog Grooming, SaaS, Product Ownership, Product Owner, Marketing, User Research, B2B, Hypothesis Testing, User Personas, Business Strategy, Client Management, Creative Problem Solving, Stakeholder Analysis, Stakeholder Interviews, Consumer Applications, Geolocation, Mobility, Data Analysis, Feasibility Studies, User Interviews, Technical Product Management, Vendor Selection, Vendor Management, Team Mentoring, Best Practices, Service Design, Operational Workflow, User Journeys, Conceptualization, Ideation, GPS, Scheduling, Mobile GPS, Mobile Applications, Web Applications, Market Research, Product Operations, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Project Coordination, Remote Team Leadership, Enterprise Software, Wireframing, Pitch Decks, Budgeting, Pricing, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Market Assessment, Empathy, Analytical Thinking, SOP Development, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Digital Product Management, Product Consultant, Process Improvement, Growth, Lean Delivery, Business Operations, Program Management, Finance, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), UX Testing, Sprint Planning, Process Automation, Estimation & Planning, Product Launch, Reporting, Voice of the Customer (VoC), User Surveys, Dashboards, Agile Leadership, Digital Transformation, Technical Project Management, Scrum Master, Discovery, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Feature Roadmaps, Product Descriptions, Project Scoping, Pricing Models, Financial Consultation, Subscription Pricing, Data Products, System Integration, CEO, Agile Coaching, Software Development, Contract Management, Mobile App Development, Direct to Consumer (D2C), Requirements & Specifications, Product Delivery, Quality Assurance (QA), Marketing Research & Analysis, Troubleshooting, Fraud Prevention, Technical Documentation, CTO, MVP Design, Technical Requirements, Market Fit, Mobile UX Design, Hardware Integration, Product Marketing, Cloud, Monetization Models, User Experience (UX), Product Sales, Web Marketing, Business Development, Mobile, Back-end, Web, Mobile UX, Analytics, Shipping Management, eCommerce Fulfillment, API Integration, Systems, Documentation, Business to Consumer (B2C), Android, iOS, Mobile Apps, Go-to-market Plans, Business Models, Project Timelines, Startups, Early-stage Startups, Staffing, Product Design, eCommerce, Platforms, Online Marketing, Internet of Things (IoT), User Interface (UI), A/B Testing, Data Analytics, Growth Strategy, Agile DevOps, Technology Trends, Video Streaming, Performance Marketing, Landing Pages, UX Design, Technical Writing, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), Big Data, Machine Learning, Social Media Analytics, Product Analytics, Subscriptions, Conversational Commerce, Go-to-market Optimization, UX Strategy, Design Strategy, Mockups, Data Science Product Manager, Data Science, Customer Service Support, Fintech, Social Networks, App Growth, APIs, Digital Marketing, Startup Funding, Organizational Change Management (OCM), eCommerce APIs, Customer Experience Management, UX Research, Design Requirements, Privacy, Conversion-driven UX, Funnel Optimization, Sales Funnel, User Conversion, Google Maps API, Online Payments, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Audience Targeting, Advertising, Branding, Social Media APIs, Retail & Wholesale, POS, Digital Payments, Live Chat, Chatbots, Chatbot Conversation Design, SMS, Channel Strategy, Call Centers, Contact Centers, Amplitude, Computer Science, Delivery, Helpdesk, Mobile UI Design, Vendors & Suppliers, Messaging, React, Python, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Django, New Product Business Cases, Hardware Development, Location-aware Technology, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Microsoft Office, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), WordPress, Backlog Management, Artificial Intelligence Product Manager, Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Innovation Workshops, Collaborative Design, Digital Product Development, Customer-centered Product Development, Lean Product Development, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Business Model Strategy, Microsoft Azure, Management, Payment APIs, OpenAI GPT-3 API, Over-the-top Content (OTT), Compliance, Regulations

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