Travis Knepper
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Woodville, OH, United States
Toptal member since October 13, 2021
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
Expertise
Work Experience
eCommerce Product Manager
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Project History
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
https://www.trapezegroup.com/incident-managementDeveloped 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 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.
Geospatial Targeted Marketing
Led the design and development of geospatial targeted marketing capabilities for B2C Android, iOS, and web apps.
7-Eleven Omnichannel Platform Initiative
Increased the net promoter score (NPS) and reduced the cost per ticket for support issues.
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.
iOT Mobility initiative
Led an iOT mobility startup from zero to one and achieved profitability in 24 months.
Refund and Chargeback Reduction Initiative
Spearheaded an initiative that significantly curtailed the risk of refunds and chargebacks.
Education
Undergraduate Coursework in Computer Science
University of North Texas - Denton, TX, USA
Certifications
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Scrum Alliance
Generative AI for Business Leaders
LinkedIn Learning
Change Management: Roadmap to Execution
LinkedIn Learning
Creating a Product-Centric Organization
LinkedIn Learning
Design Thinking: Understanding the Process
LinkedIn Learning
Design Thinking: Implementing the Process
LinkedIn Learning
Azure Administration Essential Training
LinkedIn Learning
The 4 Essential Roles of Leadership
FranklinCovey
Skills
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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