Aakash Gupta

Co-Founder

Los Angeles, California, United States16 yrs 3 mos experience

AI EnabledAI ML Practitioner

Key Highlights

Led product teams at a unicorn startup.
Authored a popular newsletter for product managers.
Expert in product-led growth strategies.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS product leader with extensive experience in growth strategies and team leadership.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Product ManagementLeadershipGrowth Strategies

Other Skills

A/B TestingA/B testingAdvanced discovery techniquesAdvertisingAnalyticsApp Store OptimizationArtificial Intelligence (AI)CommunicationCustomer AcquisitionCustomer ResearchCustomer RetentionCustomer interview techniquesData ScienceDemand GenerationDigital Marketing

About

TL;DR: I write a newsletter for product managers, product leaders, and aspiring product managers. I focus on actionable and deep tips to improve your career. The Longer Version: After a long career in PM - rising to VP of Product at a Unicorn - I have made the shift to writing about it. In particular, I write about product growth. That is, the art of growing via your product. This means I also talk a lot about product-led growth (PLG), the SaaS B2B motion. My newsletter doesn't just focus on growth though. I also break down technology, product management, product leadership, and how to get a PM job. It's all the things that make for a great use of your learning & development budget. Or even personal spend. The math is pretty great. ↳ $150 for an annual subscription ↳ $211K average PM salary in the US ↳ 0-10% average range of raises offered If the newsletter helps you get a 0.07% better raise, it pays itself. That's 1/142th of your raise range. It's a pretty smart investment for every level of PM. http://www.news.aakashg.com

Experience

16 yrs 3 mos

Total Experience

2 yrs 4 mos

Average Tenure

2 yrs 3 mos

Current Experience

Product growth

Newsletter Author, Podcast Host

Jan 2024 – Present · 2 yrs 3 mos

Author of 1 newsletter deep dive and 2 podcast episodes a week on how to succeed as a PM, product leader, or aspiring PM.
Lead a team of folks.
I'm the product guy - making sure everything hits our ever increasing quality bar.
Here's a sample of recent content:
Course 1: Mastering the PM Career
Unit 1: The Key Outputs
Product requirements documents
Roadmaps: Advanced techniques
The feature results writeup
The product review bible
Unit 2: Hard Skills
Advanced discovery techniques
How to identify and validate product risk
Advanced customer interview techniques
How to ramp a product team without strategy
Unit 3: Soft Skills
How to say no
Handling conflict as a PM
How to bridge the divide between stakeholders and users
Unit 4: Career Skills
The PM Career Ladder: Your Unofficial Guide
How to get a raise in this market
Why politics isn’t a dirty word
Course 2: Mastering Growth
Unit 1: Lessons From The Greats
How Miro grows
How Canva grows
How Klarna grows
How did Intel do so Badly?
Everything about Midjourney
What you need to know about Temu
Unit 2: Systematizing Our Learnings
Build a detailed growth model
Gaming growth playbook
When to A/B test
Impact Sizing
Growth loops
How to build a flywheel
How to use Code Interpreter
Unit 3: Success in Specific Product Teams
Information Architecture
Product-led sales
Design Systems
Product Copy
Onboarding
Expansion
Activation
Course 3: Product Leadership
Unit 1: How to set up your product team
How to set up your product team
Do you really need a North Star Metric
Pitch a growth role to senior leadership
How founders think differently from PMs
Unit 2: How to scale your team
Billion-Dollar Execution
How to scale a product team from 0 to 15
Reference checks can supercharge your hiring
Unit 3: How to be a great leader
7 currencies of a product leader
The 7 failure patterns of managers
How to Make Your Ideas Stick
Product leadership in India

LeadershipProduct ManagementProduct StrategyGrowth Strategies

Apollo.io

VP of Product

Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 · 1 yr · Durham, North Carolina, United States · Remote

Product leader when the company became a unicorn ($750M->$2.5B valuation).
I led several product teams, including the growth team, pricing & packaging, activation, expansion, information architecture, acquisition, and engagement.
Raised at a unicorn valuation while I was there.
Ended up leaving to focus full-time on my newsletter.

Product VisionSoftware as a Service (SaaS)Product StrategyLeadershipProduct ManagementPricing Strategy

Affirm

Head of Growth Product

Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 · 2 yrs · Durham, North Carolina

Member of the senior product leadership team. Led growth team when company revenue grew from $300M to $1.2B/year.

Product VisionLeadershipGrowth StrategiesProduct ManagementStrategy

Epic games

Lead Product Manager

Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 · 2 yrs · Cary, North Carolina

Led data driven growth for Fortnite during some it's best performing years, including the Travis Scott Concert and launch of "Chapter 2."

VisionProduct StrategyLeadershipProduct ManagementGaming

Thredup

Director of Growth

Jan 2014 – Jan 2017 · 3 yrs · San Francisco Bay Area

Built and led the team's product growth team when it raised its series D.
We worked on the following key initiatives:
Pricing optimization: we re-architected the pricing system to optimize for conversion, new customers, and stockthrough levels, driving industry-leading inventory turns
Conversion rate optimization: we drove 2.5x in first visit to purchase conversion via tools like outfits, dynamic merchandising, ad campaign customization, and the aforementioned pricing system
Referrals channel: we grew this channel back when it actually worked, with things like $10-$10 and also a famous $0.99 sales
Paid advertising growth: we built an ad-technology system to handle budgeting and bids cross-channel across Facebook, Pinterest, and Yahoo ads
Overall, I helped the company eventually go public by setting the foundations for its growth, growth marketing, and growth product teams.

VisionLeadershipGrowth StrategiesProduct ManagementStrategy

Rap to beats

Co-Founder/ Head of Product

Jan 2010 – Jan 2014 · 4 yrs · San Francisco Bay Area

Developed iOS app Rap to Beats & scaled to 300K monthly active users (MAU). Led team.
We shipped several game changing features:
In-app purchases for premier DJ beats
A leaderboard to showcase your raps by country
Social sharing to Instagram and Facebook
With premier DJs regularly using the app to sell their work, we were able to scale one of the first consumer apps for rap on the iPhone.

Product VisionProduct StrategyLeadershipGrowth StrategiesStart-upsProduct Management

Scoutforce werving & selectie

Product Manager

Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 · 2 yrs

ScoutForce was a SaaS for College Athletic Recruiting Teams.
I joined as one of the first employees, and helped create the initial product: in the cloud recruiting software to enable recruiting teams. I did in depth discovery, wireframing, and iteration on the early features.
This built my initial skillset in product management.