Vivek Menon — CEO

Summary : - ‘Zero to One’ Product-led Growth Leader with over a decade of experience in building mobile & SaaS companies (Sequoia-backed, 2X successful exits). - Unique & cognitively diverse voice in product management, owing to a background in leading growth, marketing, design & sales teams for high-growth startups. - Creatively wired, with a strong focus on driving business outcomes, user adoption & analytics that puts customer value & user experience first (vs. feature factory). - Experience in scaling tech startups from scratch ( $0 to $2M, $0 to $10M & $0 to $250M ARR). - Over 20 mobile apps built ground up (by Vivek & team), featured in the Top 10 list of Apple Appstore & Google Playstore. - Penchant for identifying & nurturing diverse talents with cross-functional skills (product managers, designers, growth & digital marketers, SEO, copywriters, inside sales, product ops, web developers, customer success reps) and aligning their skills to create massive scale, impact & value. - Passionate Storyteller | Design Thinker | Growth Marketer | Product Innovator - Aspiring author: Children’s fiction - http://captaingulgul.com/ Career Journey : - Director of Product Management, Cisco Spaces (launched through the acquisition of my startup July Systems). Cisco Spaces is a smart spaces cloud that digitizes real-world buildings, making them safe, smart, seamless, and sustainable. Market leader in the indoor location services (ILS) category, 3 times Gartner customer choice award winner (2020, 2021, 2022). - VP of Marketing at July Systems Inc (Backed by Sequoia Capital, Intel Capital, Updata Partners) -> Acquired by Cisco, 2018. July Systems is a cloud-based mobile experience and location services platform company. - Head of Sales at Sourcebits Inc (Backed by Sequoia & IDG) -> Acquired by Globo/Ascendum Digital, 2014. Sourcebits is an award-winning mobile studio that designs & builds mobile apps (products, games & services). About me : I draw energy from adrenaline-fueled start-up environments, that strive to create innovative and disruptive tech products. My career has evolved from a leading sales closer to a brand storyteller and into a product innovator. At its very core, I’m a student of human behavior. I love telling stories and building brands (both B2C & B2B SaaS). Fascinated by the power of mobile & cloud. Everything else just follows.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS Product Management Leader with a strong focus on growth and user experience.

Location: San Francisco, California, United States

Experience: 19 yrs

Skills

Product Management
Product Strategy
Product Marketing
Gtm
Sales Management

Career Highlights

Led Cisco Spaces to $250M ARR in record time.
Pioneered product-led growth strategies for high-growth SaaS.
Built and scaled 20+ mobile apps featured in top app stores.

Work Experience

Cisco

Senior Director of Product Management (1 yr 5 mos)

Director of Product Management, Cisco Spaces (6 yrs 2 mos)

July Systems (part of Cisco)

Vice President Product Marketing (3 yrs 11 mos)

Sourcebits Digital (Acquired by Ascendum Solutions).

Head of Sales (3 yrs 7 mos)

Aviva

Manager (Fast track Leadership Program) (7 mos)

Microsoft

Strategic Marketing (1 yr)

IIM Indore

SAC Coordinator (Student Body President), Students Activities Council - IIM Indore (2 yrs)

Tech Mahindra

Technical Associate (1 yr 8 mos)

Education

PGDM at Indian Institute of Management, Indore

Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) at Mahatma Gandhi University

Vivek Menon

CEO

San Francisco, California, United States19 yrs experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

Led Cisco Spaces to $250M ARR in record time.
Pioneered product-led growth strategies for high-growth SaaS.
Built and scaled 20+ mobile apps featured in top app stores.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS Product Management Leader with a strong focus on growth and user experience.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Product ManagementProduct StrategyProduct MarketingGtmSales Management

Other Skills

GrowthCustomer SaaS LifecycleDigital MarketingCustomer Lifecycle MarketingDemand GenerationStrategyBusiness DevelopmentManagementMarketing StrategyStart-upsBusiness StrategyCloud ComputingBusiness AnalysisMobile ApplicationsMobile Devices

About

Experience

Cisco

2 roles

Senior Director of Product Management

Promoted

Oct 2024 – Present · 1 yr 5 mos

"Oh, the things you can think...Oh, the things you can think..if you are willing to try" - Dr. Seuss
Dreaming and building the Cisco Spaces rocket ship with the best team in business. Disrupting & re-inventing the indoor location services category into smart spaces, a $100B TAM & adventure of a lifetime.

Director of Product Management, Cisco Spaces

Aug 2018 – Oct 2024 · 6 yrs 2 mos

I lead all GTM functions (outbound product management, product marketing & growth) for Cisco Spaces (0 to $250M ARR, born from the acquisition of my tech startup, July Systems by Cisco in 2018).
Oversee a global team of 30 talents , driving product management (GTM), product strategy, marketing, demand gen, product led growth (PLG), product experience (UI/UX), packaging & pricing, customer SaaS lifecycle (onboarding > activation > adoption > upsell > renewal) for the digital self serve & enterprise motions.
My work here has pioneered a product-led growth playbook (low touch/low-CAC/low COGS) for Cisco
> Making us one of the fastest growing SaaS platform with over 2X growth rate y-o-y since launch in 2018
> Catapulting Cisco Spaces as the market leader in the indoor location services category with over 2000 monthly active enterprise customers
> Only product in the category to bag the Gartner customer choice award four times, rated by actual product users (2020,2021,2022, 2023) & Trust Radius twice (2024, 2025).
About Cisco Spaces :
On a mission to turn your buildings into smart spaces, Cisco Spaces is the cloud platform that digitizes real-world buildings. Making them safe, smart, and sustainable, with seamless indoor experiences for people. Operating at an unprecedented scale of 440,000 global customer locations & 12 billion sq. feet.
Our cloud dashboard offers a choice of over 25+ native apps, 20+ partner apps and 30+ BLE/IoT sensors. Our customers, in less than 30 mins, can deploy use cases ranging from indoor navigation with rich 3D maps, meeting room occupancy monitoring, asset management & asset tracking, space utilization analytics, environment monitoring (CO2, temp, noise, pressure), contextual proximity engagements (sms, mobile push, email), etc., elevating people experiences, saving operational cost and enabling data driven decision making for real world locations.

Product ManagementProduct MarketingGrowthProduct StrategyCustomer SaaS Lifecycle

July systems (part of cisco)

Vice President Product Marketing

Sep 2014 – Aug 2018 · 3 yrs 11 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

July Systems is a cloud-based SaaS startup that delivers mobile experience and location based services. Backed by Sequoia Capital, Intel Capital & Updata Partners. Acquired by Cisco in 2018.
Ran all things marketing (product marketing, product-led-growth, GTM, product messaging & strategic narrative, digital marketing, website, campaign marketing, customer lifecycle marketing, inbound & outbound lead generation, customer self serve journey, SEO, PR & AR).
Conceptualised, grew and scaled July Systems's indoor location based services platform business from a white board concept into multi-million ARR business, leading to the acquisition with Cisco Systems Inc, in 2018. Recruited and grew a team of 15 (product marketing managers, product design, digital marketing, product growth, campaign marketing and product ops managers).
Acquired logos from multiple verticals, ranging from Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG), Westfield Malls, Javits Convention Center, Live Nation, Swedish Football League, Norwegian Football League, Salesforce, NFL, Oracle, ESPN, NBA, CNN, Zee Entertainment, Climate Corporation, Movie Tickets, Teleflora.

Product MarketingGTMDigital MarketingCustomer Lifecycle Marketing

Sourcebits digital (acquired by ascendum solutions).

Head of Sales

Feb 2011 – Sep 2014 · 3 yrs 7 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

Head of Sales at Sourcebits. Sourcebits is an award-winning mobile studio that designs & builds mobile apps (products, games & services).
Ran all things sales (inside-sales, demand gen and inbound/outbound campaigns) with a global team of SDR's/AE's/Sales Directors, scaling the studio to a multi-million revenue business. Wore multiple hats during our growth phase, also working as Product Manager for several of our strategic apps.
Backed by Sequoia Capital & IDG. Acquired by Globo/Ascendum Digital in 2014.
Some of our most famous creations are award winning mobile apps and games such as NightStand HD, Apocalypse Max, Funbooth, Twine Dating and Robokill. Our services studio which was recognized by Gartner as a cool vendor in 2014, built iconic apps:
B2C : Coca Cola, Fossil, TwitPic, CloudOn, Posterous, Sling Media, NDTV, Cricbuzz, BYJU’S, Knocking, Peel, Skyfire, Bobsled, L’oreal.
B2B: Intel, SAP, GE, Hershey's, MIT, P&G, Symantec, IBM.
Promoted multiple times from Sales Manager > Director, Sales > Partner, Enterprise services > Head of Sales.

Sales ManagementDemand GenerationProduct Management

Aviva

Manager (Fast track Leadership Program)

May 2010 – Dec 2010 · 7 mos

Change Management & Innovation across all major functions (Marketing, Sales, Training)

Microsoft

Strategic Marketing

Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 · 1 yr

Worked with the SMSG (Sales Marketing & Services Group) leadership at Microsoft India to develop and launch a national-level marketing strategy for their channel partners in India. The blueprint focused on 5 areas of competition and winning back market share in those segments.

Iim indore

SAC Coordinator (Student Body President), Students Activities Council - IIM Indore

Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 · 2 yrs

Elected President of students body & head of students affair. The biggest test of my leadership skill came pretty early. Oversaw the running of 10 university committees, 20 clubs and over 5 national level events