Reporting to the CEO, the Vice President of Product is a hands-on role, working with the Product Team to define and execute the strategic direction for TakeLessons product lines. The placed candidate will be customer centric, display an ability to set product definition and direction, and assure that requirements are accurate in order to maximize opportunities for TakeLessons. Through interactions with the executive, engineering, growth, and customer experience teams, and the existing customer base, this individual will own the roadmap for existing and future products that will allow us to continue winning the hearts of our customers.
Duties and Responsibilities
- Own the product strategy and long-term product roadmap and drive product development vision
- Build and lead a team of product managers and product requirements writers that focus on three main areas for our consumers and teacher partners:
- Customer-facing website and mobile applications
- Back-end CRM and Administration web site used by our internal staff and call center
- The overall experience that customers have with our brand. We call this “The TakeLessons Experience”
- Lead agile methodology product planning and delivery process by developing detailed product requirements, setting and managing priorities and driving a cross-functional team of resources from requirements definition through product launch to deliver committed scope, on schedule and with the highest possible degree of quality.
- Develop systems for collecting customer requirements and drive the delivery of these requirements with a system for feedback with metrics and measurements that monitor impact and success.
- Define and manage strategic go-to-market activities such as pricing, geographic expansion, and competitive analysis.
- Function as the liaison between internal staff, customers, teachers, and software development teams. Work directly with user interface design and software development resources to design and develop new features.
- Communicate product roadmaps, benefits, and product functionality to people inside and outside of the company
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree required
- 6+ years of product management leadership experience planning, launching, and supporting web and mobile properties in an agile development process. Services industry experience preferred
- A successful track record in managing product for fast-growth companies, setting the product organization’s goals, and meeting targets in a timely manner
- Launched web and mobile products known for innovation, customer centricity and where there is hard-evidence of value outcomes e.g. profit growth
- Must be able to demonstrate deep customer empathy
- A track record of analyzing customer needs, behaviors and attitudes – and translating these into business and product recommendations
- Direct prioritization and direction of investment based on deep customer, commercial, and market insights
- Take a data driven approach in identifying and testing growth and revenue opportunities, understand and synthesize customer needs, social trends, interpret analytics data to design product offerings that meet customers love and take advantage of market opportunities
- Excellent understanding of the product development life-cycle processes and methodologies.
- Collaborate with engineering to define an ambitious strategy, develop and maintain a prioritized product backlog and execute on delivering growth and great experiences to users
- Solid understanding of web and mobile technologies and infrastructure used to power consumer-facing brands. General technical familiarity with integration development is desired.
- Experience creating short and long-term product roadmaps as well as the skills to lead a team of product managers on the successful execution of the roadmap.
- Strong leader, team builder, and coach who prioritizes well, communicates clearly and effectively and enjoys working in a group of talented, opinionated, high energy individuals
- Expected to be an active member of the executive management team.
- Ability to travel 10+%.
What’s it like to work at TakeLessons?
All employees are treated to a collaborative work environment with a dedicated team of entrepreneurial- and like-minded individuals who like to work hard, and play hard. Full-time employees receive company benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, Paid Time Off (PTO), 401k, discounted lessons, monthly lunch and learns, quarterly book clubs and gym membership discounts, along with paid holidays. In addition, aligned with our core value of ownership mentality, all full time employees are eligible to receive stock options.