All mentors

Diego von Sohsten

VP of Product & Growth @ Evermore | prev. Vidyard, Vendasta, Thoughtworks | 16+ years in tech

Milton, Canada (-05:00 UTC) English, Portuguesefrom Recife, Brazil
Usually responds in 18 hours
$160 / hour
Price per hour
60 min
Time Blocks Available
4.98
15 reviews / 20 sessions
Sat
24
Next availability

Diego is amazing! He is very enthusiastic to help out and gave very good advice on getting to PMF and helping me prioritize effectively. Would highly recommend him!

Ram Chaitanya Nellore

A stellar session with Diego - I walked away with so much more than what I expected. 🙌

Alexander Buyanov

Diego was very helpful and explained a concept to me, in order for me to understand how I can track and engage my customer segments better, in order to increase retention. Thanks a lot for the call! :)

Oskar Söderlund

Bio

It's been 16 years since I started my career in tech. Switching careers from software engineering to product management wasn't easy. Leaving Brazil and embracing Canada was another ride! I've been reflecting about the fact that I don't do a good job sharing what I learn, though... How I got into Product Management. My failed startup. Being an immigrant and developing communication skills. How I got into Growth. My first PLG transformation. From now on, I'll be (more systematically) mentoring product managers and startup founders who want to develop a more growth-oriented skillset. From retention & engagement to acquisition, frameworks, tools. Looking forward to chatting!

Expertise

  • Building a team

    As the founding Growth PM at Vendasta, I built the Growth division, structuring teams around key outcomes in the customer journey and hiring/coaching PMs. As a Director of Product at Vidyard, I was a key contributor in a recent re-org, repositioning teams / team charters around our product strategy and maximizing impact.

  • Idea validation

    Given the number of products and features I've launched in the past, I was also heavily involved with discovery. From market/customer research to solution validation. Experience with different frameworks and tools.

  • Product analytics

    Experience with a product analytics strategy, connecting qualitative feedback to quantitative insights from tools such as Heap, Looker, Pendo, Hotjar, Google Data Studio. Experience with running SQL queries and creating dashboards.

  • Product launches

    I've launched many new products and features in the past, working cross-functionally to communicate the problem we were solving to more and more potential customers. At the end of the day, it's a team sport!

  • Product management

    7+ years of product management experience across Allen Brasil, ThoughtWorks, Vendasta, Teamworki, and Vidyard. Check my previous gigs on my profile for more.

  • User research

    Practical experience with multiple tools and formats for researching customers and understanding their behaviours. From jobs-to-be-done interviews to group workshops. Also, experience collecting insights in scale via tools such as Pendo, Hotjar, and Appcues.

  • Venting frustration

    Product Managers work with very different personalities and styles. My "scars" taught me so, so much. In a previous job, I had a brand new product have development halted overnight. Office politics distorted narratives around my products, which I had to use data to fight against. Dealt with hyper-conservative C-level leaders who looked at me, the immigrant gay guy, differently. Your circumstances may be very different, but I can provide advice on how to navigate stress and focus on your goal.

Toolkit

  • Google Analytics logo

    Google Analytics

    At Teamworki (my startup), used GA to do deep analysis of acquisition cohorts and define/measure funnels and growth loops. For engagement, I used Data Studio instead.

  • Looker Studio (Google Data Studio) logo

    Looker Studio (Google Data Studio)

    Created and maintained dashboards to measure engagement, acquisition, and monetization. Used at both Vendasta and Teamworki. Not an expert, but happy to help.

  • Heap logo

    Heap

    Created and maintained dashboards to measure engagement, acquisition, and monetization. Defined events and segments, being a verifier in my org. Used it at Vidyard.

  • Jira logo

    Jira

    When I was an individual contributor, I was using Jira for agile project management and basic roadmapping needs. I also have some experience with JQL.

  • Looker logo

    Looker

    Created looks and dashboards using the explores/models defined by the BizOps team. Worked with them to map out additional needs. Using it to do intense acquisition, activation, retention, and monetization analysis at Vidyard.

Industries

  • SaaS

    6 years of experience in B2B SaaS: - Vendasta (Marketing Automation and Marketplace platform for agencies and companies selling digital solutions to local businesses) - Teamworki (my own startup - a productivity tool for agile product teams to gauge morale) - Vidyard (an asynchronous tool for GTM teams, including video prospecting and digital deal rooms)

  • B2B

    My experience at Vidyard and Vendasta helped me develop practical B2B and B2C knowledge in product management and growth. With our prosumer tool, I focused on acquisition, activation, retention and monetization strategies.

Experience

  • Evermore

    VP of Product and Growth (Contract)

    At Evermore, I drove product & AI initiatives to accelerate growth in their portfolio of SaaS startups. Some of my achievements included: - AI: developed and launched an LLM-powered conversational agent. It answers questions about product features and interacts with customer data. That included defining/running evals and optimization. - Pricing & Packaging: revamped monetization for a product-led, B2C platform. Drove a 75% increase in Exit ARR year over year with minimal (< 1%) logo churn. Also, launched an option to capture transaction revenue on top of subscriptions. - Product & Growth Strategy: created new strategies for two of our recent acquisitions, narrowing use cases, ICP and growth channels. Also, led fresh rebuilds of those products.

  • Vidyard

    Director of Product
    •vidyard.com

    At Vidyard, as a member of our Senior Leadership Team, I'm crafting and executing on a plan to enable our next chapter of growth. I lead a team of PMs and Technical Writer focused on customer outcomes, being accountable for our Self-Service revenue numbers and PLG transformation. Accomplishments from me and my direct teams: - Year 1: by revisiting our product-led onboarding strategy, increased habit formation/activation by 40%. (year over year) - Year 2: led pricing & packaging changes, increasing Free to Paid conversion by 20% (YoY) and Self-Service Exit Revenue by 49% (YoY) with minimal impact on free user acquisition and paid user retention. - Year 3: after delivering multiplayer capabilities to the free plan and a new self-service plan, increased our habit formation/activation baseline by 33% (determined causation). Other accomplishments: - Created a data-driven analysis of user retention and behaviours, shaping up our onboarding and monetization strategy. - Managed a portfolio of cross-functional initiatives, optimizing roadmaps for the biggest impact opportunities.

    SaaSB2B

  • Teamworki

    Co-Founder
    •innovationsask.ca/news/teamworki

    Initially a side gig, I decided to make Teamworki a full-time project when COVID-19 struck: the pandemic represented, in my mind, an opportunity. We conceived the app to help equip team leads and managers with insights on team morale, powered by NLP. As coworkers collaborated remotely via retrospectives and check-in surveys, we generated analytics on that. We failed to cross the chasm (between "early adopters" and "early majority"). Pivoting to HR Tech was the path forward, but that wasn't the product we wanted to build. So we closed shop. At its peak, we had hundreds of engaged users and dozens of paid teams on the app.

    SaaSB2B

  • Vendasta

    Director of Product
    •vendasta.com

    Managed a team of Product Managers and Product Designers. Established three growth, cross-functional teams including Marketing, Sales, and Success around key outcomes in the Vendasta platform. Established and monitored divisional OKRs. Led the program to create a product-led path in the platform, from acquisition to retention & growth. During this time, Vendasta achieved record-breaking bookings in over 10 years. In 2018, as a Product Manager, I led Vendasta's first cross-functional teams, having increased collaboration across our guilds. Defined and iterated on PQLs (Product Qualified Leads), providing visibility for Vendasta's Sales team and its resellers. Strategized and delivered automation on failed payments. Optimized the internal lead processing workflow for our major channels. Led two cross-functional teams of Content Strategists, Marketers, Designers, and Developers behind two owned & operated products (and their add-ons): Listing Builder and Advertising Intelligence. - For the first one, doubled the run rate of our most successful Listings SKU in my 10 months as the Product Manager. - Envisioned and launched Advertising Intelligence by validating needs in the market and working with a strong foundation of over 40 trusted testers. The product won the SIINDA 2019 Platinum Award: https://www.vendasta.com/press-releases/vendasta-receives-siinda-award

    SaaSDigital AgenciesB2BMarTech

  • ThoughtWorks

    Senior Consultant
    •thoughtworks.com

    Recife (Brasil) / San Francisco (USA): in a global supply chain project for an US large company, I've applied agile practices and worked in a close partnership with Product Managers to maintain and evolve a Product Roadmap and a Product Backlog, besides collaborating with business analysis and the iteration logistics. I implemented Feature Prep meetings as a tool to slice the grooming process of our next deliverables and share business context with the teams. Created a strategic Product Roadmap in partnership with the Product Managers, applying the OKR framework. To deal with so many people in the project, implemented an adjusted version of Feature Teams: Objective Teams, which work at multiple features related to the same business objective. I also conducted Q&A sessions, to share knowledge across the project, and Business Sessions, which integrate all the squads in the same program. Performed user research sessions, directly with our users in the US, to get feedback and support that process. Created a framework to support tech improvement. With agile good practices in mind, I supported Product Managers in our client both tactically (as a PO) and strategically (performing product management activities) to make sure our Objective Teams and Roadmap work closely aligned with the expectations from leaderships and the users. Dropped story points on expense of measuring velocity by amount of cards, incorporating practices from Kanban. Brought CFD (Cumulative Flow Diagrams) and more business context to our iteration kickoff ("Looking Ahead" meetings). I also worked as a facilitator to the whole program/account inside ThoughtWorks, consolidating staffing requests and running our cross-project meetings.

    B2B

  • Allen Brasil

    Product Owner
    •linkedin.com/company/allen-solucoes

    Launched new collaboration products and features to our customers on top of the Microsoft SharePoint platform. By productizing components and designing a growth strategy, we grew the digital projects division from 1 to 10 people and made it the most profitable group in the company.

    Cloud ComputingDigital AgenciesB2B

  • Allen Brasil

    Software Developer
    •linkedin.com/company/allen-solucoes

    At Allen, I designed and developed solutions for customers using Microsoft SharePoint, ASP.NET, and SQL Server. I was also a collaborator and then mentor at the local Microsoft Innovation Center, MIC Pernambuco.

    Cloud ComputingDigital AgenciesB2B

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