All mentors

Giacomo Poggiali

0 to 1 Product Manager | Sparring Partner 🥊 for bold Founders looking for Product-Market fit

Firenze, Italy (+01:00 UTC) Italian, Spanish, Englishfrom Firenze, Italy
Usually responds in 21 hour
Free
Price per hour
15 min30 min
Time Blocks Available
5.00
18 reviews / 25 sessions
Fri
23
Next availability

Bio

Hi, my name is Giacomo and I am a 0 to 1 Product Manager 👨‍🔬. I’ve been working at 3 startups as a founding or First PM, and there I’ve seen most of the things and mistakes you can do going from 0 to Series A. I’m trying to spare other people the mistakes I did, so I’m helping 🦸‍♂️founders and Product Managers get to Product-Market fit sooner. I’m doing this directly or through (pre-)Acceleration programs. I consider myself a sparring partner 🥊 boxing with them so that they won't get kicked by the market, which really hits harder! So feel free to reach out if you want to discuss topics such as: - Ideation 💡 - Validation 🔁 - MVP strategy 🛴 - Growth Product Management ⚙️⛽ - Product Vision 🧬🧿 - Continuous Product discovery & team structure 🔍 I don’t have all the answers and I’m still learning a lot, but I’m happy to share what I’ve learned in the journey and more than this I’d love to help you get to your own answers through sparring. Feel free to reach out and let's do some good sparring together! 🥊🥊🥊

Expertise

  • Bootstrapping

    I've contributed to bootstrapping two startups. My secret sauce is working hard to find (and satisfy) early adopters who strive for a solution.

  • Idea validation

    I've been practising multiple methods and ways to validate ideas, and I ran validation workshops both in public and for pre-acceleration programs. My #1 advice is to make sure you're testing and tweaking to get faster feedback loops, not just validating!

  • Mindset coaching

    I've been coaching multiple founding teams to make sure they: - say things out loud - get out of fuzzy zones - get out of quicksands they sometimes get trapped in

  • Product management

    I've been managing multiple products from scratch, made all the possible mistakes and I'm happy to provide advice, especially in the area of Product discovery.

  • Product market fit

    Product market fit is definitely something that "you know it when you see it". My perception with ShippyPro (first Product I managed that reached PM fit) was that I was pushing a rock uphill until someday we found a formula and the rock was running downhill generating opportunities we could barely run after!

  • User research

    Every innovator knows that what makes us different is our ability to see reality through different eyes, always on the lookout for problems to be solved! I'm always impressed by what comes out when doing proper user research, which I recommend in all the phases following different approaches.

Toolkit

  • Jira logo

    Jira

    There 's a lot of tools a PM uses, but I want to mention this especially cause I hated it and always will 💗 https://ifuckinghatejira.com/ 😄😄

  • Zapier logo

    Zapier

    In the toolkit of every 0-1 innovator willing to put on some punk solution with sellotape

Industries

  • Usability Testing

    Good user tests = save 50% of flaws before embedding them in the code. I advise all startups to try them, especially when dealing with issues in development time.

  • Product Research

    Passionate and experienced in Product Discovery and User Research. I run research sprints as a freelancer and advise startups on this topic.

  • Consumer Research

    Passionate and experienced in Product Discovery and User Research. I run research sprints as a freelancer and advise startups on this topic.

Experience

  • 500 Global

    Product Mentor

    Last programs as a Product Mentor: - Creators Ventures (CreatorsHQ - 1 Billion Followers Dubai 2026), - 5x MENA programs (Saudi/Egypt accelerators) - 6x Eurasia programs, - 1x Georgia Startup program Topics I covered: - ICP Definition - Customer Discovery - Experimentation - Focus on big bets: setting the OMTM - MVP strategy: build a product engine worth fueling - PLG: ignite your Product engine with growth and habit loops - Continuous Product Discovery & Delivery - From Cool to Good to Great Products - Product-Led Growth 101 - Vision, Mission & Strategy 500 Global (ex 500 Startups) is the most active early-stage global venture capital firm. Notable investments in 500's portfolio include Canva, Reddit, Solana, Twilio, Udemy, Mural, Superhuman and Sendgrid. 500 runs incubation and acceleration programs worldwide, emphasizing the importance of working on Product, UX and distribution.

  • SparringStartups.com

    Sparring Partner 🥊 for bold Founders
    •sparringstartups.com/

    I help launch worthwhile ventures by sparring 🥊 with founders and corporate innovators so they won't get kicked by the market, which really hits harder! I do this on a 1:1 basis or within innovation and acceleration programs as a Product EIR. I can help you: - Spot inflections where new problems are born - Find problems worth solving - Test value proposition for potential solutions - Identify and test potential early adopters - Develop a wedge to enter the market - Act as your ad interim Head of Strategy or Product to help you confidently take the steps you need to I'm currently contributing as a: Product EIR for a Pre-acceleration Program (Starta VC) and an Innovation program (Inskip) Innovation strategy coach for a Corporate Venture Builder (bank with > 5M customers) Product Coach at 3x Pre-seed / Seed Startups (total $4.5M raised)

  • Haier

    Innovation Advisor

    Through INSKIP, an innovation firm assisting strategic innovation processes. I assisted the dept leaders innovating as startup founders would.

  • Starta VC

    Entrepreneur in Residence - Product and Growth

    Product EIR and Lecturer for Starta's Pre-acceleration program, on topics such as: - Validation - User research - Growth Product Management

  • Cubbit

    Head of Product

    Cubbit is a Series A startup on a mission to bring the Internet back to its roots: a distributed network crowdsourcing in the net all the resources and services needed to work (and not the backyard of a few tech monopolies). Cubbit is building the world's largest distributed data centre. I joined Cubbit as the company's first Product Manager after their seed round. My main contributions have been: - JTBD and customer discovery, generating insights used to scale the crowdfunding campaign (>€1M) and deliver the beta version of Cubbit - Established and led cross-functional teams in charge of the end-to-end product development - Led the 0 to 1 phase of 3 new products: identifying and exposing problems, collecting product ideas, testing these ideas, designing and testing wireframes, and iteratively delivering. - Owned the product roadmap to engage the teams around user needs with a problem-first mindset, using Opportunity-Solution trees and OKRs

    Cloud ComputingB2BB2C

  • Smanapp

    Head of Product - Mobile
    •smanapp.com/

    SmanApp is a bootstrapped startup (>€1M revenue) on a mission to make roads safer thanks to gamification and rewarding through their mobile app and partners network I joined SmanApp as the company's first Product Manager. My main contributions have been: - Owned the product roadmap by finding patterns in quantitative (Data Analytics) and qualitative data (interviews). - Created and led cross-function product squads, engaging the teams around JTBDs and user-related OKRs. The squads took care of the full cycle from problem identification to delivery. - Together with my team I designed and launched a new app through UX research, Design Sprint and pretotyping. This app, with its gamification dynamics, is now the company's flagship app.

  • ShippyPro

    Founding Product Manager
    •shippypro.com

    ShippyPro is a Series A startup born to help small and big online vendors manage logistics as e-commerce giants do. ShippyPro achieves this mission through a shipping SaaS for integrating sales channels with logistic partners. As Founding PM and Head of Growth I: - Aligned our marketing and product efforts to customers JTBD - Ran experiments that got systematic acquisition channels and a strong Product-Market fit, taking our B2B users to 5,000 in 18 months - Created and designed Easy Return, one of ShippyPro's flagship products thought for managing reverse logistics - Designed the new UI (still online)

    B2BSaaS

  • Hub Multiverso

    Co-working manager

    During the second year of Msc, I managed the Multiverso Valdarno coworking, organizing courses about coding and digital marketing.

  • Buongiorno

    Business Analyst Intern - Mobile Subscriptions LATAM

    University internship where I learned the basics of data analytics by running KPI Analysis on mobile subscriptions in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina markets.

  • Tele Iride

    Reporter - Local TV news

    While in the first year of university I side worked as a TV Journalist. I filmed, wrote and recorded 50+ TV news reportages for local television.

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