All mentors

Nick Schwinghamer

Product & Growth Leader, Former Director @ Shopify

Ottawa, Canada (-05:00 UTC) Englishfrom Edmonton, Canada
Usually responds in 2 days
Free
Price per hour
30 min
Time Blocks Available
4.99
148 reviews / 176 sessions
Mon
12
Next availability

Nick was fantastic from start to finish. Nick responded to our help request incredibly promptly, and we proceeded to have a call within just a few days. On the call, Nick crammed more insights and valuable experiences into 30 minutes than I could ever possibly have wished for. Nick single-handedly saved us hours of trawling Youtube videos, reading blog posts, and scratching our heads. Not to mention, Nick is friendly, humble, and takes time to listen to your needs to make sure the call is maximally valuable for both sides. Can't recommend enough!

James

I had a game-changing call with Nick, a Growthmentor who introduced me to a completely new approach that has transformed our approach and marching plan. I can't express enough how grateful I am for his insights. Nick's approach was like a breath of fresh air. He provided a unique perspective that I hadn't considered before, and it was a true game changer for our startup. His innovative strategies allowed us to instantly enter the market with confidence. What impressed me the most was Nick's ability to understand our specific needs and tailor his advice accordingly. He took the time to learn about our business, challenges, and goals, which made his insights even more relevant and valuable. In conclusion, my call with Nick was nothing short of extraordinary. His new approach has given us the tools and confidence to enter the market with a bang. If you're looking for a Growthmentor who can offer fresh perspectives and game-changing strategies, Nick is the person you need to connect with. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with him, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for our business.

Marc Nieding

Nick was the first Growthmentor I’ve had a session with and it was awesome. It completely surpassed my expectations. Nick was friendly, listened to my situation and delivered focussed responses and insights from his own experiences. He had given me a laser focussed go to market strategy. I’ve been with a tech accelerator for 5 months and Nick delivered more value in the 30 minute session. I highly recommend Nick. Thanks for the session.

Neil Henshaw

Bio

Being an entrepreneur and building something great is hard. Let me help you. I've been lucky enough to lead teams through all stages of growth, from inception, to finding product-market fit, to scaling success and maintaining market leadership and have learned a ton along the way. My roles have spanned technical (engineering and product management), as well as more business focused (growth, partnerships and operations) positions, giving me a good understanding of the numerous challenges faced by a wide range of companies. Some of the things I'd love to help you with include: - Product strategy (what to build and for who) - Go to market strategy (how to get adoption for what you build) - Operations strategy (how to support the daily needs of what you've built) - Setting KPIs and understanding opportunities through data - Building a team and helping them thrive - Attracting developers to build on your APIs - Leadership development I love deeply understanding problems and helping motivated people break through their challenges and achieve their goals, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you. Book some time with me today, and let's chat!

Expertise

  • Building a team

    I've managed teams in person and remotely all over the world since 2010. Whether you're wondering when the time is right to make a key hire, how to interview potential candidates or how to get a team to perform to their full potential, I can help. I've always loved mentoring a team and helping them grow and succeed and would be happy to share those learnings.

  • Go to market strategy

    In my career I've help bring numerous products to market, focused on driving user awareness, adoption and success. I've launched brand new products, every size of feature update and helped migrate hundreds of thousands of customers to new solutions quickly and effectively to technical and non-technical audiences. From full fledged, multi-faceted campaigns to pricing models and marketing tactics and everything in between - let's dive in.

  • Growth marketing

    I've had experience directly implementing growth strategies from the most unscalable custom outreach, to SEO, PPC, partnerships and content marketing, and have also managed teams doing the same.

  • Product analytics

    I LOVE data. In all my roles, I've always been keenly interested in understanding things from a quantitate perspective and have learned a ton. I have lots of experience talking about KPIs, how to measure success, analyzing product analytics to look for opportunities and building data into team culture.

  • Product management

    Building products that solve problems is something I've always loved. I was trained as an engineer and have a builder mindset, but have spent a good chunk of my career as a product manager or working closely with the product teams around me. I love talking roadmaps, features, user journey's, how to pitch new ideas to get buy in, working cross functionally, how to measure success and more.

  • Remote work

    I've worked remotely full time for the past couple years now, as many people have. Even before that, though, I was managing remote teams for years. Building engagement, a strong team culture and using tools that make getting work done easy in a remote environment isn't easy, but I'd be happy to help.

  • Venting frustration

    Let's face it - we all have bad days. If you need someone to vent to, are looking for some fresh perspective or want a quick gut check before you put your plan into action, I'm here for you.

Toolkit

  • Trello logo

    Trello

    I've used Trello for years across numerous teams as a lightweight way to stay organized and coordinate between multiple people. Great for simple stuff like to-do tracking, to pipeline monitoring, feature development flows and more.

Industries

  • Marketplace

    Experience building a marketplace to connect people who create 3D printable files to people with 3D printers, experience building an online education platform targeted at course creators and experience in the e-commerce saas space with Shopify.

  • E-Commerce Platforms

    Worked at Shopify for 4.5 years, and understand broad market dynamics and trends, as well as the developer ecosystem of apps and agencies operating around ecommerce.

  • E-Learning

    Thinkific and Shopify were both Saas companies and the majority of my major learnings in growth occurred at those two companies. They are both platforms with really diverse target markets.

Experience

  • Shopify

    Director of Commercial
    •shopify.com

    - Leading the commercial teams for numerous aspects of our partner programs including partnerships, growth, product marketing and program management - Leading Theme Store and Experts Marketplace (freelancer and agency solution) - Work closely with product, engineering and UX leaders to oversee short and long term vision of our marketplaces and associated partner programs - Set direction on yearly goals and objectives, helping to define metrics and KPIs for success - Manage teams of people executing strategies with global impact in coordination with other leaders in Shopify across all disciplines - Working to grow merchant success (attracting new merchants and helping existing merchants grow) via our 3rd party ecosystem - Managing multiple 2-sided marketplaces, with a focus on simultaneously increasing supply quantity and quality, while improve demand grow and conversion - Helping team members grow personally and professionally through goal setting and mentorship - Temporarily leading operations teams across business performance, partner governance and marketplace quality assurance - Lead commercial aspects of our agency program, driving new referrals for Canada, US, UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia through our ecosystem.

    E-CommerceSaaS

  • Shopify

    Director of Operations
    •shopify.com

    - Lead a team focused on enabling the growth and smooth operation of our partner ecosystem and marketplaces (Experts Marketplace, App Store) - Built a new team to focus on Partner Governance, enforcing high standards for behaviour in our ecosystem, reducing fraud and activity that was against our terms of service - Streamlined app approval process, helping reduce time to publish for developers and increasing funnel visibility and team efficiency through clearer guidelines, automated processes and team training - Oversaw implementation of Salesforce to streamline internal communication and reporting - Managed a team that processed, reconciled and paid partners for their contributions - Defined supply/demand modelling and early-stage marketplace performance across multiple dimensions - Worked with cross functional teams to build tools that reduced hiring needs and improved our scalability

    E-CommerceSaaS

  • Shopify

    Director of Partner Growth
    •shopify.com

    - Led a 40+ person, globally distributed team focused on marketing and partnerships for our Affiliate and Agency focused programs - Focused on leveraging 3rd party ecosystem to attract and grow merchants on Shopify's platform worldwide, responsible for double digit % contribution of net merchant adds - Oversaw full funnel, of awareness, acquisition, activation, growth and retention across multiple channels including blogs, emails, PPC and more - Worked closely with Engineering, UX and product leaders to drive alignment on cross functional work - Responsible for reporting on my area to exec team, including writing section of the board letter

    E-CommerceSaaS

  • Thinkific

    VP of Product
    •thinkific.com/

    Joined the now publicly traded company in their early stages as the first hire in Product Management. - Oversaw product roadmap working closely with CEO, COO and CTO to define company strategy - Implemented process and tooling for customer feedback and roadmap planning - Built KPI dashboards to track progress across multiple departments - Defined and managed product development flow to increase velocity and clarity (from scoping, to UX, engineering, QA and launch) - Competitive landscape research and customer interviews to identify key opportunities and customer pain points

    SaaSB2BEdTech

  • Pinshape (acquired)

    Co-Founder, Head of Product, Head of Growth
    •pinshape.com/

    As Co-Founder/COO of Pinshape, a Silicon Valley-backed company, I lead many areas of the business, performing as both Head of Product and Head of Growth. Together with my two co-founders, we successfully grew Pinshape from a part-time side project, into a team of experts and one of the most respected and loved 3D printing communities in the world in the span of 2 years. In my position I created a data-driven culture through the use of analytics and lean methodologies, fostering a mutual respect for all ideas and a focus on results.

    B2CE-Commerce

  • Eleven Engineering Incorporated

    Manager R&D Canada

    As Manager R&D Canada, I was the leader of a team of engineers responsible for all R&D functions related to our company's head office in Canada. This included, but is not limited to, new core technology creation (hardware, firmware, software), new product development based on that technology, customer integration of our products from concept to mass production and general strategy and planning of future products. I participated in the R&D process at both a high level, through project management, and at a low level, through hardware and firmware design and testing. The project management role I played includes budgeting, scheduling, chairing regular meetings, maintaining current commitments and identifying then following up on potential issues. In a product management capacity, I was responsible for helping to set the course for new product features and prioritizing work based on customer feedback and company objectives. I actively sought ways to optimize efficiency and the sharing of knowledge within the company and worked to implement new ideas, standards and tools to get the best results from myself and surrounding staff. Examples of this include the implementation of a company wide project management tracking tool, coordination of Lunch 'N Learns, creation of budget estimation analysis tools and formation of project file organization standards. I was involved in ensuring the timely and cost effective completion of 5-10 large internal R&D projects and 10-20 external customer support and integration projects on an ongoing basis.

  • Eleven Engineering Incorporated

    Manager Applications R&D

    I oversaw a team of engineers and worked with customers to help move the product development cycle from concept, to design, to testing and verification and then to mass production. I am responsible for both technical and project management roles on various projects. I was required to customize and implement existing proprietary technology to fit the needs of 15-20 customers while acting as the primary interface between my company and external companies.

  • Eleven Engineering Incorporated

    Design Engineer

    I was responsible for designing and developing hardware, software and firmware to be used in wireless audio applications. Duties included schematic design and PCB layout, firmware development and customization, testing and verification and software design and development. I worked as part of a team to meet customer and internal requirements on a wide range of projects. Experience was gained in assembly language programming for embedded systems used in low power applications. Additionally, I developed skills in C++ programming for Windows applications including software used and deployed in factories for production line OQC tests. Basic skills were developed in Apple iOS application programming and accessory design requirements as well. I was able to spend time working in China, Korea and the United States on numerous projects.

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