Building
Companies

Building Companies

I have spent my career (15+ years) working at the intersection of product, design, business and innovation.

During this time I have led the development, built, launched and run a variety of companies and initiatives. Going through the process of building businesses has taught me immensely. I carry this learning with me to every new opportunity I get to work on.

The following page provides a few examples of the businesses I have had the pleasure to work on.

Pebble

  • Pebble was a Sydney-based product and design studio. We worked with teams to either explore, test and build new products and services or research, improve and innovate on existing products. 

  • I founded Pebble, developed the studio's design, research and product framework and approach, crafted our service offerings and led our key projects.

  • We believed that when designed well, products and services have the potential to make an immense positive impact on the world. We created Pebble Design to help and empower teams to make great things.

    Another aim behind the creation of Pebble was to bring a new approach to the space of design-led innovation. The vision was to bring together the best of product management, strategic design, product design and user research, forming a coherent framework and approach.

  • The work at Pebble sat at the intersection of product, research and design, sometimes focusing on one and often involving all three.

    We would help teams define users and needs, develop value propositions, create prototypes and build products. Hand in hand, helped teams break their points of view into assumptions, and then engage in impactful use research to learn and iterate upon their initial perspective.

    In addition to running projects, the work at Pebble also involved developing frameworks, tools and frameworks. We hoped that those teams could help not just our team but others, build great things.

    • We worked with dozens of companies and organisations including (Meta, Found, ABC, and Salesforce).

    • We developed and published dozens of product, design and research frameworks and templates.

  • See here

CrowdFlight

  • CrowdFlight was a short-lived aviation startup. The concept was to create an in-flight digital platform that would utilise passengers’ spare time on flights in order to conduct user and market research.

  • I co-founded CrowdFlight and led the company’s product and design efforts. My work involved product management, strategic design and user research.

  • Every day, millions of people from all walks of life spend time on planes. We believed that flights provide a unique, underutilised social capital that could be harnessed for good.

  • We tried to build a product that could be placed on the in-flight entertainment systems provided by the airlines.

    We envisioned a platform that would enable people to participate in various types of user and market research and be rewarded with frequent flyer points or on-flight food and beverages.

    • We developed multiple prototypes.

    • We won multiple startup competitions.

    • We managed to meet with and gain a positive response from all key players- airlines, market research companies and inflight entertainment providers.

    • We attained multiple memoranda of understanding from the respective key players.

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Found

  • Found was an on-demand concrete ordering app that empowered users to order and manage concrete jobs quickly and seamlessly across the market. Found is considered to be an Australian gold standard in building corporate ventures.

  • I built up Found from a post-it note concept to a tangible product and a successful venture in market. I led the development of the offering, product, business model, brand, strategy and early team.

  • Boral is Australia's largest construction materials company. In 2019, Boral wanted to diversify its product offering and revenue sources. It was in this context that Found was created.

    The vision behind the product was to be the ‘Uber' for concrete. On the one hand, we wanted to empower users to order concrete at a click of a button and simplify a process that would usually take hours into minutes. On the other hand, we wanted to enable Boral to benefit not just from making concrete, but from taking a cut on every concrete job sold on the platform.

  • Found was an app that allowed users, mainly concreters and builders, to order concrete within minutes, from multiple suppliers across the market. It then allowed users to effortlessly manage and change their concrete orders.

    The product cut countless hours and immense effort out of people’s process and empowered them to focus on their business and teams.

    • Conducted hundreds of user interviews.

    • Went through dozens of iterations of the user focus and offerings.

    • Designed hundreds of screens, flows and prototypes before reaching the very effective end result.

    • Developed a comprehensive business model.

    • Developed a long-term business and product strategy.

    • Developed an effective go-to-market strategy.

    • Developed a simple and effective brand.

    • Developed a lean and effective product team.

  • See here