Alli Blum
Interim Head of Product // Fractional CPO
Let's Work Together
Hi! I'm Alli, I'm a SaaS Polymath. 👋
One way to describe my work is "Marie Kondo for 30-50 person SaaS companies." There's a lot of mess that gets made before startups step into their scale-up stage. I help teams build the operational and strategic infrastructure to clean up the mess and get to their next growth milestone.Today I work with Product, Leadership, and Change/Innovation teams. Over the years I've had the chance to work in PR, Marketing, Growth, UX design, UX research, and research ops. Now I work in the product and in the spaces between.
I'm looking for opportunities that look like this:
Interim Head of Product. Why Interim? Our work will happen in that stage of growth when everything feels possible but little seems know-able. As we lay the foundation for that next stage, we'll prepare to pass the torch to someone new.
First non-founder Head of Product at a SaaS company of 30-50 people
Enough product-market fit to know you have a viable going concern, but not enough product-market fit to get to where you want to go next
An executive team that embodies a commitment to DEI efforts
Remote-first company
Does that sound like you?If so, email me!
About You
When you...
Sense that your business has reached the point where it's time for the CEO to stop moonlighting as the CPO
See that what got you here (some solid traction, revenue, and a team of ~30 or so folks) won't get you to where you want to go next (de-facto category leader, 2-3x ARR, and 50-75 people)
Find yourself without a Head of Product after yours has left suddenly, leaving you and the rest of your team wondering which messes are most in need of tidying
I will give you a way to...
Hire your org's first Head of Product who isn't you
Transition your main job into a full-time CEO role
Lead your product org through the transition of you stepping out of the leadership role
Find, prioritize, and tidy the messes that need cleaning after a key leader's departure
Design and build the strategic and operational infrastructure required for your product team to scale and consistently ship high ROI features
So you can...
Get to your next revenue milestone
Position your product as the go-to leader in your category
Make fast, incremental progress shipping sticky features and experiences that retain your customers
Define and grow your acquisition, activation, and retention metrics
Lead your team through the inevitable changes that will impact their ability to drive outcomes as you scale from 30 to 50, 80, or 100 people and beyond
Reduce the incidence and impact of miscommunication and missed connections that happen as you grow and pull you away from your vision
About Me
Some of my greatest hits:
Helped a company launch a new product for a new market and coached the team to grow it 0-1, from development to launch to established and integral asset
Led change management initiative to coach a team of 10 to transition from working as a marketing team to establish operational readiness as a product team
Designed in-app and email onboarding experiences for several teams that increased new customer activation by 144%-300%
Introduced leadership, decision-making, and operational readiness coaching and frameworks to sustain growth in the wake of change
Trained team members on conversion copywriting, JTBD research, UX design, product strategy, and leadership to increase product release cycle output for team
Identified core JTBD to inform product, marketing, and overall company strategy
Worked with over 50 teams to launched Voice of Customer programs to unite strategy and decision-making across sales, product, and marketing initiatives and prepare teams for 10X growth
I'm a SaaS Polymath with expertise in:
New user onboarding
Leadership
Operations
Qualitative research
UX design
Product
Marketing
Conversion copywriting
Segment event protocols
Operations
Positioning
Public relations
Enough React, CSS, and SQL to talk with your engineers
I'm a speaker or mentor with:
MicroConf
TinySeed Accelerator
LTVConf
UIBreakfast
Startups for the Rest of Us
Forget the Funnel
My work is informed by:
Feminist writing by bell hooks on the damage and suffering inflicted on both men and women in patriarchal structures
Scholarship on the caste system in America, notably Caste by Isabel Wilkerson on the many ways people are marginalized
Dr. Heidi Grant's research into growth mindset
Having worked remotely since 2009 and had migraine since the 90s
A core value that joy and love > hustle and grind for both personal fulfillment and professional outcomes.
Outside of work, I'm a:
Beginner swimmer, vegetable gardener, and furniture maker
Intermediate forest-bather, Mandarin-speaker, and cook of Sichuan food
Expert reader of contemporary fiction, writing tutor, and resident of New Jersey
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
"If you want to set your company up to succeed in the long term, if you are having a hard time finding the balance between long-term strategy and short-term tactical, as well as getting your team to move that way to see that too, you work with Alli."If you want to create an environment where you can trust your employees to make decisions that support the long term objective and deliver the most value you possibly can for your customers, you work with Alli."So if you want to figure out how to speak to your employees better, if you want to understand what your employees are going through, if you feel like you're having a hard time understanding, if you feel like you keep saying the same thing over and over and over again, and not being heard, and if you don't want to be completely stressed going through through this phase of growth..."...You work with Alli."
-Jordan Skole, VP Product
"I was crafting the strategy and plan for my client to achieve their growth goals, it was like there was a missing puzzle piece that I couldn't quite identify or articulate.Our session with Alli was the breakthrough I was looking for. Not only did she pull out so much more insight around what we needed to be successful, but she revealed some assumptions and requirements that weren't as clear or completely unknown before the session. The first big a-ha moment was that we had an opportunity to realign the client's efforts with the founder's vision.And the second a-ha moment is that without Alli's thorough questioning and unpacking process, we wouldn't have arrived at our conclusions about what to do next."
-Asia Orangio, CEO
“I immediately saw that Alli was very, very organized, she had good methods and processes in place.“Having someone that has expertise in doing VoC research and following that kind of workflow and documenting everything really helped set the baseline for that project, having that all down in one place is huge. I ended up using her murals as examples of how to keep track of projects. The documentation was great, I really enjoyed it. It even bled over into other conversations and pitches.""And when Alli was done...a big part of our funnel was significantly improved."
-Justin Kazwell, Head of Marketing
"The experience of working with Alli is like collaborating with a trusted friend."
-Claire Suellentrop, COO
HOW TO WORK WITH ME
I'm looking for roles as an Interim Head of Product. Why Interim? I love the mess, getting you and your team up and running, then moving on to the next mess.Engagements may begin with a tightly scoped project:
Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) research project
Qualitative research repository Implementation
Segment event data modeling
Product management operations audit
UX Audit
Or unbounded strategic work on a fractional basis:
Fractional head of product
Strategic planning and facilitation
Cascading communication messaging development and communication
Change management strategy consulting
Documentation of your existing processes
Contact
Send me a note to tell me what's going on in your world. We'll have a 60-minute meet-and-greet to see where or how I can help you.