Tarn · Early access
Preparation for a human conversation.
A practitioner gets material shaped by their own method. The practitioner and dreamer keep authority over what the dream means.
Explore TarnPut people first. Not features.
Getting to a demo got fast. Getting to a product didn’t.
Fractional Head of Product and advisor. I help teams decide what to build, for whom, and at what quality, then stay close to the work until customers rely on it and the business can sell it.
- Pixability
- ARInsights
- ArtLifting
- National Audubon Society
From a client
“Don took what started as a fuzzy scope and turned it into decisions we could actually stand behind — a roadmap we could execute.”
Where I come in
Problems I get
pulled into.
The thread is the same: there is pressure to build, and the decisions that matter haven’t been tested. It usually surfaces once customers start saying yes.
“Every answer ops needs goes through an engineer.”
2 days → under 10 minCase evaluation at a confidential insurtech, freeing 20+ engineering hours a week.ServicePrototype to Product“People rebuild the same report by hand every week.”
16–20 hrs → 30 minManual collation per report cycle at Pixability, keeping the hour of human insight.ServiceFractional Product Leadership“We’re stuck on build versus buy and the evaluation keeps restarting.”
150 users surveyedAt ARInsights, which turned a build-or-buy question into one about who the platform was for.ServiceFractional Product Leadership“We’re about to trust a model nobody has evaluated.”
63% agreementBetween two human-labeled datasets at an Audubon sanctuary, so the AI evaluation started with the humans.ServiceAI Product Leadership“We sold it. Now we have to build it, on a pipeline that’s already full.”
$2M annual contractDelivered at Pixability on a pipeline near capacity, with revenue recognized a quarter early.ServiceProduct Strategy & Go-to-Market“The demo works. We don’t know what it takes to make it dependable.”
+25 pointsAdoption after the first release at Pixability, by automating pacing and keeping campaign decisions with people.ServicePrototype to Product“We promoted our best PM and nobody is coaching them.”
280+ coaching sessionsWith product managers and leaders, 263 of them on ADPList across 20 countries, ranked a top 1% product mentor there.ServiceProduct Leadership Coaching
Featured case study · Pixability
More adoption.
With control intact.
Campaign managers wanted automation without giving up their clients’ campaign choices. Usage research and conversations with operations led to budget-only pacing.
+25percentage points in adoption
after the first release
Preserve the choices
Campaign control
- Budget · creative
- Targeting · geography
Automate the work
Useful automation
- Budget-only pacing
- Auto-stop · safety pause
Internal user feedback shaped the change.
In practice
The work, in their words.
ArtLifting
“20K+ images, 94% matched automatically — Don saved us weeks of work.”
National Audubon Society
“Don’s AI solution helped us tackle 90K+ images, using leading wildlife identification platforms to cut review time and get caught up for the first time ever — likely saving us weeks of work.”
How engagements work
Agree on the shape
before the work starts.
The first engagement
60 to 90 days, with the deliverables agreed before we start. The first month usually goes to discovery: understanding how the work happens before deciding what to change. It ends with something that works, and a stopping point.
Ongoing leadership
Hands-on product responsibility alongside a founder or existing product leader. We agree on weekly availability, decision ownership, and how we’ll review progress.
What varies is the length, not the shape. It depends on the domain and on how quickly we can get time with the people who know the work. At ARInsights the question was whether to build a new CMS or buy one, which turned out to be a question about who the platform was for. At an insurtech it was whether operations needed the full system or a Slack app first. The answer was usually something smaller and sooner than the plan.
Book a Clarity CallProduct fieldwork
I keep building.
Products, prototypes, and automations built on the same conviction as the client work: the machine drafts and prepares, and a person decides. Each one tests who needs this, what matters, and what deserves to be built next.
Metis · Product experiment
The teacher brings the judgment.
Start with one classroom need, clarify the constraints, and review a privacy-aware plan before handing it to an AI building tool.
Explore MetisStart with a conversation
Bring the question
the team can’t resolve.
A free 30-minute Clarity Call. We’ll make the problem concrete and work out the most useful next step. If I’m not the right fit, I’ll say so.
Book a Clarity Call