You built the company. Now lead the product.
I spent 20+ years leading product at Google, Square, Pinterest, and Twitter. Now I coach founders who find themselves in the product seat without the PM background, so they can make product decisions with the same confidence they bring to everything else.
One sentence about your product and your biggest product challenge is all it takes. I reply to every founder message.
You are already the head of product. Nobody trained you for it.
Most founders I work with are excellent at what got them here: the vision, the sales, the domain. Then the product work lands on their desk and it looks like this:
Everything feels like a priority
Customers want features, investors want a roadmap, and engineering wants decisions. You have no framework for choosing, so you choose everything.
The team looks to you and you improvise
Design and engineering need direction you are not sure how to give. Sprint by sprint, the product drifts toward whoever argued loudest.
The books do not translate
You have read the PM classics. Turning theory into what to do this Tuesday, with your team and your runway, is a different problem entirely.
How we work together
Direct, in-the-trenches guidance on your actual product, not lectures on frameworks. Three ways in, depending on where you are:
Founder product coaching
Ongoing 1:1 sessions working on your live product decisions. We use your real backlog, your real customers, and your real tradeoffs. You learn to think in terms of value and viability, communicate your vision to design and engineering, and make strategic calls with confidence.
Founder-to-product-leader program
Most popularA structured engagement that builds your product foundation end to end:
- Value and viability assessment for what you are building now
- Customer problem discovery and validation
- Working rhythms with design and engineering
- Product judgment you can apply after we are done
Hiring your first PM
When you are ready to hand off, I help you define the role, evaluate candidates for creation skills rather than process skills, and onboard your first product hire into a culture that solves customer problems.
Investment depends on your stage and the engagement model. Message me and we will figure out whether working together makes sense before talking numbers.
What founders say
Cynthia is the triple-threat of logical/fact-based, empathetic, and practical. She helped us develop our product priorities by taking high level business problems and breaking them down into actionable blocks.
Cynthia helped me tackle growing pains during our rapid growth from pre-seed to Series B. Her suggestions are actionable and straightforward and always cut to the heart of the matter.
Cynthia was my product coach when I was a first time co-founder and CPO. Our sessions consistently led me to breakthrough ah-ha moments as we were developing our MVP.
I have sat in both seats
For more than two decades I led product at Google, Square, Pinterest, Twitter, and PayPal, after starting out as a software engineer with a computer science degree from MIT. I have shipped consumer products at billion-user scale and platform products for merchants and developers.
I have also been a startup founder myself, so I know what it feels like when the product decisions are yours alone and the runway is real.
My approach draws on Marty Cagan's product philosophy (I contributed to his book Inspired): build products customers love, not feature lists. But what you get from me is not theory. It is the specific tactics these companies actually use, adapted to your stage, your team, and your strengths.
Success does not follow a template. My job is to help you lean into what makes you different while borrowing what provably works.
Getting started is one message
Message me on LinkedIn
One sentence on what you are building, one on your biggest product challenge. No pitch deck needed.
We talk for 30 minutes
A working session, not a sales call. You will leave with at least one concrete thing to do differently, whether or not we continue.
We scope the engagement
If it is a fit, we pick the format that matches your stage and goals. If not, I will point you somewhere useful.
Ready to lead product like you mean it?
Send me a message on LinkedIn with one sentence about your product and your biggest product challenge.
Message me on LinkedInI read every founder message.