I'm AJ — a product manager based in Munich with a background in founding, venture capital, and product. I combine engineering rigour with entrepreneurial speed to take products from zero to launch and beyond.
Led discovery and redesign of a high-friction workflow for 50K+ daily users. JTBD interviews and session replay pinpointed a 4-step process collapsible to one. Shipped in 6 weeks.
Enterprise accounts were churning quietly — no angry tickets, just silence. Session recordings revealed users were repeating the same 4-step workflow action every session, adding 3+ unnecessary minutes of friction per use.
Ran 12 JTBD interviews alongside session replay analysis. Identified the core insight: users weren't confused, they were frustrated. Scoped a targeted fix — collapse the 4 steps to 1 with context pre-filling — and A/B tested before full rollout.
Jobs-to-be-Done interviews · Session replay (FullStory) · A/B testing · Funnel analysis · Progressive rollout
Three tools, one bill, zero happy users. Built the full ROI model, risk register, and phased roadmap. Walked the C-suite through it. Board approved at the first meeting it was presented.
Three overlapping tools with combined license costs of $340K/year — but when you added engineering overhead and support burden, the true cost was closer to $890K/year. Nobody had made that visible.
Built a full TCO model that reframed the ask: not "spend $2M" but "stop losing $890K/year." Added a phased roadmap with a 6-month ROI signal and ran three stakeholder alignment rounds before the board ever saw it.
TCO analysis · ROI modeling · Risk register · Stakeholder alignment · Phased roadmap · Executive presentation
Identified activation drop-off through cohort analysis. Led cross-functional delivery of a personalisation feature in 8 weeks. Now drives 62% of new user activation.
D7 retention was poor despite strong acquisition. Cohort analysis revealed that users who completed a specific personalisation step had 34% higher D7 retention — but 73% of users were skipping it because it felt optional and abstract.
The aha moment already existed. The problem was we were making it too easy to skip. Redesigned the onboarding to make personalisation feel like setup — immediate visual feedback, clear progress, harder (but not impossible) to skip.
Cohort analysis · User interviews · 0→1 scoping · Beta testing · Cross-functional delivery (eng, design, data)
8 weeks of competitive teardowns, pricing sensitivity interviews across 3 countries, and a phased GTM playbook. Presented to C-suite. Approved for Year 2 roadmap.
Leadership wanted to expand to Southeast Asia but had no structured analysis — no market sizing, no competitive view, no GTM model. "Southeast Asia" is not a strategy. The question was: where, for whom, and how?
Structured the analysis around 3 questions: Is there a market? Can we win? At what cost? Used 40 user interviews across Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines to validate assumptions. Recommended a phased model gated on Year 1 KPIs.
Market sizing · Competitive analysis · Pricing sensitivity interviews · Phased GTM model · Financial scenario modeling
Trial CVR was stuck at 8%. Heatmaps and user interviews revealed the issue wasn't price — it was uncertainty. A clearer value story moved CVR to 10.2% without touching the price.
A quarter of pricing experiments — discounts, trial extensions, urgency messaging — had moved nothing. Session recordings showed users re-reading the feature list and leaving. They weren't comparing plans; they were unsure if the product was right for them.
Reframed from "what does each plan include?" to "what will change for you?" — replaced the feature grid with use-case scenarios, added role-specific social proof, and simplified the CTA. Zero price changes.
Heatmap analysis · Session recordings · User interviews · A/B testing · Copywriting · Value proposition design
Slow shipping was hurting morale and competitive position. Three process changes — a spec-ready gate, time-boxed reviews, and parallel QA — tripled release frequency in one quarter.
Releases every 6–8 weeks. Engineers demoralised by the gap between "done" and "live." Three bottlenecks found: specs written too late, review cycles with no time-box, and sequential QA that started only after engineering finished.
Introduced a spec-ready gate (no sprint entry without sign-off), 3-day time-box on stakeholder reviews, and parallel QA running alongside engineering. Rolled in phases over 6 weeks so changes could be isolated.
Process audit · Sprint retrospectives · Stakeholder alignment · Change management · Cycle time measurement
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How I work
Good product work starts with understanding the problem clearly before reaching for a solution. The rest tends to follow.
User interviews, support tickets, data — everything gets read before a spec is written. I spend more time here than most, because it pays off later.
Good ideas don't always get funded. I write honest ROI estimates and clear risk analysis — the kind that make decisions easier, not harder.
Specs engineers want to read, design context that unlocks creativity, blockers cleared before they become fires. Delivery is a team sport.
Every launch is a learning opportunity. I document what worked and what didn't so the next team doesn't start from zero.
What I'm good at
From SQL to Figma to stakeholder presentations — I cover more ground than a typical PM because I've built, invested, and shipped.
I'm Ajay Vaidhyanathan Swaminathan — most people call me AJ. I started as an engineer, founded a mobile
product studio in Chennai, moved into venture capital in Munich, and landed firmly in product. That path gives
me something most PMs don't have: I understand how founders think, how investors evaluate bets, and how
engineers actually build.
Most recently at DreamDriven (B2C venture builder), with prior experience at Mountain
Alliance (PE/VC) and Colayer. Before that, I founded Fluxdart
Technology, where I owned the full product lifecycle for 5+ mobile apps. Based in Munich,
Germany — open to hybrid or remote roles across Europe.
I've been the founder. I know what it feels like to own the whole product — discovery, trade-offs, and shipping under pressure. I bring that ownership into every PM role.
I've evaluated investments. Time at Mountain Alliance means I think in unit economics, market sizing, and competitive dynamics — not just user stories.
I build and I analyse. SQL, Python, Figma, ReactJS — I can work directly with data and design, not just manage people who do.
I work in two languages. English and German (B2) — comfortable in international and European teams.
I read every message personally and reply within a day. If you're building something interesting in Europe and need a PM who can think like a founder — let's talk.
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