Kavir Kaycee
I'm a versatile product manager with 8+ years of product + founder experience at Tier 1 VC (Accel, Sequoia, CapitalG) funded startups. Currently advising an AI Storyboarding startup that’s raising a seed round. Most recently, I was a senior product manager at Hashnode — Accel funded blogging platform with 3M MAUs. Startup advisor at 3 startups, run a couple of newsletters — The Discourse (5000 + subs) and No-Code Shots (2000+ subs). In the past, I’ve been an ex-founder of an HR tech venture, and as an SPM at CarDekho (now valued at $1B+), I helped build a 0-1 platform to disburse 3000+ loans valued at $12M (currently $60M monthly) I consider myself a master generalist with key skills including product management, writing, community, and growth. ISB alum (2015), On Deck Fellow (2021)
Work Experience | Writing | Side Projects | Media | Contact
💼 Work Experience
Hashnode
Senior Product Manager (Feb 2023 — Nov 2023)
Blogging platform and community for developers (Accel and Sequoia Surge backed)
- Defined the comprehensive product roadmap for Hashnode in 2023 aligning with business goals and by collaborating with key stakeholders like the founders, engineering leads, designers, and marketing team
- Shipped major revamps including a new homepage redesign, more personalized feed, sign-up modals, and discussions to increase new sign-ups growth rate by 80% from 9% to 16%
- More features shipped: Import newsletter subscribers, community likes, following feed, recommended blogs and tags, AI writing features, onboarding emails, AI chat with article (beta), Command bar (beta), Block-based editor (beta)
- Led the product management function from conceptualizing the product roadmap, writing product specs, wireframing, acceptance criteria, project management, review, launch
- Collaborated with the marketing and community teams and handled product feature marketing by coordinating social launches, writing blogs, X threads, LinkedIn posts, and creating demo videos
Launch articles of key features:
Launch videos of key features:
Online Creator / Startup Advisor
Jun 2020 — Present
Worked on several high-impact side projects that involved writing and building an audience and creating no-code apps for social causes
- Built an audience of 10,000+ across Twitter, LinkedIn, newsletter, and email lists
- Shipped a covid relief app during India’s second wave covid crisis that was used by 150K+ people and raised $500K+ in donations
- Created a mental wellness app that was featured on the platform’s customer stories page
- Crafted reusable templates for product management, productivity, design that are used by 1500+ people
- Advising 3 startups in the climate tech, productivity and documentation, and AI storyboarding
The Product Folks
Program Director, No-code Program (Oct 2021 — Feb 2023)
4-week cohort program to teach non-technical people how to build apps without code
- Launched The Product Folks first paid CBC and ran three successful cohorts selecting 100 applicants from 900+ applicants
- Got 10+ experts from top no-code platforms like Bubble, Glide, Softr
- We had diverse learners from 5 continents and varied backgrounds and companies like Polygon, UNICEF, AngelList, Bumble, Cornell University, Duke University
Showcase Day Tweet:
Bord.com
Founding Product Manager | Remote, Mumbai - SF HQ (Dec 2020 — Jul 2022)
Pre-launch startup building a remote whiteboarding tool targeting management consultants
- Built an MVP of a collaborative whiteboarding tool with templates, auto shapes, marking up presentations. Early users include people from McKinsey, Bain, BCG
- Conducted multiple experiments and validated through user interviews and usability testing, collecting ~800 data points
Emtropy Labs
Senior Product Manager | Bangalore/Remote - Boston HQ (May 2019 — Dec 2020)
Early-stage startup solving customer service quality using machine learning
- Developed QA automation to analyze 30K monthly support tickets increasing quality by 15% and resulting in $400K cost savings for Whoop
- Created feedback and recognition products (pivot) used by 400+ employees to share 700+ kudos and 500+ feedback
Key Case Studies
MakeMyResume.co.in
Co-founder | Mumbai (Jan 2017 – May 2019)
Early-stage venture providing career advancement products/services to boost customers' job prospects
- Generated $80K annual revenues through SEO optimization, process and quality improvements, and partnerships
- Initiated, negotiated, and set up franchise partnerships in Bangalore and Delhi
- Built no-code apps Cover Letter Builder to create 2000+ cover letters and Order Tracking App to reduce support costs
- Increased website conversions by 107% and achieved top 3 Google rankings by redesigning the website and optimizing page speed
- Hired, trained, and led a team of 17 remote contributors – 4 ops, 10+ writers, 2 developers, and 1 designer
CarDekho.com
Senior Product Manager | Gurgaon (May 2015 – Nov 2016)
Sequoia Capital and CapitalG funded company; CarDekho is India's leading auto portal valued at $700M
- Facilitated 3000+ used car loans valued at $12M by building a platform across mobile (Android + iOS) and web
- Reduced loan application processing time by 60% through an innovative camera user interface for document capture
- Led a cross-functional team of 7 Engineering, 2 QA, 2 Design, 1 Junior PM, 50+ Sales and Operations in 5 cities
Accenture
Software Engineering Analyst | Mumbai (Jul 2010 – Apr 2014)
🎓 Education
- Post Graduate Program in Management (MBA equivalent), Indian School of Business (ISB), 2015 Finalist of 2 Global Case Competitions – IESE Barcelona, Impact Investing; CEIBS Shanghai, INNOVATE China
- Bachelor of Engineering, Information Technology, University of Mumbai, 2010
Side Projects
😷 IndiaCovidResources.in
No-code Maker / Core Team (Apr 2021 – Jun 2021)
During India's devastating COVID-19 second wave, I worked with two online communities with 200+ volunteers to build an app that helped 150K people get access to life-saving resources like oxygen, beds, and medicines in time.
- Built a no-code app in 2 days to help connect people to life-saving resources including hospital beds, medicines, oxygen, mental health experts, and more
- Helped build a donation website visited by 3M users to raise $500K over a period of 2 months
- Press coverage: HardCopy
😌 Mind Health
No-code Creator (Jun 2020 – Present)
Mind Health is an app that helps you improve your mental well-being by practicing mindfulness and challenging negative thinking by identifying distortions.
- Illustrated designs for 10 cognitive distortions and created an app in Glide to help users identify faulty thinking patterns and challenge negative thinking
- Added guided meditations to help users practice mindfulness meditations
- In 2023, I updated the app to use AI to identify distortions, and provide more specificity to gratitude and visualization exercises.
⚡ Notion Template Creator
Creator (May 2020 – Present)
Product Management, Productivity, and Wellness templates
- Created 14+ free and paid templates that have been downloaded 4,438+ times
Writing
I've been writing consistently over the last year and a half. I have ~5500 subscribers to my newsletter The Discourse. My writing has been published in publications such as Product Craft and Mind The Product. Here are some of my favorite articles:
A deep dive into how Polywork aims to be part of the cooperation economy
What's the speed feature stack and what are the apps that offer this experience
Discussion of the jobs-to-be-done and comparison between whiteboarding apps
Videos
This includes some of my top video appearances over the years
Tools proficiency
Product Management/Design:
- Notion, Figma, Linear, JIRA, Notability, Miro, Mixpanel, Segment, Userbrain, Intercom
No-code tools:
- Glide, Zapier, Framer, Webflow, Carrd, Softr, Bubble