Pre-Market → Scale Up Expert
I take products from idea → MVP → product-market-fit businesses.
Deep expertise in product design, engineering, and team leadership
Proven track record of growing high-performance tech teams multiple times, and having fun along the way.
Recent Work
Mindfulness.com
(Pre-Market → 1MM Users)
A Vision for Mindfulness
Matt Dickinson and Melli O'Brien brought me onto the team to be the person responsible for getting the idea in their heads out into the market.
Launched Beta App
In 4 months we rapidly tested product ideas through design prototypes until we had something worth building. Then I hired our first iOS developer to come on board to build the beta. We released the beta app to 500 people in our community to test and iterate on.
Product Iteration
Testing with our community of beta testers we iterated on our core product until we had a product that was reaching over 40% (the agreed tipping point) on the Product Market Fit Scale.
Head of Product and Engineering
Leading the product team @ mindfulness.com towards helping 1 billion people learn the skills of mindfulness to better deal with the complexity of being human.
Take A Minute
(Side-Project)
Built a fun little tool for taking a mindful minute remotely with teams/friends.
At Mindfulness.com we “take a minute” together before every call as a way to ground ourselves from whatever we were doing before and come back to the present moment (the meeting we’re about to have).
This simple little practice helps us all be more present on calls together, and has a big impact on our team culture.
I created this little web-app with with Brian Kuzmanoski to help not only my team but any team to do mindful minutes remotely.
Ansarada
(Pre-Market → Live B2B Customers)
Helped a Sydney FinTech launch the future of M&A.
Ansarada had a vision for a product that would help companies prepare for their next material events and brought me onboard to take it to market.
I completed the initial MVP designs, drove the domain-driven tech design process and then focused on frontend development to launch a brand new product with enterprise-level security and stability seven months later.
I hired and led a cross functional team of ten people. As the team grew I successfully transitioned into a product management role, guiding the team through launch and into the first critical iterations.
Sumry
(Pre-Market → Exit)
Founded the company that re-imagined the resume for people looking to land their dream job.
When looking for a job I realised how dehumanising and broken the traditional resume was. I created a resume that better conveyed who I was as a working person and then turned it into a product so that other people could do the same.
Today Sumry has been used by thousands of people to land their dream job.
MyEd
(Pre-Market → Exit)
Built a learning platform that personalised education for K-12 Australian students.
I joined this team early in it's journey to help design and implement a teaching and learning platform for schools that individualised learning pathways.
As Head of Product I was responsible for all product design and development. By working closely with teachers created digital solutions that improved their workflows enabling them to personalise learning for all the students in their class.
How I work
I thrive on reducing complex problems down to simple systems that can be incrementally delivered to customers. I combine clear systems thinking, a strong technical and design background, and early customer feedback.
In addition to the initial product implementation, I build up high-performance teams for long-term success. I've hired, led, and grown development teams based on my four simple principles: autonomy, accountability, transparency, and trust.
Where I'm best suited to help
Engineering 💪💪💪💪💪
Technical engineering is my strongest discipline. Systems architecture and web development are my primary focuses. I prefer backend development (Typescript, node.js postgres, mongodb) but also am extremely strong at FE (functional programming, react, angular), and infrastructure (AWS, terraform, self-managed).
What people say about me
"When it comes to the Art of the Start, Sebastian is one of the best I know. If you are launching a new product then you want him on your team."
– Owen Senior, CTO at Ansarada
"If I were to sum up Sebastian in a single word it would be focus. After joining our startup he brought focus to everything from product direction, technical stack and team culture. Sebastian, and the focus, insight and experience he brings, is an invaluable asset to any early-stage product. "
– Rowan Kunz, CEO at Art of Smart
"Sebastian's breadth of skills and experience is rare, but his greatest strength is the outcome: his ability to resolve ambiguity, make the right trade-offs, and articulate a clear path forward. This is what helped us deliver our MVP on time."
– Brian Kuzmanoski, Designer at Ansarada
"I loved how easy Sebastian made the whole project. We could chuck tasks at him and he'd smash them out, making a lot of the magic happen!"
– Matt, Co-Founder at Hanno
"If you want to build a product that users rave about, is all about high retention and CPV the shortest amount of time then Sebastian is your guy. There are only a few unicorns in life, he’s one of them."
– Yohan Dantan, Co-founder of MyEd
Oh, and I'm a human being too
I'm a driven INT-J personality type who enjoys working in high-performance teams. I enjoy being pushed out of my comfort zone and thrive in teams who share the passion for honest feedback.
I have strong views, held loosely, and enjoy debating issues in search for the best solution regardless of where it came from. In the end I believe that ego blocks progress in both work and life.
I think team culture is the most important factor in unleashing high-performers (not to mention retaining them) and hence strive to intentionally create postive culture based on my four principles above.
I'm a minimalist, having lived out of a backpack for the past year. I believe that happiness is the ultimate purpose of life, so spend most of my time cultivating my mind towards being a happier and more caring human being. I think that small is beautiful, and focus on making a meaningful impact within my small circles.
I'm a published author of Living Happiness and blog about good living at Something Worth Reading.
Oh, and I love ramen, big time.
Get in touch
Got a project that you think we could work together on? I'd love to hear:
- A little about yourself and your company
- What you're working on and why you're excited about it
- What your current team structure is
- How I can help
Or maybe you just want to say hi? I’d like that too.