Capital trust
$1M+
Kai John-Blunch · Product manager
I turn user evidence and market signals into product decisions.
I am a Pier cofounder, and I own the product-management function inside our three-person founder team: user and customer discovery, workflow definition, onboarding UX, roadmap shaping, QA, and turning user evidence and customer signal into engineering priorities.
Pier builds AI-assisted systems for qualification and evaluation workflows. The product turns interviews and workflow inputs into inspectable decision evidence while keeping human judgment explicit. Across Pier's product iterations, I led 100+ customer conversations and user interviews, designed the learning loop around them, and built production systems that moved those insights into product, market positioning, and engineering decisions.
Founder and operating proof
Capital, user learning, and pilot commitment inside a three-person startup.
Pier's product work happens inside a three-person startup where capital, user learning, and product execution share the same constraints. I built the investor narrative, fundraising materials, and financial analysis, and I pitched investors during the raise. The cases below show how I turn user evidence and customer signal into production systems and product decisions.
User and customer discovery
100+
customer conversations and user interviews across Pier's product iterations
Partner commitment
2
signed pilot-partner LOIs across education and commercial cleaning
Selected product work
Three episodes that show how I manage product work.
See how I designed user onboarding for employers using Pier's AI-assisted hiring workflow, built a technical learning loop across 100+ customer conversations and user interviews, and changed the test path when pilot signal stalled.
Product episode
Designing User Onboarding for Pier's Employer Workflow
Pier's product helped employers create an opportunity, invite candidates into an AI-assisted interview, and review structured evidence without delegating the hiring decision. I defined the employer-signup requirements, designed the flow and error behavior, handed the experience to engineering, and ran first-time and returning-employer QA through release.
Result: production onboarding and partner guidance aligned to the journeys used in release QA.
Open case studyProduct episode
Building A Customer-Intelligence Learning Loop
Customer conversations were shaping an AI qualification product, but raw transcripts could not become the team's memory or roadmap. Across 100+ customer conversations and user interviews, I designed the learning loop, conducted interviews, built the n8n transcript-synthesis workflow, and handed source-grounded insights to Pier's technical cofounder.
Result: a reusable customer-intelligence system for product, positioning, and MVP feature decisions.
Open case studyProduct episode
Changing The Test Path When Pilot Signal Stalled
When pilot partners stayed quiet, I did not lower the evidence standard or wait indefinitely. I sequenced a lower-risk contingency test, protected the highest-risk relationships, and translated the returned feedback into roadmap, engineering, and product-positioning changes.
Result: a stalled signal became a controlled learning path and concrete product decisions.
Open case studyWider proof library
Explore the PM work by responsibility.
Compare roadmap, discovery, workflow design, QA, team cadence, and product learning across the full case-study set.
Choose the skill you want to inspect. Each view maps a product-management skill to Pier work a team could understand, judge, or use.
Choose a skill
Lens in focus
Roadmap and prioritization
Case study · Roadmap Shaping Through Product Evidence
Turning launch uncertainty into roadmap evidence
I shape Pier's roadmap around evidence requests: value-map truth, SMB positioning, candidate-side validation, website copy, and MVP readiness before external users touch the product.
Prioritize the evidence that should change the launch decision.
Open case studyCase study · Changing The Test Path When Pilot Signal Stalled
Letting live product evidence update the next priority
SmartApply delivery changes what the team can ask partners to trust, so demo and follow-up work become part of prioritization.
Use live evidence to update the next build decision.
Open case studyCase study · Building A Customer-Intelligence Learning Loop
Using interviews to sharpen build priorities
I turn user-interview output into product implications the team can use when deciding what belongs in the next build cycle.
Use discovery to change the roadmap.
Open case studyCase study · Testing A Construction Workflow Thesis
Narrowing a broad direction into a testable product path
I help move the team from broad procurement language toward a bounded subcontractor-activation workflow that can be tested safely.
Prioritize the workflow specific enough to test.
Open case studyCase study · Daily Agile Rituals And Team Coordination
Turning priorities into visible owner decisions
The cadence makes priorities operational: owner, next action, due date, and follow-through rather than another round of planning debate.
Make priority decisions executable.
Open case studyWriting
Selected writing
Essay · June 5, 2026
The Next $1T Company
An essay about AI services, insurance claims, and who gets to define completed work.
Read essayEssay · June 4, 2026
The Industrialization of Cognition
An essay about AI as a production system: who owns the tools that shape thought work, what happens to human skill, and why concentration and access have to be understood together.
Read essayAgent workflow
Watch my agent build this website and QA its own work.
A sped-up preview of a requirements-bound system: the agent reads the plan, executes a task, updates the tracker, verifies against the requirements, and repeats that loop until the work is complete. Only then does it open the PR.
- 01 Read plan
- 02 Execute task
- 03 Update tracker
- 04 Verify against requirements
- 05 Open PR