Joe Christoff
Product management expert on a mission to advance economic mobility with software
“At the end of the day, your job isn’t to get the requirements right — your job is to change the world.“
Jeff Patton
WHO I AM
I’m a product management expert with a background in machine learning, finance, and software development living in Charlotte, North Carolina. In my career I have optimized mission-critical SaaS products, and I have released “0 to 1” products in B2C and B2B markets.
I focusing on tackling the problems that cause inequitable access to success, and I use my unique skills to have a large scale impact on the lives of people who historically have had the deck stacked against them. I want to bring all of my experience and talent to a long held mission of helping people move beyond the circumstances they were born into.
Probability of a child reaching the top 20% of income when born into the bottom 20%, by county. Image courtesy of Raj Chetty et al.
HOW I WORK
Setting a compelling product vision and translating it into clearly stated objectives & key results (OKRs) is the bedrock for a successful product. I call these components, plus the product strategy, the product fundamentals and they serve as an alignment mechanism so the product team can work asynchronously and autonomously to solve customer problems.
I operate from the foundation of the cross-functional product trio – the product manager, the design lead, and the tech lead. This trio is responsible for minimizing the four primary risks in product development: value risk & viability risk (product manager), usability risk (design lead), and feasibility risk (tech lead). It is this trio that is primarily responsible for participating in product discovery, involving the wider product team when possible.
A product is successful because it changes the users’ behavior in a way that allows them to satisfy a job to be done – to achieve progress towards their goals. I lean on continuous discovery practices to understand the customer at a deep level and experiment towards solutions, and I employ behavioral science to distill complex human psychology into a framework to build better products.
Product Fundamentals
Vision, strategy, and objectives & key results create the bedrock for successful products. Without setting these upfront, you're in the build trap.
Continuous Discovery
Everything is a hypothesis until it is validated with customers. Discovery is regular, informed, and team-wide.
Cross-functional Trio
Product, design, and tech. These functions make up the trio responsible for minimizing the various product risks.
Behavioral Science
A successful product is all about behavior change. Identify the key behavior, reduce the barriers, and amplify the benefits.