From engineer to founder: scaling products to millions
Co-founding Ewalk Entertainments and leading product and engineering across three products with more than five million users.
- Type of work
- Delivered results
- Organisation
- Ewalk Entertainments
- Sector
- Digital entertainment
- Role
- Co-founder, Head of Product & Engineering
- Period
- Jan 2012–Dec 2016
- Disciplines
- Founding, Product & engineering, Retention, Monetisation
- users across three products
- 5M+
- higher revenue per active user
- 64%
- retention improvement
- 70%
- faster time to market
- 30%
- lower launch cost
- 38%
Problem
As a founder, every product decision is also a technology decision, a cost decision and, early on, a survival decision. There is no one else to hand the trade-offs to.
Context
I co-founded Ewalk Entertainments in 2012 and led product and engineering as Head of Product & Engineering until 2016. In that time we built three products that together reached more than five million users.
Why it mattered
This is where my understanding of product stopped being theoretical. I had built software for clients and owned products for international brands. As a founder I was also responsible for what it cost, whether it shipped, and whether anyone stayed.
What the role covered
The work spanned the whole lifecycle: deciding what to build, building it, launching it, keeping users and earning from them. The results sit against each of those stages:
- Launch: 30% faster time to market and 38% lower launch cost.
- Retain: a 70% improvement in retention.
- Monetise: 64% higher revenue per active user.
- Scale: three products and more than five million users.
System model
-
Build
Product and engineering, owned together
-
Launch
- 30% faster time to market
- 38% lower launch cost
-
Retain
- 70% retention improvement
-
Monetise
- 64% higher revenue per active user
-
Scale
- 3 products
- 5M+ users
Decisions
-
Own product and engineering together
As Head of Product & Engineering, what to build and how to build it were one decision, made in one place.
-
Measure what happens after people arrive
Reach is the start, not the result. Retention and revenue per active user show whether a product is working.
-
Make launching faster and cheaper
Across the products, time to market fell by 30% and launch cost by 38%.
Delivered results
Three products, more than five million users, and a company built from the ground up.
- 5M+ users across three products
- 64% higher revenue per active user
- 70% retention improvement
- 30% faster time to market
- 38% lower launch cost
What I learned
Product, engineering and commercial decisions are the same decision seen from different sides.