AI Agent Guardrails: What Lets You Deploy Safely
An agent nobody can bound is an agent nobody sensible will let near a customer, a refund or a catalogue. The six guardrails that matter, scaled to how much of the loop runs without a person in it.
Notes on product, AI and building things people actually use
Essays on product strategy, agentic AI, onboarding and conversion from Roman Levin, a fractional CPO who has spent 20 years building consumer products.
Building AI Agents for E-commerce: The Three Kinds That Exist
Everyone is selling “AI agents” and nobody means the same thing. The three kinds that actually exist, how each grew out of the last, and a live deployment of each: Shopify Sidekick, Adore Me and Klarna.
Mobile App Onboarding: The First Five Minutes Decide Everything
The first five minutes of a mobile app decide your retention curve. The four things that break onboarding, and a two-week process for rebuilding it.
Choosing a North Star Metric for a Consumer Product
How to choose a north star metric for a consumer product: the four conditions, the metrics that go wrong, how to derive yours, and how to make it operate.
What AI-Native Actually Means for a Consumer Product
AI feature or AI-native product? The test, what changes when a model is central to a consumer product, and where consumer AI products actually fail.
Retention in Consumer Subscription: What Actually Keeps People Paying
Retention for consumer subscription: read the cohort curve, split voluntary from involuntary churn, build the habit, and use the cancel flow as research.
Where E-commerce Conversion Actually Leaks
Six places e-commerce conversion actually leaks: product page, shipping disclosure, on-site search, mobile, returns and traffic quality. How to find yours.
Activation Is the Metric B2C Startups Underrate
Activation sits between acquisition and retention, gets measured badly, and is usually where the biggest gain hides. How to define and fix it in a B2C product.
Product Strategy for D2C Brands: Why the Playbook Is Different
Most product strategy advice is written for B2B SaaS. What changes for D2C and B2C brands: comprehension, retention, attention, and brand as product work.
Fractional CPO, Interim CPO, Product Consultant: What's the Difference?
Fractional CPO, interim CPO, product consultant or advisor? What separates them, how each one fails, and how to work out which arrangement you actually need.
Seven Signs Your Startup Needs a Fractional CPO
Seven signals that your startup needs senior product leadership, and three situations where hiring a fractional CPO would be the wrong call.
What a Fractional CPO Actually Costs
What a fractional CPO costs, why the retainer varies by engagement model, and how to judge whether it beats a $300K full-time hire at your stage.
Building a Startup is hard. A Fractional CPTO can help.
A fractional CPTO covers both halves of the job: building the right product, and building the product right. Why getting either wrong is so expensive.
Product Mentorship for Startup Founders
1:1 product mentorship for startup founders: a sounding board for the big decisions, help holding focus, and a confidential ear for when the job gets lonely.
Case Study: How Product Consulting & User Research Delivered 23% Conversion Growth
How three weeks of data work and 20 customer interviews found the comprehension problem behind a fintech app's flat conversion, and lifted it 23%.
How We Partner With Clients: Inside Our Product Consulting Process
The ten steps of a Product Craft engagement, from discovery and instrumentation through user research, strategy, roadmap, execution and iteration.
The Focus Problem: What I've Seen Working with Startups
Startups need velocity and focus. Velocity comes from talent and management; focus comes from strategy. Why focus is the harder half, and how to get it.
Fractional Product Leadership: The Secret Weapon for B2C Startups
What fractional product leadership is, the five ways a fractional CPO moves the needle in a B2C startup, and when in your funding stage to bring one in.
Product Strategy basics for B2C Startups
Product strategy for B2C startups: start with the problem, not the solution. The four components, the four pitfalls, and how to keep a roadmap honest.
Product Validation #1 - Customer Interviews
Product validation starts with customer interviews. How to run them, why people tell you what you want to hear, and the four signals that mean something.
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