# Chad Etsell **Head of Product, Engineering & Growth** — Denver, CO, United States > AI product leader with 15+ years building consumer and platform products. Hands-on prototyper shipping agentic systems and generative AI features at scale. Career Archetype: **All-Terrain Navigator** (HB-DG) — One of the first All-Terrain Navigators on Saywise ## Links - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/chadetsell - Website: https://chadetsell.com/ - GitHub: https://github.com/cetsell ## Experience ### Head of Product, Synthetic Turing Experience Technologies (2025-10 – 2026-05) ### Head of Product, Oh (2023-12 – 2024-12) ### Head of Product, Engineering & Growth, TurnOn, LLC (2023-03 – present) Remote · Built a portfolio of 3 AI-native consumer products spanning generative media, interactive experiences, and taste-based personalization. Designed and shipped end-to-end AI experiences including conversational agents, search, recommendations, and real-time 3D rendering using prompt design, tool/function calling, and RAG on frontier-model APIs. Implemented frontend and backend services in React, Python, and JavaScript, covering generation pipelines, payments, subscriptions, trust & compliance, and analytics. Drove growth across social, paid, and token-incentivized channels through data-informed prompt and guardrail iteration. ### Fractional Product Lead, Independent Consulting (2023-03 – present) Remote · Embedded as first product leader across 5 pre-PMF AI startups, partnering with founders and engineering teams to take ideas from concept through prototype to launched features reaching 70K+ active users. Built and open-sourced team-os, an AI-native team operating system with 32 Claude skills, 4 agents, and structured shared-context docs that scales prototyping across a 20+ person matrixed org. ### Co-Founder, Product and Go To Market Lead, Hotline (SuperLayer Labs) (2021-10 – 2023-06) Remote · Took a consumer social product from concept to launch with 20K users and 100+ creator partners. Raised $3.5M pre-seed from SuperLayer Fund, angels, syndicates, DAOs, and VCs. Built the engineering team, ran creator acquisition, and owned GTM end-to-end. Shipped consumer social features through direct user research and weekly experimentation cycles. ### Entrepreneur in Residence, Superlayer (2021-10 – 2023-06) ### Director of Product / Senior Product Manager, MindGeek, Inc. (2017-08 – 2018-05) Montreal, Canada Area · Built, led, and scaled a product team managing 5 product managers and 3 community managers across a consumer suite at 40M+ DAU and $40M revenue. Drove 20% revenue growth and 44% traffic growth through product velocity, A/B testing, and organic optimization. Established success metrics and experimentation cadence across 5 platforms. Defined long-term vision, quarterly OKRs, and financial planning; promoted to Director in 9 months. ### Product Manager, Booking.com (Buuteeq) (2014-07 – 2017-02) BookingSuite (formerly buuteeq) · Launched traffic-generation product and ran 20+ A/B testing and conversion experiments. Integrated onboarding systems into Booking.com's platform during the Buuteeq acquisition, scaling to 60,000+ subscribers (10x growth). Coordinated 3 engineering teams and trained 2 junior PMs. ### Product Manager, Vibes (2013-08 – 2014-07) Building custom mobile marketing programs for Mobile Solutions Group. Specializing in mobile wallet and API integration, location-enabled projects and iBeacon. ### Technical Product Manager, Vibes (Lumata) (2012-11 – 2014-05) Remote · Managed $500K+ campaigns and SMS/mobile wallet API platform deployments. Drove 30% growth during acquisition. Owned requirements, system design, and roadmap across 3 carrier-grade integrations. ### Product & Business Development, Plantain Media (2010-10 – 2011-12) Customer development for mobile marketing agency. ### Associate Product Manager / Senior Account Executive, DataSphere Technologies Inc. (2010-03 – 2012-11) Remote · Managed product for web content tools and deployed news platform across 100+ markets. Achieved 125% of sales quota. Balanced product management and sales responsibilities. ### Founder, Urban.Ag (2010-02 – 2014-03) Simple, sustainable food and energy on urban rooftops. Acquired March 2014. ### Senior Account Executive / Team Lead, Parallels, Inc. (2007-08 – 2008-12) Remote · Managed enterprise, SMB, and education software licensing. Consistently exceeded quota and managed and trained 5 account executives driving $1M+ annual revenue. ## Education ### BA in Political Science, University of Washington (2001-09 – 2005-06) Dean's List ## Projects ### team-os AI-native team operating system · An AI-native operating system with 32 Claude skills, 4 agents (router, roadmap-keeper, freshness-auditor, context-manager), structured shared-context docs, and GitHub Actions for weekly freshness checks. Built as a reusable framework for scaling prototyping and AI-first thinking across product, engineering, design, and GTM teams. ### pm-workflows AI-native PM lab notebook · Playbooks, weekly-cadence map for skill usage, prompt libraries, and cross-platform workflow patterns designed as a reference for AI-native product management. ## Skills Product Vision, Product Strategy, Growth Strategies, Product Leadership, Large Language Models (LLM), P&L Management, Design Thinking, User-centered Design, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Product Lifecycle Management, Go-to-market Strategy, Strategic Partnerships, Web3, Blockchain, Coaching, Market Analysis, Strategic Planning, Analytical Skills, Thought Leadership, Business Strategy, User Experience, Demos, Interpersonal Skills, Strategy, Marketing Strategy, User Interface Design, Team Building, Business Development, Team Leadership, Web Design, A/B Testing, Machine Learning, Training & Development, Forecasting, Data Science, System Deployment, Creative Problem Solving, Business Analysis, Customer Support, Inside Sales, Enterprise Software, Deployment, Analytics, Project Management, Mobile, Hands-On AI Prototyping, Prompt Design, Tool/Function Calling, Retrieval/RAG, Embeddings, Evaluation Techniques, LLM Orchestration, Frontier Model APIs, Agentic Systems, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, AI-Assisted Development, AI Product Management, 0→1 Concept to Launch, Reusable Patterns & Primitives, Roadmaps, Experimentation, Instrumentation, Success Metrics, System Reliability, Conversion Optimization, Partnerships, Consumer AI Experiences, Conversational Agents, Copilots, Recommendations, Search, Automation, Decision-Support Tools, Creator Platforms, Marketplaces, User Research, Retention, Engagement, Player-Coach Leadership, Managing & Developing Product Managers, Hiring, Performance Management, Career Growth, Stakeholder Management, Executive Communication, Agile/Lean Execution, Guardrails, Failure-Mode Analysis, Privacy & Compliance, Evals ## Credentials - **Certificate of Accomplishment with Highest Distinction** — Udacity (issued 2012-04) ## AI Fluency - **Codex** (https://developers.openai.com) - **Cursor** (https://cursor.com) - **base44** - **Claude Code** (https://claude.com) - **ElevenLabs** (https://elevenlabs.io) --- Source: https://saywise.com/member8249 (last modified 2026-10-05T18:00:48.862Z)