brett van zuiden

product manager

About

Great products can take someone totally beyond what they thought they could do, which is why creating them is so much fun. Growing up, I dreamed of becoming a "door-to-door inventor" — I imagined talking to people about the problems they had and then designing devices to solve them. I never quite shook that dream, and am fortunate that my journey so far as a software engineer, startup founder, and product manager has let me do this at scale. Outside of work, I cook, dance, perform theater, hack on a number of side projects, and play piano. I currently live in San Francisco. My main presence on the web is at http://brettcvz.com

Country

united states

City

san francisco

Industry

internet

Skill

javascript, user experience, programming, product design, start ups, mobile applications, acting, user interface, product management, data analysis, web development, entrepreneurship

Experience

product manager

outschool

software engineering intern

icontrol networks

2008-5 - 2009-8 · 1 yr 4 mos

Served as the first intern for iControl, doing all sorts of random coding tasks

founder and chief executive officer

ink/filepicker.io

2011-12 - 2014-5 · 2 yrs 6 mos

* As the CEO, I drove the product, business, and technical direction of the company; as a founder, I did everything from UX design, fundraising, and hiring to coding the iOS product, content marketing, and customer support. * Grew the company to 13 people and an AMR of $600,000 with over 1,000 customers. * Participated in the YCombinator batch of Summer 2012. * Raised $1.8mn from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. * Reached profitability in 18 months. * Sold to Xenon Ventures in spring of 2014.

product manager

ifttt

2014-5 - 2015-4 · 1 yr

* I worked with a team of 12 fantastic engineers and designers to build and grow IFTTT’s consumer products on iOS, Android, and the web. I headed up IFTTT's product roadmap, growth, metrics & user research, and day-to-day process. * As the first product manager, I established the role of product management at IFTTT, and built out the initial team. * Built out a flagship product (http://ifttt.com/products/do) from initial conception to public launch. * Increased success rate of the web onboarding flow by 43%. * Coordinated a major brand update and simultaneous launch of 8 new apps across iOS and Android. * Doubled the clickthrough rate and halved the unsubscribe rate of our email engagement efforts.

software engineering intern

google

2011-5 - 2011-8 · 4 mos

I worked as a front-end software engineering intern on the Google+ team before, during, and just after launch. It was a wild 4 months, and I worked with some truly exceptional people. It also gave me great insight into what a software company looks like at massive scale.

product lead - discovery and goals

clever inc.

2015-4 - Present · 11 yrs 5 mos

* I am incredibly fortunate to be able to spend my days working on software that helps students learn and teachers teach. I am humbled to be working alongside such a talented and thoughtful team. * Currently lead Clever's two innovation teams, building out new lines of business for Clever. * Built the Discovery team from a 2 person experimental initiative into a 12 person cross-functional team and top-level company priority * Previously led Clever's school-facing product work, growing our active users from 100,000 to 4.5M over 18 months. * Built, launched, and scaled Clever Badges, Clever's highest NPS product, now used by 10% of U.S. K-2 students.

Education

y combinator

2012-1 - 2012-1 · 1 mo

los gatos high school

2004-1 - 2008-1 · 4 yrs 1 mo

massachusetts institute of technology

2008-1 - 2012-1 · 4 yrs 1 mo

GPA: 5.0/5.0. Minors in Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics. * McGovern Award for significant impact on entrepreneurship - MIT, 2012 * Top 5 Graduating MIT computer scientists - ThePhenomList, 2012 * Whitelaw Prize for Originality of Design - MIT, 2010