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Early-Stage Business Vision

My superpower is figuring out what could exist when the product is not yet defined.

I'm often brought into ambiguous situations where a leader sees potential, but the team does not yet know what to build, who it is for, or why someone would pay for it. I enter the domain quickly, talk to users, study how they think, look for unmet needs and non-obvious patterns, then shape those findings into a product direction that feels useful, credible, and commercially viable.

Example: CRM Concept for the Future of Sales

Pic.1. A small sample from a 20-screen concept developed as part of a strategic initiative exploring the future of sales tools.

Situation:

A senior Microsoft executive brought me into a strategic initiative exploring the future of sales tools. The question was open-ended: what could be built for salespeople that did not already exist, solved a real problem, and could become a monetizable product?

Task:

My role was to uncover a product opportunity before the product was defined.

Action:

  • Interviewed salespeople to understand how they found buyers, planned their day, and decided which opportunities to pursue.
  • Studied the sales books and frameworks they still used and respected.
  • Identified several recurring needs:
    • “I need to find the buyer before everyone else does.”
    • “After traveling to a customer, I should get the maximum value from that trip.”
    • “When I wake up, I need to know exactly where I'm going and who I should talk to, without digging through systems.”
  • Translated these needs into a sales intelligence concept that surfaced non-obvious buying signals, nearby opportunities, relationship paths, and suggested routes.
  • Sketched concepts with stakeholders on the whiteboard, then moved into higher-fidelity prototypes once the direction was clear.

Result:

The concept was approved with minimal changes and received funding.

Fun fact:

Later, I saw the same deck being presented in another department by a different VP. So apparently, the idea had legs.

I've spent years doing early-stage product discovery and concept work, often before a product direction was defined. Much of that work stayed confidential while it was being shaped, and some examples can only be shared much later, once the context has changed. The examples below are a small selection of work I can share now.