Cindy — Product Lead JD

Role: Product Lead, MemberIntel
Incumbent: Cindy Thoennessen
Reports to: Blair Williams, CEO of MemberIntel
Peers (also report to Blair): Seth Shoultes (Lead Architect, MemberIntel) · Santiago Perez Asis (Project Manager, Cross-Caseproof)
Effective: May 2026
References: MemberIntel SPEC v1 (/SPEC-v1.md)

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Mission

Drive MemberIntel from concept to launch and beyond. The Product Lead is the operational and execution lead for the product line. You translate Blair’s strategic vision into shipped reality across content, marketing, customer onboarding, pricing rollout, compliance, and cross-functional execution — while Seth owns technical architecture and Santiago owns project management.

The role is execution-first. You make MemberIntel ship — on time, on quality, and at the standard the customer experience demands.

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Authority structure

Blair (CEO, MemberIntel) holds:

• Product strategy and target customer
• Final say on product requirements scoping (PRDs)
• Final say on product design
• Final say on architecture decisions (Seth proposes; Blair approves on material choices)
• Pricing strategy and packaging decisions

Seth (Lead Architect, MemberIntel) holds:

• Technical architecture and implementation
• Engineering team direction and code quality
• Sprint scope and engineering velocity
• Engineering hiring decisions

Santiago (Project Manager) holds:

• Sprint cadence, ticket tracking, dependency mapping
• Cross-rock and cross-team project coordination
• L10 scorecard and risk register

Product Lead (Cindy) holds:

• Everything else. (Detailed below.)

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What you own

1. Customer discovery and beta program

• Conduct 10–15 customer discovery interviews in Phase 0 / early Phase 1 (per SPEC §13). Capture problem-solution fit signal in writing.
• Validate pricing, top pain points, dashboard KPI selection, brain scope, and the Free / Pro feature split.
• Identify the 10–20 hand-picked beta cohort (per SPEC §13 Phase 1 milestone) — across Free and Pro tiers.
• Run beta application + acceptance flow.
• Onboard beta customers (welcome sequence, expectations, NDAs as needed).
• Operate weekly feedback collection and monthly check-in calls.
• Run bug-triage workflow with Seth’s engineering team — you collect, Seth prioritizes.
• Beta-to-public-launch readiness criteria (you propose; Blair approves).
• Maintain the beta cohort metrics dashboard.

2. Product requirements scoping (PRDs)

• Draft Product Requirement Documents for MemberIntel features as the product takes shape.
• Synthesize customer interview insight, beta feedback, competitive analysis, and SPEC v1 scope into requirement proposals.
• Define acceptance criteria, edge cases, and customer-experience guardrails.
• Blair has final say. Submit PRDs to Blair for approval before they enter the engineering pipeline. Seth provides technical input. Iterate until Blair approves.
• After approval, partner with Seth on sequencing into sprints (Seth decides timing; you provide delivery dependencies).

Highest-priority PRDs at launch (per SPEC):

• The Free → Pro upgrade flow + trial mechanics
• The chat experience (cap-hit upgrade prompt, citation display, feedback capture)
• The Free vs Pro entitlement matrix (every feature × every tier)
• The dashboard insight-card system (Free teaser vs Pro full)
• The brain editor UX (Pro feature)
• The cross-pollination opt-out flow
• The downgrade flow (Pro → Free — what changes, comms)

3. Product design

• Coordinate visual and UX design for MemberIntel with Russ Williams (Design Lead) and Meo LaTao (assigned designer for MemberIntel).
• Brief designers on the customer experience the PRD requires.
• Collect customer feedback on design iterations.
• Blair has final say. Review designs with Blair at key milestones; iterate until approved.
• Approved designs go to engineering for build.

4. Privacy & legal compliance (long-pole — start day one)

Per SPEC §10:

• Engage outside privacy counsel by June 1, 2026. If this slips, GA slips.
• Drive ToS / Privacy Policy / DPA updates covering Free + Pro tiers and brain mechanics.
• GDPR + CCPA compliance from launch.
• Implement consent flow at signup (explicit checkbox covering data-use boundaries).
• Build cross-pollination opt-out surface (and the engineering work to support it).
• Build out the customer-side deletion pathway (coordinate with Seth on engineering).
• Ensure ToS reserves the right to change or discontinue the free tier with notice.
• Ensure marketing copy never implies non-MemberIntel MP customers’ data is used for AI training (per SPEC §4 honesty rules).

5. Marketing site / memberintel.com

• Coordinate with IPJ (Kalpesh Baghat) for the build.
• Work with Curt Noble’s Growth team for positioning, copy, content production.
• Coordinate with Russ + Meo for visual direction.
• Pricing page with Free vs Pro comparison table.
• In-MemberPress-admin banner / menu item integration (per SPEC §13 Phase 2).
• Honest positioning per SPEC §4 — no implications about training on non-customer data.
• Brand identity TBD per SPEC §9.4 — you drive that decision (with Blair approval).

6. Free → Pro conversion mechanics

This is the central conversion motion of V1 (per SPEC §5). You own:

• Designing all upgrade-moment surfaces (chat cap hit, insight cliffhanger, report request, live-data nudge, brain-edit nudge per SPEC §5.3)
• Upgrade UX inside Free tier (button placement, copy, friction)
• Upgrade-funnel telemetry (where do free users hit prompts; conversion rate at each surface)
• A/B testing plan for upgrade copy from launch (per SPEC §14 Risk #3 mitigation)
• Tier-change communications (downgrade flow, dunning sequences)

7. Customer experience design (non-technical)

• Onboarding flow design — welcome emails, in-product tour, success milestones
• First-30-days customer journey
• Activation milestone definition (what counts as “activated MemberIntel customer”?)
• Customer success touchpoints — proactive check-ins, expansion conversations
• Drop-off recovery flows
• Knowledge-base articles + FAQ documentation
• Customer-facing changelog and release-notes cadence

8. Pricing & packaging implementation

• $29/month Pro pricing (per SPEC §5) implemented in billing systems with Ally Roger.
• 14-day free trial mechanics for direct-to-Pro signups (no card at signup, card requested day 14) per SPEC §5.2.
• Always-free tier setup (no auto-enrollment; explicit opt-in only).
• Failed-payment dunning sequence (3 failed attempts → 7-day grace → drop to Free).
• Stripe billing integration coordination with Ally.

9. Sales & support enablement

• Train Wray Cullimore’s CS team on MemberIntel features and common questions.
• Define the support model for free users (per SPEC Open Q5 — likely AI-first with human escalation; you decide and document).
• Train Curt’s Growth team on upsell conversations.
• Build sales scripts, comparison battlecards (vs ChartMogul, Stripe Dashboard, generic ChatGPT).
• ROI / value-proposition narrative.
• Demo deck and live-demo flow.
• Internal Slack channel for MemberIntel customer escalations.
• Common-issue runbooks for the support team.

10. Cross-functional coordination

Partner	What you coordinate
Curt Noble (Growth)	Content, AEO, marketing positioning, launch comms, paid-acquisition campaign, analytics setup (GA4, Meta Pixel)
Sarah Olaleye (Content — matrixed Jul–Oct)	Marketing site copy, launch blog series, AEO content, customer education content, email campaigns
Wray Cullimore (CS)	Support team enablement and ongoing CS coverage (incl. free-user support model)
Carl Jessee (Product Education)	Video and educational content production
Russ Williams + Meo LaTao (Design)	Visual brand, product UX, marketing design
Thomas Levy / Kalpesh / Rocco (IPJ)	memberintel.com build, in-MP-admin banner integration
Paul Carter (MemberCore Lead)	Data access agreements (MP customer site sync), MP-side API surface required for V1 sync (per SPEC Open Q7)
Ally Roger (Payment Service)	Stripe billing implementation, pricing logic, dunning
Santiago Perez Asis (PM)	Sprint timelines, dependency tracking
Seth Shoultes (Lead Architect)	Engineering scope, technical readiness, bug triage
Danielle Lea-Jones (Operations)	Senior AI Engineer hire — cultural / operational fit interviews + onboarding logistics
Outside privacy counsel	Compliance workstream
Outside PR agency (Aug–Oct engagement)	Press release, journalist outreach, launch coordination

11. PR & launch coordination

• Decide internal-PR vs outside-agency by early Phase 3 (July).
• If outside agency: source and engage by mid-Phase 3 (~$5–10K/mo for 3-month engagement).
• Press release + press kit drafted in Phase 4.
• Journalist outreach + embargo coordination Phase 4–5.
• Launch-day press execution at GA.
• Post-launch press follow-up.

12. Reporting & accountability

• Weekly written status to Blair on launch readiness across all dimensions.
• Monthly business-review preparation.
• L10 leadership attendance and MemberIntel rock reporting.
• Cost-monitoring dashboards (Free-tier cost-per-user, Pro-tier cost-per-user, cohort tracking) per SPEC §5.5 and §13 Phase 2.
• Risk register maintenance for MemberIntel (per SPEC §14 risks).
• Pre-launch readiness checklist owner.

13. Launch operations (the actual go-live)

• Day-one go-live checklist.
• Rollback plan if launch goes sideways.
• Customer comms in event of incident.
• Status page coordination.
• Internal launch comms — what does the Caseproof team know, when.

14. Post-launch (Q4 2026 and beyond)

• Launch retrospectives.
• Free → Pro conversion rate monitoring; rapid A/B iteration on upgrade copy and surfaces.
• Renewal and expansion strategy for Pro customers.
• Win/loss analysis from sales conversations.
• Roadmap input collection — gather customer signal and bring it to Blair + Seth. You do not prioritize the roadmap.
• Pricing iteration based on first 90 days of GA data (propose; Blair approves).
• Quarterly free-tier review (per SPEC Open Q14) — what cost / conversion thresholds would trigger tightening or removing the free tier?

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What you do NOT own

• Engineering team management. Seth directs the engineers.
• Technical architecture decisions. Seth proposes; Blair approves on material choices.
• Sprint scope and engineering velocity. Seth decides; Santiago tracks.
• Engineering hiring decisions. Seth’s call. Danielle handles cultural / operational fit interviews + onboarding.
• Product strategy, target customer definition, and 18-month roadmap. Blair owns these.
• Final approval on PRDs. Blair signs off. You draft and propose.
• Final approval on product design. Blair signs off. You coordinate with Russ and Meo.
• Pricing strategy. Blair decides; you implement.
• MemberMouse / AccessAlly / WishList Member legacy work. Handed off as part of MM-AA team dissolution.

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Critical role norms

1. Execution, not strategy. Strategic dissent goes to Blair, not into Seth’s roadmap or sprint scope mid-flight.
2. AI tooling is your default workflow. Notion AI / Linear AI for project management. AI for first-pass copy drafting. AI for synthesizing customer feedback. AI for status reports.
3. No managing Seth’s people. You do not direct engineers. You work through Seth or Santiago.
4. Disagreements with Seth go to Blair within 48 hours. No silent escalation drift.
5. You don’t carry MM/AA legacy work into this role. Forward-looking only.
6. Honesty in marketing copy is non-negotiable. Per SPEC §4 — never imply non-MemberIntel customers’ data is used.
7. Quarterly outcome-based check-ins with Blair — what shipped, what’s next, what’s blocked.

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Success measures (12-month, per SPEC §2 V1 Success Metrics)

Measure	Target
MemberIntel GA shipped	On or before mid-October 2026
Free tier signups	≥ 10% of MP customer base within 6 months of launch
Free → Pro conversion (within 60 days of activation)	5% floor; goal 8–10%
Pro Weekly Active Users	≥ 70%
Beta cohort NPS	≥ +30
Outside privacy counsel engaged	Before June 1, 2026
Marketing site / pricing page live	Before public launch
Sales + support team trained	Before public launch
Customer discovery interviews completed	≥ 10 in Phase 0

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Reporting cadence

Cadence	Audience	Format
Weekly	Blair	Written status (5–10 bullet points)
Bi-weekly	Seth + Santiago	Sync meeting (30 min)
Monthly	Leadership team	L10 attendance + rock report
Quarterly	Blair	Outcome review (90-min deep-dive)

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What “good” looks like in this role

• MemberIntel ships on schedule with the SPEC v1 feature set
• Free tier hits adoption targets; Pro conversion is in the 5–10% range
• Seth is unblocked and focused on architecture and AI/ML, not wrestling with cross-functional friction
• Blair gets clean go/no-go decisions with the data already gathered
• Cross-functional partners (Curt, Wray, Russ, Thomas, Paul C, Ally) feel coordinated, not pulled in conflicting directions
• Customer feedback flows back into the product as input, not as scope creep
• Privacy / compliance posture is clean at launch — no legal exposure
• The team enjoys working with you on this — the energy is pointed at deadlines and quality, not at people

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Document version: Draft v1 — to be reviewed with Cindy before finalization. Decision-rights table requires sign-off from Blair, Cindy, and Seth before this JD goes operational.