Hi ☺️👋! I’m Mica - the founder RunYouself, a pioneering AI-powered platform that helps managers develop transformational communication skills, which helps their companies develop a high-performance culture (without burnout). Here’s my story and what led to RunYourself:

My first experiences of leadership were highly authoritarian and directive. I grew up in an ex-soviet country and my first job was in investment banking. So for a long time, I thought that to lead meant to tell people what to do with a lot of authority. Luckily the following 15 years would teach me differently.

In my first role at Graze.com I found myself managing a team of data scientists and engineers (without being one). I quickly realised that telling people what to do wasn’t going to work, but I didn’t quite know how else to lead. Following that, I held various other leadership positions including a COO position. And during these years I kept wondering - how do you lead without telling people what to do? How do you lead in an enabling and empowering way rather than command-and-control … but still get stuff done at the pace that it needs to be done? How do you develop a culture of ownership, responsibility and accountability?

Years later, I stumbled upon coaching because I was interested in behaviour change. I was absolutely amazed by this different way of communicating that I had uncovered. It taught me that when someone comes to me with a challenge, I don’t need to fix it for them - I can help them solve their own challenge. I call it a super-power - the ability to catalyse critical thinking, creativity and self-awareness in someone else without telling them what to do. 

Over the past 5 years, I’ve spent thousands of hours coaching over 100 founders and leaders in tech companies. Developing the skill of coaching has absolutely transformed my personal and professional interactions. I have whole-heartedly come to believe that it is an essential skill for every leader and manager. And guess what? The research backs that up - employees who have a coach-like manager are eight times more likely to be highly engaged (source: Forrester).

The good news is that coaching isn’t rocket science. The bad news is that it requires behaviour change, which is easier said than done. And hence our mission at RunYourself is to make it easy for leaders and managers to have effective coaching conversations - both between peers, as well as managers and their team members.

Mica Vaipan

Jason Knight

One Knight Consulting

I work with organisations and their product teams to help them get results. Whether you're setting up a new team, scaling an existing one, or it's all going wrong and you need to know what to do next, let me come and help as a fractional CPO, or as a group or individual coach.

Founder

Google for Startups

Startup Mentor

One Knight in Product

This is a podcast for people interested in building or designing tech products.

At least once a week, I speak to product managers, product leaders, product marketers, UX professionals, and anyone else involved in product management and product delivery.

Podcaster

ULTRA.VC

A core mentor for the ULTRA.VC accelerator, helping early-stage companies build a winning product strategy to find product/market fit

My Mentor Path

We started My Mentor Path with one simple goal: To make mentoring accessible and available for free to all product managers.

Co-Founder & CPTO

DICE

Since 2014, DICE has been reshaping the ticketing industry for fans, artists and venues – breaking down barriers that get in the way of a good time, and creating a fairer and more inclusive industry in the process. I am working with the product management, design and engineering teams in our push for excellence, as well as advising the leadership team on connecting vision to strategy and delivering on their scaling ambitions.

Fractional Product Leadership Consultant

Judge.me

Judge.me powers the product reviews for your e-commerce store. I am working with the team to help with the expansion of the product organisation, as well as advising the leadership team on their ambitious growth plans.

RiskScreen

Setting up and expanding the product management team, connecting to company strategy, improving ways of working and collaboration within the teams and ensuring operational efficiencies and revenue generation through thoughtful portfolio management.

Skiplevel

Advisor

Unmind

Product Director

Transforming your Product Teams: Fractional Product Leader | Coach | Podcaster | Community Builder

Struggling with Product? You’re not alone - but you don’t have to muddle through it.

I help product leaders and their teams make better decisions, build stronger products, and work more effectively together. Whether you need sharper strategy, better ways of working, or support navigating the messy middle of growth - I can help!


✅ Product Leadership

I will work directly with your product team to reboot delivery, strengthen team capability, and align product practices with business goals.

✅ Organisational Action Plans

I assess how your teams build and scale products, identify bottlenecks and blind spots, and deliver a clear, prioritised roadmap to unlock better outcomes.

✅ 1:1 Product Leadership Coaching

I coach product leaders to become the strategic business partners your company needs - with practical support tailored to their context.

✅ Group Coaching/Training for Product Teams

I help teams navigate shared challenges, build core skills, and align around what good looks like in your organisation.

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With over 20 years in tech and product - from early-stage startups to global enterprises - I’ve worked across fintech, regtech, e-commerce, ticketing, market research and HR tech.

I’ve been building data and AI-powered products since long before it was cool, and I bring that experience to help you make smart, human-centred decisions about strategy, value propositions, and where AI does (and doesn’t) create value.

Since 2022, I’ve partnered with B2B and B2B2C SaaS companies to scale product practices, support leadership, and build teams that actually work.

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🎙️ I also host a popular podcast and newsletter, sharing real-world insights to support the global product community.

🔗 Consulting: oneknightconsulting.com
🎧 Podcast: oneknightinproduct.com
📬 Newsletter: oneknightinproduct.substack.com

Product Coach & Curriculum Advisor

Occasionally, I get an email asking me if I want to do a paid partnership with a brand. The answer is always no. 

That's not to say that I'm against brands, or hate their tools, or don't like making money. I'm just neutral, value authenticity and don't like pretending to like things that I've never used. I've done a few read outs on the podcast, some of them made my teeth itch, and I probably won't do any more of those either. 

I do, however, see the influencers out there pretending to be enthusiastic about tools, with their ChatGPT written copy and a suspiciously regular cadence of new tools. I won't judge people for leveraging their following but, for your own dignity, at least disclose it's a paid-for post, pretty please.

🤔 But why can't I run the workshop myself? 🤔

This is a common question from talented product people who can't see the point of bringing someone external in. What's the point of the expense? How hard can it be? 

Here are some reasons it's better to bring in an external facilitator: 

⚠️ You’re too close to the internal politics to get fully honest, unfiltered discussion from the team

⚠️ You can’t easily participate and facilitate at the same time - one role always steals oxygen from the other

⚠️ An external expert spots patterns, tensions and blind spots that people inside the system stop noticing

⚠️ An external facilitator can challenge assumptions without any social or organisational risk to the team

⚠️ The session can carry more weight when it’s run by someone independent, turning it from “just another meeting” into purposeful work

Yes, I offer workshop facilitation so, yes, I would say this, but it doesn't make it not true. Whether you want me to come do it for you (drop me a line, I have workshops ready to go!) or someone else, make the right choice

I've not read a business book in a while, but I've consistently recommended a handful during workshops and coaching calls:

📖 "User Story Mapping" - Jeff Patton 

Probably the best book for product people struggling to carve out value from a disconnected wish list of features. USM workshops are incredible ways to get even sceptical non-product people on board

📖 "Crossing the Chasm" - Geoffrey Moore 

Essential reading for entrepreneurs and product people trying to be all things to all people rather than picking a winnable niche and actually winning it. So many teams struggle with focus and it's killing their product.

📖 "Obviously Awesome" - April Dunford 

The classic book on product positioning and selling your value proposition properly. I'm looking forward to digging into April's new work on differentiated value, and helping companies get out of "us too" commoditisation.

📖 "Product Management in Practice" - Matt LeMay 

For all the deserved love lavished on his second book, PMIP is still the first book I recommend to product managers trying to make sense of the role. Gritty and realistic, but also aspirational.

📖 "Continuous Discovery Habits" - Teresa Torres 

Product teams aren't speaking to customers or users enough, and their products are suffering. Teresa exhorts product trios to go speak to them every week! But, even if you can't, at least speak to them more often. Using Opportunity Solution Trees to map out potential options is a great visual method to help you decide too.

Other stuff I consistently recommend:

🌐 Rich Mironov's content - all of it, especially relevant for B2B product people trying to make sense of it all in their organisation. Worth a special mention is the "money stories" stuff he's been working on.

🌐 Martin Eriksson's "Decision Stack" for connecting vision to execution via good strategic thinking and principles. 

🌐 Gibson Biddle's strategy stuff and all of his stories about leading product at Netflix (did you know he used to work for Netflix?) 

There are obviously plenty of other authors and thought leaders out there, but these come up often. I'm not going to link anywhere, because of algorithms lol, but their stuff is easy to find (and I've had the privilege of speaking to many of them on my podcast).

Now it's your turn... which books or content creators do you recommend, and why?

As B2B products mature, it's common for teams to build new, upgraded versions of old features. Often, they'll leave the old ones around for some time, rather than aggressively forcing customers to upgrade. 

The name you choose is important:

👴 Legacy = the old version is bad and old-fashioned and you should get off it as soon as possible. Actually, we can't believe you ever used it!

🏛️ Classic = the old version is still good and harks back to a simpler, more comfortable life. Keep using it as long as you like, it's sturdy and reliable.

Eventually, all features die but, the larger the contract, the more the wind down time. Just make sure you set expectations and stick to them.

👋 The hardest thing about fractional consulting 👋

Yes, sometimes it's hard to find clients, and the context-switching can be brutal but, for me, the hardest part is always the end of a contract. You've been working with a team for months, have gotten to know a bunch of really smart, passionate people, and done your very best to help them.

And then it's time to leave. Sometimes, because your work is done, sometimes because they want to go in another direction. But, often, there's a "But I could just stay!" reaction. Stick around, take a job, double down on what you started.

Yet, kind of like the The Littlest Hobo, that is not your fate, and there's always a new company that needs you, a new team to help.

Apropos that, I'm currently busy creating some AI training materials, but I'm available for chats if you're a B2B SaaS company that needs:

🔥 Fractional product leadership - help connect strategy to execution and revitalise your product team
🔥 Organisational assessments - dig deep in how your company works and get actionable advice about where to focus your transformation efforts
🔥 Group workshops - training for teams that need practical, context-aware guidance on how to deliver impact as product teams
🔥 Product leadership coaching - ideal for leaders trying to make a difference and become a true partner to their business

Hit me up for a free chat if you'd like to sort your product team out in 2026!

🚨 Our PMs suck, let's fire them all and get new ones! We need to raise the bar 🚨

I've heard this from more than one founder, so let's unpack.

Firstly, no one "sucks" per se, but it's also true that organisations can pick up poor-fit hires over time, or the organisation evolves around a formerly good hire who didn't evolve with it. This is natural, and it does need to be managed.

What tends to happen is that leaders leave it far too long, avoiding difficult performance-related conversations because they're difficult, and spending far too long complaining behind the scenes. Eventually, frustrated at what they see as a lack of progress, they feel compelled to make a statement and blow it all up.

A couple of points here: 

1. It's absolutely OK to want higher standards, and it's possible that some people won't meet them
2. It's absolutely unfair to fire people for not meeting standards you've never told them about

It's important to tackle this in a structured, fair way. Ideally, collaborate on the standards with your product team; don't just sit there and dictate, especially if you've never "done" product management. There are plenty of frameworks out there like Petra Wille's PMWheel or Ravi Mehta's PM Competency Framework, that have been written and used by excellent product people. Assess team members against those standards.

For those who don't meet the standards, assess whether they *want* to meet those standards. If they do, come up with a fair plan to move them in the right direction. If they don't, maybe they're best suited to a different role, and have that discussion openly and honestly.

In whatever time period is suitable for your context, give people a chance to improve. If they are heading in the right direction, double down! If you don't think they're going to make it, have that discussion openly and honestly.

I've long believed that there's no such thing as a "bad product manager", just an under-coached product manager left dangling in a system that tolerates underperformance and does nothing about it. Leadership is a big part of this, and is often lacking.

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If you're affected by any of the issues in this post, hit me up for a free advisory chat and let's see if we can get your PM team humming in 2026

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Mica Vaipan

Jason Knight

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