Ramli John

Author of Product-Led Onboarding (+30K copies sold) | First Round Fast Track Mentor | Content Director at Appcues.

⭐️ Follow me for helpful tips to onboard, delight, and keep your customers coming back to your product.
📔 Author of Amazon #1 bestselling book "Product-Led Onboarding." 👉 𝙎𝙀𝘼𝙉 𝙀𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙎, Founder of GrowthHackers.com: "Product-Led Onboarding is 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭-𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 embarking on the critical activity of improving their user onboarding." 


⚡️ I use my multi-disciplinary skills in marketing, design, and software development to help product-led SaaS companies analyze their whole customer's journey and funnel to identify growth opportunities to 2-3X their MRR. 

Often, that means designing and implementing experiments to increase activation rate (trial-to-paid or free-to-paid conversions), decrease churn rate, or increase average revenue per user (ARPU)

If you asked my friends and colleagues how they would describe me, they'd say I'm resourceful, proactive, and entrepreneurial

►► CONTACT INFO
▷ Send a connection request
▷ Write me a note at ramli [at] ramlijohn.com

Founder

A weekly show and newsletter for marketers looking to level up their marketing and career. I interview world-class marketers to uncover the secrets, strategies, and frameworks behind their wins. In each episode, guests reveal three things:  (1) a marketing power-up,  (2) a real-world example of that in action, and (3) a power-up that’s helped them take their career to the next level.

Ramli "RJ" John

I just hired my first full-time employee. Not an assistant. A Chief of Staff. And it's my wife, Joanna Ruth! Here's why:

For 1.5 years, I resisted hiring. I wanted to stay solo as long as possible—full control, no coordination costs, just me and clients.

Then I wrote down the job description for what Delight Path actually needs this year.

Someone who can:
→ Create content and community systems
→ Bring the vision to life (not just execute tasks)
→ Scale the impact for product leaders I had in mind

I realized: this isn't an assistant role. It's 2nd in command.

And Joanna is perfect for it:

1. She's built more than I have!

Joanna's self-published over 47 Montessori education books (I need to catch up)! She's a proven system-builder, not just an idea person.

2. She follows instructions when I wing it (let's talk about building IKEA furniture!) 

Joanna forced me to create SOPs for everything. She's started documenting processes I've been running on instinct. Business became transferable, not just in my head.

3. She connects deeper to people than I do

People call me emotionless sometimes (fair). She cares about people on a level I don't naturally access. It's why she studied early childhood education focused on autism and behavioral science. 

Community needs that energy, not just my frameworks

Transitioning Delight Path from 100% consulting revenue to 50% media + community requires coordination I can't do alone.

Before hiring, I asked:
→ Am I hiring for tasks or for leverage?
→ Can this person make decisions without me?
→ Will this free me to do what only I can do?

If it's not yes to all three, it's an assistant role (nothing wrong with that, but not what I needed).

What's Next:

Joanna starts immediately with partnerships and community for Product Leaders Lab. As we scale, she moves into the Integrator (EOS) role, and I move into the Visionary role.

The onboarding forced me to document everything—SOPs for content, client work, and community management. Business became a system, not just me.
I'm excited to build something meaningful together again (we organized a large youth church conference before we got married).

Please join me in welcoming Joanna to Delight Path.

What's been your experience bringing someone into your solo business?

PS. If you're thinking about staying solo versus hiring, Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell has been super helpful. Changed how I think about the business.

Building a community for product leaders (VP and Director-level). Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

Most podcasts are interview-style. That won't cut it in 2026! It's why I'm doing a high-production narrative format for my new show: Product Leaders Lab (coming in Feb).

I turned my living room into a recording studio this Monday. Shot the intro and teaser with my creative producers, Carlo and Justine. 

Here's how it works:

Two veteran product leaders. Same impossible scenario. Completely different approaches.

One episode breaks down their decisions, what worked, what didn't, and the lessons that actually matter.

Episode 1 premieres February 24th: "The AI Adoption Pressure"

Netali (VP of Product) and Greg Leach (Senior Director of New Business) faced the same problem: their teams were drowning in prompt engineering.

Netali's solution? She created a new role, "Prompt Ops," to centralize AI expertise and protect PM capacity.

Greg's approach? He became the chair of the company's AI committee to remove red tape and encourage the adoption of internal AI tools. Over 100 people attended the first demo (out of 230 employees).

Two leaders. Two strategies. Both worked.

I've already recorded:

→ Christine Itwaru (VP of Product at Userflow): "The Launch Recovery" - How protecting her team after a launch disaster became her defining leadership moment.
→ Michelle Green (Director of Product at Coley): "The Strategy Misalignment" - When customer success and product saw the same problem completely differently.
→ Nesrine Changuel, PhD (Author of "Product Delight," former PM at Google, Spotify, Skype): "The Competitive Moment" - How she became Google Meet's first PM for Delight during the pandemic and chose benchmark against, "If we were all in a physical room, how would the experience be better?"

I'm scheduled to record with other amazing product leaders:
Betsy Shaak, Joseph King, Chris Downey, Jason Knight, Gabrielle Bufrem, Lauren Schuman, Deepti Pradeep, Angela Sze, Lilach Yaniv, Warren Dombowsky, Nick Cust, Purnima Bihari, and Aakash Gupta.

I'm looking for more VPs, Directors, or Heads of Product who want to share their defining leadership moments.

DM me or tag someone below.

PS. Bookmark this for when you're stuck on an impossible decision and need to see how other leaders navigated it. First episode drops February 24th.

2025: The year I learned focus has a price tag. Turned 40. Ran my first half marathon. Doubled my income while working fewer hours.

But here's what nobody tells you about Year 1 of consulting:

The wins are incredible. The valleys are brutal.

Some months hit $50K. Others dipped to $2K. I got ghosted after proposals. Had deals go sideways. Watched summer dry up completely.

Before I left my job, April Dunford told me: "Don't try to do too many things at once. Focus on one thing and get REALLY good at it."

So I said no to:
→ Newsletter sponsorships (even when I needed the money)
→ Course launches
→ Content creation I actually loved

The result? My biggest deal ever—with a Fortune 100 company.

But it came at a cost: I didn't create anything I'm truly proud of last year. No podcasts. No creative projects. Just focused execution.

That changes in 2026.

I'm launching Product Leaders Lab—a community + media brand for VPs, Directors, and Heads of Product. Already have 22 founding members and $60K in sponsorships locked.

Also launching a documentary-style podcast: One impossible scenario. Three veteran product leaders. Three completely different approaches. 20-25 minutes, not 60+ minute rambling.

First episode launched in Feb 2026: "The AI Ambush" - Your CEO announces an AI pivot without telling you. Product team panics. Board meeting in 48 hours. What do you do?

And I'm also running the Chicago Marathon in October to raise $2,500 for a close friend fighting stage 4 cancer.

2025 was depth. 2026 is reach.

What's one thing you're most proud of from 2025?

PS. Full year-in-review in the newsletter.

2025 has been the most transformative year of my life. Not just professionally, but personally, emotionally, and physically. Just like my review of 20

Open article: 2025 in review: the year everything changed by Ramli John • 9 min read

2025 in review: the year everything changed

In this live workshop, Becki Floyd will share how to turn user feedback into working AI prototypes within a day.  

Engineers can now use AI to ship in hours, not weeks. If UX can't keep pace, product decisions happen without user input.

Becki redesigned her entire UX process to work at AI speed:

✅ Async video research + AI analysis = user insights in hours (not weeks)
✅ Morning feedback → afternoon prototypes using Replit and ChatGPT
✅ High-fidelity prototypes that developers can ship immediately
✅ Process that keeps UX leading when speed matters most

This isn't about adding more tools to your stack. It's about rebuilding how UX works when AI-powered devs are shipping code faster than traditional research cycles allow.

This is her framework:

1. Gather insights in hours (async video + AI synthesis)
2. Build working prototypes the same day (tools that compress design-to-dev)
3. Lead product direction at AI speed (process over perfection)

We kick off the workshop tomorrow (Wednesday, January 21) at 9 AM ET

Bring your PMs, designers, and developers. This is for teams trying to stay user-led when everything moves faster.

Register: https://luma.com/9bwpea6x

What's your biggest challenge in keeping UX involved when dev cycles get compressed?

Exit Five

Head of Content

Founderpath

Founderpath gives B2B SaaS founders non-dilutive capital in under 24 hours.

$60m deployed to 130 founders as of July 2022.

Founders keep their equity and pay us back over 24-48 months. 6,500 other B2B SaaS founders use our free tools (valuation calculator) and engage in our community (Founder slack/Live events).

Funding Criteria
- B2B SaaS Company with predictable revenue
- Min MRR of $5k/mo
- Been in business 12 months
- Seeking $10k-$5M

Get an offer in 2 minutes and compare your terms by signing up for free at Founderpath.com

Head of Marketing

Worked with several brands and individuals on creating long term content strategy to build community, including GetLatka, Dia Bondi, 'nuffsaid, MilkVideo, and more.

Content & Community 

Boston Brunch Guide

To me, brunch has always been about truly experiencing life: chocolate before 10am, a hot latte and a flaky croissant on a cold day in a busy cafe, a deep conversation with friends over Eggs Benedict.

BBG is an ode to those luxurious moments, and has been my creative outlet since 2014.

Founder and Creative Director

ProfitWell

Audience Growth Manager

143 Studios, Inc. 

Head of social media strategy at 143 Studios for Mel Robbins, leading day to day content creation and strategic campaigns

Director of Social Media Strategy

Columbia Threadneedle Investments, US

Analyst, Tax-Exempt Fixed Income Research

Standard & Poor's

Rating Analyst

Research and analyze credit ratings for local governments and municipalities with a focus on the eastern United States in Standard & Poor's Ratings Services State and Local Government Ratings Group.

Research Assistant

The Institute for International Urban Development

Find RFPs and EOIs for projects relevant to the Institute from sources such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank
Research and assist in writing reports, case studies and other documents as needed
Manage social media including Facebook and Twitter and update the website (www.i2ud.org)
Other projects as needed

Northeastern University Lead360

Facilitate discussions for participants for Lead 360 women's leadership. Topics include Gender Identity, Effortless Perfectionism, Leadership Strengths, Beauty, Women’s Issues around the Globe, History of Women’s Rights, Sexual Assault, Role Models, and Empowerment.
Facilitating involves preparing materials, leading discussions, and ensuring the involvement of all participants.

Women's Leadership Facilitator

Head of Content at Exit Five 💚

You could describe me as a creative generalist - I've honed my understanding through self-education and immersing myself in all aspects of marketing and content production.

I am an experienced social media creator, content marketer, and community builder with nearly a decade of experience working with founders and brands of all sizes, from pre-series A to established enterprises. I geek out on deeply understanding the needs of an audience and crafting unconventional strategies, campaigns, and community experiences that turn them into raving fans.

My mission is to help founders and brands authentically connect with the audiences they serve – and have fun doing it.

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