Product Magic

Owner
• 2022 to present: Acquired existing camping gear content website business listed on Flippa. Updated Amazon Associates affiliate links and transitioned ad network from Google Adsense to Ezoic. 

Advisor/Investor
• 2011 to present: Advise and invest in start-up internet businesses.
Advisor and investor in EZWebplayer, an innovative video hosting platform that offers encoding, customized video players, and video management for publishing and streaming videos more cost effectively.

Founder
• 2003 - 2004: Founded online classified site for pets. Grew site traffic through search engine optimization, search engine marketing using Google Adwords, and link building. Sourced and installed software at hosting site and coded updates in Javascript and HTML. Achieved profitability through paid listings using Paypal, affiliate links from Linkshare, and Google Adsense. Made nearly $10,000.

Affiliate Revenue Negotiator
• 2001 - 2002: Negotiated 2 year, $150,000 affiliate marketing arrangement with Spiegel Catalog to redirect traffic from my family owned Speigel.com domain name.

Founder

Zocket

Zocket's mission is to empower businesses of all sizes to effortlessly launch and manage their social media ads with AI.

Zocket leverages cutting-edge AI technologies to simplify the advertising for both small enterprises and large scale business. Our suite of AI modules include:

[1] 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨: lets you harness the power of AI for stunning ad visual creation helping marketers create stunning ad copies across Facebook, Instagram, Google, Linkedin, Snapchat, Tiktok ads etc. in minutes

[2] 𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨: Adaptive clustering models to target and engage with the most relevant audience segments across channels

[3] 𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫: Centralize your advertising efforts across multiple platforms—including meta, Google, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and more—from a single, streamlined interface

[4] 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐇𝐮𝐛: Provides analytics, with customizable inputs to ensure your advertising strategies work the way you want them to

[5] 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫: Imagine slack for marketing teams! Stay organized and in control with our intuitive command centre helping marketing teams (performance marketers, graphic designers, copy writers, budget managers) operate in a well co-ordinated way

[6] 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐚𝐛: Optimize your campaigns with ease, maximizing ROI and driving impactful results with AI driven rule engine

GTM and AdTech Advisor

Product Career Accelerator

I teach networking skills to ambitious, successful product managers to help them land roles at top public and private tech companies.
Multiple students have received responses and landed interviews - bypassing application queues - at companies like Meta, Google, Uber, AirBnB, and Walmart using my advice.
Examples:
"Hey David! Good news: Your advice for helping me craft short messages to add to cold connection requests helped me add 4 PM recruiters at Meta. Also got on a call with one of them last week and am now preparing for first round case interviews"
"Hi David, that AirBnB hiring manager finally accepted my LinkedIn invite thanks to your tricks!"
"Your advice to engage with PMs who set their profile to 'Actively hiring' landed me a call with a Walmart hiring manager"

Networking coach

Popular Pays, a Lightricks Company

Promoted from Principal Product Manager, Brands to Head of Product Growth, Influencer Marketing Platform
- Coordinated a team of 4 product managers, 3 UX designers, 1 product marketing director, and a data analyst to prioritize, design and implement self-serve, Product Led Growth features: online payments, freemium and free trial offers, onboarding flows, pricing plans, packages and pricing page, surveys, feature gating, email campaigns, and renewal reminders.
- Increased self-serve conversions from 0 to 50/month. Generated $XX,000 in recurring brand platform subscription revenue and $XX,000 in brand to creator payments/month
- Conducted user research interviews. Analyzed qualitative and quantitative feedback to prioritize usability enhancements to increase self-serve conversion rates.
- Built dashboards in Trevor, Redash, Pendo, and Google Analytics to monitor and optimize activation and retention
- Participated in numerous AI projects including an AI Brief Builder (LLM agent), AI Studio image enhancement (background removal, scene modification), and an AI voice feature for consumer apps.

Head of Product Growth - Influencer Marketing Platform

- Gathered feedback from Sales to facilitate and prioritize a retention focused roadmap. Led teams to build new features, retaining two $1M+ ACV brands about to leave. Also brought back an additional $1M+ ACV brand.

Principal Product Manager, Brands

LiveRamp

I led the team that designed, built, and launched a cookieless client side tag (CST) to track MAIDs, CTV-IDs and RampIDs.
- CST product earned $X million in its first year and drives tens of millions in revenue for associated measurement and activation products.
- Managed products from engineering to go-to-market, including leading closed betas with 3 top clients (over $1M/year ACV)
- Reported to VP Product, Identity Resolution. Started managing two engineering teams and took on additional third engineering team and a data operations team. I managed the work of nearly 20 engineers and data analysts.
- Outside of core responsibilities, I collaborated on a cross functional leadership team with LiveRamp's now CPO to establish cross division Product Operations Processes, improving strategic alignment, tracking, and communication. I personally integrated Jira to Productboard to ensure automated alignment of engineering statuses to product roadmaps that rolled up to the executive levels.

Head of Product - Distributed Identity

Kinesso

Partnered with Director and VP of Engineering from Axciom to license 3rd party identity data to build an in house Identity Resolution Graph to power the former IPG Cadreon/Mediabrands Audience Management Platform.

Director of Product Management

Signal ™

Managed a team that established and executed roadmaps to build business partnerships and deliver complex audience data integrations with top players: Adobe, Salesforce, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Pandora, Spotify, Verizon Media and others.

These integrations provided the basis for new product offerings from Signal.

Product Management and Business Development

Conversant, Inc.

Sr. Product Manager for the creation of Conversant Access - a customer facing reporting portal:
http://blog.conversantmedia.com/2015/10/08/are-you-in-the-drivers-seat-of-your-data/

Led the creation of Conversant Access, a client facing website providing reporting, ad previewing/approval, and self-serve campaign management for direct to brand and agency clients, including Williams Sonoma, Cabela’s, and Victoria’s Secret.

Sr. Product Manager, Platform

Outerwall

Outerwall is the parent company of Redbox.

I served as Head of Technology, New Ventures for Star Studio. I managed all hardware and software for Star Studio, an interactive photo booth kiosk found in 65 malls across Southern California, Texas and the Northeast.

Prepared detailed financial forecasts for costs and revenues to scale from 65 to 350 kiosks. Plans included hardware costs, software costs (staffing), and other capital and operating expenses to support use of investment funds.

Senior Manager, New Ventures

Discovery Communications

The Strategy and Emerging Businesses team identified, evaluated and developed innovative digital business initiatives. Operating with an entrepreneurial focus, the team sought growth opportunities for Discovery Digital Media to build internally or create through partnerships.

Contributed to presentation that secured internal funding for Curiosity.com which was later spun out into a standalone business.

Director of Product, Emerging Businesses

Product Leader in AdTech and Influencer Marketing | Ex: LiveRamp, Redbox, Discovery, VC | Kellogg MBA

15+ years of product leadership in AdTech, both B2B and B2C.

- Launched data products for audience capture (LiveRamp) and built audience integrations to top social networks and DSPs such as Meta, Google, The Trade Desk and many others.

- Built 0-to-1 campaign management tools for reporting, ad creative approval, and audience creation. Added product led growth go-to-market capabilities to a B2B SaaS influencer marketing platform

- Worked in two public company innovation centers taking products from 0-to-1 and scaling from $xM to $xxM.

"Find a coach for the role you want a few years in advance of landing that role."

This was one of many pieces of amazing advice from Ha Nguyen last night at the ProductTank Chicago Executive Leadership Roundtable.

I was fortunate to attend with other Chicago Product Executives to hear Ha speak about her career path and give advice to others.

The key advice that I took away:
Build your network well in advance of when you need it. 

Ha did this by:
Joining communities
Organizing community events
Leading community organizations

Regarding the first line of advice
The question was, "How do I move from VP to COO?"
Answer: "Hire a COO coach now."

Get coached on the skills you need upfront.
And leverage your coach's network to find roles.

Great advice and great community.
Thank you Pritam Das, Shilpa M., & David Jesse for organizing. 

I heard that Product Tank Chicago was ranked the best group in North America by membership, events, participants and reviews. I believe it!

David Speigel 🔮

Product & GTM Advisor🪄Networking Coach✨

If you treat a friend like a stranger, it feels cold.
If you treat a stranger like a friend, it feels creepy...

Both kill your chances for replies to outreach.
(I'm testing out my Halloween references)

Vary your messages by degree of connection:
Close confidants, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees.

↳ Close confidants already know your story.
You don’t need to pitch. Seek reflection and guidance.
Ask for gut checks and honest feedback.
Share your goals and where you feel stuck.
Let them help you sharpen your direction.

↳ 1st-degree connections already trust your work.
Don’t act like strangers. Reconnect first.
Then ask about specific roles or companies.
Skip generic form messages for referrals.
Ask who’s hiring or who they can intro you to.
Send short notes they can forward in seconds.

↳ 2nd-degree connections are one intro away.
Don’t ask for favors too fast. Start with curiosity.
Ask what their team does or how they like it there.
Show you’ve done your homework.
Then ask for advice or insight. Be brief!

↳ Your 3rd-degree network doesn’t know you yet.
Let your content build trust first.
Post personal insights from your own work.
Comment thoughtfully with curiosity and perspective.
Help people see your value over time.
Here's you chance to be verbose. ;)

When people don’t reply, it’s not rejection.
It’s usually messaging misalignment.
(Or, maybe you didn't update your variables?
"Hello [FirstName]," anyone?)

Oh, and don’t forget to follow up! 
Sometimes it's just bad timing.

I'm doing another Maven Lightning Lesson this week.
Thursday, October 9th at 10am Central.
It will focus entirely on messaging. Let's go!

What's the worst outreach you've received? 
My last post highlighted one of mine.

Them: Hey, David. They didn't respond. I'm ghosted?

Me: No. Not necessarily. Did you follow up?

Them: No. I'm not sure what to write.

Me: What were you thinking?

Them: "Just checking in."

Me: No.

Them: "Bumping this in case you missed it."

Me: No.

Them: Ok, maybe I won't write them back.

Me: Try any of these?
1. "Here's another, new reason I may be a good fit"
(You didn't put all your reasons in the first message, right?)

2. "I saw this news about you/your team/your company."
It made me think of you.

3. "I saw this news about your industry."
It made me think of you.

4. "I like this role, but I might become unavailable soon due to..."

Everyone says you need to network.
Not teach the details of HOW.

I'm holding a FREE lightning lesson tomorrow. Join me!
We'll just focus on messaging:
- Cold outreach, warm outreach, and follow-ups.

Details in the comments.
What are your go-to follow-up lines?

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