Platform Growth to 40M Users
Drove 30x engagement increase and doubled conversions as VP of Product, growing platform from 8M to 40M users.
Overview
Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. When I joined, the product felt dated, front-end changes were bottlenecked, and logged-in engagement was low despite strong top-of-funnel growth.
Role
As VP of Product, I led product strategy and execution. I managed 2 PMs and 2 designers, and partnered with the CTO to manage 12 engineers.
I owned the full product redesign and rebrand, defined the feature roadmap, and led the company's first monetization efforts. One initiative included here: a code-first design system that let engineers ship without waiting for design approval.
Results
Logged-in engagement increased ~30x. Top-of-funnel conversions doubled. The platform grew from 8 million to 40 million users during my tenure.
Select project: code-first design system
Recommendations
“Conway's remarkable talents at design span the spectrum from frontend development, to visual design and UX, to what product features are needed in the first place. I've never worked with anyone who is better at going from "what we want the user to be thinking" to concrete layouts and interaction elements. Conway's a quick learner and cares deeply about the big picture. He made a huge contribution to Academia's user, feature and technological growth, and its first meaningful revenue.”
“Conway has tremendous skill with product and design. His leadership and strategic thinking were essential to product development at Academia.”