Harris Brown | Ex-Airbnb product leader, supporting founders & early-stage teams

Harris is a product leader and coach, with over 10 years of experience at early-stage startups and large technology companies.

He’s been working as a fractional product leader for the last 3+ years, primarily partnering with founders and early-stage teams (typically Seed to Series A) as an interim head of product. In addition, he works as a product coach with select clients.

Prior to his fractional work, he spent over 5 years at Airbnb building products and leading cross-functional teams. He’s also been an early employee of a handful of early-stage startups (Shake, Piazza) where he’s led product and non-product functions, including growth, partnerships and business operations.

Harris is passionate about partnering with early-stage founders and teams. His product discipline, acquired while working at Airbnb during its hyper growth-stage, combined with his business acumen, acquired as a multi-time early stage leader of non-product functions (eg, growth, partnerships & customer success), makes him a potent partner for driving product and business impact at the earliest stages.

He lives in Bozeman, MT with his partner, two young boys and mini Aussie.

More about Harris

Experience

Harris has partnered with over 10+ fractional clients spanning a variety of industries and company & product types.

Company & Product Type experience: SaaS (B2B, B2C & B2B2C), Marketplaces (peer-to-peer & B2B)
Industry experience: AI, Travel, Education, Fintech, Retail, Health & Wellness, Food & Restaurants, Utility & Construction, Legal

He also finds himself particularly passionate about these areas: AI, Education, Health & Wellness, Human Performance, Travel, Marketplaces

Recent Engagement Highlights

kea.ai | Product Director (B2B2C) Hired as “right-hand” product director to support a joint CPO & CTO who needed support in his head of product duties. Responsibilities included: Crafted & aligned team (and company) behind a product vision, strategy & roadmap; Product lead for various end-to-end product & feature launches; Hired PMs & built out the product team; Led product discovery, marketing & GTM for new product opportunity (which ultimately shifted the company’s entire strategy)

Namecoach | Head of Product (B2B & B2C) Hired as head of product to lead, build and up-level the Namecoach product & team following a successful $10M Series A raise. Responsibilities included: Crafted & aligned team (and company) behind a product vision, strategy & roadmap; Managed existing product & design team; advised team on hiring strategy; Supported the team on project-level work (eg, new prod & feature development & launches)

Additional Resources

GoFractional | LinkedIn | Resume | harrisbrown.xyz

Ways to partner with Harris

Fractional:

What this looks like: I come in to lead product on an interim (fractional) basis. Typically, I’m your first product hire or come in to lead a pre-existing team. I’m no different than any full-time member of your leadership team, except that I will likely be allocating fewer hours on a given week.

Why this might make sense: You know you need someone to own & drive product for your company. You might not need full-time product support, don’t have the budget to hire someone full-time, don’t understand what your product needs are, or want to leverage expertise for

Advisory:

What this looks like: I come in as an official advisor to your and your team. I’m available as an on-demand resource to troubleshoot product & business challenges.

Why this might make sense: You need access to product expertise, but don’t need an operational product partner. You’re looking for more of a thought partner to advise, influence and add value to your company. You’re looking for someone with specific experience (eg, to advise on marketplace strategy or AI product use-cases and strategy for your company) that you would find valuable to leverage.

Coach:

What this looks like: I come in as a coach to support you and/or your team.

Why this might make sense: You have junior product managers that you see an opportunity to up-level. You’re an executive or company leader that’s looking to deepen your own product muscle.

Project:

What this looks like: I come in to own and deliver on a scoped product project, challenge or opportunity.

Why this might make sense: You have a specific product problem, opportunity or need. Maybe you need someone to lead discovery for a new product area, craft a GTM or product marketing plan, audit and execute on changes to your product development processes, lead an end-to-end new product launch…or any number of things.