Three riders on a fall gravel trail

Photo by @conanthai

John Brophy headshot

For most of my career I was a design-led PM: I could see the product clearly, could tell you when a few pixels were off, but I needed a team to write the code and build it.

Since Dec 2025, everything about the PM role has changed. I now consider myself, first and foremost a builder.

Scrappy, hands-on, designing, coding, and PMing all at once, shipping daily, sometimes hourly. Have an idea in the morning, get it live by lunch. It's everything I ever dreamed this job could be. Grab a copy of my resume here.


Stensul

Product Director

2024 - Present

  • Led the build of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, positioning Stensul at the center of the emerging MCP ecosystem as the standard becomes table stakes for how marketers interact with their tools through AI.
  • Transformed a beta landing page builder into an enterprise-ready platform with brand books, custom modules, and user-level guardrails.
  • Conducted 50+ customer discovery calls to uncover root problems, then collaborated with Sales and Marketing to develop demos, refine pitch narratives, and enable go-to-market execution.
  • Reduced end-to-end creation time to ~1 hour, doubled landing pages created per customer, and added $XXXK+ ARR.
  • Drove AI integration across the product / engineering team, from prompt architecture and agentic workflows to a redesigned discovery process.
  • Expanded scope into an ecosystem PM role, owning cross-product integrations and partner relationships to extend Stensul's reach across enterprise martech stacks.

Whalar

Product Director (Platforms)

2022 - 2024

  • Led the vision and strategy for creator platforms supporting large brand campaigns and talent management.
  • Decreased off-platform collaborations by 10% by expanding functionality that enabled TikTok creators to join and collaborate.
  • Launched Magic Profiles, an AI-powered system that aggregated creator data from connected social media accounts and used generative AI to synthesize unified profile information, reducing manual data entry and improving profile accuracy.
  • Launched an AI-driven brand safety tool for vetting creators, later expanded into a core Whalar product.
  • Led the deprecation of a legacy brand platform by analyzing usage and determining what to retire or rebuild into the modern stack.
  • Managed and mentored 3 PMs across global teams.

Hearst

Senior Product Manager

2020 - 2022

  • Led a large-scale migration to a new REACT frontend framework for a CMS system supporting 60+ websites with over 500 million monthly impressions.
  • Developed and executed a clear vision and roadmap, ensuring accurate forecasting throughout the project while collaborating closely with Design, Data, Tech, SEO, Accessibility, and Content teams.

Kaplan

Senior Director of Product Development

2017 - 2020

  • Established and led a new product development team dedicated to transforming learning experiences for professional certification exams.
  • Led and developed the website team at kaptest.com, mentoring a direct report from associate to senior PM and 2 senior designers.
  • Supervised the development of a new CMS and optimized product pages and user flows in collaboration with the growth marketing team.

Spotify

Product Manager (spotify.com)
Premium Manager (Subscriptions)

2010 – 2017

  • Joined early at Spotify (employee #200+), playing a pivotal role in defining strategy and roadmaps for spotify.com, significantly driving platform growth.
  • Ran user research and rebuilt critical user flows, including sign-up, premium subscription, and download processes, leading to millions of new registrations and improved user retention.
  • Developed a mobile-optimized account management section and led cross-functional collaboration across brand, creative, and growth teams.
  • Managed a growing list of stakeholders by introducing a thoughtful execution model, ensuring clear communication and effective prioritization.

Don't Stay In

Co-Founder

2003 – 2009

  • Co-founded dontstayin.com, scaling it to a top global social network with 2 million monthly unique visitors within six years.
  • Designed a viral loop that created a rich content ecosystem with over 12 million photos and 20 million forum posts, driving exponential platform growth.
  • Developed a backend enabling nightlife promoters to manage events, engage with communities, and purchase promotional banner ads and email campaigns.
  • Opened an office and grew the team to 15 staff members.

Education

1998 – 2001: University of Plymouth (UK) - BA (Hons) Business Administration.


Certifications

Claude code for PMs - fullstackpm.com | 2025
AI Product Management – Product Faculty (Miqdad Jaffer, OpenAI) | 2025
Advanced PM Skills (Crystal Training) – Product Faculty | 2025


Specialist Skills

  • AI/ML Product Development (LLMs, generative AI, prompt engineering)
  • Agentic Workflow Design
  • Product Vision & Roadmap Strategy
  • Data-Driven Decision Making
  • Market Research & Competitive Analysis
  • Agile/Scrum Methodologies
  • Cross-Functional Team Leadership
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Backlog Prioritization & Sprint Planning
  • A/B Testing & Experimentation
  • User Research & Discovery
  • UX Design & Prototyping
  • Growth Strategy & GTM Execution
  • Analytics (GA, Databricks)
  • Jira / Linear / Figma / Miro
  • Claude Code / ChatGPT

Work Status

British citizen with a US Green Card.


Hobbies and Interests

Bicycles - I'm a keen cyclist and ride to work whenever possible. I enjoy bicycle touring and regularly head out on adventures. Occasionally my love of bikes makes the news.

Camping - I love the outdoors. You will normally find me up a mountain in a tent on summer weekends.

Technology - I love technology and always try and stay one step ahead of the curve. Occasionally my use of tech makes the news.

Gaming - I have a competitive mindset - I enjoy chess, poker, table tennis and online gaming. I like to win!

Music - I love music, be it festivals, gigs or just listening at home. I have a Spotify playlist called 'Music like Daft Punk' with over 5000 followers.


Recommendations

John is one of the most talented product managers I've had the pleasure to work with. Extremely hard working, diligent and strategic. John is excellent at collaborating with other PMs, designers, engineers and stakeholders and is known as someone who gets things done. He's a pleasure to work with and a rare talent. Niko Croskery, President, Moby Ventures at Whalar.

I've been really fortunate to work under John's leadership for several years, and I can't emphasize enough how much I recommend him. John has this incredible mix of strategic insight, analytical skill, and creative flair, all while genuinely caring about understanding and meeting the needs of our end-users. As a manager, John creates an atmosphere that's both collaborative and supportive. I've always felt valued and encouraged to give my best because of his leadership. Beyond that, he's a true team player, always ready to lend a hand, offer advice, or share insights whenever anyone needs it. I will forever be grateful to him for his support and guidance. Shirley Lee, Senior Product Manager at Whalar.

I had the privilege to work with John for 5 years, first as a stakeholder of his team and then as a colleague. During that time John created a fantastic team and scalable processes. Thanks to that they were ready when the company (and thus their stakeholders) grew by 20x. The team recently pivoted towards a growth role. John stepped up again and led the efforts to instrument and optimize the new user funnels, finding ways to increase our MAU base by leveraging the website. - Felix Bouleau, Product Owner at Spotify.

I have worked alongside John at Spotify for four years. Despite the fast pace and complexity of his team management responsibilities he is always happy to make the time to share his expertise and help solve complex challenges. His thoughtful insight, technical skills and manner makes working with him productive and fun. John will be an asset to any tech team that needs to move fast and deliver results and will contribute a positive team dynamic. - Owen Parry, Business Development at Spotify.

John is an exuberant, welcoming, and incredibly smart individual, and I consider myself lucky for having the chance to work by his side. Not only is he a talented, data-driven, and user-centric Product Owner, but a daily positive force for every person that crosses his path. He's driven, kind, hilarious, and works extremely hard to ensure his teammates are inspired and delivering impactful work. Tl;dr: If you ever get the chance to work with him, take it. - Grace Larosa, Product Design at Spotify.

TigerTest: 7 months in

July 21, 2026

TigerTest growth chart: monthly questions answered and cumulative revenue

Seven months ago I launched TigerTest, a DMV practice test platform built entirely with Claude Code. Time for some real numbers.

9,480 people have used it. 278,478 practice questions answered. And the part that still feels a little unreal: 83 strangers have paid $9.99 to unlock the full thing. Total revenue to date: $829.17, straight from Stripe.

June alone saw 62,081 questions answered. Right now, somewhere, people are passing their driving tests because of an app I built on nights and weekends by describing what I wanted to an AI.

It's not quit-your-job money. But it's real money from a real product with real users, built by one person who doesn't write the code. Imagine where this goes next.

Play with the app

Learn Anything in Claude: Course Builder

June 3, 2026

Course Builder

I built a course factory for Claude Code.

I learn by doing, not by reading. Course Builder generates courses that work that way: every lesson is hands-on, every exercise runs on a real project you bring, and a Claude-powered instructor guides each session, checks your work, and grades your quizzes.

Give it a topic, source material, and an audience, and it builds the whole thing: lessons, quizzes, progress tracking, a deployable homepage. Learning by doing, on any subject, for anyone.

Try it: install the skill, pick a topic, and ask Claude to build the course.

Claude Code Workflows Course

June 3, 2026

Claude Code Workflows Course

I built a hands-on course for learning Claude Code workflows by actually using them.

Instead of reading about agent orchestration in theory, you work inside Claude Code, trigger real workflows, inspect the JavaScript harness Claude writes, and watch subagents split up the work.

The course has 12 sessions, short quizzes, and a capstone where you turn one of your own recurring tasks into a reusable workflow.

Try it if you want to understand when a task has outgrown a single Claude session, and how to use workflows without wasting compute.

Find out more

LLM-Wiki

April 5, 2026

LLM-Wiki

Your call transcripts, emails, and docs contain more useful knowledge than you'll ever manually dig out. LLM-Wiki turns that raw material into a structured, queryable wiki — automatically.

Automate raw files in. Have Claude auto “compile” hourly. It updates articles, cross-links everything, and remembers what it's already processed. Ask questions, get sourced answers.

Inspired by Andrej Karpathy's LLM-as-compiler idea.

View on GitHub

Banksy Print Tracker

March 27, 2026

Banksy Print Tracker

I built a Banksy Print Tracker site that lists upcoming and completed auction lots for original Banksy prints, with search by print name and the option to view prices in different currencies.

It updates automatically every day by checking major auction houses and a realized feed, then refreshes the live site so the data stays current without manual work.

Visit the site

AI PM Course

February 4, 2026

AI PM Course

I built this course because I wanted to actually understand AI, not just use it. Most PM resources give you surface-level overviews, but I wanted to know how embeddings work, when to use RAG vs fine-tuning, and how to talk to engineers without faking it.

So I made a 25-session course that runs inside Claude Code. You learn by doing: Claude walks you through real exercises, and you bring your own product idea so every lesson applies to something you actually care about. By the end, you'll be able to prototype AI features yourself and have real technical conversations about architecture tradeoffs.

Try it: Install Claude Code, clone the repo, and say "Let's get started."

OpenClaw Q1 OKRs

January 31, 2026

I gave my @openclaw OKRs in Q1.

His main goal was to optimize my little DMV test prep site (tigertest.io) and increase the amount of users that take a practice test - as those users are more likely to give me $10 a month. His long term goal is to make $100k for an Optimus body.

Here is his Q1 OKR presentation (he created the deck and the audio) <3.

Imagine where this kind of thing will be in a year or two?

Ace-that-interview.com

January 18, 2026

Ace That Interview

I spent 2 days hacking with my brother and this is what fell out the other end.

Ace That Interview is an interview prep platform for job seekers targeting specific companies. Users search for roles like "Google PM interview prep" and land on tailored pages (e.g., /google/product-manager) with guided prep courses.

Key features: a modular content system (~20 modules combining to cover hundreds of company/role combinations), AI-generated content from public sources focused on interview psychology, and a story-based UX with progressive disclosure.

Business model: Testing freemium vs. ~$200 one-time paywall for company-specific content.

Play with the app

Tigertest.io

December 21, 2025

TigerTest.io

What started as a simple New Jersey DMV practice app for myself evolved into a full platform covering all 50 states.

Using Claude Code, I first updated and improved my original NJ app, then generated 2,000 state-specific questions to complement the existing question bank. From there, I built out TigerTest.io - a completely free practice test platform featuring mastery-based training, four practice tests per state, pass probability tracking, and full user accounts.

The entire product was built through AI-assisted development.

2 months after launch and the site has racked up over 50,000 questions being answered.

Play with the app

New Parent Qbank

December 15, 2025

New Parent Qbank

A lightweight web app that presents a series of questions designed to help new or expecting parents reflect on their preferences, priorities, and readiness for parenthood. The interface guides users through each item in a simple, engaging format and then summarizes insights at the end to support self-reflection or discussion between partners.

I built this in a few hours with Claude Opus 4.5.

Play with the app

Family Colouring Book

April 2025

Family Colouring Book

I decided to create my neice and nephews a coloring book using the latest gpt 4o image creation. With that you can upload a photo of a pesron - and then have it recreate them as a line drawing.

View book

New Bike!

November 09, 2025

Titanium Brompton T-Line against a white brick wall

I bought a Brompton T-line for commuting in and out of the city.  Currently on a journey to make it that little bit lighter. Check out the journey over here and my full weight weenie spreadsheet over here :)

Bike touring the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and Centralia.

January 20, 2025

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon tour videoWatch on YouTube

A little video I put together of a tour I did last year with a friend. Watch till the end to find out what happened to the cat.

We roughly followed this route.

Road biking around Girona

May 07, 2024

I spent 4 days in Girona putting my new Enve Melee to the test. It really is absolutely beautiful out there. Below is the route of our most crazy day - at the top of the mountain - it was hailing!

View the route on RideWithGPS

Read more about our little adventure over here.

12 day bikepacking trip around New York State

September 24, 2020

12 day bikepacking trip around New York State videoWatch on YouTube

I spent 12 days in September 2020 with 3 friends riding around New York State.  We saw the Finger Lakes, the wilderness, Lake George and everything in between. This is hands down the best ride since Japan.

This was our route.

NYC to California Hill

August 29, 2020

NYC to California Hill videoWatch on YouTube

Finally back on the bike and making videos. Feels good.

We jumped on the train from Grand Central and headed to White Plains. From there we rode the 53 miles or so to a primitive camping spot at California Hill.

Epic ride. Even with the rain in the morning.

Route here: ridewithgps.com/routes/33770105

Cuba - A Loop out of Havana

June 22, 2020

Cuba loop out of Havana videoWatch on YouTube

I managed to sneak in a week long trip to Cuba in the few weeks before the world went crazy with Covid with three friends - Mike, Eli and Sean.  We flew from NYC, to Miami and then to Havana.

It was very easy - we applied for a visa and then ticked 'Support for the Cuban People'.  We rode out along the north coast from Havana to Vinales (the tobacco growing region) and then came back along the south coast and then back up to Havana.

We packed light - no tents and stayed in what the Cubans call 'Casa Particulares'.  Which are basically lovely Cuban peoples houses - where they let you stay and cook you dinner.

Shirley Chisholm State Park

January 14, 2020

Shirley Chisholm State Park ride videoWatch on YouTube

Absolutely loving this new park. We've been riding Greenpoint to Shirley Chisholm State Park a number of times over the last few months. After we go for the greatest Pizza in NYC at New Park Pizza, then we head to Finback brewery in Queens for a few beers on the way home.

The Nutmeg Nor'Easter

October 28, 2019

The Nutmeg Nor'Easter videoWatch on YouTube

Blimey. What a ride. We joined Ultra Romance and his crew at the 3rd annual Nutmeg Nor'Easter in Colchester, Connecticut. We stayed on a little farm - camped Friday and Saturday night. It was absolutely epic. Amazing people, amazing weather, amazing bikes, amazing food and absolutely stunning scenery.

Harriman State Park with NYCADV

October 07, 2019

Harriman State Park ride videoWatch on YouTube

A beautiful ride with a great crew of NYC ADVers. Come join us sometime. Harriman is my second home in New York.

Solo two day trip

August 12, 2019

Solo two day trip videoWatch on YouTube

I made the most of the weekend and put in 3 days of riding Friday / Sat / Sunday. Brooklyn to Harriman State Park on Friday Harriman to Shawangunk State Forest on Saturday Shawangunk to Beacon on Sunday.

150 miles. 8k of elevation. Loved it.

Fahnestock State park with NYCADV

April 15, 2019

Fahnestock State Park ride videoWatch on YouTube

I joined the NYC ADV crew for another fab weekend in Fahnestock State park. It was a beautiful day / night / morning! We rode a route I designed.  It was a lovely mix of farm lands, country clubs and back roads.

Yes - that was a sauna in the back of an ambulance. Check out instagram.com/redhotsauna Tune is Surface Tension by Tomos.

Ninham mountain with NYCADV

March 20, 2019

Ninham mountain ride videoWatch on YouTube

I joined the NYC ADV meetup crew and rode NYC up to Ninham mountain. It was hella cold but hella fun.

Japan - Tokyo to Kyoto

October 31, 2018

Japan Tokyo to Kyoto tour videoWatch on YouTube

I rode from Tokyo to Kyoto with two friends over 15 days in September 2018.

Our route took us through the mountains (follow this at your own risk! We didn't really plan it.. there is probably a far better route with less crazy tunnels).

NYC to Montreal

August 23, 2017

Sunset camp on the way to Montreal

Before I got my hands on a go pro I rode solo from NYC to Montreal back in July 2017. It took me 8 days and was absolutely brilliant. I documented the trip on google photos over here.

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