Christina Samios

A two-pronged strategy

User insights define the few high-priority features worth building to drive real value. At the same time, I use behavioral science to run rapid experiments on smaller things, so the team learns quickly and iterates fast.

What we learn from the experiments feeds the next big bets, alongside fresh user insight.

Clarity plus ownership

Everyone knows the goals, and we check in on them weekly. Within those goals, product managers have the freedom to build their own roadmaps.

Wins and learnings

No launch is too small to celebrate, and no A/B test is too disappointing to learn something from.

How the teams worked

Each team paired one larger feature or improvement per quarter with rapid experimentation. Twice a year we ran a deep roadmapping process: interviewing users, pulling together past test results, talking to stakeholders, and working through the top bets for each team's metrics.

The strategy

It rested on user insights and on commercial partnership opportunities for revenue. It doubled revenue from the VPN product inside the browsers in one year and led to the launch of eSIM, a second subscription product.

• A new team built for the metric. I created a cross-product team focused on moving the key subscription metrics, and empowered them to own how.
• A weekly rhythm. A weekly check-in on how we were moving the target subscriber numbers, with a report on what we learned from our tests.
• Rapid experimentation. Fast A/B tests on UX, messaging and pricing.
• Marketing partnership. Close work with the marketing team to point paid digital marketing at subscription users.
• Renewal and churn. Tuning the always-on renewal and churn-prevention levers.

Why we built it

My co-founder and I had both been through big career shifts and knew how hard it is to upskill and reframe yourself to stand out in a new field. In the fastest skill shift in history, that has only gotten harder.

I led the interviews and used them to build an MVP. I vibe coded the frontend while my co-founder built the data structure and backend. I then set the roadmap and priorities from what users wanted.

What users told us

They wanted very clear guidance and still wanted room to be flexible. So the coach suggests a roadmap based on deep market intelligence about which skills are in demand, then lets people go back and forth about how they like to learn and with what materials, and adjust the roadmap as their goals and time constraints change.

Every day, users get one achievable learning step in a well-structured roadmap, followed by a moment of delight, so they feel progress and build a habit.

Bringing Circle Sportswear to Oslo

Oslo only had expensive, non-sustainable running brands. So I emailed my favorite running brand, which uses fully sustainable materials and is produced in Europe, and offered to help them launch here.

I worked closely with the run club to learn which items people like, hosted events like pastry runs and bring-a-friend challenges, and used social platforms, including Strava, to spread the word.