Case study 01 / System1 / 2025 - Now
Scaled an AI product to several thousand paid subscribers in under two months.
At System1, James owns product discovery, PRDs, roadmap, delivery, post-launch growth, and P&L for AI agent-powered consumer products.
Context
The portfolio centers on AI agent-powered consumer products that combine customer value, dependable product execution, and measurable economics.
Mandate
Own product discovery, PRDs, roadmap, delivery, post-launch growth, and P&L. Partner with the CEO, COO, CPO, design, engineering, and marketing leaders.
Product and platform
Built agentic products combining LLM reasoning, retrieval-augmented generation, and tool calling. Shipped a legal-assistant product line and built custom CLI, MCP, and API workflows for support, intelligence reporting, and product development.
Team and operating model
Built the AI function from the ground up as its first hire. Hired a lead engineer, two senior product managers, and a lead designer, then established AI-first ways of working across marketing, design, and engineering.
Measurement
Built KPI trees, event schemas, cohort retention analysis, revenue attribution, and dashboards covering growth, churn, LTV, renewals, and engagement.
Result
Grew a new AI product to several thousand paying subscribers in under two months while building and leading a five-person AI team.
Leadership lesson
Product, instrumentation, lifecycle growth, team design, and P&L work best as one operating system. Separating them slows learning and weakens accountability.