I build products and product teams.
These are just a few products I've created.
Tap each icon for details 👇.
I was born a nerd, a tinkerer, a geek, a programmer, a lego builder.
I've coded in many a language.
- 1984 Sharp computers at primary school
- 1987 Logo at primary school
- 1988 GWBasic for astronomy simulators, TI99
- 1992 Basic, Turbo Pascal for a CD catalogue
- 1993 Unix, first email account
- 1995 Foxpro, Clipper for CRUD and interface visualisations, modularisation
- 1995 HP 38G programmable calculator
- 1998 Assembler, C++ for soft/hard authentication key plugged into parallel port, pointers, trees, OOP
- 1998 Assembler, C++ to controlling PiC processors
- 1999 Borland C++ Builder, beacon/data logger sensor and visualization tool fox pro
- 2000 Borland C++ Builder, evolutionary algorithm for video compression
- 2003 Visual Basic for macros in Excel, test scenario planning for.... Accenture
- 2007 Visual Basic, TS/SQL, PHP, Marketware full tech suite (DB, stored procedures, client apps, server apps, listeners, website)
- 2009 ObjC apps for iOS, Babymate, Shopmate, Medimate apps
- 2011 iOS Movistar app
- 2015 Swift 1, Parse, Git for Moneywise app
- 2016 Swift 2, Node JS, AWS, mLab, mongoDB, Postman for Lifemate and noBank apps
- 2021 SwiftUI, GraphCMS for Oh My Guide app
My degree is in Electronics Engineering. With honours, sir!
Somehow, my first job ended up being in Consulting (eek). I learned a lot, but I course-corrected and started building products.
Moving on...
Babymate. 2009 - 2022.
My very first app.
I built this app because I needed it. My daughter Natalia was a few months old, and I wanted a better way to keep track of her growth information. The Apple App Store was quite new and vibrant, so I was also curious to enter the ecosystem.
With the help of my brother-in-law, Edward George, who helped shape the idea and contributed with tons of good content, I launched in late 2009.
Soon enough, Apple editorial featured it as "New and Noteworthy", and a few glorious weeks of sales and traffic ensued. It reached Top 3 US Health app, and was featured by Mashable.com.
With this product, I became addicted to the buzz that comes from delivering real value to customers, enriching their lives. I improved the product with continuous iterations based on direct customer feedback, and I learned you don't need massive overhead to deliver on great ideas.
It is true, however, that true scale requires a different operating model. But not too different.
Shopmate. 2010 - 2013.
I ran, but Instacart ran faster.
Shopmate is (was, not available anymore😥) a shopping list organizer focused on simplicity and usability, ideal for frequent shoppers with no interest in complicated tools.
At least that was the goal.
I did get hundreds of thousands of downloads, weirdly a chunk of then in France, but I must not have put enough effort into monetisation and growth, so now it's gone. Busy doing other things is my excuse.
Medimate. 2011 - 2013.
Where them meds?
Ah, Medimate. Twas a medical prescription organizer, for you and your family, so you'd never again forget to take your meds.
Basically I took Shopmate, copy&pasted the code, and adapted it to handle medical prescriptions instead of shopping lists.
It had good stuff. Managed multiple family members, had push notifications (actually local) to remind you when to take meds, included a catalog of common meds including active component, tracked when the prescription was complete, you could pause it, etc.
Maybe I'll rebuild it some day...
There were startups.
I founded a start-up with 3 dear friends. We thought we could reinvent analytics with real-time capture of customer purchases made on *any* POS system, regardless of connectivity and software. The trick: we hooked into the printer feed. First via hardware and some serial port magic, later with a sniffer software.
It was breakthrough idea, to build a collection and processing platform and commercialise retail sell-out information to brand/product managers via real-time data streams.
I was responsible for product, design and engineering. I architected, designed and built full end-to-end software stack including data capture, data parsing, cloud analytics and reporting solutions.
We won awards, got some funding, launched successful pilots in top companies such as Kraft, and Diageo. But it didn't work out.
I even tried to build a bank.
With a little help of some friends ❤️ I built a full PFM (Personal Financial Management) product, on my spare time.
The dream was to help people discover, connect and stay close to their spending. I build an app that was meant to be simple yet powerful. It was just an MVP, meant to grow.
It did signify an important effort and time investment. I had to learn to code in Swift and NodeJS. To ramp up AWS infrastructure using Terraform. To connect with a variety of Aggregation and enrichment APIs.
But it was fun, and I deeply loved the product.
Tech was not scalable, because I'm not the best engineer in the world. We ended up not launching it.
Maybe some day I'll come back to this...
Telefonica, Movistar. 2011 - 2014.
Best team, best company ever.
A dream job. I led an incredible team of product managers, tech leads, designers, marketeers, analysts, experts to design and launch a wide-ranging portfolio of digital products for Venezuela's leading telco. We covered B2B, B2C and corporate segments, and all product verticals, including mobile value-added services, gaming, data and roaming, access and wifi hotspots, satellite TV, music streaming, content partnerships, mobile apps, cloud solutions for SME, etc.
We were a huge company, yet lean and agile.
We developed the first Mobile apps for iOS and Android with just a handful of engineers in less than 3 months, with stupendous results.
Note: the apps have changed substantially since I launched them in 2012. Just saying...
HSBC Mobile Banking. 2017 - present.
A transformational experience.
I joined HSBC in 2014 on a multi-year mission to help define, shape, mentor and form a modern, aspirational, digital product organisation. I was fortunate to work alongside a team of incredible peers, all trouble-makers, to evangelise on product, cross functional teams, agile delivery, fast and continuous iterations, customer centricity and delightful user experience.
In 2017, I joined the Mobile Banking team. With 8 digit yearly budgets, we built an entire new technology stack to deliver on our digital banking opportunity. We launched our new Mobile Banking product first in HK and UK, then in other 25 markets including Mexico, US, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, UAE. We've consistently exceeded results, with yoy growth on customers, NPS, engagement, revenue, and channel deflection.
Today, Mobile is the bank. >90% of our interactions and sales happen here, with 1 billion yearly interactions.
I'm proud to have been here since day 1, working with amazing and talented people in teams across 7 locations world-wide, executing a strong vision and relentless roadmap to deliver incredible customer and business value.
HSBC Connected Money. 2014 - 2017.
But before Mobile Banking, there was Connected Money.
We dreamed of the bank of the future, that would redefine our place in the map and deliver experiential banking for our customers. We took our first steps in pursuit of that vision, and we delivered something incredible.
The story is well told 👉 here.
We started small. A few scrappy prototypes I coded myself, to try new ideas. Some were quite cool. The best of these we named Money Up.
We later launched this proposition as Connected Money. It was a game changer for HSBC, first of its kind in the market, using open banking APIs and delivering aggregation across any UK account. We reached 300k users.
We even had a cool TV ad, with the IT guy 👇.
Good times. We launched in 2017.
18 months later we killed the product 🤷♂️.
Ah well, all good things come to an end. Or do they?
Soundcloud. 2022 - 2023.
Probably the best team I've ever worked for.
Many know of Soundcloud, but few understand its potential to build artists careers.
In as few words as possible: I helped rethink the app, from a music listening and music discovery pov. I conceived and helped launch the new Feed (which looks like but does not behave like) a Tik-Tok feed.
Localist. 2021 - present.
But, why?
We think neighborhoods are still mostly undiscovered. Yes, you can Google, or go to Trip Advisor. But have you tried it lately? There are MILLIONS of results, and there is no curation.
What you need is like a best friend in the city, who knows where you should go, what you should do.
That's what we're testing. Help us test! App improves constantly. It's built in Swift UI and powered by GraphQL, if you're interested.
Product Instructor. 2019 - present.
Pass the flame, not the torch.
I deeply enjoy training the next generation of Product Managers as lead instructor at Product School.
Find the video 👉 here and the transcript 👉 here.
Me as Keynote Speaker at ProductCon London 2019. Yes, Product Management feels like juggling chainsaws.
I've also recently completed a 1-year-long Product Management Training programme, tailor-made to form the next generation of Product leaders of a major US company - Cox Communications. All 152 of them!
No doubt, one of the most rewarding and gratifying experiences in my career. Intense and fun.
To teach is to learn. To learn is to understand. To understand is to know what to do.
The entire Product Development and Management team at Cox Communications. What an incredible set of talented and awesome people.
Some humbling quotes from students.
😳
"Mariano facilitated a great class. I was able to learn a great deal about Product Management. I am excited to expand on my knowledge of product and continue with reading and continuing education. The course was a great above intro into the world of product management. Mariano is very knowledgeable and inspirational. I loved the course."
"Mariano is a gifted instructor and brought a wealth of expertise to the class. I was impressed by the constant relevance and appropriateness of content that was shared (no 'fluff'). It was an enjoyable learning experience, and I learned a lot from the examples that were shared from personal experiences of the instructor as well as my classmates. 10/10 would recommend and am taking away valuable lessons I will begin applying on my journey as a PM."
"Mariano was a clear subject matter expert on Product and did a fantastic job of sharing his knowledge in a relatable way. He was kind, engaging, and a great instructor!"
"It is clear that Mariano has lots of experience as a product management practitioner and he shared several personal anecdotes."
"Mariano was extremely knowledgeable. I liked that he added personal examples to help explain concepts.
