Paul Ricketts

Experience

• 

  Honeycomb Labs

  Partner

  Apr 2023 - Present

  We're a scrappy, speedy, MVP validating skunkworks for hire. Even the strongest product teams struggle to quantify which big, forward-looking bets are worth making, and how much to bet on each one. Knowing something will cost a lot while confronting uncertainty about how users will respond can kill ideas with transformative potential and dead-end a product roadmap. Conserving capital and driving focus are important (especially now) but so is trying new things (especially now). To do both, it’s critical to remove as much of the guesswork as possible. We’re a super lean product development shop that works with your team to remove the guesswork and push past ambiguity around the most impactful things to build next.

  • We are a scrappy bolt-on skunkworks for software companies that to:
  • * Infuse roadmap planning with practices that generate a higher volume of novel ideas
  • * Explore and quickly validate possible new directions
  • * Reinforce foundations in optimization and move to faster feedback loops in their product development process
  • Learn more at honeycomblabs.io
• 

  Nearside

  VP, Product & Design

  Nov 2020 - Jan 2023

  At Nearside, we believe that starting a business should be easier. Our mission is to provide accessible, transparent, and fair checking and lending products to help people start and grow their businesses. If you’re someone with an idea that can change a life or a community, we’re ready to help you get started. It’s time to Nearside!

  • * Assumed product leadership role from founding CEO as the company grew, set ultimate product strategy with input from other members of the leadership team
  • * Led Nearside's product and design teams and managed the company roadmap in partnership with engineering leadership
  • * Teams launched and built out business checking, term loans and incorporation SaaS products during my tenure, opening 30K small business accounts
  • _______________________
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20220816060439/https://www.nearside.com/
  • Best known for Nearside Checking, at Nearside our mission was to help small businesses start and grow. In addition the checking account, we sought to support micro-SMBs with products like a line of credit, term loans, and incorporation services. We had a successful exit during a tech recession, acquired by Plastiq in November of 2022.
• 

  Go

  Head of Product

  Nov 2016 - Jan 2020

  Most accidents don't need to happen.

  • * Set product roadmap for Go's iOS, server and full-stack engineering teams through and beyond Series B (raised December 2017)
  • * Featured in the App Store 3 times. Other notable releases:
  • March 2017 became the first app to offer insurance via Apple Pay
  • September 2018 released 100% policyholder self-service, lead to 40% absolute increase in first month retention over the preceding 9 months.
  • October 2019 driver's club redesign, adding safe map and tow dispatch in all 50 states.
  • _______________________
  • Go was a driver's club for iPhone. Users scan a driver's license and get an instant insurance quote with prefilled cars and drivers, and can get insured in under a minute. Beginning in 2019, drivers also used Go to get roadside assistance anywhere in the United States.
• 

  Primer, Inc.

  Product Manager

  Jan 2015 - Oct 2016

  • * iOS SDK product lead
  • * Ran 7 growth consulting client engagements ranging from 3-12 months each. Clients included Caviar (Square at the time), PicsArt, Academia, and Go (the team I subsequently joined).
  • * Launched key product features like screen templates (which massively improved usability of the web app) and live demos (which made the value proposition much less abstract and sales pitch much more compelling to our target users: marketers).
  • _______________________
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20170603005357/https://goprimer.com/
  • During my tenure, Primer made instant, dramatic optimizations to native mobile experiences possible for anyone with an idea for how to grow their app. PMs, marketers, and others can create brand new screens and flows targeting specific traffic sources, personas, or conversion events, and have them live within minutes. The Primer product team also runs full service growth engagements with startups at every stage.
• 

  Lenddo

  Credit Operations Lead, LATAM

  Sep 2013 - Sep 2014

  We are the pioneers of using alternative data to make better decisions. With over 10 years experience in risk modeling, we offer unrivalled expertise. We are a growing global team of data scientists, credit risk experts, developers and business development professionals. We are creative, ambitious and diverse. Our ability to find meaning in large, unstructured data is your key to better business decisions. We offer leading alternative credit scoring, identity verification and insights products to financial institutions in more than 20 emerging markets. To date, LenddoEFL has allowed more than 50 financial institutions to run over 12 million assessments for people with limited information, allowing them to disburse over $2.5 billion USD in credit. We are already changing the world, but we are just getting started.

  • * Ran credit operations for Latin America region (Colombia & Mexico). Managed an international team.
  • * Managed accounts for scoring and data products with strategic partners in Latin America
  • _______________________
  • Lenddo is a FinTech startup serving the emerging middle class in the developing world. Our users were thin-file, often part of the informal economy and couldn’t get loans from established banks that use conventional underwriting techniques. We offered a dead simple application process on web / Android, mining the social graph to underwrite affordable loans for this poorly understood segment.
• 

  RPX Corporation

  Corporate Development Associate

  Nov 2009 - Jan 2013

  • * Validated potential new lines of business, building and maintaining model P&Ls, talking to potential customers, supporting sales ramp-up and organizing initial business processes for launch.
  • _______________________
  • RPX was a high-growth startup (IPO in May, 2011) during my tenure there, offering risk solutions and promoting transparency in the secondary market for US patents