Problem
Pier's employer product was live, but pilot-partner response had stalled. We still needed to learn whether a new employer could create and confidently share an opportunity.
Product management proof
Changing The Test Path When Pilot Signal Stalled
When pilot partners stayed quiet, I sequenced a lower-risk contingency test, protected the highest-risk relationships, and used the returned feedback to change Pier's roadmap, engineering work, and product positioning.
What I owned
I designed the tester sequence, defined the learning question, ran the contingency path, synthesized the returned signal, and translated it into roadmap, engineering, and positioning changes.
Result
The test showed that a fast creation flow was not enough when registration, listing presentation, dashboard context, and next actions still weakened employer confidence.
Partner details and private feedback have been generalized to preserve confidentiality.
What I noticed
Pier’s product helped employers create an opportunity, invite candidates into an AI-assisted interview, and review structured evidence. It had reached pilot partners, but their response stalled. Delivery was real progress; waiting was not a product-learning strategy.
The team needed outside usage signal without spending its highest-risk relationships on an early flow. I chose a staged contingency path: trusted friends and a strategic advisor first, with investor contacts held back.
At a glance
- Product area: employer registration, opportunity creation, share flow, dashboard context, and candidate-facing job listing
- Users: lower-risk outside evaluators; the pilot partners remained a separate path
- Collaborators: the technical cofounder owned core-product engineering; another cofounder supported a trusted introduction; I owned the test decision, outreach, synthesis, and product handoff
- Constraint: pilot-partner response had stalled, and rough-product testing carried relationship risk
- Decision: test the employer setup and share path with lower-risk outside users instead of waiting or escalating to investors
- Artifacts: sent test paths, returned feedback, structured insight notes, documented product problems, and roadmap and positioning updates
- Observable result: customer feedback changed Pier’s roadmap, engineering work, and product positioning
What I owned
I set the tester order, wrote and sent the outreach, defined the learning question, captured the returned feedback, and translated the findings into a coherent product problem for the technical cofounder.
The first returned report showed an important tension: the core creation flow could feel fast and useful, while the listing, dashboard state, and next action still made the result difficult to send confidently to candidates.
The separate feedback raised adjacent problems in registration and activation, including moments where the employer could not tell whether an action had worked or what to do next. Together, the signals showed that a fast setup flow was not enough if employers could not tell what had happened or what candidates would see next.
The product decision
The first returned signal changed how I framed the problem. Creating the opportunity was fast. The blocker was that an employer still could not confidently send it to candidates: the listing, dashboard state, and next action did not make the experience clear enough to share.
I documented that problem for the technical cofounder to evaluate against the core-product roadmap. I used the broader feedback to change our roadmap and product positioning rather than treating it as an isolated usability note.
Result
The contingency path changed what the team planned and how we described the product. The returned signal became a documented engineering question and added registration, activation, and unclear next states to the product picture. The pilot partners remained a separate path.
What I learned
I learned that a stalled signal should change the test path, not the evidence standard. The useful move was to protect the highest-risk relationships, find a lower-risk way to learn, and make the returned feedback concrete enough to change the roadmap.