Kent Albert Ozcelik

Head of Product / First Product Manager
Product-first, tech-literate, business-oriented

Executive Summary

Product leader with a mechanical engineering background and 8+ years of experience across IoT, B2B SaaS, and early-stage product building. Proven ability to build products and product organizations from zero, operate in high-ambiguity environments, and align product, business, and technical constraints into coherent execution.

Comfortable owning full product scope (strategy → delivery → growth), managing small teams, and working directly with founders and CEOs. Strong bias toward questioning assumptions, validating intuition with data, and framing product decisions through business impact.

Looking for: First PM or Head of Product roles in early-stage to scale-up environments.
Work mode: Remote-only.

Core Strengths

Zero-to-one product building
Product strategy & vision ownership
UX, activation & onboarding optimization
Business-oriented product decision-making
Cross-functional leadership (engineering, design, founders)
Operating where clarity does not yet exist
Challenging the status quo constructively

Professional Experience

Partner / Head of Product

Frava — B2B SaaS
January 2024 – Present

Early-stage B2B SaaS for agencies managing portfolios, scheduling, and accounting.

Scope & Ownership

Full ownership of product, marketing, business model, and sales
Acts as sole product decision-maker alongside co-founder

Key Contributions

Redefined product direction and priorities
Improved legacy UI/UX to increase activation
Reviewed and refined pricing and business model
Identified and tested new acquisition channels
Prioritized market segments and customization strategy

Context

Extremely lean environment (co-founder + Kent)
High autonomy, full-stack product responsibility

Product Manager

Livestorm — B2B SaaS (≈$35M raised)
January 2022 – January 2024

Worked on a core dashboard scope within a scaling SaaS organization.

Team Setup

5 engineers
1 dedicated designer
Strong collaboration with leadership and stakeholders

Key Impact

+11% activation rate through improved onboarding UI and empty-state management
+20–25% signup rate via redesigned signup flow
Led complex initiatives including a full roles & permissions system redesign

Challenges Handled

Managed trade-offs between technical debt and new feature delivery
Navigated resource allocation conflicts while maintaining delivery velocity

IoT Product Manager

Soprema — Industrial Group (≈$3B revenue)
April 2016 – January 2022

Built an IoT-focused product unit from scratch inside a large industrial organization.

Scope & Ownership

Built the department, product strategy, and product line
Worked directly with the CEO
Owned product end-to-end: discovery → specs → development → business model

Key Responsibilities

Translate business needs into functional specifications
Select hardware, connectivity, and cloud architectures
Oversee development of connected products and platforms
Define pricing and business models for new product lines

R&D Engineer

Soprema
November 2015 – April 2016

Early engineering role that evolved quickly into product ownership responsibilities.

Education

Mechanical Engineering — Industrial Specialization
INSA Strasbourg (France)
2010 – 2015

Focus areas:

Project & team management
Mechanical design & materials
Supply chain management
Entrepreneurship (legal, marketing, finance, business development)

Technical & Product Skillset

Product & Business

Product vision & roadmap ownership
Functional specifications & architecture
UX optimization & activation
Business model & pricing discussions
Growth and conversion thinking

Technical Profile

Product-first, tech-literate
Codes web applications for personal projects
Comfortable discussing architecture and APIs with engineers
Can read backend code partially
Not a production debugger; collaborates closely with engineering
Uses AI as an accelerator for technical work

Tools & Environment

Product & Ops: Linear, Notion, Slack
Web & SaaS: React-based stacks, Supabase
Analytics & Growth: Product analytics, funnel analysis, CRO
Automation mindset: API-first, low-infra, pragmatic setups

Languages

French: Bilingual
English: Proficient (TOEIC 990/990)
German: Basic

Work Style & Decision-Making

Intuition must be validated with data
If data contradicts intuition, data quality is questioned—not blindly followed
Comfortable operating in:
- High ambiguity
- Undefined scopes
- “Build clarity where none exists” scenarios
Direct communicator who asks a lot of questions
Strong aversion to overly political organizations

What Kent Is / Is Not

Unusually good at

Questioning the status quo and reframing problems through a business lens.

Not

A PM who executes without questioning. Assumptions are always challenged.

Role Fit

Best suited for:

Head of Product (early-stage to scale-up)
First Product Manager
Product Lead with strategic scope

Not a fit for:

Pure delivery / ticket management roles
Highly political organizations
Roles with no strategic or business exposure

Logistics

Work mode: Remote-only
Geography: No preference
Citizenship: French (EU work authorization)

If you want next, I can:

Produce a 1-page executive CV
Write a founder-facing “why Kent” pitch
Tailor this profile to a specific job description
Convert it into a LinkedIn About + Experience section

Kent, as he actually is

Kent is someone who cannot help but question things. Not in a contrarian or ego-driven way, but in a “does this actually make sense?” way. He has a low tolerance for rituals, habits, and decisions that exist simply because they always have. If something feels misaligned with reality — business reality, user reality, technical reality — he will push on it.

That trait defines almost everything else about him.

He’s not loud. He’s not theatrical. He doesn’t posture as “the smartest guy in the room.” But he will keep asking questions until the logic holds. And if it doesn’t, he won’t pretend it does just to keep things smooth.

That makes him extremely valuable in the right environment — and frustrating in the wrong one.

What Kent is genuinely good at

1. Turning fog into structure

Kent is at his best when things are unclear.

Early-stage products, messy dashboards, half-defined markets, teams that feel busy but directionless — these are situations where he becomes useful fast. He has spent a large part of his career building clarity where none existed, whether that was:

creating an IoT product line from scratch inside a large industrial group,
untangling complex SaaS flows and permissions systems,
or owning an entire product + marketing + business surface in a tiny startup.

He doesn’t panic in ambiguity. He assumes ambiguity is normal — and that clarity is something you build, not something you wait for.

What he does almost instinctively is:

identify what actually matters,
strip away noise,
and force decisions to connect back to real outcomes (users, revenue, adoption, feasibility).

2. Connecting product decisions to business reality

Kent does not treat product as an abstract discipline.

Every feature, flow, or UX decision is mentally tied to:

activation,
conversion,
revenue,
cost,
or long-term maintainability.

He’s very comfortable reframing conversations like:

“Is this actually worth the engineering time?”
“What business problem are we solving here?”
“If this works, how does it move the needle?”

That comes partly from his engineering background, partly from working in environments where resources were limited and trade-offs were unavoidable.

You can expect Kent to:

push back on “nice-to-haves”,
question vanity metrics,
and ask uncomfortable but necessary questions when effort and impact don’t line up.

3. Being product-first, but tech-literate enough to matter

Kent is not an engineer pretending to be a PM, nor a PM who’s afraid of technical discussions.

He understands systems well enough to:

discuss architecture meaningfully with engineers,
read backend code partially,
reason about APIs, data flows, and constraints,
and spot when something is becoming over-engineered or fragile.

At the same time, he knows his limits. He doesn’t try to hero-debug production systems alone. He collaborates, asks the right questions, and increasingly uses AI as an accelerator rather than a crutch.

This makes him a good bridge:

between product and engineering,
between ambition and feasibility.

4. Improving things that already exist

Kent has a strong track record not just in building new things, but in making existing products better.

At Livestorm, that translated into:

measurable improvements in activation (+11%),
significant signup increases (20–25%),
and the ability to work through deeply complex topics like roles, permissions, and technical debt without losing sight of user impact.

He’s particularly good at:

onboarding flows,
empty states,
first-time user experience,
and identifying where users get stuck, confused, or disengaged.

What Kent is like as a person

Thoughtful, but not passive

Kent thinks before he speaks, but when he does speak, it’s usually to add substance — not noise. He’s not someone who fills silence for comfort. He’s comfortable sitting with a problem until it’s properly framed.

Direct, but not aggressive

He doesn’t sugarcoat issues, but he’s not confrontational for sport. When he challenges something, it’s because he believes ignoring it would be irresponsible.

Independent, sometimes stubborn

Once Kent has reasoned his way to a position, he doesn’t abandon it easily. That can come across as stubborn — but it’s usually rooted in logic, not ego. If you show him better data or a stronger argument, he will change his mind.

Low tolerance for politics

What drains him fastest is organizational theater: decisions made for optics, endless alignment meetings with no ownership, or power games detached from outcomes. He functions best where honesty and accountability are valued over consensus-for-consensus’s-sake.

Where Kent is a great fit

Kent thrives in environments that are:

Early-stage to scale-up
Founder-led
Outcome-driven
Slightly chaotic, but ambitious
Open to questioning assumptions

He’s especially effective as:

a first PM,
a Head of Product in a small team,
or a product lead who owns real scope and decisions.

He works best when:

he can see the full picture,
his decisions actually matter,
and feedback loops are short.

Remote-first environments suit him well — he’s self-directed, disciplined, and doesn’t need constant supervision to stay effective.

Where he is not a good fit

Kent will struggle in organizations that:

expect PMs to “just execute” predefined roadmaps,
prioritize internal politics over product outcomes,
treat questioning as disloyalty,
or mistake busyness for progress.

He’s not someone you hire to:

manage Jira tickets quietly,
rubber-stamp leadership decisions,
or maintain the status quo.

If an organization is uncomfortable being challenged, Kent will feel out of place — and eventually disengage.

What you can realistically expect from Kent

If you work with Kent, you can expect:

Clear thinking in messy situations
Honest feedback, even when it’s inconvenient
Strong ownership of outcomes, not just tasks
Product decisions grounded in business reality
Someone who asks why before how
A partner who cares deeply about doing things right, not just doing them fast

You should not expect:

blind agreement,
quiet compliance,
or unquestioning execution.

Kent is the kind of person you want early, when things are still fragile and undefined — not when everything is already polished and political.

Target Roles

Open to First Product Manager or Head of Product roles, depending on company stage and scope.

Preferred Company Stage

Early-stage to scale-up environments.

Management Experience

Yes — currently manages people and has done so in prior roles.

Scope of Ownership (by role)

Soprema: Built the product organization, product, and department from scratch; full ownership.
Livestorm: Owned a subset of the product (dashboard scope).
Frava: Full ownership of product, marketing, business, and sales.

Product Responsibilities

Has owned product vision, roadmap prioritization, go-to-market decisions, pricing, and packaging across roles.

Team & Collaboration

Livestorm: Worked with 5 engineers and 1 dedicated designer.
Frava: Worked directly with co-founder in a two-person team.
Soprema: Worked directly with the CEO.

Conflict & Complexity Management

Experienced managing technical debt vs delivery trade-offs, particularly at Livestorm during a complex roles and permissions system redesign.

Measurable Impact

+11% activation rate at Livestorm through onboarding UI and empty-state improvements.
+20–25% increase in signup rate through improved signup flow.

Decision-Making Style

Uses intuition to generate hypotheses, which are then validated with data.
If data contradicts intuition, questions data relevance and quality rather than defaulting blindly.

Ambiguity Tolerance

No strong preference for problem type; extensive experience building clarity where none exists, which is described as the most challenging and familiar scenario.

Technical Profile

Product-first, tech-literate.
Codes web applications for personal projects.
Can partially read backend code and reason about APIs and architecture.
Does not independently debug production systems.
Uses AI assistance for technical acceleration.

Work Preferences

Remote-only.
French timezone.
No relocation preference.

Work Authorization

French citizen (EU work authorization).

Organizational Fit

Strong preference to avoid overly political organizations.

Compensation Expectations (Cash Only)

Product Manager: €60–70k/year
First Product Manager: €70–80k/year
Head of Product: €80–90k/year
No equity appetite.

Availability

Available immediately.

References

Julien Michel, Head of Product at Livestorm (former manager).
Berkay Yildiz, Co-founder at Frava.

Reason for Availability

Currently partner at early-stage startup (Frava) that is not yet generating sufficient revenue to support both founders.
With a baby on the way, seeking stable, predictable income.
Decision is practical, not performance-related.

Career Narrative (One-Line)

Product development from scratch, starting with IoT platforms and dashboards, then transitioning to B2B SaaS at Livestorm, and currently owning full product scope at Frava.

1. People management depth

How many people have you directly managed?

Kent has directly managed small teams, typically 1–6 people depending on context.
At Livestorm, he worked day-to-day with 5 engineers and a dedicated designer, leading product scope and priorities.
At Frava, he currently operates in a very lean setup (co-founder + himself), which limits formal people management but requires full ownership and leadership across functions.

(This positions you as experienced with small teams, without claiming org-scale management you haven’t had.)

Engineers only, or PMs / designers too?

Primarily engineers and designers.
Kent has not yet managed other PMs directly, but has operated with full PM ownership and cross-functional leadership responsibilities.

(HR hears honesty + future growth potential.)

Any hiring experience?

Kent has been involved in early-stage team shaping and role definition, particularly in startup contexts, but has not led large-scale hiring pipelines yet.
He is comfortable participating in hiring decisions and assessing candidates, especially for technical and product-adjacent roles.

(This avoids claiming end-to-end hiring ownership while still sounding credible.)

Any performance management or difficult conversations?

Yes, particularly around prioritization, technical debt, and scope pressure.
At Livestorm, Kent regularly had to navigate difficult conversations with engineers and leadership when delivery expectations conflicted with technical sustainability, especially during a major roles and permissions redesign.

(This is true, grounded, and shows maturity without inventing HR-style performance plans.)

2. Leadership style in conflict

What happens when leadership disagrees with you?

Kent is comfortable with disagreement and sees it as part of good product work.
When leadership disagrees, he focuses on making trade-offs explicit — impact, cost, risk — rather than trying to “win” the argument.
If a different direction is chosen, he aligns and executes fully, while ensuring risks are understood and documented.

What happens when engineering pushes back?

Kent treats engineering pushback as a signal, not an obstacle.
He expects engineers to challenge feasibility and timelines, and he adjusts scope or sequencing accordingly.
At Livestorm, this was particularly important when balancing technical debt against feature delivery under pressure.

Tell me about a time you lost the argument

During the roles and permissions system overhaul at Livestorm, there were cases where Kent advocated for slowing feature work to address deeper technical debt.
In some instances, leadership chose to prioritize short-term delivery. Kent aligned with that decision, adjusted scope to reduce risk, and continued execution while keeping technical concerns visible for future planning.

(This is a strong “lost but aligned” answer — HR likes this a lot.)

3. Scale & structure

Have you operated in a 50–150 person product organization?

Kent has worked in both large organizations and scaling startups, but his direct product ownership has typically been within small to mid-sized teams rather than large, multi-layered product orgs.
He is most effective where ownership is clear and feedback loops are short.

Have you dealt with layered leadership and long planning cycles?

Yes, particularly at Soprema, where Kent worked directly with executive leadership and navigated longer planning horizons while building a new product unit.
That said, his strongest experience is in environments where strategy and execution remain closely connected.

(This positions your boundary clearly and honestly.)

4. Commercial outcomes

Can you link product work to business impact?

At Livestorm, Kent’s work on onboarding and signup flows led to measurable improvements in activation (+11%) and signup conversion (+20–25%), directly impacting the efficiency of acquisition efforts.
More broadly, his product decisions consistently focus on conversion quality, scalability, and long-term maintainability, even when direct revenue attribution is complex.

(HR doesn’t need exact euros — this is enough.)

How do you decide when a feature is not worth building?

Kent evaluates features based on expected impact, implementation cost, and opportunity cost.
If the business or user impact is unclear, he prefers to validate assumptions first or deprioritize in favor of clearer wins.

5. Cultural adaptability

Can you operate in imperfect environments?

Yes. Kent has spent much of his career operating in imperfect, constrained environments, from large industrial organizations building new capabilities to early-stage startups with limited resources.
While he has a low tolerance for politics, he is pragmatic and focuses on making progress within constraints while pushing for improvement.

(This line directly neutralizes the “rigidity” concern.)

6. Motivation & stability

Why now?

Kent is currently a partner at an early-stage startup that is not yet generating enough revenue to support both founders.
With a baby on the way, he is prioritizing financial stability, which makes this a practical and timely transition.

Where do you want to be in 3–5 years?

Kent aims to be in a senior product leadership role, owning meaningful scope in a product-driven company, with the ability to influence strategy, mentor others, and build strong product foundations.

What would make you leave a role after 12 months?

A lack of ownership, inability to influence product direction, or an environment where questioning assumptions is discouraged would be strong signals of misfit.