James macinnes
Startup Mentor/Consultant
Warrington, England
07866-961-763
[email protected]
About
I work with organisations to create/innovate and grow businesses, services, and products that customers and users alike will love.
Since 2014, I’ve lived in the world of startups. Working with and supporting, teams of talented individuals to achieve what some may deem - the impossible. Over that time, I've helped raise £1.5 million in seed funding and have transformed ‘ideas’ into fully-fledged businesses.
I’m driven by ‘lean’ business/product development, passionate about design thinking and always motivated to get outside of the building to learn from users.
Please see my portfolio for examples of value I have added to the companies I have worked with. Also, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the individuals I have helped along the way.
If you’re an innovative, forward-thinking company who is looking for someone to help drive your business/product development, then I’d love to hear from you and discuss whether I’d be the right fit for what you need.
Interested? Get in touch!
Skills
Product
Product/delivery management
Agile development/management
U/X
Product/customer development
Design thinking
Data analysis
Business
Lean business development
Business mentoring/founder development
Business modelling
Sales coaching
Market analysis
Marketing (copywriting, brand development, PPC & social media campaign management)
Pitching/public speaking
Fundraising
Portfolio
Here you will find details of the projects I have managed, consulted on and developed myself.
Product Manager Roles
Menu Guru
Key Achievements
Development of business/product from Ideation to 'Growth' stage
£500k raised, throughout three seed funding rounds
Business-critical pivot identified, lead and executed
3000 + allergy sufferers served over 9 months
User satisfaction rating of 4.5 stars maintained for 9 months, with an average of 20% of users submitting a rating
Feedback received from 79% of users who submitted feedback, indicated that the presence of Menu Guru would influence where they choose to eat out
Daily average use of 2 users per day, per venue (proving that the system has replaced existing alternatives)
NHS trial secured, to prove the effectiveness of technology in assisting allergy sufferers whilst dining out (Dr. Shuayb Elkhalifa - study date TBC)
R&D partnership established with Pret A Manger, to assist in the creation of their allergy system and intergration into Menu Guru
Click below to view a more in depth case study
Reference
Sunil Mistry (Founder)
[email protected]
Passmate
Key Achievements
Development of business/product from Ideation to 'Growth' stage
£400K in seed funding raised, over three funding rounds.
Business-critical pivot identified, lead and executed
55 lessons booked through a concierge M.V.P, whilst exploring problem-solution fit
213 lessons booked through the system over the last 3 months
383 lessons booked through the system to date
Conversion rate increased from 0.91% to 4.89% over a 6 month period
COCA reduced from £48 to £14 over a 6 month period
20% of Liverpool based driving instructors on boarded during a 3 month period
91% of instructors retained on the platform
Strategies developed to increase LTV of customer from £24.55 to £73.55
£10,317 of transactional revenue brought in through the system to date
Partnership developed with learner driver insurer 'My First UK' to bolster revenue streams (forecasted to bring in an additional £1million in Y5)
Founders developed from recent university graduates, to lean business practitioners (back-able, credible, investable)
Click below to view a more in depth case study
Reference
Gavin Boak (Founder)
[email protected]
Sam Robinson (Co-founder)
[email protected]
Innovation COnsultancy Roles
Umii
Umii was a project I was brought onto for six weeks. It was essentially a social network for university students, with an emphasis on facilitating new friendships.
The founder was ready to throw the towel in and the product team had no idea how to increase activation or user retention.
Key Achievements
Existing user data reviewed and mapped (blockers and constraints identified)
Internal test conducted (recent graduates), feedback gathered and bugs identified
Bugs and improvements costed
External user testing with The University Of Liverpool students
User panel built
Ideation workshop conducted/areas for improvement identified
Proposal put forward to increase activation by 8.3% within a month.
Product development strategy devised and pitched to board members
Reference
Elliot Perks (Founder)
[email protected]
Teacherfolio
Teacherfolio was my first venture into 'Ed-Tech'.
The founder's vision was to create a digital portfolio platform, that would allow Teachers to showcase their personality and teaching ability, to stop great teachers from going un-noticed and to provide schools with a better 'school/teacher fit'.
To explore how responsive both schools and teachers would be to this type of product, I built a 'wizard of oz' prototype - using existing services, to see how users and customers would interact and engage with it.
The result was that two teacher training institutions wanted to onboard all of their student teachers, to help aid their student's employability upon graduation.
Reference
www.teacherfolio.com
John Richardson/ Elizabeth Foreman (Founders)
[email protected]
Playback Live
https://partners.playback.live/
In a similar fashion to Umii, I was brought onto Playback Live as the founder had failed to generate any traction within the market and the product team had built a product that wasn't usable.
Due to resource constraints, I only had 4 weeks of dev time to produce a workable product. To make matters worse, the team were planning their next sprint when I took over and had no clear direction from the previous P.M on what was of real priority.
I quickly switched the team from a sprint to Kanban and worked with the Dev's to understand the negative scenarios and technical issues. We then prioritised them accordingly and created a backlog of 30 tasks (down from 144).
Alongside identifying and resolving technical issues, I was able to assist the team with major U/X changes (as the product had been built without any design input). I also assisted the founder in identifying his early adaptors and re-focused his sales efforts, to help begin to generate traction.
Reference
https://partners.playback.live/
David Allan (Founder)
[email protected]
Startups
Projects that I founded.
Kuhlab (B2C)
Kuhlab was a network for creative professionals, I launched in 2014.
It enabled creatives to connect, post jobs and showcase their work to one another and was cited in the Manchester Evening News, as one of Manchester's top startups to watch in 2015.
Kuhlab was the first of its kind, but the market soon became saturated with copy cats - that had big budgets.
From working with digital agencies and freelancers during its development. I quickly realised that agencies had a real problem connecting with freelance talent and managing the teams of contractors they outsourced work to. I then decided to pivot to a B2B play, to establish a USP within the market.
#personalproject
Kuhlab 2.0 (B2B)
Kuhlab 2.0 was a resource management tool for businesses that regularly outsourced work to freelancers.
It enabled businesses to manage, recruit and scale up their freelance workforce.
After working with a design team to develop the user flow and conceptual designs for the platform. I recruited a CTO, who later due to personal circumstances - destroyed the work he had completed on the platform. Crushed, I pitched the business to Nova and was instead offered a job.
#personalproject
Dateplan
Date plan was my first experiment in lean business development, following the lessons that I learned from working with Nova.
My vision was to create a platform that 'gamified' relationships - encouraging couples (regardless of age) to spend more quality time with each other.
I created a simplistic M.V.P to test customer interest and within three months, the service had more than 500 users (without any significant marketing budget).
Deepbridge capital agreed to invest £50k, to further test the market. However, economic conditions that forced the company to pull the majority of its B2C investments in an effort to focus on B2B.
I've been asked on many occasions when the service will come back and hope to one day realise my vision.
#personalproject
Music
.
Music Productions
Why include music in my portfolio? For the simple reason that it is a product.
I'd like to think that the music I produce is a reflection of my professional attitude and attention to detail.
You can hear my most recent production via clicking on the image above. It's due to be released on 10/04
Freelance DJ
In another life, I successfully turned a hobby into a full-time job. For
18 months I performed to students and club-goers alike across the northwest (as well as at some notable festivals). I believe that this showcases that whatever I turn my hand to, I can achieve.
Passmate
Reference
www.passmate.co.uk
Passmate began life as a simple marketplace aimed at connecting learners with driving instructors.
Through conducting and analysing vast quantities of interviews with users, I was able to identify that learners were still reliant on word of mouth to find a driving instructor and were reluctant to engage with online platforms. From analysing the patterns, it became apparent that learners were looking for insights into an instructor’s personality and teaching style. Information that was rarely found online, other than scattered throughout reviews.
My decision as P.M, was to create a platform that assessed a learners personality/learning style and then matched the user with instructors who had been reviewed highly by learners with similar personality traits and learning styles to them.
The result was an outstanding success, with over 90% of Passmate’s 10,000+ users opting to complete the assessment and view their results. Driving instructors and schools also saw value in their superior quality of lead that Passmate generated for them. Infact within 3 months, Passmate had on boarded nearly 20% of Liverpool’s driving instructors to the platform.
Whilst managing the product development, I also assisted the business in raising over £400k in seed funding and helped develop the business model that would enable them to secure growth/scale funding.
Kind words from clients & colleagues