John Vitzileos

I came into product management sideways — no technical background, no CS degree, just a lot of curiosity and a willingness to be the least technical person in the room until I wasn't. I've spent my career since then building things from scratch: launching new products at early-stage startups, leading consumer products at bigger companies, and most memorably, building and launching Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs. These days I'm Chief of Staff at Hinge, where I also lead our growth products team. What I care about most, though, is less than resume line items and more "how do I actually break in / level up / figure this out" moments, because I've lived a lot of them myself. I spent years convinced I wasn't "technical enough" to be a real PM, and I had to build that fluency the hard way, on the job, often by asking questions I was embarrassed to ask. That experience is probably why I've ended up coaching so many people into their first PM role, both inside and outside my own companies. I recognize the specific kind of stuck they're in, because I was there too. If you're trying to break into product from a non-obvious background, feeling out of your depth technically, or staring down a 0-to-1 problem with no clear playbook, I'd love to help you work through it.