_advocate for truly user-centric product development in e-commerce, network market platforms and digital ventures
_extensive experience in building products and features from scratch in web and native apps
_analytical and data-driven with profound experience in quantitative and qualitative testing
_experienced facilitator for collaborative workshops and outcome-oriented team player
_expert for agile software development (frameworks, tools and processes)
_servant leader in order to enable all members of a cross-functional team / department
_10 years of product experience in multiple industries and certified in SCRUM as Product Owner & Scrum Master
_passionate about consumer-facing products (UX/UI in web and app products: (experienced in all parts from research, ideation to data analysis, implementation and testing)
_experience building features with AI/ML technologies
_conversion optimization, conception, user research & usability testing, data-/KPI-driven product development and analytical skill set
_curiosity and appetite for learning and growth
_experience as co-founder/product lead of own projects
_juggling successfully multiple initiatives while keeping the focus on delivering valuable outcome
_a wrong decision is better than no decision. done is better than perfect.
“This is the real secret of life - to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” (Alan Watts)
My Mentoring Topics
- All things product management (from discovery to delivery).
- Agile methodologies & processes improvements (Scrum/Kanban, Lean, DoubleDiamond, ..)
- Experimentation (AB-/MV-Testing, FakeDoor Tests, ..)
- UX research
- Workshop facilitation (from ideation to project retrospectives)
- OKRs & KPI driven product development
- Breaking into Product Management
- ---
- Feel free to send your topics or questions and I will let you know asap if and how I can support - looking forward to meet you!
Y.
26.March 2023I recently had a mentoring session with Markus, and I found it to be a valuable experience. His expertise in product discovery and design thinking is impressive, and he provided me with clear guidance on how to move forward with my ideas.
During our session, Markus shared his knowledge generously, and his follow-up email provided me with a comprehensive list of resources that I found helpful.
What impressed me most about Markus was his commitment to collaboration and involving users in the discovery process. He believes in validating ideas early on in the process, which I believe will be key to my success.
Overall, I found Markus to be a knowledgeable and helpful mentor, and I would recommend him to anyone looking for guidance in product discovery and design thinking. Thank you, Markus, for your time and insights.
Z.
10.March 2023The session helped me a lot to clarify some of the questions I had regarding discovery. Markus explained his approach and discussed the trade-offs to make and where to strike a balance between using frameworks and being tactical. Thank you also for the detailed pointers on where I can read more on the topics we discussed.
M.
3.March 2023Scheduling a meeting with Markus was a breeze. During our session, he expertly helped me organize my preparation for the interview and provided valuable resources to enhance my knowledge. I highly recommend Markus for his extensive experience and professionalism.
M.
24.February 2023Markus is a great Mentor. He took the time to listen to my thoughts. Ask me specific questions to guide me in the right direction and showed a lot of empathy and understanding. Highly recommended!:)
P.
10.February 2023Super helpful. You gave me the feeling that you really are interested in the conversation in providing valuable input. Everything was well structured, hence nothing to be imrpoved from my end.
S.
25.September 2022My session with Markus was about the feedback on a recent case study I did. He really took the time to review the document and then provided to-the-point advice and clear direction for the next steps. Going above and beyond, he even shared a feedback email and listed some resources to help me close the gaps in my learning. Markus is a mentor who will give you the brutal truth and encourage you to move past your failures. Looking forward to my next session.
S.
26.August 2022Thank you very much Markus for the session today. Your insights on the Job as a Product Manager and possible entry paths were very helpful to me. I also value your additional information on founding startups alongside a full-time job a lot.
F.
5.July 2022I liked your active listening skills, talking from experience, share tour learnings, being open for any topic to discuss, and helping me to find a good direction in my decision making process for my next career step!
M.
20.October 2021lot of experience and tipps about testing and user research!
D.
24.September 2021It was interesting to hear from another Product Manager about the career trajectory in the profession. One phrase really struck me, “It’s hard to find your second product manager job. After that recruiters will be reaching out to you to offer you some positions at their companies.”
Markus helped me to identify the problem in my [application] -> [offer] funnel. That was my resume and cover letter, which were too generic. He also provided some examples on how to employ STAR technique to improve my resume. Last but not least, Markus provided some additional resources that might be useful during the PM job search.
J.
23.September 2021K.
4.August 2021I had a very insightful and inspiring session with Markus, he brings lots of experience!
G.
9.April 2021Our session was very helpful. You open up a lot of possibilities that I haven't thought about. I eager to try to apply everything we discussed and hopefully it will yield the expected results.
I found very easy to talk to you, very receptive and understanding. Obviously very knowledgeable as well.
I'm looking forward for our future meetings.
S.
31.March 2021I had a very helpful chat. Even though I wasn't necessarily at the right door with my question (my own mistake), Markus, as being a structured wide range thinker, had truly useful and good suggestions and guidelines on what to execute to get closer to my goal. Supportive & smart advisor. Thank you.
b.
22.March 2021Numerous insights about workshops
A.
8.March 2021INSPIRED - How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
Marty Cagan
How do today’s most successful tech companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla—design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than the vast majority of tech companies. In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love—and that will work for your business. With sections on assembling the right people and skillsets, discovering the right product, embracing an effective yet lightweight process, and creating a strong product culture, readers can take the information they learn and immediately leverage it within their own organizations—dramatically improving their own product efforts. Whether you’re an early stage startup working to get to product/market fit, or a growth-stage company working to scale your product organization, or a large, long-established company trying to regain your ability to consistently deliver new value for your customers, INSPIRED will take you and your product organization to a new level of customer engagement, consistent innovation, and business success. Filled with the author’s own personal stories—and profiles of some of today’s most-successful product managers and technology-powered product companies, including Adobe, Apple, BBC, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix—INSPIRED will show you how to turn up the dial of your own product efforts, creating technology products your customers love. The first edition of INSPIRED, published ten years ago, established itself as the primary reference for technology product managers, and can be found on the shelves of nearly every successful technology product company worldwide. This thoroughly updated second edition shares the same objective of being the most valuable resource for technology product managers, yet it is completely new—sharing the latest practices and techniques of today’s most-successful tech product companies, and the men and women behind every great product.
ViewLean UX - Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience
Jeff Gothelf
The Lean UX approach to interaction design is tailor-made for today's web-driven reality. In this insightful book, leading advocate Jeff Gothelf teaches you valuable Lean UX principles, tactics, and techniques from the ground up—how to rapidly experiment with design ideas, validate them with real users, and continually adjust your design based on what you learn. Inspired by Lean and Agile development theories, Lean UX lets you focus on the actual experience being designed, rather than deliverables. This book shows you how to collaborate closely with other members of the product team, and gather feedback early and often. You'll learn how to drive the design in short, iterative cycles to assess what works best for the business and the user. Lean UX shows you how to make this change—for the better. Frame a vision of the problem you're solving and focus your team on the right outcomes Bring the designers' toolkit to the rest of your product team Share your insights with your team much earlier in the process Create Minimum Viable Products to determine which ideas are valid Incorporate the voice of the customer throughout the project cycle Make your team more productive: combine Lean UX with Agile's Scrum framework Understand the organizational shifts necessary to integrate Lean UX Lean UX received the 2013 Jolt Award from Dr. Dobb's Journal as the best book of the year. The publication's panel of judges chose five notable books, published during a 12-month period ending June 30, that every serious programmer should read.
ViewUser Story Mapping - Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product
Jeff Patton, Peter Economy
User story mapping is a valuable tool for software development, once you understand why and how to use it. This insightful book examines how this often misunderstood technique can help your team stay focused on users and their needs without getting lost in the enthusiasm for individual product features. Author Jeff Patton shows you how changeable story maps enable your team to hold better conversations about the project throughout the development process. Your team will learn to come away with a shared understanding of what you’re attempting to build and why. Get a high-level view of story mapping, with an exercise to learn key concepts quickly Understand how stories really work, and how they come to life in Agile and Lean projects Dive into a story’s lifecycle, starting with opportunities and moving deeper into discovery Prepare your stories, pay attention while they’re built, and learn from those you convert to working software
ViewGrit - The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Angela Duckworth
"In this must-read book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, athletes, students, and business people--both seasoned and new--that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called "grit." Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research on grit, MacArthur "genius" Angela Duckworth explains why talent is hardly a guarantor of success. Rather, other factors can be even more crucial such as identifying our passions and following through on our commitments. Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently bemoaned her lack of smarts, Duckworth describes her winding path through teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not "genius" but a special blend of passion and long-term perseverance. As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duckworth created her own "character lab" and set out to test her theory. Here, she takes readers into the field to visit teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she's learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers--from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to the cartoon editor of The New Yorker to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll. Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that--not talent or luck--makes all the difference"--
View
Drive
Daniel H. Pink
The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.
ViewSprint - How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER “Sprint offers a transformative formula for testing ideas that works whether you’re at a startup or a large organization. Within five days, you’ll move from idea to prototype to decision, saving you and your team countless hours and countless dollars. A must read for entrepreneurs of all stripes.” —Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup From three partners at Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at more than a hundred companies. Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day: What’s the most important place to focus your effort, and how do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution? Now there’s a surefire way to answer these important questions: the sprint. Designer Jake Knapp created the five-day process at Google, where sprints were used on everything from Google Search to Google X. He joined Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky at Google Ventures, and together they have completed more than a hundred sprints with companies in mobile, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and more. A practical guide to answering critical business questions, Sprint is a book for teams of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to nonprofits. It’s for anyone with a big opportunity, problem, or idea who needs to get answers today.
ViewThe Art of the Start 2.0 - The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
Guy Kawasaki
THE CLASSIC BESTSELLING GUIDE TO LAUNCHING AND MAKING YOUR NEW PRODUCT, SERVICE OR IDEA A SUCCESS. 'The ultimate entrepreneurship handbook' - Arianna Huffington Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, small-business owner, intrapreneur, or not-for-profit leader, there's no shortage of advice on topics such as innovating, recruiting, fund raising, and branding. In fact, there are so many books, articles, websites, blogs, webinars, and conferences that many startups focus on the wrong priorities and go broke before they succeed. The Art of the Start 2.0 solves that problem by distilling Guy Kawasaki's decades of experience as one of the most hardworking and irreverent strategists in the business world. Guy understands the seismic changes in business over the last decade: Once-invulnerable market leaders are struggling. Many of the basics of getting established have become easier, cheaper, and more democratic. Business plans are no longer necessary. Social media has replaced PR and advertising as the key method of promotion. Crowdfunding is now a viable alternative to investors. The cloud makes basic infrastructure affordable for almost any new venture. The Art of the Start 2.0 will show you how to effectively deploy all these tools. It will help you master the fundamental challenges that have not changed: building a strong team, creating an awesome product or service, and facing down your competition.
ViewServant Leadership in Action - How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results
Ken Blanchard, Renee Broadwell
“The only way to create great relationships and results is through servant leadership. It's all about putting other people first.” – from the foreword by John Maxwell We've all seen the negative impact of self-serving leaders in every sector of our society. Not infrequently, they end up bringing down their entire organization. But there is another way: servant leadership. Servant leaders lead by serving their people, not by exalting themselves. This collection features forty-four renowned servant leadership experts and practitioners—prominent business executives, bestselling authors, and respected spiritual leaders—who offer advice and tools for implementing this proven, but for some still radical, leadership model. Edited by legendary business author and lifelong servant leader Ken Blanchard and his longtime editor Renee Broadwell, this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging guide ever published for what is, in every sense, a better way to lead.
ViewContinuous Discovery Habits - Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value
Teresa Torres
"If you haven't had the good fortune to be coached by a strong leader or product coach, this book can help fill that gap and set you on the path to success." - Marty Cagan How do you know that you are making a product or service that your customers want? How do you ensure that you are improving it over time? How do you guarantee that your team is creating value for your customers in a way that creates value for your business? In this book, you'll learn a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that will help you answer each of these questions, giving you the confidence to act while also preparing you to be wrong. You'll learn to balance action with doubt so that you can get started without being blindsided by what you don't get right. If you want to discover products that customers love-that also deliver business results-this book is for you.
ViewThe Design of Everyday Things - Revised and Expanded Edition
Don Norman
Design doesn't have to complicated, which is why this guide to human-centered design shows that usability is just as important as aesthetics. Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization. The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time. The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how -- and why -- some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
ViewNever Split the Difference - Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
Chris Voss, Tahl Raz
A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home. After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles—counterintuitive tactics and strategies—you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life. Life is a series of negotiations you should be prepared for: buying a car, negotiating a salary, buying a home, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner. Taking emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level, Never Split the Difference gives you the competitive edge in any discussion.
ViewDrive - The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Daniel H. Pink
Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people - at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book DRIVE: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATES US, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does - and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In DRIVE, he reveals the three elements of true motivation: AUTONOMY - the desire to direct our own lives; MASTERY - the urge to get better and better at something that matters; PURPOSE - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward. DRIVE is bursting with big ideas - the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.
ViewThe Fearless Organization - Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth
Amy C. Edmondson
Conquer the most essential adaptation to the knowledge economy The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent—but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of "fitting in" and "going along" spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule or intimidate. Not every idea is good, and yes there are stupid questions, and yes dissent can slow things down, but talking through these things is an essential part of the creative process. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud; it creates a culture in which a minor flub or momentary lapse is no big deal, and where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing. This book explores this culture of psychological safety, and provides a blueprint for bringing it to life. The road is sometimes bumpy, but succinct and informative scenario-based explanations provide a clear path forward to constant learning and healthy innovation. Explore the link between psychological safety and high performance Create a culture where it’s “safe” to express ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes Nurture the level of engagement and candor required in today’s knowledge economy Follow a step-by-step framework for establishing psychological safety in your team or organization Shed the "yes-men" approach and step into real performance. Fertilize creativity, clarify goals, achieve accountability, redefine leadership, and much more. The Fearless Organization helps you bring about this most critical transformation.
ViewLao Tse. Tao Te Ching
Vladimir Antonov
The book Tao Te Ching was written by great Chinese spiritual adept Lao Tse about 2500 years ago. It is one of the most fundamental textbooks on philosophy and methodology of spiritual development.
View
T.
18.April 2023I enjoyed talking to Marcus. He's structured and provided me with a good recomendations in a short time. Gave me tips how to communicate my research better and how to back my decisions. Totally fulfilled my expectations.