Seattle · Sandpoint
Erik Kjell
Companies
I'm working on a problem that frustrates almost everyone in very different ways: managing money. Countless companies have tried to improve budgeting. Every new attempt stalls for an obvious reason in retrospect: making money is exciting; spending more than you make is demoralizing. A whopping 75% of Americans put it off, earning budgeting a permanent place at the bottom of 175 million to-do lists. Our solution does a 180 on the backwardness of budgeting with a bold new idea we'll soon unveil. Here's a hint: Spending the money you make is way more fun with Clutch. Ping me if you want to see how.
Before she was even born, my first daughter pulled on my heart strings, leading me into the murky world of estate planning. I decided it shouldn't be so complicated or elite. So I worked with 100+ lawyers nationwide to make the whole process DIY for middle-class Americans. Millions of people use the Tomorrow app to prepare for risk with ready-to-sign wills, trusts, and advance directives. Far beyond fill-in-the-blank online forms, every decision you make family-centric. When you're done, every legal document is programmatically tailored to complex family situations and legal statues of each state. On its path to Series B, Tomorrow was acquired by all-digital insurance company Ethos in 2022 and is now fully-integrated into their core business.
10 years ago before Fintech was what it is today, I co-created Playmark, the first online royalty payment platform that enabled licensees to commercialize the rights of 1,800+ NFL players on all 32 teams. Playmark was seed funded by Dan Nordstrom in 2012 and sold to the NFL Players Association in 2014. The NFLPA uses it to sub-license digital assets from brands like EA and Topps, collect royalty payments, and remit 8% of sales revenue directly to the athletes.
Metrics
To improve conversion on Dior.com, I did a comprehensive UX evaluation on the pre-checkout user interface to deliver a strategic A/B testing roadmap for Q4, 2023 - 2024. Each hypothesis aims to improve KPIs to lower cart abandonment, increase average order value, and accelerate transaction time.
To raise retention rates for the world's most popular subscription service, I led an independent engineering team that helped economists at Amazon curate global data to make more informed financial projections for the executive team. The project was renewed 4x. I'd love to tell you more but the specific project details are protected by an NDA.
UI+UX
To make international remittance easier, faster, and more affordable, I co-created the UI+UX and led the front-end development team for MoveMoney.com — the first SMS-first mobile wallet to tokenize fiat currencies with a US-regulated stablecoin protocol built on the blockchain. Now, wage workers in the US. can send smaller amounts of money more often to their families in Mexico for 50% less than PayPal.
To help hospitals reduce turnover from job frustration and isolation, I designed the Highnote app to give nurses, doctors, and administrators a way to give and get remote team support. With Highnote, medical professionals can put one hand in their pocket and reach specialty groups distributed across hospitals anywhere in the world. Within months of launching the new mobile app, Highnote closed HCA—the largest health system in America.
Growth
Rates
If you need a 1/4 time Chief Product Officer as an executive partner, I can help you accelerate product-led growth for Horizon 1 initiatives (immediate impact) or I can create net new products for Horizon 2 initiatives (long-term impact).
If you have a working product that needs to perform better, I will recommend design improvements you can ship immediately. If you need a new product, I will write a requirements document and design a V1.0 product you can ship in 3-6 months.
If you're the founder of a venture-scale company with an ambitious product vision, grab a time slot on my calendar and let's do a video call. You can send your deck ahead or wait to present it—either way works. After we meet, I'll give you a go/no-go decision in a day.
Investments
I invested in Coinbase's seed round because I believe decentralized cryptocurrency should be as native to the internet as its foundational protocols. Even though the Coinbase marketplace is centralized, its marketplace increases the probability that a cryptocoin winner emerges and makes internet money work.
I invested in Instacart's seed round because the timing was right for online grocery shopping to finally work. Warehouses, vans, and scooters weren't enough. It required the widespread adoption of smartphones. People with extra time are happy to do the grocery shopping for people who don't have the time. Upward economic mobility via grocery delivery.
I invested in Substack when it was already a success because it's sampling-to-subscription strategy is a thing of beauty. If an author is worth reading, they get paid-subscribers. If authors aren't getting paid-subscribers, they level-up their writing. This creates a natural feedback loop that encourages better outcomes on both sides.
Mistakes
To help brands understand they 'why' behind their NPS score, I designed the semantic search engine Earlybirdy. Just weeks after launching our V1.0, Twitter unexpectedly increased the firehose price 10x to $25,000 a month. This made the COGS of my startup cost-prohibitive. I had to walk away from a $100,000 investment from a super angel and shut it down. Retro: Don't build a business that is solely dependent on another company's data for viability.
When Webflow emerged, I had a gut feeling that it might be the future. I was invited to invest in the company's seed round within a window of time and took every minute of it to do due diligence. I invested. Unfortunately, my wire was returned because the round was oversubscribed and quick commitments were prioritized. Big miss. Retro: Even if I think I'm on-time, if I'm the last one to arrive at a party I may miss the toast.