Principles
I do my best to live by the following principles. Please use the principles below as common knowledge for working with me. These principles are designed to be followed in order. First to ground myself in an optimistic reality, then move toward action, overcome challenges , how to best recover and move toward success.
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See the Good, True, and Beautiful
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Learn, Ask to Help, Be Honest
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Think Big, Share, & Keep Your Word
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Be Persistent & Tenacious
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Right Your Wrongs
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Forgive, Rest, Reflect
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Keep going
Pakira offers Global Commodities Trading through our Business Platform, which connects users to 90,000+ Potential Trade Partners. We feature a search, chat, and trade engine that helps businesses serve more companies with better service in less time.
The idea for Pakira began developing in college after an interview with the Forest City Trading Group (FCTG). During my interview, I discovered that technology doesn't serve the $20T physical commodity trading Industry! Despite their $6 Billion+ in revenue, FCTG's core technology was over 30 years old. Given my experience running a digital exchange in college, I was hired by FCTG to help modernize their trading. But, after testing all the technology on the market and nothing met our needs – I set off to Cambridge to turn my idea into reality.
Problem Formulation
To validate the problem, we surveyed over 300 companies across the industry and discovered that over 90% of companies need help "finding new customers or vendors." This problem reached a breaking point during the Supply Chain Crisis of the Covid-19 outbreak when supply chains broke down.
After validating the problem, we began brainstorming. Our team created a vision for a Data Platform that helps companies find new Partners. We scaled down our vision to an MVP, then smaller still to an initial "MVP0," and got to work executing across departments.
Building the Team & Product
Our initial build was bootstrapped, and our saving grace was Big Tech's response to COVID-19—layoffs. Thanks to MIT, Harvard, Brandeis, and Northeastern, we gave jobs and internships to 20+ people and worked with over 80+ students on class projects. Together, we completed our initial MVP0.
After raising an Angel Round, we built out our engineering team, finished the MVP, and prepared for our launch.
I am so very proud of the Pakira team, all the great work they've done, and their continued success!
Launching to 1000+ Companies
Leveraging our database, LinkedIn, Industry Contacts, Conferences, and much more, we began a campaign that reached 30,000 companies!
Learning from each interaction, I became an outreach, relationship development, onboarding, and feedback collection expert. This experience gave me a strong intuition for how to avoid user frustration and cultivate user delight.
Most users immediately loved our product, and their feedback was priceless. Leaning from each onboarding, we gained insights, made changes, and shared them with our users until they were delighted.
We successfully built our platform into a complete, all-in-one Trade Platform that hosts over 1,000 companies representing $100 billion+ in revenue.
Take aways
Here are the top product design principles I learned building Pakira and their reasoning.
1. Consistency – Consistent interfaces reduce confusion and feel intuitive.
2. Simplicity – Simple designs make it easier to highlight desired actions.
3. Minimalism – Removal is the best instinct for practical product improvements.
4. Accessibility – All relevant features should be visible and accessible with one click.
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Moving forward, I believe data and technology will have an ever more significant impact on enterprises and society. The biggest challenge to technology adoption for enterprises is digitizing and centralizing information around business operations. Technology quality and development far exceed enterprise data quality and development. Moving forward, if organizations can digitize their operations, this will set them up for sustainable competitive advantages as we head into thethis new AI era. I will continue working in this space, and if you would like to work with me, please reach out!
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Thank you!
Special thanks to the entire team at Pakira. I can only list about 35 of you here, but there are well over 150 people who helped create Pakira, and we could not have done it without you. I am proud of all your hard work, thank you!
Pakira Podcasts
Community Leadership
I believe in the power of mentorship. As a child, I was matched with my Big by Big Brothers Big Sisters, and it changed my life. Shortly after, my single mother passed away, but my Big and his wife took me into their home and continued to raise me as their son. Today, I do my best to give back as a Big Brother and board member. This has been some of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
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During my 6+ years of service, I've been lucky to see this organization continue to serve kids as we grow! Today, I am proud to say that BS of NH is one of the most vital chapters in the country, and I look forward to continuing to help them serve more kids.