Mike Pilawski

I coach and advise product leaders and growth-stage companies through the transitions that don't come with playbooks: resolving growth challenges, AI transformation, org design, scaling from one product to many, and finding your footing when the ground shifts.

I bring 20 years of operating experience as a CPO, COO, and SVP across companies like Miro, Typeform, Smallpdf, and Nokia. I've built products, teams, and organizations across eight countries. Now I help others do the same, with more clarity and less bruising.

Lisbon, Portugal

Built, scaled, and advised

Nokia Miro Typeform Lokalise Smallpdf Semrush RiskSense Vungle Leanplum Life360 MindTickle EduMe NativeX Branch Metrics

About

About

I've spent twenty years as a product and technology executive in CPO, COO, and SVP roles across B2B and B2C SaaS at companies from Nokia to Miro. I've built and scaled product organizations, marketing and sales engines, M&A integrations, and data and ML capabilities from scratch.

I care most about creating conditions where people do their best work. Genuine autonomy, clear context over micromanagement, and coaching that helps individuals and teams find their edge. The best products come from teams that feel real ownership — and the best teams come from leaders who invest in growth, not just output.

My thinking is shaped by mindfulness and contemplative practice. They influence how I lead, make decisions, and stay grounded when things get complicated. I've lived and worked in eight countries, led organizations from Beijing to San Francisco to Lisbon, and still find flow in solving problems with code and data.

Point of View

Point of View

  1. The best product decisions come from progressive confidence — not gut instinct, not committee consensus, but evidence gathered deliberately and acted on with conviction.
  2. The best teams optimize for sustained excellence over performative urgency. They ship because the strategy is clear enough that anyone on the team can explain it without you in the room. If your team can't move without your approval, you haven't built a team — you've built a queue. The metric that matters most is the one your team would optimize if you disappeared for a month.
  3. The companies winning the AI transition aren't building AI products — they're rebuilding how products get built. AI compresses development timelines from twelve weeks to two, but only if you redesign the workflow, not just add tools.
  4. Non-technical leaders who learn to direct AI agents will outperform technical leaders who don't adapt.

This is the shift I'm most focused on: helping product leaders scale themselves — becoming unnecessary, not indispensable — and building organizations that thrive without heroics.

Services

How I Help

Executive Coaching

For CPOs, VPs of Product, and founders

I work one-on-one with product leaders through the transitions that matter most — stepping into your first C-level role, inheriting a team and strategy you didn't build, shifting from single-product to portfolio, navigating organizational politics, or simply finding your footing when the job has outgrown the playbook you came in with.

My approach draws on twenty years of operating experience and a deep mindfulness practice. I'm direct, I care, and I've been through most of what you're going through. Typical engagements run 3–6 months with biweekly sessions.

Advisory & Board Seats

For growth-stage companies and VC portfolios

I advise companies on product strategy, growth, AI transformation, org design, and monetization — usually at the Series B+ stage where the founding playbook stops working and the next one hasn't been written yet. I work with VC portfolio companies and independently, and I'm available for advisory retainers, board seats, and fractional CPO engagements.

Past and current advisory includes Life360 (IPO), RiskSense (acquired), MindTickle, EduMe, Pyne, Branch Metrics, and others.

Workshops & Speaking

For conferences, offsites, and leadership teams

I run workshops and speak on AI-powered product development, scaling product organizations, and leadership through inflection points. Available for keynotes, panels, and half-day or full-day workshops.

  • Building Products 10x Faster with AI-Powered Workflows
  • From Stumbles to Strategy: Lessons on Scaling Products
  • The Multiproduct Playbook

Toolkit

Interactive tools for leaders

Diagnostic tools grounded in research — designed to make abstract leadership problems concrete and actionable.

Thrive Series ~30 min total

Thrive Diagnostic Suite

Three diagnostic tools in one: map where your energy is leaking (Energy Mapper), diagnose why your motivation collapsed (Motivation Diagnosis), and reconstruct meaning when work feels pointless (Meaning Reframe Lab). Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, cognitive crafting, and job crafting research.

For product leaders, managers, and knowledge workers

Launch Tools →
Coming soon ~20 min read

Job Crafting for Product Leaders

A practical framework for reshaping your role, renegotiating scope, and running 30-day experiments — without changing companies. For new CPOs inheriting someone else's strategy, execs in roles that no longer fit, and founders trying to keep their best people.

For product execs, CPOs, and founders · ~20 min read

Guide 45–60 min

How to Build with AI Agents (Non-technical)

A complete workflow for directing AI coding agents to build real software without writing code. Covers briefing, tool selection, and the build loop that professional developers have converged on independently.

For founders, product leaders, and operators · 45–60 min to read

Download PDF →
Guide 2–3 hours

How to Build with AI Agents (Technical)

The engineering methodology for spec-driven development with AI agents. Covers context engineering, multi-agent patterns, test-driven AI development, and CI/CD integration with automated quality gates.

For engineers, technical PMs, and AI builders · 2–3 hours to read and implement

Download PDF →
Blueprint 1 hour

LifeOS PRD

A complete PRD for a personal operating system — daily command center, AI message triage, task management, knowledge system, and agent workflows. Use it as a blueprint or as a template for PRDs that actually get built.

For product teams, startup operators, and builders · 1 hour to read, ongoing to implement

Download PDF →

Writing

Selected Writing

I write about building products and organizations in the age of AI — practical frameworks, lessons from building my own second brain, and the leadership practices that keep teams grounded through change.

Talk

15 slides · Mar 12, 2026

The Full Circle

How the PM went from doing everything, to doing one thing, and back to doing everything again — with 100× the leverage.

For: Product Leaders · PMs · Founders

  • Every tech wave declares PM dead, then makes it more valuable.
  • AI inverts the bottleneck from engineering capacity to product sense.
  • The renaissance generalist returns — one person, all hats, 100× leverage.

View Presentation →

AI · Productivity

5 min read · Feb 11, 2026

I Built My Own Second Brain

70+ Slack channels, 3 mailboxes, 2 calendars — I was stuck in fragmentation. So I built an AI system that gave me 15 hours a week back.

For: Product Leaders · Founders · Anyone drowning in noise

  • Maintaining a productivity system shouldn’t become another job.
  • Four modules — Triage, Plan, Remember, Automate — built in ~60 hours.
  • The real upgrade: stopped living in triage and started thinking again.

Read on LinkedIn →

Product Strategy

4 min read · Dec 2, 2025

The End of the Skateboard

When you can build a prototype in five minutes, iteration as a sequence starts to look quaint. Customers stop being validators and become collaborators.

For: PMs · Founders · Product Leaders

  • We move from learning by slices to learning by contrast.
  • Put five complete possibilities in front of customers instead of walking them through a skateboard.
  • The shift: from iterative testing to rapid co-creation.

Read on LinkedIn →

Product Discovery

6 min read · Oct 29, 2025

We Built for the 20% and Lost the 80%

Power users love your product, push it to the limit, and inspire you to dream bigger. Unfortunately, they don’t represent the market.

For: PMs · Founders · Product Leaders

  • Power users are an echo chamber easy to mistake for truth.
  • Instead of a billion-dollar IPO, there was a small sale.
  • Hearing the full voice of the customer — not just the loud few — is a strategic decision.

Read on LinkedIn →

GTM Strategy

5 min read · Mar 13, 2023

Sales-Led vs Product-Led Is a False Choice

Sales drives motivation. PLG reduces friction. The optimal model combines both — and Fogg’s Behavior Model explains why.

For: Founders · Rev Leaders · CPOs

  • Sales-led is faster to scale; product-led is more cost-efficient.
  • Applying PLG friction reduction to a sales-led model helps close less motivated buyers.
  • Adding human touch to PLG ramps the flywheel faster.

Read on LinkedIn →

Leadership

4 min read · Apr 13, 2023

Hire Future Managers as Individual Contributors

You cannot predict whether someone is a good leader based on years of experience. The best-performing teams were often led by the youngest person in the room.

For: Founders · CPOs · Engineering Leaders

  • People naturally look to those with leadership potential, even without a title.
  • Top leaders share five traits: low ego, culture focus, outcomes focus, learning ability, clear communication.
  • Internal promotion reduces the risk of destroying team culture through bad hires.

Read on LinkedIn →

Background

Background

Twenty years of building and scaling product organizations — from mobile platforms at Nokia through the PLG era at Typeform and Smallpdf to AI transformation at Lokalise and Miro.

2024–2025 Miro — SVP, Head of Products (Commercial Solutions)
2023–2024 Lokalise — Chief Product Officer
2021–2023 Smallpdf — Chief Product Officer
2019–2021 Typeform — Chief Operating Officer
2016–2019 Leanplum — VP, Product Development → acquired by CleverTap
2015–2016 Vungle — VP Product
2013–2014 NativeX — VP Product → acquired by MobVista
2003–2012 Nokia — Director / Product Manager

Wharton MBA (Honors) · Aalto University M.Eng (Honors) · University of Szczecin M.A. (Honors)

Get in Touch

Let's work together

Whether you're looking for a coach, a strategic advisor, or a board member — I'm open to conversations.

Start the conversation

Share context on your team, goals, and timing. I review every message personally and typically respond within 24 hours.

Best fit: executive coaching, AI transformation advisory, board seats, and speaking requests.

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