Product Leadership & Platform Strategy

    The Lost

    by Gass

    10+ years building platforms that scale. Developer Experience evangelist.
    A Builder by heart.

    Brought to you by Manuel Gass

    Who I Am

    The Backstory

    For over a decade, I've been in the trenches building platforms that don't just work, they scale relentlessly. From fintech unicorns to developer-first companies, I've led teams that ship infrastructure others depend on. Today, I leverage AI as a force multiplier across product development, operations, and strategy.

    My philosophy is simple: Great platforms are invisible. They empower teams, eliminate friction, reduce cognitive load, and let builders focus on what matters. API-first thinking, reusable shared components, and a relentless focus on developer experience. That's what I bring to the table.

    Platform & Infrastructure

    Building scalable systems that power products from startup to enterprise scale.

    Developer Experience

    Obsessed with making developers productive. DX score improvements of 50%+.

    API-first & MCP-first

    Designing reusable, composable architectures with API-first and MCP-first strategies at the core.

    SaaS / Fintech / eCommerce

    Deep expertise across high-growth sectors with proven track records.

    Team Leadership

    Leading cross-functional platform teams to deliver exceptional outcomes.

    The Journey

    Track Record

    10+

    Years Experience

    99.999%

    Uptime Achieved

    75th

    DevEx Percentile

    Driving measurable business outcomes through product-led optimization.

    Platform Optimization

    7-figure

    Cost and cash flow optimizations through shared platform capabilities and vendor consolidations

    eCommerce Retention

    +7%

    Absolute increase in retention through onboarding and activation loop optimizations

    Payment Fraud

    Near-zero

    Fraudulent transactions cut to near zero while improving authorization rates

    Case Studies

    Work That Moved the Needle

    AI-Native Product Leadership

    Taking an AI Product Bet From Research to MVP

    Took an early AI product bet through deep discovery, hands-on prototyping, daily client iteration, and user validation. From 0→1 to an MVP engineering could build.

    0→1 to MVPDaily client iterationsPrototype, research & PRD in tandem

    Founder / 0→1

    Building RevoBill: From Side Project to SaaS

    Designed, built, launched, and operate a SaaS product solo, taking it from zero to paying customers with no marketing budget.

    Paying customers acquired$0 marketing spendFully self-operated

    Engineering Culture

    Making Developer Experience a Business Priority

    Turned DevEx from an engineering-internal concern into a company-wide north star metric, moving a mid-sized SaaS org to the 75th percentile for developer experience in its cohort.

    75th percentile benchmark reachedDXI adopted as north starQuarterly org-wide reporting

    Payments & Infrastructure

    Unifying Billing Across Three Legacy Systems

    Led the strategic migration of the company's entire subscription base from three fragmented legacy systems into a single source of truth.

    Entire subscription base migrated3 legacy systems decommissioned0 subscriptions lost to errors

    Revenue Operations

    Recovering Lost Revenue Through Multi-Channel Collections

    Rebuilt the failed-payment recovery strategy from a basic retry loop into a coordinated multi-channel, multi-provider collections system, recovering north of 50% of previously lost cash.

    50%+ recovery rateSignificant ARR impactResults within 1 month of go-live

    Reliability Engineering

    Joining the Five Nines Club

    Took infrastructure and APIs to 99.999% uptime in under a year, without a single customer-facing outage during the migration.

    99.999% uptime achievedZero downtime during migrationDelivered in 6–9 months

    See all case studies

    Engagements

    How We Work Together

    Specialized in platforms, payments, and developer experience.

    Fractional & Interim Product Leadership

    Step in to lead platform, infrastructure, or payments product teams. From strategy to daily operational-level execution; the 10,000-foot view and the detail work.

    Platform & DX Strategy

    API-first architectures, developer experience programs, shared tooling strategies. Turning platform teams into force multipliers.

    AI-Native Product Advisory

    Guidance on leveraging AI across product development and operations: From someone who bootstrapped an entire SaaS product with it.

    Engagement details: Fractional CPO · Interim Head of Product · Developer Experience

    Let's Connect

    Ready to Build?

    Whether you need an interim Head of Product, platform strategy consulting, DevEx acceleration or just want to jam on ideas: I'm all ears.

    Latest Venture

    revoBill

    Curious what I'm building? revoBill is an invoicing SaaS with automated payments and quoting. Bootstrapped and built entirely with AI.

    Check out revoBill