Product Manager
Kickstart is the Mountain West's first seed fund, founded in 2008, investing in bold, early-stage founders building companies in Utah, Colorado, and the broader Mountain West region.
About Kickstart
Kickstart is an early-stage venture capital firm founded from a trailer in New Mexico during a recession, focused on backing overlooked and outlier founders in Utah, Colorado, and the greater Mountain West territory, including Arizona, Idaho, Montana, and New Mexico. The firm typically leads pre-seed, seed, and occasional Series A rounds, setting terms, syndicating rounds, and taking board seats. Kickstart positions itself as local (with offices in Utah and Colorado), generalist in its investment approach across the innovation stack, and focused on the earliest stages of company formation. Since its founding, it has raised multiple funds (from Fund 2 at $26M up to Fund 6 at $175M) and built a network of entrepreneurs, operators, and investors across the region, serving early-stage startup founders as its primary clients.
Skills
About the Role
You'll join a high-caliber squad of designers and engineers building everything from tailored, persona-based solutions to the scalable infrastructure that powers them—including intelligent features that leverage AI. You won't just be a feature-shipper; you'll be a strategic partner who thrives on technical complexity and maintains a relentless obsession with elegant user experiences. As a natural mentor, you'll excel at distilling the ambiguity of a rapidly evolving platform into a clear vision, helping build the future of visual collaboration.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree and 3+ years of software Product Management experience, with a proven track record of driving core business metrics in a B2B SaaS environment
- Solid skills at de-risking initiatives by using creative, lean methodologies to validate hypotheses and ideas quickly
- Ability to act as a translator across the organization—communicating effectively with everyone from engineers and sales reps to executive-level customers and end users
- Proficient in navigating complex technical trade-offs and partnering with UX to translate complicated workflows into simple, intuitive experiences
- A history of building high-trust, productive relationships with Engineering and UX counterparts
- A proactive approach to seeking feedback, learning quickly, and iterating based on data and team insights
Responsibilities
- Partner with UX, Engineering, Marketing, and Sales to champion the user and deliver high-impact features
- Conduct qualitative and quantitative research to become the primary advocate for user needs and motivations
- Lead features from initial ideation and specification through launch, analysis, and continuous iteration
- Ruthlessly prioritize roadmaps and communicate strategic trade-offs to stakeholders to meet core business goals
- Define and move key business metrics (KPIs) through a disciplined approach to product optimization and data analysis
- Collaborate with Designers to achieve world-class UX while working alongside Engineers to navigate complex technical trade-offs