Vondelbaan

Build the right product faster

We elevate clients by creating genuine product value that drives customer acquisition, engagement, retention and upsell. Our data and agile methodologies efficiently transition startups into product organizations.

Our expertise helps startups professionalize product after fundraising. We establish sustainable growth that realizes investors' expectations. Over the years, we helped companies raise over $1Bn and exit successfully.

If your startup needs to professionalize product, contact us. We can chart the next phase of sustainable growth through expertise in product fundamentals.

Track Record

$700M+

Raised

3

Exits

100+

Product Launches

4

Patents

Modes of Engagement

Vondelbaan helps funded startups with initial product-market-fit that now need to scale product innovation. From dispassionately reorganizing your product operation to scaling sustainably and reduce wasted dev cycles — allowing your business to iterate on product market fit faster. Tap into a network of world-class PMs, Designers, and Engineers for an invaluable resource as new client projects get underway -- accelerating both implementation and hiring cycles.

Fractional CPO

Engage a veteran founder & product executive (Netflix, Google, startups) for a period of months to help your company through a product pivot, a fundraise, or in scaling product operations.

Team Building

Shaping a high-performing cross-functional product development team including Product Managers, Product Designers, Product Researchers, Product Analysts, QA, and Engineers.

Product Culture Reset

Sustainable product development achieving the highest possible velocity.

Product Strategy

Assist executive leadership in aligning product development with corporate strategy.

Product System

Implementation of best practices, see the Product System section for more information.

Product Leader Coaching

One-on-one coaching for leaders of product organizations, including CEOs, CPOs, and VPs of Product, Engineering, and Design.

Product Thinking

Knowing what you know and how you know it in order to chart a rational course for what to build next.

Sustained Teams → Sustained Velocity

How to maximize velocity without burning out your PMs & Engineers

Managing Product Managers

How to cultivate and get the most out of PM talent

Build Better Sooner

Use your engineering more efficiently by making full use of your design team.

Product System

Teaching and discussion of best practices, see the Product System section for more information.

Product System Implementation

Hands-on product development system design & implementation - shaping a PD system that will deliver commercial results.

Best Practices

Infusion of a way-of-working that reliably produces velocity and direction. Refined over decades of product development and hugely influenced by Netflix’s Freedom & Responsibility culture.

Toolchain Setup

Introduction of a set of tools in the product development system that we’ve used successfully across a number of companies. Tools including Notion, Figma, Webflow, Loom, Slack, Retool, and others.

Product Information Architecture

Centralized source-of-truth information about what you’re building and why. How do you define your buyer personas, user personas, pains, gains, and benefits? And critically, how are these tied into your product design and roadmap? We introduce an information architecture that puts answers at your fingertips.

Product Value Tree

Perhaps the most interesting thing we introduce into our client companies is the ‘PVT’ — a definition of the layers and causal links that reveal how each git commit contributes value to shareholders.

Board & Investor Advisory

Industry expertise consulting, due diligence, & board advisory.

Product Leadership Assessment

Bringing decades of experience to evaluate in-place product leaders and candidates and offer a perspective on fitness for the challenges at hand.

Due Diligence Support

People & product related assessment and advise.

Product Strategy Assessment

Evaluation of credibility and viability of a company’s product strategy.

Industry Expertise

Rare experience in streaming entertainment, consumer social, CPaas, FinTech, and pricing solutions.

Collaborative Development

Thomas works hand-in-hand with clients on the design and implementation of new products, whether it is a mobile app or a web app, consumer or B2B. Finding the shortest path from where you are today to selling a product your customers love.

PD Mapping

Taking a product idea and mapping out the stages of prototyping, development, and commercialization.

Design & Rapid Prototyping

We work together with clients to workshop product ideas, interview potential buyers & users, design and implement prototypes, go through revisions toward kickoff of full productization.

Software Engineering

Technology selection, architecture, and implementation.

Industry Expertise

FinTech

CPaaS

Consumer Social

Pricing Solutions

Streaming Entertainment Product & Tech

Thomas Purnell-Fisher

Based in Amsterdam, Vondelbaan is the vehicle for Thomas' activities in consumer & SaaS digital product development.

Discovering, designing, and engineering digital products since 1997.

Thomas is an inventor, founder, and builder who’s had the opportunity to help companies large and small through critical moments of product evolution and innovation. Netflix in the transition streaming, YouTube in the transition onto connected TV screens, RCI, MessageBird, and Pricemoov through pivots, fundraises, and exits.

Thomas always returns to hands-on product development — figuring out how to make an idea work, building a prototype, and building the right team to scale winning ideas. He practices user-centric product development.

He has managed cross-functional product teams up to around 100ppl and has run product development projects involving hundreds.

Contact

[email protected]

