About
The Person Behind Product Upgraded
Every engagement is led personally by the founder. This is who you would be working with.
Nick Hristov, Founder
I have spent more than twenty years where product, technology, and business results meet: turning manual services into products, taking new ideas from 0 to 1, building new commercial models, and helping technology businesses scale.
That has included turning batch-based data services into real-time products, operating at Amazon scale, building a partner business and the software behind it to 20x revenue growth, and taking more than a dozen ideas from concept through product creation, launch, or market validation.
The pattern behind Product Upgraded is simple. Good growth opportunities often sit between functions. Commercial, product, technology, and operations each own a piece, but nobody owns the full path from opportunity to market. Product Upgraded exists to provide that ownership.
In His Own Words
Why Product Upgraded Exists
The background behind Product Upgraded, what repeated zero-to-one work has taught me, and how I work with leadership when a new product or productization initiative needs a senior owner.
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Track Record
Where the Experience Comes From
FreshAddress
Turned manual, batch-based data services into automated, real-time products, helping the company achieve 3x client growth.
Amazon Web Services
Owned global deliverability operations for Amazon and Amazon SES at a scale of billions of messages a day. Co-invented a patent for predicting message deliverability events.
dmarcian
Built a new partner business and the software behind it, growing the model to more than 150 managed service providers and 20x revenue growth.
Nomadcy
Built and ran a product-development business, leading across business development, product, and engineering and taking 12+ ideas from 0 to 1.
Edison Marks
Redesigned and technology-enabled the delivery of cybersecurity assessments, helping scale the service to thousands of assessments.
Email Industries
Led product while making the delivery model more scalable, removing hundreds of hours of manual work each month during a period of 40% year-over-year company growth.
Ziff Davis
Defined new product direction and pricing strategy across Campaigner and SMTP.com.
Four of these stories are covered in depth, with the commercial outcomes behind them.
See the resultsIn Numbers
20+ years
across product, technology and business leadership
15+ ventures
built, launched, or scaled
20x growth
helping scale technology businesses
50+ leaders
and teams mentored or led
Working together
How I Work
I work at leadership level with ownership of a defined commercial initiative: a direct relationship with the executive sponsoring the initiative, and hands-on work with the people who will build, sell, and deliver the offering.
The job is to connect customer evidence, commercial model, product, technology, and execution and make the decisions that keep the initiative moving. That includes recommending change or stop when the evidence does not justify further investment.
Internal teams and specialist partners can handle parts of the execution. I remain accountable for keeping the initiative connected to the commercial outcome.
Ready to Work With a Senior Owner?
If you have a credible growth opportunity or an existing service that should become more scalable, let's discuss what it would take to move it from opportunity to market.
Book an Intro Call