NPRODUCT
AI just rewrote the product playbook

When anyone can build anything, knowing what to build is the edge.

I help B2B SaaS leadership teams rebuild product and engineering for AI. We sharpen your edge, so you build what customers pay for in weeks, not quarters. And we strengthen your spine, so the advantage holds.

Book a leadership diagnostic How I work ↓
SPINEEDGE
Sharpen your edge · 01–04
Hear every customer, decide on revenue evidence, ship in weeks, measure what changed.
Strengthen your spine · 05–07
What you build, who builds it, what it costs.
+5 pts
net revenue retention
in one quarter, by shipping what drove churn
4×
product output
same team, no added headcount
2–4 wks
idea to production
down from 4–6 months
2 IPOs
$4.5B in exits
25 years leading SaaS product
First three: AI-native transformation at a $120M+ ARR B2B SaaS company. How I measured →
Why your edge is moving

AI has collapsed the cost of building. The advantage has moved to deciding.

Most features now take a fraction of the time and money to build, for you and for every competitor. That changes what wins: knowing what to build, for whom, and why.

Most product and engineering teams are still organized for the old bottleneck. A sharper edge is half the answer. The other half is a spine strong enough to hold it: a product worth defending, a team designed for AI, and R&D economics your board can back.

Old playbookNew playbook
The bottleneck
Engineering capacityJudgment: what to build and why
The PM’s job
Write specs, translate, chaseDecide, build with AI, own outcomes
Customer insight
A sample of interviewsEvery conversation, ranked by revenue
Cycle time
QuartersWeeks
Who it’s for

B2B SaaS companies with $20M–$500M ARR, where the CEO or board sponsors the change, and product and engineering leaders want to get ahead of it rather than be told.

How I work

Find it. Measure it. Sharpen it. Strengthen it.

Every engagement starts by finding your edge. Each step stands on its own, and you only go further if the numbers justify it.

Step 1

Find your edge

Timeframe
Start with one working session
Who’s involved
You, your product lead and your engineering lead.
You get
A first-read maturity score, where value is leaking, and three priority moves.
I need from you
Nothing. No preparation needed.
Step 2

Measure your edge

Timeframe
4 weeks
Who’s involved
CEO as sponsor; product, design and engineering leaders; interviews with key team members.
You get
A scored 7-pillar assessment, your R&D economics baseline, a target operating model and a 90-day plan for your leadership team or board.
I need from you
Access to roadmap, delivery metrics, R&D costs and a sample of customer data.
How I measure your edge →

Then two tracks, together or on their own.

A sharp edge on a weak spine snaps. A strong spine with a dull edge just costs money.

Step 3 · the Edge

Sharpen your edge

Decide what to build from revenue evidence, ship it in weeks, and prove what it changed.

  • 01Customer Signal
  • 02Decision System
  • 03AI-Native Delivery
  • 04Measured Impact
Timeframe
6–8 week pilot on one revenue use case, then 3–6 months to scale
You get
An AI-native workflow from customer signal to measured release, your people trained, the keys handed over.
How I sharpen your edge →
Step 3 · the Spine

Strengthen your spine

Protect what makes you different, redesign the team around AI, and make AI spend pay back.

  • 05Defensibility: product strategy
  • 06Operating Model: fractional CPO and org design
  • 07R&D Economics: reinvestment planning
Timeframe
Alongside or after the assessment, for as long as you need it
You get
A defensible product strategy, a target organization and an R&D reinvestment plan your board can back.
How I strengthen your spine →
Proof · an edge, sharpened · $120M+ ARR B2B SaaS

Built what customers were leaving over. Retention up five points in a quarter.

A product and engineering organization rebuilt around AI over six months: every customer conversation analyzed, priorities ranked by revenue at risk, and code drafted by AI and reviewed by engineers before release. The team shipped four times as much, and because it shipped the right things first, retention moved within a quarter.

How I measured: net revenue retention, from a cohort analysis comparing the quarter before and after the churn-driving requests shipped. Throughput is features released to production per quarter, counted the same way before and after, with the same product, design and engineering team and budget, over six months. The company is anonymized; details can be validated privately on request.

Read the case study →
BeforeAfter
Net revenue retentionBaseline+5 points in one quarter after shipping the top churn-driving requests (cohort analysis)
Idea to production4–6 months2–4 weeks
Features released per quarter2081 (2× by month 3, 4× by month 6)
Customer conversations analyzedA sample16,000+ a year, refreshed weekly
How priorities were setLoudest voice in the room~700 signals ranked by revenue → 150 high-impact features
Product, design and engineering headcountBaselineNo change

“We quadrupled engineering throughput without adding a single person. But the number that mattered was retention: we finally built what customers were leaving over, and NRR rose five points in a quarter.”

Former SVP Product at a $120M+ ARR B2B SaaS company
Your people

Redefine roles. Don’t cut them.

Cutting product and engineering headcount before changing how work flows is how productivity collapses. The gains come from redesigning the work:

  • PMs move from writing tickets to deciding and building with AI.
  • Designers own the system and the experience.
  • Engineers own architecture, review, security and release.
  • Small pods own whole bets.
How I redesign the operating model →
Your data and control

AI does the work. Your people make the calls.

  • Works with the tools you already use: call recording, CRM, ticketing and your code repository.
  • Access is scoped and governed by your security policies.
  • Nothing ships without your engineers’ review, testing and approval.
  • Every AI-generated decision traces back to the customer evidence behind it.
What sharpening your edge needs from your systems →
Questions CEOs ask

Before you book.

We already pay for coding assistants. Isn’t that enough?

Coding assistants speed up one step of the old process. Once code is fast, the bottleneck moves to deciding what to build, specifying it, reviewing it and measuring it. The gains come from redesigning that whole flow and the roles around it. The assessment shows where your bottleneck sits today.

Is this a headcount-reduction project?

No. Cutting product and engineering before redesigning the work is how productivity collapses. In the reference case headcount did not change; the freed capacity went to quality, technical debt and the next bets. What you do with capacity is your call, and the assessment models the options.

Will this disrupt our roadmap?

The pilot runs in one pod, on one revenue use case, inside your existing release process. Everyone else keeps delivering while it proves itself.

Why you, rather than a large consultancy or an AI vendor?

I have done this as an operator, with my own team and my own numbers, and I have taken two companies public. You work with the person who did it, not a junior team, and the method is built around your people making the calls.

What do we own at the end?

The workflow, the configured components, the human-gate framework and a team trained to run it, on Claude, Cursor and/or Hermes Agent.

Portrait of Guillaume Vives
About · Guillaume “G” Vives

I’ve built products that went public. Twice.

25 years leading product at enterprise SaaS companies, including Zuora, Oracle, RMS, 360Learning and Lattice: two IPOs and $4.5B in exit value. Most recently I rebuilt a product organization around AI and quadrupled its output. Now I help other leaders do the same.

MIT, MS Operations Research · Centrale Paris · INSEAD faculty affiliate

Connect on LinkedIn →

Ready to find your edge?

Start with a leadership diagnostic: you, your product lead and your engineering lead. You leave with a first-read maturity score, where value is leaking, and three priority moves.

Book a leadership diagnostic