Then I finally started building my own.
If you're here, you probably already know what it's like to be brilliant at executing—and exhausted by never having time for your own vision. I get it. I lived it. Here's my story.
From day one, I was the person you pulled in when the project was stuck, the team was misaligned, and everyone was talking past each other.
At Siemens, I learned that customers never know what they want—so you have to figure it out for them. At Google, I became the translator between engineering, product, and business. I could take chaos and turn it into a roadmap that actually shipped.
2016. Walked away from an abusive relationship. Got laid off. Lost my entire friend group in the process.
I spent 8 months in my dark era. Not dramatically falling apart—just... hollow. Going through the motions. Asking myself: whose life am I actually building? The answer broke my heart.
I found a new community. Rediscovered joy. Built a 40-foot flamingo for Burning Man—the first time I created something purely for the magic of it.
But professionally? I kept choosing roles where hard problems mattered. Neustar. SoftBank. Startups. Everyone told me I was brilliant. I still felt empty.
Heap. Principal Product Manager—the highest individual contributor level. I owned one of the largest scopes across our entire data infrastructure. Led a database migration that recovered $5M in lost revenue and delivered $2M+ in annual cost savings. It was the kind of problem most people called impossible.
Contentsquare acquired us. I was promoted to Senior Director—more chaos, bigger scope, larger team. But the happiest moments? They weren't about the platform wins. They were about coaching colleagues through career crises. Helping people see what they couldn't see in themselves. Building a team and watching them grow into leaders.
"You know you've been doing this for free your whole life, right? You've helped more people find clarity than any coach I've paid."
It hit me like a truck. I had been giving away the most valuable thing I had—because I didn't believe it was worth anything. Or maybe, if I'm being really honest, because I didn't believe I was worth anything beyond my ability to execute someone else's vision.
Living proof that you can stop building everyone else's dreams and start building your own. It just took me 20 years to believe it.
Here's what I know now: the thing that got me unstuck wasn't a mindset shift. It wasn't a vision board. It was plumbing. I took the exact same systems I'd used to ship products at Google and Heap—roadmaps, milestones, sprint reviews, accountability—and I pointed them at my own projects.
Three businesses later, I realized: this isn't just my story. It's a playbook. And it works for anyone who knows how to build but has never built for themselves. That's what the 6-Week Build Partnership is. You bring the side project you can't launch. I bring the system to ship it.
I'm currently writing The Flamingo Effect — a practical guide to engineering clarity so people follow through.
The hardest part wasn't building the business. It was believing I deserved to charge for something that felt so natural.
If any of these hit close to home, we might have a lot to talk about.
You know exactly what you should do—but you're not doing it.
You've achieved a lot, but none of it feels like yours anymore.
You manage a multi-million dollar roadmap at work. Your side project doesn't even have a launch date.
You've been "working on something" for 6 months. If you're honest, you've mostly been researching, planning, and redesigning the landing page.
You have a Notion board, a Figma file, and a domain name. You don't have a ship date.
You're not struggling with laziness—you're struggling with too much capability and zero infrastructure for using it on your own thing.
The prison wasn't built by your circumstances. It was built by your competence.
Read the essay: The Competence TrapAt work. On the side. In the desert. On a glacier. I build things.
20+
Years in Tech
3
Businesses Built While Full-Time
$20M+
Revenue Impact
50+
Leaders & Builders Coached
I build things that probably shouldn't exist.
Built a massive art installation in 4 months—fiberglass, steel, and pure ambition.
View project
Executive produced 'The Perfect Shot: Antarctica'—capturing crisis, inspiring change.
View project
Outli.ne, Gift Shopper AI, Garage Insight, Ship It AI—building things I wish existed. All launched while holding a senior PM role full-time.
Real people who stopped waiting and started moving.
Finally became a founder after years of building others' dreams
Made the leap to full-time founder after building a sustainable business on the side
Built systems to ship passion projects without sacrificing family time
Got clear on the one idea worth building—killed 6 others—and shipped a V1 in 10 weeks
Turned 3 accidental freelance clients into a structured consulting practice with real pricing
Finally defined a V1, stopped scope-creeping, and launched her portfolio platform
If you've read this far, you probably see yourself in some part of this story.
Let's talk about the project you can't stop thinking about—and what it would take to get it live in 6 weeks.
30 minutes. We'll figure out what's actually in the way.
Not ready to talk yet? Read how the Build Partnership works →
