👋🏼 Hi!
I’m Evan Michner.
Writing for the curious, creative, critical thinkers across Product Management, armed with 18 years in Product at startups and companies like FullStory, Atlassian and H-E-B, a degree in Creative Writing, and roots in copywriting.
Husband, dad of 3, and a writer at heart.
I love Product — problem solving, thinking in leaps, building teams. I love Words — writing, editing, communicating. And I believe products are built and bought on words. The best Product leaders recognize this and invest time in their communication abilities.
Writing is the most powerful tool I have as a Product leader— helps me crystallize my opinions, frame up dialogue, and unlock speed through shared understanding.
Hence, Words on Product.
📖 My story
Rewind all the way back to the early 2000s — I was studying Creative Writing at Butler University. As a junior, I landed an internship at an advertising agency, and that was that: I quickly abandoned poetry and prose for punchy headlines and bullet points.
As an eager 20-something, I decided to graduate a bit early — I was itching to change the world through words.
Somehow, I convinced the university to let me graduate with a portfolio of ad copy and design work, rather than the elegant writing portfolio that the degree typically demands. (Thank you, Butler!)
Following a few stints in various advertising agencies, in 2006, I was hired on as a writer at NetSpend, a pre-IPO company in the financial services space. I worked on brand guidelines, marketing content, and everything in between. And I was restless.
After a few months, a leader on the Product side, Keith Sibson, asked if I was interested in helping launch the direct-to-consumer business. I shrugged, said yes, and fell into Product. As a small, cross-functional team, we built a $50MM channel over the next few years, ultimately contributing — in a small way — to NetSpend’s IPO in 2010.
By 2012, NetSpend had grown, our team felt proud of our work, and I was ready to learn more in a smaller environment. I connected with Steve Goldsmith who was standing up an Austin, TX, office for a new startup, Portico Club. We met for coffee, and he sketched the plans for the team on a napkin (with multiple mentions of “Details TBD”). We assembled a crack team of Product, UX, and Engineering, and 18 months later, Portico Club would be acquired.
But I still had an itch to scratch. So in 2014, I co-founded my own startup: Contractor View. A web and mobile product build for residential general contractors. 6 months later, with a lot of learnings and too many “stay in touch” emails from investors, we shut it down:
I explored a few different opportunities, but nothing matched the level of energy behind Atlassian at that time. I spent almost five years at Atlassian: Working on HipChat, Jitsi, Stride, and more. An introduction to PR strategy, the power of humor in marketing, what an explosive IPO looks like, and ultimately, how to say goodbye to a product and bridge customers over to a competitor. A SaaS battle with Microsoft, Slack, Cisco, and other big names, all jockeying for the winning spot in workplace communication and collaboration tools. Atlassian was a true rocket ship fueled by world-class decision making and product development. And it was a master class in leadership from co-founders Mike and Scott.
At the end of 2018, I was offered a role with H-E-B, a legend in retailing and the soul of the state of Texas. My job with H-E-B Digital: Help recruit a top team of problem solvers to weave digital DNA into the 12th largest privately-held company in the U.S. — 400+ stores, 110,000 employees, and more than $30B in sales. Over the next few years, we opened up a new office in Austin, TX (Eastside Tech Hub), and added 180+ amazing Product, Design, and Engineering folks to the mission — creating digital products and experiences for the millions of Texans who shop at H-E-B. We even got a shout out from Tim Cook.
In February of 2020, our team launched a major effort: Brand new curbside and home delivery mobile apps, powered by a massive promotion. And the timing was…unbelievable. Just one month later, COVID-19 would rock the world. And in Texas, this new mobile app would serendipitously become a crucial tool for millions of Texans to feed their families as they weathered COVID-19.
In 2021, I joined FullStory as Head of Product Management. With a $103M raise in the bank, we set out to grow. Fast. Hiring at scale, shoring up product rhythms, and evolving from a startup to a high-growth, pre-IPO SaaS business. What. A. Team. So proud of the work we did for our customers!
In December 2023, I stepped away from FullStory for a breather before joining the incredible team at LaunchNotes as VP of Product & Design in January 2024. And here we are!
