| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Company | Advanced Local + The Tylt |
| Focus | Audience Engagement, Sentiment Intelligence & Media Monetization |
| Role | Director of Product |
| Scope | Product Strategy, Monetization, Mobile Optimization, Editorial CMS, Design Systems |
| Partners | Editorial, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Executive Leadership | Responsibilities | Product Roadmap, Hiring & Team Development, Performance Management, Cross-functional Alignment, UX Research, Content Strategy, Analytics, Product Design Leadership |
| Outcome | Rebuilt the product organization and restored its partnership with engineering while transforming a desktop-first MVP into a mobile-first platform that increased participation, strengthened proprietary sentiment data, expanded editorial capabilities, and created new monetization opportunities. |
Transforming Viral Traffic Into Audience Intelligence
Advanced Local created Tylt to turn fast-moving social conversations into interactive editorial experiences for Millennial and Gen Z audiences. Viral topics across entertainment, politics, sports, and culture invited readers to vote, compare perspectives, and contribute proprietary sentiment data.
When I joined, the desktop-first MVP was attracting traffic from social media but struggling to convert one-time visitors into active and returning users. The product organization was also navigating strained cross-functional relationships, unclear priorities, and a roadmap that had lost credibility with engineering.
As Director of Product, I rebuilt the team and its partnerships while leading the platform’s evolution. We introduced a mobile-first experience, expanded editorial formats, personalized recommendations, real-time sentiment features, and new monetization opportunities. The result was a stronger product organization and a more scalable platform for participation, audience intelligence, and growth.
Product StrategyTurning Social Traffic Into Participation
Most users discovered Tylt through social media and entered directly on a story page from a mobile device. The experience needed to earn their attention and make participation immediate.
We redesigned the platform around this behavior. Clearer stories, faster voting, and stronger paths to related content helped turn individual social clicks into deeper on-site sessions.
Planning & RoadmappingGrounding Growth in Evidence
We combined usability testing, behavioral analytics, stakeholder interviews, and competitive research to understand what drove participation. We studied how users entered the platform, where engagement stopped, and which experiences encouraged another vote.
The findings shaped a roadmap focused on mobile conversion, content discovery, repeat engagement, editorial flexibility, and higher-quality sentiment data.
Product VisionAligning the Organization Around Engagement
Tylt served several interconnected needs: readers wanted relevant conversations, editors needed flexible storytelling tools, data teams needed stronger behavioral signals, and the business needed sustainable revenue.
A unified product vision brought these priorities together, giving cross-functional teams a clear framework for planning, prioritization, and execution.
We connected roadmap decisions to measurable outcomes, including votes per session, return engagement, editorial efficiency, sentiment quality, and revenue potential.
Team leadership & organizational OperationsRebuilding Trust and Product Momentum
The product roadmap could not move forward until we repaired how the organization worked together. Product and engineering had lost trust in one another. Priorities lacked clarity and teams were no longer building toward a shared direction .
I reset expectations, clarified ownership, addressed performance and team-composition issues, and introduced more transparent planning and collaboration practices. I also led hiring, mentorship, goal setting, career development, compensation recommendations, and performance management for the product design team.
Rebuilding these relationships restored confidence in the roadmap and created a healthier operating model for delivering work across product, engineering, editorial, and data.
Design SystemCreating a System Built to Move Quickly
Tylt needed to evolve quickly across two connected products: the customer-facing platform and the editorial CMS. Rebuilding every experience independently would have slowed experimentation and increased inconsistency across the system.
We modernized the visual language and created reusable components, responsive patterns, and shared interaction standards that supported both products. The system enabled teams to test and release new formats faster while creating a more cohesive experience for readers and editors.
Product GrowthDesigning for Deeper Participation
A single vote created a brief interaction with little reason to stay.
We expanded standard stories from one voting opportunity to many, increasing opportunities for longer sessions, repeat visits, and richer sentiment data.
New series and bracket formats supported eight or more votes across related topics and multiple rounds. Recommendations and follow-up pathways then connected users with conversations based on their interests.
These changes produced a 200% increase in page views and a 69% increase in votes per session.
MonetizationTurning Engagement Into Revenue
Monetization evolved alongside the product. We expanded beyond display advertising to support sponsored editorial experiences, branded conversations, custom video programs, and campaigns tied to timely cultural topics.
These formats gave partners relevant ways to reach Tylt’s Millennial and Gen Z audience while creating revenue through advertising, sponsored content, YouTube programming, and audience insight.
Data VisualiztionTurning Participation Into Audience Intelligence
Every vote created a signal about what the audience cared about and how opinion was changing in real time. Working with data science and editorial teams, we transformed those signals into dynamic features that became part of the story.
Real-time results and trend visualizations showed users how their views compared with others. The same data strengthened recommendations, supported editorial decisions, and created proprietary audience intelligence for brand partners.
🚀
Results
Voters loved their experience!
The product transformation increased votes 10×. The Tylt collected more than 10 million votes, reached an audience of more than 700 million, and built a user base in which 75% of participants were Millennial or Gen Z.
Despite that growth, Advanced Local reduced funding for its incubator during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Tylt ultimately closed. The product’s performance demonstrated the value of aligning mobile engagement, editorial innovation, audience intelligence, and monetization within one scalable platform.
