Charlie Lau

all things product | STRATEGIST | GROWTH HACKER | RESEARCHER | DESIGNER

I am currently taking a break from full-time tech work, after four years of growing a small startup and getting it acquired. But I can’t quite resist an interesting good product/growth problem, so I’m open to advisory / contractual / fractional projects.

Until Dec 2023, I was Head of Product & Growth at Going Merry, an education finance company that helps students pay for college, via scholarships, financial aid, appeals, and better planning/budgeting. As of my final day, our products were used by over 2 million people, including 20% of all American high school seniors, and 50% of all high school counselors. I joined the company when we were 7 people, so I was responsible for the full gamut of product, including UX research, design, sprint management, copywriting, marketing, and growth experimentation.

Prior to that, I built and led the Growth Team at Zoona, a mobile money startup backed by leading social VCs like Acción and Omidyar. I also product managed the launch of Zoona’s award-winning savings account product.

Or see below for a run-down of my work/study experience.

Education

University of Oxford: Blavatnik School of Government - Master of Public Policy, with distinction (highest honors) - 2015 

Stanford University - B.A., International Relations - 2010

And short courses in: Data analysis, Behavior change, Copywriting, Digital marketing, and Digital financial services.

Global citizen

I've lived & worked in 10 countries across 5 continents: USA, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, UK, Spain, India, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. I am a US citizen and a South African permanent resident.

I speak 3 languages: English (native), Spanish (advanced/proficient), and Cantonese (native/elementary)

Work experience

I have worked in both the public and private sector, spanning roles in data, research, business development, marketing, and product management.

My accomplishments include:

• Leading all due diligence and business forecasting/modeling for startups — helping Going Merry to be acquired in 2021, and Prodigy Finance to land a $100m+ Series A in 2015.

• Designing and launching the “FAFSA® Made Easier,” through which students have received over $600 million in financial aid.

• Growing the Going Merry user base from 200k (when I joined) to over 2 million (when I left), covering over 20% of all high school seniors and 50% of all high school counselors in the United States.

• Bringing a savings product from conception to market in Zambia, and taking it to c 150,000 customers, for Zoona

• Landing a $25m annually recurring impact investment deal with Credit Suisse, for Prodigy Finance

• Product managing the launch of a new revenue stream for Gimlet Media, a podcast network soon after acquired by Spotify

• Building a data-driven marketing & communications team, from the ground up

• Publishing articles on climate change in peer-reviewed academic journals

• Delivering a keynote address at a scientific conference in Colombia, on behalf of CGIAR-CCAFS

SKILLS AND TOOLSET

• Product management (agile): Jira (but also have experience in Pivotal Tracker, Asana, and Trello)

• Product design: Figma, Balsamiq, Miro

• Research: Pitch tests, focus groups, personas, ideation, rapid prototyping, PSMs

• Financial modeling / structuring: Excel

• Data analysis / visualization: Alteryx / SPSS, SQL, QlikView, Superset

• Analytics: Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, Firebase, AppSee, Fullstory, Amplitude