Product and tech expertise for hire on Vernon

Tech and Product Due Diligence

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Identify key product and technology challenges for the next 12-18 months. This project is typically commissioned by Series A/B VCs during a funding round or by founders seeking an internal audit of their product and technology.

A selected list of due diligence projects carried out for VCs like Kibo Ventures, White Star, Northzone or Portage.

Industry	Location	Stage
Short-term rentals portal	Spain	Series A
Sports community	Portugal	Series A
Mobility	Spain	Series A
Retail pharma	Spain	Acquisition
Healthtech	UK	Series A
Fashion retail	Spain	Series B
Logistics	Spain	Series A
Data & AI	Finland	Series B
Logistics	Germany	Series B
AI	US	Series A
Martech	Spain	Internal audit
No Code tools	Spain	Series A
Insurtech	Germany	Series A
Logistics	Spain	Series A
DTC	UK	Series A
Proptech	Switzerland	Series A
Fintech	Germany	Series A
AI	Canada	Series A
Fintech	Canada	Series A
Fintech	Spain	Series A
Traveltech	Spain	Series A
Cybersecurity	Spain	Seed
Cloud infrastructure	Spain	Series A

Fractional CTO and CPO

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We join the client’s team as part-time or interim Product and Tech leaders, offering a highly flexible approach. We engage in strategic discussions and provide hands-on implementation when needed.

Sports marketplace: Defined MVP and kickstarted Product and Tech team.
Mercadona Tech: Kickstarted Product and Tech Team.
Chicfy (acquired): Fractional CTO and CPO. Rebuilt tech team, launched men vertical, built analytics and growth practise and team.
Cybersecurity SaaS: Fractional Product Manager. Launched research practise.
Clarity.ai: Fractional CTO and CPO. Rebuilt tech team. Helped built product MVP and tech team.
Cires21: helped transform an AI video service into a SaaS product.
Fintech SaaS: helped reposition the product, setup analytics and streamline operations after series A.
Cybersecurity SaaS: fractional CTO and CPO.

Pre-Vernon Projects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Prior to founding Vernon, Teo and Pedro were already seasoned operators. Some highlights:

Circular: Founders. Collaborative recruitment marketplaces for tech and product profiles. Backed by Point Nine, Local Glove, Kibo Ventures, All Iron. Sold to Sngular in 2024.
Jobandtalent: led Product and Tech team while pivoting from recruitment marketplace to digital staffing agency.
Busuu: CTO of the language learning startup with the largest userbase. Chegg acquired the company.
Social Point: led as PM the largest IP of the gaming company. Take Two Studios acquired the company.
Lyst: led the engineering team.
Fon: founding member of the engineering team.
El País: led the web development team in one of the biggest newspapers in Spain.

Launching MediaCopilot with Cires21

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 08:45:42 +0000

If you are in the broadcasting or streaming industry, you no doubt know [Cires21] (https://cires21.com). In the last 15 years, Cires21 has become a leader in providing streaming solutions to the world’s largest broadcasters, including Eurovision Services, RTVE, and the BBC.

Their R&D team began experimenting with LLM-enabled transcription and embedding pipelines in Q1 2023, achieving production-ready projects with major broadcasters by Q1 2024. But they wanted to take it a step further: why not productize these capabilities—video transcription, translations, subtitles, summaries, clipping, etc.—into a software-as-a-service model?

Our services at Vernon

Mon, 27 May 2024 08:45:42 +0000

Many have asked what exactly we do at Vernon. It’s true that we’ve never explained it in detail. So here we go: a detailed yet concise overview of how we help companies operate at their peak.

Our Track Record

We (both Teo and Pedro) have worked with top-tier tech companies and operators. We co-founded Circular.io, supported by Point Nine, LocalGlobe, and Kibo Ventures. We also held executive roles at companies like Jobandtalent, Busuu, Social Point, and Lyst, which reached Series B-C or were acquired. Additionally, at Vernon, we’ve advised over 40 clients including VCs like Northzone and Whitestar, and companies such as Clarity.ai, Mercadona Tech, and Chicfy (now Vinted).

Relaunching Vernon

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 05:22:42 +0000

Over the past five years, building Circular – a Vernon spin-off that we just sold – taught us to create and market a product from the ground up. This journey, coupled with our tenure as tech and product leaders in scale-ups and corporations, has uniquely positioned us for our next chapter, especially in a time when AI technologies like transformers and LLMs are reshaping our world.

Although we have been working with AI for a while now –from developing a world-class ML matching algorithm a decade ago to launching an LLM-assisted chat feature six months ago–, we want to make it our main focus now. And by partnering with customers tackling real-world challenges, our nimble team maximizes its impact.

We are back. Stay tuned.

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 05:22:42 +0000

Circular has been acquired by Sngular! You can learn more about it here.

It’s been quite a ride. In these past 5 years, thousands of hires were made through our collaborative model, we build a SaaS business, developed an impressive and wide-ranging product, acquired a company, grew the team to 45 people with top talent, launched in France and UK, raised funds from top European investors, and, most importantly, learned a lot.

Our new project: Circular

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 05:22:42 +0000

Almost two years ago we launched Vernon with the goal of helping the European startup ecosystem grow and flourish.

We’ve been fortunate to work with amazing startups and VC investors all around the continent. They’ve trusted our judgement and experience and let us dive deep into their teams and their projects.

More than 30 projects later, including due diligence reports, interim management and internal improvement projects, we’ve found a new adventure we want to follow to the end and that’s perfectly aligned with Vernon’s original mission.

The Hiring Circle, one month in

Fri, 13 Jul 2018 05:22:42 +0000

We launched The Hiring Circle, a shared candidate pool based on circular economy, a month ago for the Spanish startups’ ecosystem.

How The Hiring Circle works

Over the last few years, we’ve seen companies like Buffer or GitLab lead a trend on being as transparent as possible. Buffer even shares their real time revenues and metrics. They’re building their companies in the open.

We believe that’s a fundamentally good way of creating products and startups.

The Hiring Circle, shared talent pool

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 05:22:42 +0000

When we launched Vernon –one year and a half ago– our mission was clear from day 1: “help the European startup ecosystem grow”. Guided by this statement we’ve been doing two types of projects:

Product and Tech due diligence: we’ve worked with over 25 startups all over Europe (Spain, UK, Germany, Norway or Portugal) in both funding-round due diligence –hired by a VC before investing– or “internal” due diligence projects –when we help a startup plan the next year of growth–.
Interim management: longer term projects where we temporarily act as the startup’s CTO and Head of Product. We’ve have been lucky to work with two great companies during this time: chicfy and Clarity.

On top of that, we became part of the Kibo Ventures family as Operating Partners –where we help with the deal flow, due diligence reports and the product and tech issues of portfolio companies– and help out younger companies as Residency Advisors in Campus Madrid.

A guide for understanding Product Managers through their skills

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 05:22:42 +0000

Product Management (PM) is a job with a confusing and evolving definition. Plus, the role varies a lot from one industry to another. Even if we only considered digital products and a startup environment, while variation is reduced, we still find many different schools and styles. A lot has been written about the meaning of this role, such as the classic from Ken Norton, “How to hire a Product Manager”, (perhaps the most famous) and John Cutler’s “The evolving PM role” one of my recent favourites.

Operating Partners at Kibo Ventures

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 05:22:42 +0000

A lot has happened since we started Vernon back in January and we have many customer stories to share in the future. But what is clear is to us after this time is that the startup ecosystem in Spain — and Europe — is maturing very quickly.

A significant trend we’re seeing is Venture Capital firms spending more time helping their portfolio startups in their day to day, adding value through their collective experience in strategy, business development, talent management or product and engineering.

Introducing Vernon and venture growth

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 05:22:42 +0000

Hello world.

There are many questions to ask yourself when you start a new company, a new project. What are we going to sell? What should our name be? Who is our target customer? Many questions with even more answers, all different and valid depending on what you want your company to be.

Product and tech expertise for hire on Vernon

Tech and Product Due Diligence

Fractional CTO and CPO

Pre-Vernon Projects

Launching MediaCopilot with Cires21

Our services at Vernon

Our Track Record

Relaunching Vernon

We are back. Stay tuned.

Our new project: Circular

The Hiring Circle, one month in

The Hiring Circle, shared talent pool

A guide for understanding Product Managers through their skills

Operating Partners at Kibo Ventures

Introducing Vernon and venture growth

First week at Campus Madrid, our new home. Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo.