ABOUT MANI
Find the real
constraint.
Build from there.
I’m a product builder based in Dallas. I bring together product and commercial strategy, HCI research, and technical prototyping to turn uncertain opportunities into something a team can evaluate and act on.
THE THROUGHLINE
Different products.
The same responsibility.
Find the real constraint.
Make the call.
Own what happens next.
My work spans early ventures, advisor-led fintech, spatial products, consumer AI, institutional learning, and enterprise platforms.
Across those settings, my responsibility expanded into discovery, product ownership, strategy, prioritization, technical feasibility, stakeholder influence, and execution.
I use design and technical prototyping to make options concrete, expose uncertainty, and move a team toward a better decision. Sometimes the decision is to ship less. Sometimes it is to change the business model. Sometimes it is to stop.
Let’s talk productWHERE IT STARTED
Learn by building.
My first commerce venture connected independent sellers with customers through a curated storefront. It taught me to pay attention to trust, repeat purchases, and the offer itself. At ZET, that interest grew into behavioral research and product work across eligibility, activation, recommendations, and self-service.
Learning from a 7.5K high-engagement advisor cohort made the connection between behavior and product priorities concrete. Check Eligibility moved qualification earlier in the application journey; clearer lead tracking helped advisors understand what happened after submission.
RESEARCH AS A FOUNDATION
Understand the work
behind the request.
My undergraduate background is in Electronics and Communication Engineering, followed by a master’s in Human-Computer Interaction at Indiana University Indianapolis. That combination shapes how I approach a product: understand the people, understand the system, and investigate where the two do not fit.
At the Emerging Technology Lab, I worked across discovery, product definition, and prototype validation for a spatial design tool. In the healthcare work with Eli Lilly, the experience shifted from AR/VR toward mobile as accessibility and ease of use became central to the direction.
MAKING THE IDEA TESTABLE
Strategy needs
something tangible.
At Purdue, I helped define a context-aware AI learning experience and translate platform ambitions into a roadmap. At JK Tech, I worked across sales enablement, vendor workflows, and enterprise AI data products, connecting business requirements with focused delivery decisions.
For Ontologos, I built a functional frontend while learning the domain and working with technical partners. APIs, metadata, retrieval, guardrails, and human review were part of defining how the product should work. Prototypes made the conversations specific enough to expose gaps and move decisions forward.
COMMERCIAL JUDGMENT
Know what earns
the next investment.
Payments advisory introduced questions about payment rails, merchant economics, pricing, and distribution. My Toss venture tested the relationship between useful guidance, repeated behavior, and a viable business. After two pivots, I stopped that direction when the evidence did not support continued investment.
These experiences shape the work I want to own: product positioning, requirements, functional prototypes, customer validation, and the business decisions that connect them. I enjoy taking a vague vision and giving a team a practical way to test it.
Explore the product decisions Let’s talk product