Hi, I'm Zach.

I work in product and am currently the co-founder of an adtech startup that I took from zero to acquisition. I live outside of Boston with my family and dachshund named Carl (that's her in the picture).

Zach Shapiro

Work

Popsixle

Product Lead, Co-Founder

Popsixle helps Shopify brands improve ad performance by sending better data to Meta, Google, and TikTok. I joined when it was AttenX, a market research company, weeks before its seed round fell through with about four months of runway. I ran the customer research and market sizing that found the pivot, convinced my co-founder to go for it, and we went from nothing to 100+ customers and $500K ARR in six months, then an acquisition.

Vetd Co-Founder, 2017-2020 Procurement marketplace. Raised $600K, grew to 1,000+ buyers and sellers. Built v1 with no-code tools to test with real customers before writing any code.
Gemvara Senior Analyst, 2014-2015 Custom jewelry e-commerce. Synchronized paid and organic search, added ~$2M in organic bookings.
Digitas Analyst to Lead, 2012-2017 Led marketing and site analytics teams for Fortune 500 clients in the US and UK. Went from analyzing data to prioritizing projects and shipping changes, which is when I realized I wanted to build things.

Projects

I'm an ideas person so I started trying to build things with AI the second ChatGPT went viral. However it wasn't until I watched a 91-year-old vibe coder build software that I realized I needed to start thinking bigger. From there I braved the terminal, learned Git the hard way after Claude deleted days of my work and apologized insincerely, and eventually became a Claude Code devotee.

COSMA

AI Chief of Staff

My own AI Chief of Staff that runs my daily Getting Things Done inspired workflow, triages email and Slack across 3 accounts, processes meeting notes, and plans my week. It once caught me building an RPG progression system for itself instead of doing real work, which tells you something about both of us.

Game Night

Narrative Tactics Game

You're not playing Dungeons and Dragons, you're managing the people playing. Game Night is a tactics game where you assign roles to a group of friends and try to keep everyone engaged before the D&D session falls apart. The game has taught me how difficult it is to create something actually fun. I've built a series of AI commands and partners that help me design, narrate, build, and playtest.

AI-Assisted Product Design

Full design process via Claude Code

Our team doesn't have a designer so I run the full product design process with Claude Code: customer research, PRDs, wireframes, clickable HTML prototypes, QA against specs, and developer handoff with a complete design system.

Beyond Work

The Upward Project

The Upward Project

Data & Strategy, 6 years

I partner with the executive director of a career development program serving first-generation college students from low-income backgrounds. The mission has always spoken to me so I help out however I can, whether that's data, forecasting, technology, or strategy.

Survivor Lakehouse

Survivor Lakehouse

8 seasons running

Every summer I host 16+ friends at a lake house for a weekend of Survivor-style challenges, alliances, and blindsides. You would be amazed at how invested people become. This summer will be our eighth season. Reach out if you ever want to join!

Always happy to chat about product, AI, or Survivor strategy.