Workforce / Postsecondary Education Product Lead
(Contract Role, Part-time)
Position open until filled.
About Kinetic West
Kinetic West is a 14-person social impact consulting firm based in Seattle, Washington. We have been working with clients in the non-profit, philanthropic, government, education, and private sectors since 2017.
Our clients are based in Washington and across the country, including in Oregon, Alaska, Montana, Georgia, Texas, and Maryland. They include organizations like the Gates Foundation, the Washington State Department of Commerce, Prince George’s County (MD) Public Schools, Reach Higher Montana, Career Ready Atlanta, Educate Texas, City of Seattle, and the ACLU of Oregon.
Our mission is to build a world in which every person lives a life of dignity and meaning. This means focusing our time, energy, and resources on challenges that disproportionately impact overburdened and underserved communities, particularly, people of color and low-income communities.
Overview of the Workforce / Postsecondary Education Product Lead
Kinetic West is seeking an experienced partner to help transform the existing expertise of our team and past project work into turnkey, modular products that can be customized -- projects that can be offered efficiently and impactfully to clients. Ultimately, we hope this work will enable Kinetic West to open new markets, reduce our price point, and scale our impact.
Some examples of products that we believe have the potential to meet common needs experienced by our clients include: data dashboards, labor market assessments, employer satisfaction surveys, and postsecondary customer market research. This project will focus on clients in the workforce space like workforce boards, K-12 career and technical education leads, and community and technical colleges across the United States.
This project would explore the market for these tools, develop prototypes with the Kinetic West team, and turn the prototype into a fully-fledged product that Kinetic West can offer clients nationwide. The project will take a phased approach focused on market and customer definition, recruiting clients for a prototype engagement, and product development.
The Product Lead will work closely with and report to a Kinetic West Principal, and will have the opportunity to interact with the Kinetic West team throughout this project (see below).
Contract Details
Role Type: Contract
Location: Seattle, WA, King County, or Remote
Compensation: To be determined based on final scope. We expect the contract size to be about $6,500/month
Contract Term: 9-month contract role, with potential for extension or to convert into a full-time staff role based on mutual interest
Time Commitment: We expect that this role will be approximately half-time, with some periods of higher or lower intensity over the course of 9 months
Benefits: This is a contract role and not eligible for benefits at this time
Key Responsibilities
Phase 1: Market and Customer Definition (months 1 - 3)
Build context and understanding of Kinetic West’s projects and client types with a focus on projects that could be developed to serve a broad swath of potential clients in the workforce development, higher education, and/or K-12 career and technical education space. This could involve review of past project scopes and deliverables, as well as conducting interviews with members of the Kinetic West team. Make a recommendation on which target customer to focus on.
Next, conduct deep research into the target customer segments to identify common needs, customer/user archetypes, and funding sources. This will include desk research, budget analysis, and 5-10 customer interviews per segment. Customer interviews should include testing willingness to participate in a prototyping trial (see Phase 2).
Finally, conduct a market assessment, including the existing competitors within the space and defining Kinetic West’s “right to win.” The goal is to get clear on: a) the need for a product, b) the buyer, c) willingness to pay/price point and d) the funding source.
Create a memo for the Kinetic West team outlining the market opportunity (if any), and identifying opportunities to pursue in Phase 2. This will serve as a “go/no go” stage gate into Phase 2.
Phase 2: Recruit customers for a prototyping trial project (month 4, month 5 if needed)
Assuming Phase 1 identifies a market need and customer, recruit an initial customer set (e.g., 5 workforce development councils, etc.) to participate in a prototype study where the Kinetic West team will build and refine our tools to meet their need. Learnings from Phase 1 interviews can support recruitment.
This recruiting process will serve as a “market test” to validate customer need, customer/user archetypes, willingness to pay, and funding sources. We can also test product messaging and positioning. Gather feedback and research from the “market test” and summarize findings into a memo for the Kinetic West team.
Effectively recruiting customers will serve as a “go/no go” stage gate into Phase 3.
Phase 3a: Work with Kinetic West project team to create a repeatable product offering (months 6 to 9)
Embed with the Kinetic West team for the prototype project with a focus on codifying tools and practices for use in future projects.
Phase 3b: Create a business development strategy (months 6 to 9)
Develop a recommendation for a business development approach based on learnings in Phase 2.
Develop a “product roadmap” outlining additional work needed to begin to scale the product offering to other clients over the next 6-12 months.
Potential for future Phase 4 work: Build and lead Kinetic West product team
If at the end of this engagement, we conclude there is a market opportunity and you are interested in continuing to work with Kinetic West, the contract role could be extended or convert into a full-time staff role, leading a modular product team that is built around a product roadmap. Note: Given this is a new role focused on untested products, we cannot guarantee the Phase 4 opportunity
The Right Candidate will Have…
You have significant experience and a professional network in one or more of the following areas: workforce or economic development, higher education, K-12 career and technical education
You are experienced in consulting and enjoy this work
You have experience developing, marketing, and selling products / consulting projects
You are interested in creating innovation in the consulting sector
You are excited by entrepreneurial work within the context of an existing organization
You are comfortable working in, and guiding teams through, environments of ambiguity, exploration, and experimentation
You enjoy talking to customers and creating amazing user experiences
You are interested in the problems Kinetic West works on – increasing access to opportunity through education, supported pathways to postsecondary success, workforce development, and leveraging data to better serve decision makers
You align with Kinetic West’s values and our mission to build a world where every person lives a life of dignity and meaning