Johnpaul.ink

Product strategy, market research and customer intelligence

Vetted by ToptalTop 3% talent network

Market first, product second.

I help companies figure out what to build, who to build it for, and how to position it, especially in markets being reshaped by AI.

Core belief: the company that understands the customer's job best usually wins.

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Johnpaul Simiyu

What I do

Research first. Then I shape how the product is received.

Market and customer research tells us what to build and what to say. Then I use SEO, GEO, email marketing and web copy to make sure the right people find it, understand it, and want it.

The process

  1. 01 · Understand

    Understand the market

    Who the buyers are, what they are trying to get done, who else is competing for that job, and where demand actually exists rather than where it is assumed to exist.

    • Markets
    • Customers
    • Jobs
    • Competition
    • Demand
    • Category

  2. 02 · Decide

    Make better product and positioning decisions

    Market understanding is only useful if it changes a decision. What to build, what to stop building, what to claim, and which words are worth defending.

    • Product strategy
    • Prioritisation
    • Value proposition
    • Positioning
    • Messaging

  3. 03 · Grow

    Build the path to demand

    Distribution is part of product strategy, not a department downstream of it. Search, including AI-mediated search, is one route to demand, not the identity of the work.

    • SEO
    • GEO
    • Email marketing
    • Web copy
    • Content

The tools that shape how it lands

SEO

Get found by people already searching for the job your product does.

GEO

Make AI assistants understand, trust and recommend you.

Email marketing

Turn interest into a relationship, in the customer's language.

Web copy

Pages that say what the research says buyers need to hear.

Work

Problems I've spent time solving.

The proof

Apps

Tools I've built to think faster.

Working products that turn research methods into something you can use.

App showcase

  • JobSpec

    JTBD

    Turn a market description into a job spec: functional, emotional and social jobs, forces, outcomes and messaging.

    View app →

  • Progress

    JTBD

    An AI advisor that recommends software for the progress you're trying to make. No feature checklists.

    View app →

  • OutcomeOS

    JTBD

    Map the real outcomes your audience wants and build the shortest path from intent to completion.

    View app →

  • AuthorityOS

    GEO

    Find the shortest path to becoming the source AI systems cite in your category.

    View app →

  • Vantage GEO

    GEO

    Monitor how AI answer engines describe your brand and act on prioritised GEO opportunities.

    View app →

  • Query Fan-Out Explorer

    Search

    Turn one customer question into the universe around it: topics, comparisons, entities and decision criteria.

    View app →

  • Topic Intelligence Engine

    Search

    Turn a content idea into a report on reader intent, questions, objections, entities and gaps.

    View app →

  • Atlas

    Search

    Crawls your site, pulls live search data, tests AI visibility, then writes a 90-day SEO plan.

    View app →

  • Technical SEO Intelligence

    Search

    Upload crawl exports and get a few prioritised, root-cause fixes, including what to ignore.

    View app →

  • PR Ecosystem Mapper

    Growth

    A tailored digital PR strategy with keyword themes and 15–30 scored publisher targets.

    View app →

  • ValueBox

    Content

    Paste an article and get value-add boxes and AI mention-readiness suggestions.

    View app →

  • Four Clues

    Search

    A knowledge game for SEO pros, with a blind-spot map that shows what to study next.

    View app →

  • Lead Magnet Analyzer

    Growth

    Paste a list of companies and get specific lead magnet ideas, landing page copy and capture strategies.

    View app →

  • BillboardIQ

    Growth

    Turn outdoor advertising into measurable performance marketing with QR experiences and tracking.

    View app →

  • 2QBack

    Growth

    A small, honest circle of three: one ahead, one beside, one behind.

    View app →

  • BrandTree

    Commerce

    A buyer-first commerce OS for personalised shopping and brand discovery.

    View app →

  • Atelier 127

    Commerce

    Pre-order a jacket in your own measurements. Made only to demand, with less excess inventory.

    View app →

  • Local Intel

    Markets

    First-hand local knowledge for people deciding where to live, work, visit or invest. Starting with Malindi.

    View app →

  • DiasporaBuild

    Markets

    Weekly geo-tagged site photos and milestone escrow for Kenyan construction projects.

    View app →

  • Latent

    Customers

    Get privately matched to real problems you're already suited for. Not a job board.

    View app →

  • Plainspec

    Customers

    Paste any product spec and get a plain-English read on what it changes for you.

    View app →

  • PaperCast

    AI

    Upload a document and listen to it like someone smart is explaining it to you.

    View app →

  • Companion

    AI

    A calm, private AI chief of staff that helps you become who you said you wanted to be.

    View app →

  • Goallery

    Internal

    Work intelligence for the NO-BS Marketplace team.

    View app →

  • NO-BS QA Rubric Scorer

    Internal

    An editor-driven content QA workflow for marketplace placements.

    View app →

Thinking

Working beliefs, and the essays behind them.

What I believe

  • Start with the customer, not the feature

    Features are answers. The useful question is what someone was trying to accomplish when they went looking for one.

  • Understand the job before designing the solution

    Jobs To Be Done is a lens I use constantly, but it is a tool in the kit, not the whole practice, and not a religion.

  • Understand the market before declaring the opportunity

    Opportunity is a claim about demand, competition and timing. It should be argued with evidence, not enthusiasm.

  • Separate symptoms from underlying problems

    Most 'we need more traffic' briefs are positioning problems. Most churn problems are hiring-the-wrong-tool problems.

Essays

Writing

Published elsewhere.

Beyond strategy

The book

A Song For The Corpse

Kindle edition

Get it on Amazon

About

I started in words, then moved upstream.

Who's behind the work

Journalism taught me that attention is earned sentence by sentence. SEO and marketing taught me how demand is expressed and measured. But campaigns kept failing for reasons that had nothing to do with campaigns: the product or the positioning was aimed at the wrong job.

So I moved upstream, into market research, customer intelligence and product strategy, and I still carry the work all the way through to how the product is found and received.

Download the CV (PDF)

  • Sep 2026 — present

    Marketing Strategy Consultant (previously Product and Strategy Lead, Marketing Coordinator)

    GENIE AI (Canada)

  • Aug 2026 — present

    Marketing Expert

    Toptal

  • 2023 — 2026

    SEO, Newsletter Lead, then Product Innovation Manager

    NO-BS Marketplace (USA)

  • 2020 — present

    Co-Founder / Marketing Strategist

    e-Maji-N8tion (Kenya)

  • 2019 — 2020

    Creative Writer and Journalist

    Kenyans.co.ke

  • 2014 — 2018

    BA, English Language and Literature

    Egerton University

Contact

Let's work together.

If you're trying to understand a market, make sense of customer behaviour, decide what to build, sharpen your positioning, or work out where growth is actually coming from, let's talk.

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