Ramli John

Author of Product-Led Onboarding (+30K copies sold) | First Round Fast Track Mentor | Content Director at Appcues.

⭐️ Follow me for helpful tips to onboard, delight, and keep your customers coming back to your product.
📔 Author of Amazon #1 bestselling book "Product-Led Onboarding." 👉 𝙎𝙀𝘼𝙉 𝙀𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙎, Founder of GrowthHackers.com: "Product-Led Onboarding is 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭-𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 embarking on the critical activity of improving their user onboarding." 


⚡️ I use my multi-disciplinary skills in marketing, design, and software development to help product-led SaaS companies analyze their whole customer's journey and funnel to identify growth opportunities to 2-3X their MRR. 

Often, that means designing and implementing experiments to increase activation rate (trial-to-paid or free-to-paid conversions), decrease churn rate, or increase average revenue per user (ARPU)

If you asked my friends and colleagues how they would describe me, they'd say I'm resourceful, proactive, and entrepreneurial

►► CONTACT INFO
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▷ Write me a note at ramli [at] ramlijohn.com

Founder

A weekly show and newsletter for marketers looking to level up their marketing and career. I interview world-class marketers to uncover the secrets, strategies, and frameworks behind their wins. In each episode, guests reveal three things:  (1) a marketing power-up,  (2) a real-world example of that in action, and (3) a power-up that’s helped them take their career to the next level.

Ramli "RJ" John

I just hired my first full-time employee. Not an assistant. A Chief of Staff. And it's my wife, Joanna Ruth! Here's why:

For 1.5 years, I resisted hiring. I wanted to stay solo as long as possible—full control, no coordination costs, just me and clients.

Then I wrote down the job description for what Delight Path actually needs this year.

Someone who can:
→ Create content and community systems
→ Bring the vision to life (not just execute tasks)
→ Scale the impact for product leaders I had in mind

I realized: this isn't an assistant role. It's 2nd in command.

And Joanna is perfect for it:

1. She's built more than I have!

Joanna's self-published over 47 Montessori education books (I need to catch up)! She's a proven system-builder, not just an idea person.

2. She follows instructions when I wing it (let's talk about building IKEA furniture!) 

Joanna forced me to create SOPs for everything. She's started documenting processes I've been running on instinct. Business became transferable, not just in my head.

3. She connects deeper to people than I do

People call me emotionless sometimes (fair). She cares about people on a level I don't naturally access. It's why she studied early childhood education focused on autism and behavioral science. 

Community needs that energy, not just my frameworks

Transitioning Delight Path from 100% consulting revenue to 50% media + community requires coordination I can't do alone.

Before hiring, I asked:
→ Am I hiring for tasks or for leverage?
→ Can this person make decisions without me?
→ Will this free me to do what only I can do?

If it's not yes to all three, it's an assistant role (nothing wrong with that, but not what I needed).

What's Next:

Joanna starts immediately with partnerships and community for Product Leaders Lab. As we scale, she moves into the Integrator (EOS) role, and I move into the Visionary role.

The onboarding forced me to document everything—SOPs for content, client work, and community management. Business became a system, not just me.
I'm excited to build something meaningful together again (we organized a large youth church conference before we got married).

Please join me in welcoming Joanna to Delight Path.

What's been your experience bringing someone into your solo business?

PS. If you're thinking about staying solo versus hiring, Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell has been super helpful. Changed how I think about the business.

Building a community for product leaders (VP and Director-level). Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

Most podcasts are interview-style. That won't cut it in 2026! It's why I'm doing a high-production narrative format for my new show: Product Leaders Lab (coming in Feb).

I turned my living room into a recording studio this Monday. Shot the intro and teaser with my creative producers, Carlo and Justine. 

Here's how it works:

Two veteran product leaders. Same impossible scenario. Completely different approaches.

One episode breaks down their decisions, what worked, what didn't, and the lessons that actually matter.

Episode 1 premieres February 24th: "The AI Adoption Pressure"

Netali (VP of Product) and Greg Leach (Senior Director of New Business) faced the same problem: their teams were drowning in prompt engineering.

Netali's solution? She created a new role, "Prompt Ops," to centralize AI expertise and protect PM capacity.

Greg's approach? He became the chair of the company's AI committee to remove red tape and encourage the adoption of internal AI tools. Over 100 people attended the first demo (out of 230 employees).

Two leaders. Two strategies. Both worked.

I've already recorded:

→ Christine Itwaru (VP of Product at Userflow): "The Launch Recovery" - How protecting her team after a launch disaster became her defining leadership moment.
→ Michelle Green (Director of Product at Coley): "The Strategy Misalignment" - When customer success and product saw the same problem completely differently.
→ Nesrine Changuel, PhD (Author of "Product Delight," former PM at Google, Spotify, Skype): "The Competitive Moment" - How she became Google Meet's first PM for Delight during the pandemic and chose benchmark against, "If we were all in a physical room, how would the experience be better?"

I'm scheduled to record with other amazing product leaders:
Betsy Shaak, Joseph King, Chris Downey, Jason Knight, Gabrielle Bufrem, Lauren Schuman, Deepti Pradeep, Angela Sze, Lilach Yaniv, Warren Dombowsky, Nick Cust, Purnima Bihari, and Aakash Gupta.

I'm looking for more VPs, Directors, or Heads of Product who want to share their defining leadership moments.

DM me or tag someone below.

PS. Bookmark this for when you're stuck on an impossible decision and need to see how other leaders navigated it. First episode drops February 24th.

2025: The year I learned focus has a price tag. Turned 40. Ran my first half marathon. Doubled my income while working fewer hours.

But here's what nobody tells you about Year 1 of consulting:

The wins are incredible. The valleys are brutal.

Some months hit $50K. Others dipped to $2K. I got ghosted after proposals. Had deals go sideways. Watched summer dry up completely.

Before I left my job, April Dunford told me: "Don't try to do too many things at once. Focus on one thing and get REALLY good at it."

So I said no to:
→ Newsletter sponsorships (even when I needed the money)
→ Course launches
→ Content creation I actually loved

The result? My biggest deal ever—with a Fortune 100 company.

But it came at a cost: I didn't create anything I'm truly proud of last year. No podcasts. No creative projects. Just focused execution.

That changes in 2026.

I'm launching Product Leaders Lab—a community + media brand for VPs, Directors, and Heads of Product. Already have 22 founding members and $60K in sponsorships locked.

Also launching a documentary-style podcast: One impossible scenario. Three veteran product leaders. Three completely different approaches. 20-25 minutes, not 60+ minute rambling.

First episode launched in Feb 2026: "The AI Ambush" - Your CEO announces an AI pivot without telling you. Product team panics. Board meeting in 48 hours. What do you do?

And I'm also running the Chicago Marathon in October to raise $2,500 for a close friend fighting stage 4 cancer.

2025 was depth. 2026 is reach.

What's one thing you're most proud of from 2025?

PS. Full year-in-review in the newsletter.

2025 has been the most transformative year of my life. Not just professionally, but personally, emotionally, and physically. Just like my review of 20

Open article: 2025 in review: the year everything changed by Ramli John • 9 min read

2025 in review: the year everything changed

In this live workshop, Becki Floyd will share how to turn user feedback into working AI prototypes within a day.  

Engineers can now use AI to ship in hours, not weeks. If UX can't keep pace, product decisions happen without user input.

Becki redesigned her entire UX process to work at AI speed:

✅ Async video research + AI analysis = user insights in hours (not weeks)
✅ Morning feedback → afternoon prototypes using Replit and ChatGPT
✅ High-fidelity prototypes that developers can ship immediately
✅ Process that keeps UX leading when speed matters most

This isn't about adding more tools to your stack. It's about rebuilding how UX works when AI-powered devs are shipping code faster than traditional research cycles allow.

This is her framework:

1. Gather insights in hours (async video + AI synthesis)
2. Build working prototypes the same day (tools that compress design-to-dev)
3. Lead product direction at AI speed (process over perfection)

We kick off the workshop tomorrow (Wednesday, January 21) at 9 AM ET

Bring your PMs, designers, and developers. This is for teams trying to stay user-led when everything moves faster.

Register: https://luma.com/9bwpea6x

What's your biggest challenge in keeping UX involved when dev cycles get compressed?

Appcues

B2B PLG SaaS startup that empowers non-technical users to build in-app experiences that improve product adoption.  

Promoted to manager in 7 months to lead organic content strategy, overseeing freelancers, agencies, and in-house staff for SEO and content creation (blogs, courses, videos, webinars, proprietary reports)

Manager, Content Marketing & Communications

- Executed organic SEO strategy with guidance from contractors and agencies
- Repurposed content for multi-channel distribution to maximize reach of assets
- Launched Appcues Youtube channel

Content & Communications Manager 

ZOA Energy

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's better-for-you energy drink. 

- Managed freelancers and agencies for content production, public relations, influencer management, and programmatic advertising
- Supported Olympics and World Kindness Day campaigns, and Black Adam partnership

(No, I didn't meet The Rock... did talk to him through a tiny screen tho)

Head Of Digital Content

iFixit

The online repair manual for everything.

- Coached 15 writers, engineers, and creatives who produced multi-format content that drove ~150,000,000 sessions, increasing backlinks 45% in 1 year 

- Managed editorial calendar and established workflows for requesting, writing, editing, and publishing content using Slack, Asana, Google Suite, Wordpress, Active Campaign, and Buffer

- Consistently achieved 20% QoQ Youtube subscriber growth, growing channel from 185,000 to 825,000 subscribers in <5 years

Director, Content and Communications

-Founded editorial team to create content based on original research, community insights, expert opinions, and SEO, leading to a 130% increase in brand mentions in < 1 year

- Increased blog pageviews by 40% and organic sessions by 25% in 1 year by consistently publishing blog posts, guides, articles, newsletters, Youtube videos, and Op-Eds

- Spearhead blog migration to Wordpress CMS, redefining categories, creating training documentation, and implementing Bynder (DAM)

Senior Manager, Content and Editorial 

- Promoted to lead new ‘Outreach’ department, overseeing content marketing, social media, and digital PR 
- Grew Instagram following 615%, Twitter 109%, and Facebook 56% in 3 years
- Developed partner marketing and social content with teams from Motorola, HTC, HP, and Amazon

Manager, Marketing Communications 

-Created press releases, web copy, and social media content to support launches and campaigns
-Set community policies, connected w/ top contributors, and used feedback to guide features and content
-Built relationships with media, analysts, and experts in consumer hardware, technology, and sustainability, generating thousands of monthly pickups.

Community and Outreach Manager

Experts Exchange

Experts Exchange is a search, question, and answer technology platform with 250,000 daily active users.

- Led rebrand and GTM plans for B2B solution, managing resources w/ significant dependencies
- Developed market requirements docs (MRD's) to outline customer needs for product teams
- Created messaging frameworks using the Pragmatic Institute Approach

Manager, Product Marketing

- Implemented drip campaigns for prospects and customers
- Managed freelance writers and designers for content production 
- Implemented first editorial calendar in Google Sheets, streamlining communication across silos

Manager, Demand Generation

Shopatron

B2B SaaS e-commerce platform providing cloud-based order management solutions for brands and multi-channel retailers. 1,000+ clients in 40 industries, including: Bosch, Suzuki, Ernie Ball, and Thule. (Acquired by Kibo Commerce in 2015)

- Oversaw DG content: trade show collateral, blogs, infographics, case studies, and analyst reports 
- Managed end-to-end campaigns in Pardot, and reported monthly on their performance
- Spearhead webinar program in GoToWebinar: wrote promotional copy, identified SME's and clients, routed leads to Sales in Sugar CRM, and distributed recordings

- Scaled team from 8 to 18 analysts, implemented hiring and onboarding processes  
- Researched, generated, and maintained prospect data in Sugar CRM
- Distilled research into sales scripts, internal wikis, and sales enablement content for 40 industries

Manager, Market Research

- Consistently exceeded sales targets and promoted to trade show team lead
- Generated sales pipeline using BANT framework and scheduled product demonstrations
- Spearhead the creation of a library of call scripts, email templates, and training documentation

Sales Associate

Catalyst SLO

Boutique marketing agency specializing in ad and content creation for small, regional chains.

- Supported print and multimedia ad creation 
- Managed largest account: Lemos Pet Suppy 
- Kept front of house running with customer support, client billing, and vendor management

Marketing Intern

Wilks Broadcasting Denver

Regional broadcasting company with 25+ radio stations serving large and midsize markets.

- Developed and executed social media strategy for 8 summer events   
- Supported sales through prospecting, scheduling, & CRM data entry
- Collaborated with on-air talent to create 15-30 second radio spots

Advertising and Marketing Intern

👋 Hello! I’m Kay-Kay. Thanks for stopping by.  

I’ve got a decade of content and communications experience working for B2B and B2C tech startups (read: I’m intimately familiar with the growing pains that go along with building and scaling content programs). 

I've led scrappy teams of writers, video producers, marketers, and even engineers. Together, the stories we’ve told have been covered tens of thousands of times by top-tier media outlets (including NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Business Insider, and Forbes to name a few), featured on the front page of Reddit, and have even turned ideas into legislation.

If you ask any of my 75+ direct reports about my management style, they’d tell you I lead with empathy (and a quirky positivity that’s infectious and uniquely my own).

You can see some of my work in the wild here: https://kaykayclapp.journoportfolio.com/

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