Next Play
By: Manu Sharma
Tags: Data Science, Collaboration, Design, UX

Today I am starting a new journey in my professional life, and I am excited to share the news with you. I will be joining InVision as the Chief Data Officer.

I have had the privilege of building rock star teams and working with some incredible people at LinkedIn and shopkick. After an amazing 3+ years at shopkick, leading their growth and data science efforts (we grew the user base from 6MM to 20MM+ in that time, the team grew from ~50 to ~150 employees, and the company got acquired), it is now time for something new.

Why InVision?

Over the years, as I have grown as a professional, my framework of thinking about work has also evolved. I feel we — those of us who work in technology, especially in Silicon Valley — are a very privileged bunch, and I am thankful for that.

We get to choose where we work, we get to work for the love of working and we get to participate in creating cutting edge products that are used by millions or even billions of people across the world. We work hard because we are inspired by the potential of success not because we are afraid of failure.

When I think about the kind of place I want to work, I can only think of one thing that motivates me — Impact. More specifically,

1. What kind of impact can my company have on the world?

2. What kind of impact can I and my team have at this company?

Let’s start with the first question.

InVision is increasingly becoming an essential collaboration platform for designers and product managers to rapidly iterate on near fully baked product experiences without writing a single line of code. As part of my due diligence on the company, almost everyone I asked (designers, product managers, executives, VCs) what tool they used for prototyping, overwhelmingly answered InVision. The responses of VCs fell in two categories — “we recently used InVision to redesign our website” and “Oh yes, of course, lots of our companies use InVision.”

This is a product people love using. The data doesn’t lie! InVision has almost 2 million designers using the product and counts some the most forward thinking companies among its clients. From Airbnb to Facebook to Uber, InVision is enabling the creation of the amazing digital products and experiences we all love and use every day.

Now, let’s talk about the second question.

Some of you might wonder where the “data play” is at InVision. After all, it isn’t a product like Amazon (people who bought this also bought that), or Netflix (because you watched these movies, you might also like), or LinkedIn (people you may know). In my view, the role of data science in an organization is two-fold,

1. Enable the business to make better decisions

2. Enable the business to create better product(s)

I strongly believe that in my capacity as the Chief Data Officer, I will be able to positively, and significantly empower our teams to make both of these possible and contribute to InVision’s incredible growth in a meaningful way.

In the last year, virtually every key metric has shown triple digit growth. For a company of over 200 employees, that is fully distributed (that’s right, InVision team members can work from anywhere!) this is an incredible feat. It is only possible when you have a team of talented individuals who are hardworking, passionate and share a common vision.

I can’t wait to embark on this incredible journey and help shape our future. If you are amazing at what you do, come join us, and be a part of something unique.