Ilya Sinelnikov

Product owner with 20 years of experience, live in Boston.

Building products in Robotics, Micromobility, Automotive, Transportation, Education. Founded two startups and led the product team in two other.

Glueing together Hardware, Embedded, IoT, Cloud, Web, and Mobile to deliver best user experience aligned with business goals.

Owning roadmap on all levels, building teams & processes, developing go-to-market strategy and executing.

Instructor and mentor at MassRobotics Accelerator. Author of Negotiations interactive book and Negotiations and client relationship course. Teacher & Partner at Bureau Gorbunov Management School.

WiTricity

Boston, MA

2024 — present

• Lead the product development of Wireless chargers for EVs of commercial fleets
• Designed unique in-vehicle parking assistance system
• Developed WiTricity Cloud platform for charger management

Superpedestrian

Cambridge, MA

2018—2024

• Led the product development of the most cost-efficient and safe e-scooter for micromobility defining the major industry trends
• Scaled the team from sole position to 15 product managers and designers
• Scaled the fleet to 50K scooters, served 2M unique riders across 8 countries
• Reached $45M in revenue with industry-best trip margin

“It felt like the Volvo of e-scooters” — The Boston Globe, 2019

Envy.rent

Honolulu, HI

2016—2018

• Co-founded the first double-sided car rental marketplace for car dealerships
• Led the creation of customer facing website, brand, marketing & advertising
• Achieved $1.6M revenue and profitability in 9 months with initial budget of $50K
• Developed an automated parser, backend and front-end to seamlessly integrate dealership listings from cars.com into rental offerings
• Forged a strategic partnership with the largest Chinese car rental marketplace, tripling our bookings

Dapple Grey Agency

Global

2008—2015

• Founded the Design and Development company
• Completed 100+ project in hardware & embedded development, web & mobile development, product strategy, branding & identity, market research & competitive analysis

Lexil Bluetooth Marketing

Moscow, Russia

2006—2008

• Founded startup and launched the first bluetooth device for local mobile content sharing in pre-iPhone era
• Raised $1.5M in Series A
• Built and led a 60 people company

Book

"Meeting room" Book (in Russian, English version coming soon) Interactive practice book on negotiation and communication

Course

Negotiation and Client Relationship 2.0

In English: on-site, 4 full days; in Russian: online, 4 weeks, weekly webinars

Video Podcasts

• Fuckup is a good thing (Design, Movies, and Poufs) (in Russian)
• Negotiations (Submarine Podcast #166) (in Russian)
• Negotiations about money (Submarine Podcast #383) (in Russian)
• Product ownership (Who's a student) (in Russian)
• How to make a good impression at a new job (Who's a student) (in Russian)

Press

• Young capitals, 20 under 20 (Kommersant Money Magazine, 2008)
• Life and Politics (Who's a student, 2018)
• Everyday life of a Product manager in an American startup (VC.ru, 2018)
• 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (Superpedestrian Blog, 2022)

Featured articles

Selected articles on Product management and negotiations from the Bureau Gorbunov Weekly Column (2010–2019)

• The negotiator's principles
• Preparation for negotiations
• How to get more money
• How to behave in an interview
• How to overcome insecurity and fear
• How to say "no"
• What to do if you let the client down
• Why compromise is bad for both parties

Don't hesitate to write:

ilya@sinelnikov.name