Hi, I’m Laide!
I’m an Engineer turned Product Manager turned Founder with over 14 years of experience across engineering, product, and business.
I’m the founder and CEO of Pickytarian, an ecommerce brand. Pickytarian creates eye-catching, colorful, sturdy, compostable, and disposable dinnerware products. We also donate 5% of sales to organizations working to fight hunger and homelessness.
I’m also co-founding Mink. Mink is building the ecosystem for fractional work, starting with a marketplace where talent can find legit contract opportunities with vetted startup and companies. We started off creating tools for freelancers and our users led us to this new evolution. Within a month of venturing into the marketplace, we successfully made a few matches across engineering, marketing, and product. We’ve been fortunate to have everyone from former C-suite execs at top-notch companies to engineers and former founders.
Prior to becoming a founder, I led product management and development efforts at Amazon/Ring, Sonos, and a few startups.
Besides the aforementioned, I am a lifelong learner (even started a podcast to evaluate the veracity of blockchain/web3), playing drums, reading non-fiction, listening to music. I’m also a huge fan of sports with the Lakers being my favorite team and Serena Williams, my all-time favorite athlete.
I have an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, M.S. in Embedded Systems from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Dual B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Cal Poly Pomona.
I started this blog to engage with the product community by sharing my experiences and learning from you. Don’t hesitate to reach out – say hi, ask questions, or share feedback!
