They ship features or they write strategy.
Revenue spikes, then disappears.
The work is connecting commercial intent and customer experience.
Demand converts. The business holds.
TOD. A sports streaming platform across MENA. 1M+ subscribers.
80% on monthly plans. One tap from leaving.
880Kbefore the tournament.
1.5Mduring.
900Kafter.
600,000 subscribers gained. Almost all of them lost.
Raise the floor.
960K. 1M. 1.1M.
The spike is acquisition. Discipline lifts the floor.
Operator
John Matthews
Role
Product Director · TOD MENA · beIN Media Group
Scale
2M+ paid subscribers (TOD) · 7M+ ad-supported users (beIN SPORTS)
23 markets · web, mobile, TV
Remit
Product · Customer experience · Commercial surfaces
How I think
01
Every roadmap is a capital decision.
What are we spending? What do we expect back? What are we stopping to make room? Product is not art. It is not engineering. It is commercial judgement in action. If those answers are not clear, we are not ready to build.
02
Framing before building.
If execution keeps missing the mark, stop looking at the how. Before a wireframe is drawn or a line of code is written, define the outcome, the user, and the constraints. That pause prevents months of expensive rework.
03
AI does not create advantage.
It exposes it.
If the organisation is clear, it sharpens.
If it is not, it scales confusion.
04
Agreement is not alignment.
Leadership teams spend time agreeing, then reopen the same decisions later. That usually means nobody was clear on who decides, what was decided, and what is no longer up for debate. Agreement feels comfortable. Alignment changes behaviour.
05
Make the system behave.
Most product teams measure performance. Few take control of it. The role is not to observe the system. It is to make it behave.
Selected work
Users dropping between intent and playback.
Action
Redesigned the access experience at the point of peak intent. Login, payment and recovery were rebuilt as a single continuous flow, removing breaks between states that caused abandonment under load.
Result
Conversion held under peak demand where it had previously failed. Support demand dropped. Users moved from intent to playback without friction at the critical moment.
Platform present. Commercial model absent.
Action
Identified a high-intent platform surface with no monetisation path. Introduced in-app purchase aligned to platform behaviour, integrating entitlement, pricing and access into a native experience.
Result
Six-figure revenue from a previously non-monetised surface. No additional rights cost. No incremental marketing required.
The group had products. It did not have a product organisation.
Action
Established the Product Centre of Excellence, introducing governance, prioritisation and measurement across Product, Technology and Commercial. Moved decision-making upstream of delivery.
Result
Product became a controlled system rather than a set of outputs. Decisions held. Teams aligned around commercial intent rather than delivery alone.
The team was building. Nobody was watching what happened next.
Action
Embedded user testing, rapid prototyping and Voice of Customer into the operating rhythm. Treated customer behaviour and support demand as primary inputs into prioritisation.
Result
Decisions grounded in observed behaviour. Experience issues identified and resolved earlier. Repeat support demand reduced as friction was removed upstream.
Data, audience, distribution — and no model connecting them.
Action
Identified an unmonetised overlap between proprietary data, audience behaviour and distribution. Structured and launched a joint venture around a predictive in-play football product.
Result
New digital revenue streams established. Projected £2M+ annual contribution. Demonstrated the same commercial product instinct in a different market and industry.
If you are running a subscriber business that grows in spikes but does not hold,
building a product organisation that needs sharper commercial judgement,
or looking for someone who has done both —
Qatar · UK
Context