Sheet 01 · Jake Heberlie · Product & Innovation
I build product teams from zero, tie them to the growth number, and I still ship.
Chief Product Officer at Rentvine (Inc. 5000 #60). 20 years across product, UX and design leadership. Open to CPO, VP Product and innovation roles at early-to-growth-stage companies.
I joined Rentvine with no PMs, no designers and no roadmap. I’ve built a 20-person product & design team and a Land > Expand strategy at a company with 4,682% three-year revenue growth, with every annual growth target beaten. That early product work helped Rentvine secure a $74M growth investment from Mainsail Partners.
Design-trained, AI-native and hands-on. As CPO I still shipped a production feature myself. Before that: zero-to-one products, two design patents, and a Kickstarter for laser-engraved ballparks.
- Drawn by
- J. Heberlie
- Title
- Chief Product Officer
- Rev
- 2026.10
- Location
- St. Louis, MO
- Local
- — CT
- Status
- Taking calls
§ Quick facts For the 30-second scan
The short version.
- Now
- Chief Product Officer, Rentvine (2024–Present)
- Experience
- 20 years: product, UX, design leadership, consulting
- Built
- Product & design org from 0 to 20 people
- Led
- ~35-person CX, Design & Change practice at Slalom ($10M target)
- Looking for
- CPO · VP Product · Head of Innovation · Venture studio
- Stage
- Early to growth stage, PE-backed or founder-led. Helped Rentvine land a $74M PE growth round.
- Recognition
- 2 design patents · CIO 100 · Inc. 5000 #60
- Education
- BFA, Computer Animation, Missouri State
§ Proof Measured, not claimed
Outcomes I’ve put my name on.
-
4,682%
three-year revenue growth, per the Inc. 5000. I built the product org and Land > Expand roadmap that kept it going, and beat every annual growth target.
Rentvine · Inc. 5000, 2025
-
$74M
growth investment from Mainsail Partners. Standing up product early helped make the case. Press release ↗
Rentvine · Aug 2024
-
20
person product & design team, built from zero. No PMs, designers or roadmap when I joined.
Rentvine · Team
-
70%+
of deals closed faster when our MCP came up, the first in SFR property management.
Rentvine · AI
-
$30M
first-year revenue attributed to Core (Eastman Performance Films), a zero-to-one product with two design patents.
Eastman · via Slalom
-
13
awards for Fluid Genius, including CIO 100 and the 2025 IRI Award for Digital Innovation.
Eastman · via Slalom
-
#60
on the Inc. 5000 and #18 on the Deloitte Fast 500, as part of Rentvine’s leadership team.
Rentvine · 2025
-
?
Your company’s next number. Let’s talk ↗
TBD · 2027
§ Work Selected case studies
Strategy that shipped.
Building product from zero
No PMs, no designers, no roadmap. Built the team, the planning cadence and three operating models.
4,682% three-year revenue growth
First and open
Protected Rentvine’s DNA as the most open platform in the industry with the first MCP in SFR property management, then set strategy for an agentic workforce.
70%+ of deals closed faster
PMs as builders
As CPO, I shipped a database-backed production feature to prove PMs can build, not just spec.
Passed architecture review · in production
Core
Software that turns a pattern-maker’s car-part library into plotter cut files, with nesting that cuts film waste.
$30M first-year revenue · 2 patents
§ Lab Build out loud
I still make things.
PMs as builders
Production code, schema changes and all, written by the CPO.
JacobMake
Where my personal and professional projects live. You’re on it right now.
Stadium Graph
Laser-engraved ballpark art. Designed and manufactured it. $30K raised.
STR Cabin Club
A cabin-membership alternative to fractional vacation-home ownership, with AI-built prototypes and financial models.
§ Values How I lead
What I run teams on.
Humble & curious.
The best idea wins, no matter whose it is. No ego, no assholes: talent doesn’t excuse behavior. I’d rather ask the obvious question early than ship the wrong answer late. Curiosity is how an art director ends up building AI agents.
Maker mindset.
Today everyone can ship, including leaders. Knowing the code and getting to the outcome isn’t a bonus anymore; it’s the job. I have a bias toward action: inertia is the real enemy, and a working prototype beats another meeting about one. Staying close enough to build it is how I know what’s possible, and how I earn the right to ask for it.
Design differentiates.
I came up through design, and in the age of AI it matters more, not less. Anyone can ship whatever gets generated. Taste is knowing what to keep, what to cut and what’s still missing. AI remixes what’s already been built; design has to find what nobody has made yet.
Co-design with customers.
My best work happened on-site, across the table from customers, not behind a research report. Sketch it with them, test it with them, change it before lunch. The goal is a feedback loop so short it’s almost real time.
Tie the roadmap to the number.
Every bet on the roadmap should trace to a growth target the board already cares about.
§ Culture Contact sheet, roll 01
Teams people want to be on.
I replaced stuffy quarterly planning with something I named Rendezvous (RDV). The first three shaped our AI-first operating model: more, smaller pods covering more ground with the same people. Now they’re high-velocity working sessions. At RDV 5 we shipped 9 features.
§ On stage Talks & conversation
Speaking, panels and a podcast.
§ Contact The one CTA