Houston, TX · Senior Product Leader
Idris Gagan
I build AI-native enterprise products that turn around stalled teams, unlock new revenue, and replace paperwork with production agents.
Shipping in production with
Twenty years of shipping the unglamorous things that move metrics.
I'm a senior product leader with two decades inside enterprise SaaS — logistics, supply chain, and B2B data. I've earned Product Manager, Product Lead, and Head of Product titles by turning stalled products around, commercializing free tools into $1M+/year revenue, and reframing product strategy through customer discovery on the floor.
Today I'm a hands-on builder of AI products — shipping LLM, RAG, and multi-agent workflows in production with OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, MCP, Ollama, and n8n. I hold an MBA from UIUC (2022) and have been recognized by Chevron program leadership as running the best-performing team on their D2D program after a 1-week process turnaround.
AI-native by default
I ship LLM, RAG, and multi-agent workflows in production — not just demos. From OpenAI voice agents at Velostics to autonomous GTM pipelines, AI is a building material, not a roadmap line item.
Discovery on the floor
I find the truth where the work happens — driver cabs, well sites, dispatcher desks. Direct interviews with 1,000+ users have reframed product strategy and unlocked ~$5M in projected revenue.
Turnaround operator
Walked into stalled products and inverted them: −38% team / +100% output, zero churn over two consecutive years, sprint commitment to ~100% in a single rebuild.
Player-coach leader
Hands-on in spec, prototyping, and deployment — while leading multi-disciplinary teams of engineers, designers, QA, and BAs through the full product lifecycle.
From operations on the floor to AI in production.
Each step has been about the same thing — finding where the work actually breaks, then shipping the smallest thing that fixes it.
Apr 2020 — Present
Velostics Inc.
Head of Product & Customer Success
Houston, TX
Own product vision, roadmap, GTM, and customer success for an enterprise SaaS logistics platform — yard management, dock scheduling, driver check-in — serving shippers, carriers, drivers, and facility operators.
Built and shipped an OpenAI + Gemini powered voice assistant for appointment scheduling — eliminating manual carrier/shipper coordination.
Deployed at 6 Phillips 66 terminals and US Foods Houston — lifted site throughput 14%, cut 32 minutes per truck.
Diagnosed an early commercial stall through direct driver and dispatcher interviews — identified 2 new target industries unlocking ~$5M in projected 2-year revenue.
Forged platform partnerships with Oracle (OTM), MercuryGate, and Redwood — drove 80% YoY revenue growth and zero customer churn across two consecutive years.
Aug 2019 — Apr 2020
Chaione Inc.
Sr. Product & Engagement Lead
Houston, TX
Led client engagement and product delivery for Chevron's Digital Field Service Management (DFSM) — a mobile, offline-capable field-ticketing system across a 5-partner D2D program.
Launched MVP in 6 weeks — onboarded the first supplier and 4 field users, enabling $150K/month in digital ticket approvals.
Diagnosed an approval stall through direct Well Site Manager interviews — uncovered a site-rotation pattern the product hadn't modeled. Spec'd and shipped a 'forward-to-correct-WSM' feature that restored approvals within a week.
Migrated team from Jira to Azure DevOps in 1 week (half the mandated window) — drove the team to best-performing status across all 4 SAFe metrics. Chevron leadership called us out in an all-hands.
Nov 2017 — Aug 2019
Modiant, LLC.
Product Manager
Houston, TX
Led a multi-disciplinary team of 12 (6 Eng, 3 Design, 2 QA, 1 BA) delivering an enterprise supplier TMS and supply-chain visibility platform for oil-and-gas operators.
Reframed product strategy from 'supply-chain visibility' to 'visibility + action' after market analysis showed visibility tools alone couldn't resolve customer pain — a pivot that shaped company GTM.
Built and launched a surface-lite TMS in 4 months — secured the company's first sale to BHP, reducing freight spend 10% on $3.4M.
Turned around the stagnant C-View product — reduced offshore team 38% (8→5) and doubled output. Integrated a new domestic surface TMS within 6 months.
Jun 2012 — Nov 2017
CourthouseDirect.com, Inc.
Product Manager
Houston, TX
Managed a portfolio of 7+ products across 3 product lines at a ~$11M B2B data company serving title insurance, oil-and-gas, and banking. Earned PM title via two promotions (Sr. BA → PjM → PM).
Reversed management's initial rejection to commercialize FileViewer — launched pricing model generating $500K in 6 months and $1M+ annually by year-end, closing a persistent revenue leak.
Conceived Lease Alert and Lien Alert — shipped Lease Alert MVP in 2 months; reused the platform to ship Lien Alert in 2 weeks. Combined user base exceeded 1,500 in year one.
Built a web-based, cloud-hosted order management system in 4 weeks — reduced accounting time per invoice from 10 min to zero, lifted team efficiency 18%, and increased monthly orders 16%.
Rolled out Aha! company-wide with two-way Jira integration — drove portfolio-level prioritization across 3 product lines with +15% monthly orders and 400% operational-efficiency gains on targeted workflows.
HCL America, Inc.
Sr. Business Analyst / Product Owner
2010–2012
Net Matrix Solutions, Inc.
Sr. Business Analyst
2007–2010
Four Soft Ltd. (now BluJay)
Sr. Functional Consultant
2006–2007
Gati Ltd.
Asst. Manager, Logistics Solutions
2003–2006
MBA — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
2022
B.E. Industrial Engineering — Ramdeobaba College
2003
- SAFe POPM (2024)
- CSPO — Scrum Alliance
- PMP — PMI
- CPM — APIMM
- AI for PM — Pendo / Google Cloud
- CS50 — HarvardX / edX
I don't just talk about AI. I ship it.
A working library of LLM, RAG, and agent systems running in production, in side projects, and inside my own workflow.
Voice agents · RAG-grounded
RAG-based voice agents using OpenAI embeddings + Gemini for contextual, knowledge-grounded decision-making — deployed inside the Velostics scheduling flow to remove manual carrier coordination.
Workflow agents · n8n + Slack
AI agents built with OpenAI, OpenRouter, and n8n that automate business workflows across Slack and enterprise tools — the connective tissue between humans, queues, and APIs.
Multi-agent orchestration
Multi-agent systems using MCP, Ollama, and DeepSeek for autonomous task orchestration — including an autonomous GTM pipeline for AI-driven lead generation and nurturing.
AI-native PM practice
Daily hands-on use of ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot for spec drafting, research synthesis, and rapid prototyping. Publishing demo videos to share AI-enabled PM practice.
Case studies, in flight.
I'm currently writing up the work — voice agents in production, the FileViewer commercialization, the Chevron turnaround, and the autonomous GTM pipeline. Drop me a note if you'd like the walkthrough now.
FileViewer — $1M+/yr commercialization
From free stopgap to flagship SKU: pricing, packaging, analytics-driven business case.
Velostics — AI Voice Scheduling
OpenAI + Gemini powered voice agent that books appointments without a human in the loop.
More case studies available — happy to walk you through any of them live.
Chevron DFSM turnaround, autonomous GTM agent, Phillips 66 deployment, and more — written up privately for serious conversations.
Let's build the next turnaround.
I'm open to senior product leadership roles — Head of Product, VP, or AI-product founding hire. I take fast intros, advisory conversations, and partnership inquiries.
Location
Houston, TX
Best for
Head of Product · VP · Founding AI PM
Response time
Within 24 hours, usually faster
Availability
Conversational now · ready to start in weeks