Nicole Kelner
Indie developer who has built 2 apps and instrumented them end-to-end in Mixpanel, running onboarding and paywall experiments to find the flow that turns installs into paying users. Before that, nine years of product work as a cofounder, COO, and chief of staff, scaling new and existing products, including a K-12 education company I helped grow from one location to five nationwide, 1,000 students, and $1M in revenue before it was acquired.
What this host offers
- Pricing and paywall experimentationPrice points and subscription tiers, plus paywall design variants, run in RevenueCat
- End-to-end product instrumentationFeature-level behavior analysis, revenue and subscription analytics
- Onboarding and activation ownershipConversion experiments, activation and retention metrics
- 0 to 1 iOS product ownershipApp Store launch and release management, beta programs
- Two-sided and marketplace thinkingProducts where the person who pays and the person who uses it are not the same
- Prioritization and sequencingBacklogs, roadmapping, OKRs, specs and acceptance criteria
Things I took from zero to one
Four products I owned end to end, from problem framing through pricing, launch, and what the data said afterwards.
Free Time★ 4.8
iOS, live on the App Store. Owned the pricing funnel and ran paywall experiments against it.
Case 01
Unplug OSBeta
iOS, launching 2026. A 24-screen onboarding, iterated to v12 before a line of production code.
Case 02
Work in Climate25K views
Open-source database. Contributors and audience are the same people.
Case 03
The Coding Space$1M
K-12 company plus an open-source IDE. 1 location to 5, then acquired. The one I built with a team.
Case 04
Experience
Past Work
- Founder and Product OwnerFree Time · Unplug OS
- Cofounder and COOThe Coding Space, then Head of Marketing
- Head of OperationsDashboard.Earth
- Founder and Product LeadSo You Want to Work in Climate
- CEO and FounderSmartPurse, acquired by Betabrand
By the numbers
Key metrics
- 61.6% trial to paidFree Time, all-time across 426 days tracked. Download to paid runs 6.8%, and 9.6% over the last 90 days.
- $1M in revenueThe Coding Space, the K-12 company I cofounded. One location to five, 1,000 students, then acquired.
- 250,000 impressionsMy illustrated guide to the Inflation Reduction Act, adopted by local governments as their explainer for residents.
- $1.6M budgetDashboard.Earth, where I was Head of Operations. Rockefeller Foundation funded, delivered on milestones.
- 55,000 followersArts and Climate Change, my studio. Grown from zero, reaching more than 3 million people.
Tools I work in
Most minutes logged
- RevenueCatSubscription state, paywall experiments, and pricing tiers
- MixpanelInstrumented both apps end to end
- Notion and TrelloBacklogs and delivery, from a 10-person cross-functional team to solo release management
- App Store ConnectLaunch, release management, per-channel acquisition
- Figma, Xcode & Claude CodeSpecs, and where the two apps actually got built
Specialties
What I do most
- Pricing and paywall experimentationPrice points, subscription tiers, and paywall design variants
- End-to-end product instrumentationFeature-level behavior analysis, revenue and subscription analytics
- 0 to 1 iOS product ownershipApp Store launch and release management, beta programs
- Behavior change and habit productsBuilding for people who want to change how they spend their time
- Prioritization and sequencingBacklogs, roadmapping, OKRs, specs and acceptance criteria
My approach
Build for trust
I design products to help the mental health and wellbeing of my users. My passion this year has been building apps that help people redefine their relationship with technology by reducing screen time, helping them be more present and mindful in their lives.
What brings me here
Airbnb is hiring a Product Manager to own discounts and promotions: design the offer, decide who sees it and when, and prove it moved something. Pricing is the part of my own products I have spent this year inside, and it is the part I find most interesting, because a price is the clearest question you can ask a user and the answer is never the one you assumed.
Own the vision, strategy and roadmap for discount and promotional pricing tools
I run paywall experiments in RevenueCat on Free Time, testing price points and how subscription tiers are framed against each other, as well as paywall design variants, all against a funnel I instrumented before touching it. Case 01 →
Experience working on consumer products with a financial component
I own Free Time's subscription pricing end to end. RevenueCat subscription state joined to Mixpanel activation and App Store Connect acquisition in one dashboard, 426 days tracked. Trial to paid runs 61.6%, download to paid 6.8%. Case 01 →
Turn pricing and promotions data into a story that gets people bought in
My illustrated guide to the Inflation Reduction Act reached 250,000 impressions and was adopted by local governments as their explainer for residents. Explaining money to people who did not want to read about money is most of that job.
Design offer mechanics that balance both sides of a marketplace
The Coding Space sold to parents and was used by their kids, on seasonal enrollment cycles. Pricing and packaging had to satisfy the person paying and the person in the room, which are different arguments. Case 04 →
Set sharp goals and OKRs, then execute against them across teams
At Dashboard.Earth I developed the OKRs and built the process that let product, design, operations and leadership talk to each other, managing a cross-functional team of 10 on a $1.6M Rockefeller Foundation budget.
Entrepreneurial track record of taking an idea to reality
Two iOS apps shipped solo, an open-source JavaScript IDE used to teach kids to code, and a company grown from one location to five, 1,000 students and $1M in revenue before it was acquired. Case 04 →