Entry 001 — Proposition

Product leadership you can audit.

The leader lane · executive product mandates

Seventeen years of turning bespoke, client-funded work into platform capability — with the limits printed next to the numbers.

I am Joe da Silva, a product leader in Cape Town. This site is not a funnel. It is a closing document for a small number of named people who already have my name and are deciding whether to book a conversation. Every claim here carries its receipt and its limit. If that is the kind of person you want running your product organisation, the next step takes one email.

Book a conversation Read the record ↓

4iterations, one pattern

142M+interactions, downstream

1,966members convened

6receipts, limits shown

Subject: da Silva, Joe
Base: Cape Town, ZA · remote-first
Practice: ProductAnywhere
Seeking: Head of Product · VP Product · CPO · Head of AI Product
Also: Interim & fractional until that lands

No portrait on file

There is no photograph of Joe in the archive and none will be faked here. The work is the face. See entries 002–006.

Entry 002 — The record

One pattern, run four times, at four scales.

Every iteration did the same thing: took bespoke, client-funded work and turned it into reusable platform capability. The lanes differ. The instinct doesn't.

2007–2013 · 6 yearsEntry 002.1

Agency Managing Director

FormFunction Digital · Cape Town

Six-year P&L. Up to 30 contractors across an org chart spanning ten disciplines. 62 clients, from Media24 titles to wineries to the South African gymnastics federation. Three national awards delivered by a team I hired and led.

Expert lane

Exhibit — the bench

Ten disciplines on the org chart. Peak bench: 30 contractors. Full client marks: entry 005.

2021–2022 · to month 8Entry 002.2

Founder & CEO

Camvas · Founders Factory + Guardian Media Group, London

Eight people across four countries, an eight-person advisory board, 5,000+ signups — on £70,066 of spend through month 8, structured and invoiced across two entities under Founders Factory governance. Roadmapped intelligent summarisation, semantic search and automated transcription in February 2022, before the LLM ecosystem commoditised all three.

Builder lane

Exhibit — burn vs. typical

£0£250k£500k

Camvas actual: £70,066 Typical pre-seed: £200k–£500k

2022–2023Entry 002.3

Director, Interact Chat Products & AI

Clickatell · Cape Town

Commissioned the NLP architecture behind Absa Chat Banking on a no-CapEx, usage-based commercial structure — the supplier carried the model cost; the bank paid per use. The pattern from 002.1, at enterprise scale: bespoke capability, structured as platform.

Leader lane

Exhibit — the structure

Clickatell Absa Chat Banking

NLP supplied usage-based · no CapEx

Downstream: 142M+ automated FAQ interactions. Limits stated in entry 003.

2024–nowEntry 002.4

Independent builder

ProductAnywhere · Cape Town

Nine shipped agentic systems. Entity resolution built on pgvector — after a written decision against Neo4j and GraphRAG. The decision record is the deliverable as much as the system: the next operator can read why, not just what.

Builder lane

Exhibit — decision record

ADR: entity resolution → pgvector
Rejected: Neo4j · GraphRAG
Reasons on record, in writing.

Nine systems shipped. Each with its own decision trail.

Entry 003 — Receipts

Six receipts. Every limit printed on the card.

Nothing here is hidden behind a hover or a disclosure. The limit is part of the receipt. Confidence is marked in tabs — filled tabs = confidence, per the saturation scale.

EXHIBIT A high

Award-winning

Excellence in Innovation — Banking Product, Global Banking & Finance Awards 2022. The same year, Absa was named Best Digital Bank South Africa.

Limit

None to state. Publicly verifiable third-party validation — which is exactly why this receipt leads: it removes the need to defend an internal metric.

EXHIBIT B medium-high

142M+

Automated FAQ interactions on Absa Chat Banking, running on the NLP architecture commissioned at Clickatell.

Limit

I commissioned and negotiated the NLP supplier architecture and set the usage-based commercial structure. I did not build the model, and I had left before this was measured.

EXHIBIT C high · careful framing

224%

Year-on-year growth on Clickatell's AI-enabled Chat Commerce platform.

Limit

I piloted the AI capability the growth is attributed to. I did not deliver the growth and I wasn't there when it was measured. Downstream evidence, not a claim.

EXHIBIT D high

Feb 2022

Camvas deck roadmapping intelligent summarisation, semantic search and automated transcription — before the LLM ecosystem commoditised all three.

Limit

Proves foresight and thesis selection, not implementation. The deck is dated. Judge the dates.

EXHIBIT E high

£70,066

Camvas spend through 8 months — structured, invoiced and allocated across two entities under Founders Factory governance.

Limit

Most pre-seed founders burn £200k–£500k by month 8. What's mine is the discipline and the structure, not the size of the round — there wasn't one.

EXHIBIT F high

3× Bookmarks

Three South African digital industry Bookmarks awards — for Sarie.com and YourParenting.co.za, Media24 titles, in 2011 and 2012.

Limit

Agency work, delivered by a team Joe led and hired. What's his is that the studio produced them three times.

Entry 004 — Employers

The rooms he's worked in.

Barclays Global Investors Bupa Cancer Research UK Skrill · Paysafe Powa 4finance Simply Business TransferGo hiber Founders Factory Guardian Media Group Clickatell Absa

Named typographically — no logo files on record for this stretch of the record. The logo archive below covers 2007–2013.

Entry 005 — Client archive

62 clients. 63 marks. One studio.

The FormFunction archive, 2007–2013, in full. Greyscale as filed; hover any mark for the colour of record. This wall is the P&L made visible.

Entry 006 — Community

The convening argument.

Building a product organisation means building a room people want to be in. He built two — and both outlived his involvement.

ProductTank Cape Town

Founded Aug 2014 · first in Africa · sponsored by Google and sli.do

1,966members today

4.7★from 91 ratings

22events · still running, without him

Opened by Marty Cagan. Still active a decade later under organisers who followed — the strongest available evidence that the thing was built to last, not to launch.

Remote Product

Founded Apr 2020 · 17 events through Sep 2021 · free, remote

17events

4timezones scheduled across

1person, from a standing start in lockdown

Built solo, free to attend, programmed across four timezones when nobody knew what remote product work was about to become.

Portrait of Roman Pichler — Roman Pichlerauthor, How to Lead in Product Management

Portrait of Jeff Gothelf — Jeff Gothelfauthor, Lean UX

Portrait of Joe Leech — Joe Leechauthor, Psychology for Designers

Portrait of Clement Kao — Clement Kaoco-founder, Product Manager HQ

Portrait of Alex Mitchell — Alex MitchellDirector of Product, Kin

Portrait of Sarah Waldner — Sarah WaldnerSenior PM, GitLab

Portrait of Marcus Wermuth — Marcus WermuthEngineering Manager, Buffer

Portrait of Nataliya Altukhova — Nataliya AltukhovaRemote PM Educator

Portrait of Rachel Hamlin — Rachel HamlinPM Career Coach

Portrait of Greg Prickril — Greg PrickrilPM Career Coach

Portrait of Matthew Mottola — Matthew Mottolaauthor, The Human Cloud

Portrait of Dave Martin — Dave MartinProduct Leader, RightToLeft

Portrait of Ross Chapman — Ross ChapmanRemote Design Sprint Consultant

Portrait of Sandy Lam — Sandy LamSoftware AG

Portrait of Zayn Blore — Zayn BloreSimplify Change

Fifteen of the speakers who said yes — from the Remote Product archive, 2020–2021.

Entry 007 — Testimony

On the record, from a client.

FormFunction's quick and professional service, the can-do mentality, and the collaborative nature of our relationship have been the key to the success of sarie.com, the second largest women's website in SA.

Maryke Cumpsty
Digital Editor, Sarie.com · Media24

Entry 008 — Engagement

Three ways in. One is the point.

Leader lane · primary

Hire

An executive product mandate — Head of Product, VP Product, CPO, or Head of AI Product. From one day a week to full time; fractional, interim, or permanent. What you get is the operator from entries 002 through 004, with the limits already on record, who will build the organisation the way he built the rooms in entry 006: to outlast him.

Executive product leadership, P&L-literate
Fractional (1 day/wk) → interim → permanent
AI product strategy with written decision records, not demos
Cape Town based, remote-first, comfortable across timezones

If you're hiring for a senior product role, this is the entry that matters. The next step is one email.

Book a conversation

Expert lane

Consult

Fixed scope, named deliverables, 2–6 weeks. No retainers, no open-ended advisory. Useful interim work while the permanent mandate lands.

Builder lane

Collaborate

Venture build, 3–12 months, shared risk. For founders and studios with a thesis — see the Feb 2022 deck for what thesis selection looks like.

Most people arrive at Hire and never need the rest. That is a good outcome.

Entry 009 — Not a fit

Three reasons not to hire him.

Stated up front because they save both sides a round of interviews.

You need an individual contributor to ship tickets.

His record is mandates, P&Ls, org charts and platform decisions — not sprint output. A senior PM will serve you better and cost you less.

Do this instead

Hire a strong senior PM, and bring Joe in for a scoped Consult if you need the operating model designed first.

You want AI theatre.

If the demo matters more than the decision record, he will slow you down — see the pgvector ADR in entry 002.4 for how he decides.

Do this instead

Hire an agency that sells demos. Come back when you need the capability to survive contact with a real P&L.

You need numbers he can't defend.

Every receipt in entry 003 ships with its limit. If a metric needs massaging to close the round or the board meeting, it doesn't ship.

Do this instead

Re-read the receipts — including the limits — and if that's the honesty level your organisation needs, book the conversation.