Free & Open Source: Product Manager’s Guidebook!

Mark Progano

Connect

Free & Open Source: Product Manager’s Guidebook!

Mark Progano

Custom tools for teams and agencies

I shape complex systems into tools your team actually uses.

Ways to Connect

Go on..

Ways to Connect

Go on..

Hello 👋 I’m Mark.
When your team or client needs a better tool, I help work out what’s needed.

That might mean designing and building something new, or choosing and setting up software that already exists.

Product Builder: I work out what’s worth building, then build hands-on. The aim is a tool people can actually use.

Technical Translator: I connect the way your team works with the design and technical choices, so you can see what we’re deciding and why.

Detail-Oriented: I make interfaces and workflows clear to use, with the details and recovery paths people need.

“Consistently demonstrated exceptional technical prowess and an innate ability to find ingenious solutions to complex problems”

– Michael Williams

3x Head of Product

“Consistently demonstrated exceptional technical prowess and an innate ability to find ingenious solutions to complex problems”

– Michael Williams

3x Head of Product

Capabilities

Where I’m most useful.

I work alongside your team to choose the right approach and get it working.

Capabilities

Where I’m most useful.

I work alongside your team to choose the right approach and get it working.

Capabilities

Where I’m most useful.

I work alongside your team to choose the right approach and get it working.

Build the tool you’re missing

I work out what a useful first version needs to do, then design and build it with the people who’ll use it, without trying to build everything at once.

Atomic Design Kit case study

Improve the system you rely on

When your software no longer fits the work, I trace the workarounds and build around the rules it misses.

Practice rebuild case study

Make your company’s knowledge usable

I bring your team’s decisions, history, and know-how together so people can pick up work without starting from scratch.

See a document search example

A technical partner for your client work

I help shape and deliver the technical work, extending your team or helping you build that capability in-house.

Talk about client work

Ways to Connect

Selected Works

What this looks like in practice.

Tools for client handoffs, team workflows, and finding the information people need. Each example explains the problem and my role.

Selected Works

What this looks like in practice.

Tools for client handoffs, team workflows, and finding the information people need. Each example explains the problem and my role.

Selected Works

What this looks like in practice.

Tools for client handoffs, team workflows, and finding the information people need. Each example explains the problem and my role.

Making a brand kit useful after the handoff

Context

A creative studio needed a way for clients to keep using its brand and product systems after delivery.

What was needed

The kits were thoughtful and complete, but people at different skill levels did not always know what to use, where to find it, or how to give an AI tool enough context to make something that actually fit the brand.

Work I did

I designed and built the Atomic Design Kit: a hosted, versioned environment that brings voice, visual tokens, assets, components, guidance, and ready-to-use prompts into one place. I also built browser, command-line, API, and MCP paths so people and AI tools work from the same source.

What Changed

The studio now has a working system it can use across client kits and hand to its own team to operate, instead of a collection of files that depends on the person who originally made it.

Making a brand kit useful after the handoff

Context

A creative studio needed a way for clients to keep using its brand and product systems after delivery.

What was needed

Work I did

What Changed

The studio now has a working system it can use across client kits and hand to its own team to operate, instead of a collection of files that depends on the person who originally made it.

Making a brand kit useful after the handoff

Context

A creative studio needed a way for clients to keep using its brand and product systems after delivery.

What was needed

Work I did

What Changed

The studio now has a working system it can use across client kits and hand to its own team to operate, instead of a collection of files that depends on the person who originally made it.

Rebuilding a practice system around the work itself

Context

A chiropractic practice whose patient care plans, scheduling rules, and daily administrative work needed one reliable home.

What was needed

The existing portal was brittle and did not match the way the practice actually worked. Staff needed patient and scheduling context to be clear without allowing automation to quietly make clinical or operational decisions for them.

Work I did

I rebuilt the staff product from scratch around the real workflow. It brings together patient records, care-plan history, scheduling projections, and bounded Acuity integrations, with encrypted sensitive data and explicit staff review where judgment is required.

What Changed

The result is a staff product organized around the practice’s workflow, with patient and scheduling context together and explicit review where staff need to make a decision.

Rebuilding a practice system around the work itself

Context

A chiropractic practice whose patient care plans, scheduling rules, and daily administrative work needed one reliable home.

What was needed

Work I did

What Changed

The result is a staff product organized around the practice’s workflow, with patient and scheduling context together and explicit review where staff need to make a decision.

Rebuilding a practice system around the work itself

Context

A chiropractic practice whose patient care plans, scheduling rules, and daily administrative work needed one reliable home.

What was needed

Work I did

What Changed

The result is a staff product organized around the practice’s workflow, with patient and scheduling context together and explicit review where staff need to make a decision.

Finding answers in a legal-sized haystack

Context

A nonprofit helping communities and local agencies understand environmental and water regulations across multiple states and counties.

What was needed

They were digging through dense legal and policy documents across websites and PDFs. Staff and partners needed to answer specific questions like “what applies here, for this river, in this county” without manually hunting for clauses every time.

Work I did

I worked with their team to identify the key sources, then built a small crawling pipeline to pull and normalize the public regulations and guidance they relied on. I indexed this corpus using embeddings and metadata so people could search by plain language questions, topics, or locations and jump straight into the most relevant passages. I also added filters and saved searches so common questions could be reused.

What Changed

The tool gives staff a way to find relevant source passages across that collection, with filters and saved searches for recurring questions. Reading and interpreting the regulations stays with the people doing the work.

Finding answers in a legal-sized haystack

Context

A nonprofit helping communities and local agencies understand environmental and water regulations across multiple states and counties.

What was needed

Work I did

What Changed

Finding answers in a legal-sized haystack

Context

A nonprofit helping communities and local agencies understand environmental and water regulations across multiple states and counties.

What was needed

Work I did

What Changed

Designing a way through a backlogged workflow

Context

A lease insurance business needed to work through property disposition cases.

What was needed

The workflow lived in spreadsheets and email threads. Operators had to gather information across those sources while cases accumulated in a backlog.

Work I did

I sat with the operators and walked real cases end to end to understand the actual rules, the gray areas, and the workarounds they used to keep things moving. From there I designed a focused internal tool to bring the right data into one place.

What Changed

The design brought the information needed for a case into one place, shaped around the operators’ actual rules and exceptions. My role here was understanding the workflow and designing the tool.

Designing a way through a backlogged workflow

Context

A lease insurance business needed to work through property disposition cases.

What was needed

The workflow lived in spreadsheets and email threads. Operators had to gather information across those sources while cases accumulated in a backlog.

Work I did

What Changed

The design brought the information needed for a case into one place, shaped around the operators’ actual rules and exceptions. My role here was understanding the workflow and designing the tool.

Designing a way through a backlogged workflow

Context

A lease insurance business needed to work through property disposition cases.

What was needed

The workflow lived in spreadsheets and email threads. Operators had to gather information across those sources while cases accumulated in a backlog.

Work I did

What Changed

The design brought the information needed for a case into one place, shaped around the operators’ actual rules and exceptions. My role here was understanding the workflow and designing the tool.

Turning disposable prototypes into a shared workspace

Letting clients talk their way to a better brief

Turning disposable prototypes into a shared workspace

Context

AppBoards is a self-initiated tool for making interface directions visible to everyone working on them, people and AI collaborators alike.

What was needed

Prototype variants were easy to generate but hard to hold together. They lived in chat threads and local files, which made comparison, feedback, and handoff more cumbersome than the act of making them.

Work I did

I built a real-time service, cross-platform command-line agent, and browser viewer that keeps multiple HTML directions on one board. Local changes sync automatically, and the whole board can be exported as one file.

What Changed

AppBoards now runs at appboards.co and is part of my own product workflow. A prototype is no longer a file stranded in a conversation; it becomes a shared place people can see, compare, and build from.

Open AppBoards ↗

Letting clients talk their way to a better brief

Context

Please Ramble is a self-initiated product for collecting the kind of context people can explain out loud but struggle to fit into a written form.

What was needed

I wanted to keep the ease of a spoken answer without leaving the receiver to pull a long recording apart. The question and its answer needed to stay together.

Work I did

I designed and built the full product: a creator asks one thoughtful question or a short sequence, shares one link, and the respondent answers aloud one question at a time. Please Ramble transcribes each answer and keeps the resulting text organized by question.

What Changed

The complete loop is live at pleaseramble.com, from creating and publishing a Ramble through recording, transcription, results, accounts, and billing. This is a self-initiated working product, not a client engagement.

Visit Please Ramble ↗

Designing a view of campaign visitors

Context

A web3 growth platform needed to show customers who was arriving from its campaigns, beyond visits and conversions.

What was needed

Their customers could target specific wallets and audiences, but the landing-page reporting did not make the audience context visible alongside visits and conversions.

Work I did

I designed a product on top of the existing tracking and enrichment pipeline. The design brought web data, on-chain traits, and campaign context into enriched user profiles tied to visits on the customer’s site.

What Changed

The design proposed one interface for marketers to inspect that audience context. My role was product design on an existing data pipeline.

Trusted as the product person’s product person

Context

A product education company offering a Product Manager certification and live mentoring sessions.

What was needed

They wanted an external practitioner to pressure test the curriculum against real product work and make live mentoring more practical.

Work I did

I joined as a “Product Manager in Residence.” I reviewed parts of the curriculum and ran open mentoring sessions where students brought problems from their jobs or projects. We worked on asking better questions, connecting features to outcomes, and seeing the system around what they were building.

What Changed

This was curriculum review and mentoring, rather than a tool build. It is another part of the product judgment I bring to the work.

Ways to Connect

“Mark is one of the few people I know who can actually make sense of what is going on with AI without making it feel overwhelming or overly technical.”

– Emmett Shine

Founder, Little Plains

Craft

Making a product feel right.

It's the little and subtle details that change how products feel and are used.

.local-craft-intro-original{display:none!important}The difference is usually in the details: can someone find what they need, understand what they’re seeing, and recover when something goes wrong?

Craft

Making a product feel right.

It's the little and subtle details that change how products feel and are used.

.local-craft-intro-original{display:none!important}The difference is usually in the details: can someone find what they need, understand what they’re seeing, and recover when something goes wrong?

Craft

Making a product feel right.

It's the little and subtle details that change how products feel and are used.

.local-craft-intro-original{display:none!important}The difference is usually in the details: can someone find what they need, understand what they’re seeing, and recover when something goes wrong?

Paced Complexity
Make the essential work easy to start. In Please Ramble, respondents answer one question aloud at a time.
Clear Object Naming
Use names that match the work, so people can find what they need and share a clear understanding.
States & Edge Cases
Show what happened, what is still safe, and what someone can do next when the usual path breaks.
Trustworthy Metrics
Make clear what a number measures, where it comes from, and what decision it supports.
Interfaces Worth Returning To
Design for the work people need to do repeatedly. Make each next action and the information behind it clear.
Tasteful use of AI
Use AI where the task calls for it. In the regulations search tool, retrieval leads people to source passages they can read and interpret.

Paced Complexity
Make the essential work easy to start. In Please Ramble, respondents answer one question aloud at a time.
Clear Object Naming
Use names that match the work, so people can find what they need and share a clear understanding.
States & Edge Cases
Show what happened, what is still safe, and what someone can do next when the usual path breaks.
Trustworthy Metrics
Make clear what a number measures, where it comes from, and what decision it supports.
Interfaces Worth Returning To
Design for the work people need to do repeatedly. Make each next action and the information behind it clear.
Tasteful use of AI
Use AI where the task calls for it. In the regulations search tool, retrieval leads people to source passages they can read and interpret.

Paced Complexity
Make the essential work easy to start. In Please Ramble, respondents answer one question aloud at a time.
Clear Object Naming
Use names that match the work, so people can find what they need and share a clear understanding.
States & Edge Cases
Show what happened, what is still safe, and what someone can do next when the usual path breaks.
Trustworthy Metrics
Make clear what a number measures, where it comes from, and what decision it supports.
Interfaces Worth Returning To
Design for the work people need to do repeatedly. Make each next action and the information behind it clear.
Tasteful use of AI
Use AI where the task calls for it. In the regulations search tool, retrieval leads people to source passages they can read and interpret.

Ways to Connect

Working Together

From understanding to delivery.

We agree on the problem, a useful first version, and who owns what along the way.

Working Together

From understanding to delivery.

We agree on the problem, a useful first version, and who owns what along the way.

Working Together

From understanding to delivery.

We agree on the problem, a useful first version, and who owns what along the way.

Understand the work

Show me what you’re trying to achieve and how things work today. I talk with the people closest to the problem, understand the constraints, and help decide what would be worth changing.

Choose what to change

I turn what we learn into a workflow, design, or working prototype.

Make it work

I work hands-on with your team, building or setting up tools and showing people how to use them. We test it with real people, refine it, and agree who maintains it.

Ways to Connect

“Loved taking on sticky problems that few others could wrap their head around, and not only sought to address the problem at hand, but build a better system to address the root cause.”

– Andrew Feldman

Product Director

Let's Connect 👋

What are you trying to make work?

A short conversation is usually enough to see if there’s a fit.

Let's Connect 👋

What are you trying to make work?

A short conversation is usually enough to see if there’s a fit.

Let's Connect 👋

What are you trying to make work?

A short conversation is usually enough to see if there’s a fit.

Let's start simple…

I read every message myself and reply personally.

Otherwise, choose your own adventure…

📧

web@mprogano.com

📞

Reveal phone number

(call or text)

FAQs

A few questions people usually ask.

FAQs

A few questions people usually ask.

FAQs

A few questions people usually ask.

When does working together make sense?

What industries have you worked with?

How do you usually work with teams?

Can you go into more detail with your select works?

How do you price your services?

What about AI, do you know AI? (AI. AI. AI...)

Have you worked on something like this?

You're right, we should connect...

You're right... we should connect!

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When does working together make sense?

When a missing tool or awkward workflow gets in the way. You might have information scattered across systems, a handoff that keeps breaking down, or a team working around a tool that no longer fits. We’ll work out what would help, what I can own, and which decisions need to stay with you. Agencies and consultants can bring me into client work, white-label or credited.

What industries have you worked with?

I’ve worked across e-commerce, health and wellness, insurance, real estate, web3, consumer apps, and B2B software. The domain changes; the useful pattern is usually the same: understand how the work actually happens, then make the system around it clearer.

Can you share more detail about the work?

Where I can, yes. Some of the work is private, but I’m happy to walk through the relevant decisions, constraints, and outcomes on a call, and share more when the client and context allow it.

How do you price your services?

Most engagements start with a clear objective and a weekly or monthly rate, so the budget and working rhythm are predictable. Smaller, tightly scoped builds can also work as a fixed project.

What about AI, do you know AI? (AI. AI. AI...)

Yes. AI. AI. AI. 😄 I’ve worked with LLMs, embeddings, retrieval systems, automation, and agent workflows. AI can be part of the product or how we build it; the problem decides whether it belongs. If you’re looking for help with how your whole team works with AI, rather than a particular product or system, that’s the work we do at Familiar Labs.

Have you worked on something like this?

Tell me about the work and the systems involved. I can walk you through relevant examples and be clear about my role in them. If your project depends on a platform or domain I haven’t worked with, we’ll make that gap explicit before deciding whether I’m the right fit.

A Damn Fine Co.

Mark Progano

A Damn Fine Co.

Mark Progano

A Damn Fine Co.

Mark Progano

Custom tools for teams and agencies

Custom tools for teams and agencies

Custom tools for teams and agencies

I shape complex systems into tools your team actually uses.

I shape complex systems into tools your team actually uses.

I shape complex systems into tools your team actually uses.

“Consistently demonstrated exceptional technical prowess and an innate ability to find ingenious solutions to complex problems”

“Consistently demonstrated exceptional technical prowess and an innate ability to find ingenious solutions to complex problems”

Capabilities

Where I’m most useful.

Capabilities

Where I’m most useful.

Capabilities

Where I’m most useful.

Build the tool you’re missing

Improve the system you rely on

Make your company’s knowledge usable

A technical partner for your client work

Selected Works

What this looks like in practice.

Selected Works

What this looks like in practice.

Selected Works

What this looks like in practice.

Making a brand kit useful after the handoff

Making a brand kit useful after the handoff

Making a brand kit useful after the handoff

Rebuilding a practice system around the work itself

Rebuilding a practice system around the work itself

Rebuilding a practice system around the work itself

Finding answers in a legal-sized haystack

Finding answers in a legal-sized haystack

Finding answers in a legal-sized haystack

Designing a way through a backlogged workflow

Designing a way through a backlogged workflow

Designing a way through a backlogged workflow

Turning disposable prototypes into a shared workspace

Turning disposable prototypes into a shared workspace

Turning disposable prototypes into a shared workspace

Letting clients talk their way to a better brief

Letting clients talk their way to a better brief

Letting clients talk their way to a better brief

“Mark is one of the few people I know who can actually make sense of what is going on with AI without making it feel overwhelming or overly technical.”

Craft

Making a product feel right.

Craft

Making a product feel right.

Craft

Making a product feel right.

Paced Complexity

Clear Object Naming

States & Edge Cases

Trustworthy Metrics

Interfaces Worth Returning To

Tasteful use of AI

Paced Complexity

Clear Object Naming

States & Edge Cases

Trustworthy Metrics

Interfaces Worth Returning To

Tasteful use of AI

Paced Complexity

Clear Object Naming

States & Edge Cases

Trustworthy Metrics

Interfaces Worth Returning To

Tasteful use of AI

Working Together

From understanding to delivery.

Working Together

From understanding to delivery.

Working Together

From understanding to delivery.

Understand the work

Choose what to change

Make it work

“Loved taking on sticky problems that few others could wrap their head around, and not only sought to address the problem at hand, but build a better system to address the root cause.”

Let's Connect 👋

What are you trying to make work?

Let's Connect 👋