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John Matthews / Product · CX · Sports · Streaming
Commercial intent sets direction. Customer experience exposes the gaps.
The operating model decides whether performance holds.
The work is building the system between commercial intent and customer experience.
Demand converts. The business holds.
Subscriber businesses rarely fail in the spike.
They fail when the baseline does not move.
BASEbefore demand.
SPIKEwhen demand arrives.
RESETwhen demand leaves.
Acquisition can look like progress while the floor stays flat.
Raise the floor.
Find the breaks. Fix the journey. Lift the baseline.
“I build the system that turns commercial intent into customer experience.”
— John Matthews
These are the rules that hold the work together.
01
Every roadmap is a capital decision.
What are we spending? What do we expect back? What are we stopping to make room? Product is not art. It is not engineering. It is commercial judgement in action. If those answers are not clear, we are not ready to build.
02
Framing before building.
If execution keeps missing the mark, stop looking at the how. Before a wireframe is drawn or a line of code is written, define the outcome, the user, and the constraints. That pause prevents months of expensive rework.
03
AI does not create advantage.
It exposes it.
If the organisation is clear, it sharpens.
If it is not, it scales confusion.
04
Agreement is not alignment.
Leadership teams spend time agreeing, then reopen the same decisions later. That usually means nobody was clear on who decides, what was decided, and what is no longer up for debate. Agreement feels comfortable. Alignment changes behaviour.
05
Make the system behave.
Most teams measure performance.
Few take control of it.
The role is not to observe the system.
It is to make it behave—consistently, over time.
Selected work
Users were dropping between intent and playback.
Action
Reframed login, payment and recovery as one access journey around observed failure points at the moment of demand.
Result
The experience held more reliably under peak conditions. Customers moved from intent to playback with fewer avoidable breaks and less support friction.
The platform was present. The commercial model was missing.
Action
Identified a high-intent surface with no monetisation path and shaped the entitlement, pricing and purchase experience around native platform behaviour.
Result
Opened a new revenue path from an existing surface without relying on new rights, new campaigns or a separate customer journey.
Multiple products needed one product discipline.
Action
Introduced shared governance, prioritisation and measurement across Product, Technology and Commercial. Moved decision-making upstream of delivery.
Result
Product became a clearer operating system: fewer isolated outputs, stronger commercial framing, and decisions that held across teams.
Teams were building faster than they were learning.
Action
Embedded user testing, rapid prototyping and Voice of Customer into the working rhythm, treating observed behaviour and support demand as primary inputs.
Result
Customer evidence became part of prioritisation rather than post-launch commentary. The capability transferred across teams and product contexts.
Data, audience and distribution needed a revenue model.
Action
Structured a football product around predictive data, media distribution and partner economics, then took it to market through a video-led route.
Result
Created a new digital product line and demonstrated the same commercial product pattern outside subscription streaming.
If you are running a subscriber, sports or media business where demand is visible but performance does not hold, or building a product organisation that needs sharper commercial control, that is the work I am useful for.
John Matthews
Role
Product Director · sports, media and subscriber platforms
Scale
Multi-market subscriber and ad-supported audiences
Web · mobile · TV · partner platforms
Remit
Product strategy · customer experience · commercial surfaces · operating model
Based
Qatar · UK · international