Brandon Gador

A little bit about myself.

I graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with BBA in general business in 2008. During my senior year in Madison I started a renewable energy company with a friend called Powered Green that we built and grew for two years. That rollercoaster of starting and building a company for the first time proved to be one of the best educational experiences to date, and when the time came to move on, it fortunately opened up the opportunity to join Intuit as part of their Rotational Development Program. This is a program for recent grads geared towards product management and marketing, and individuals within the program are deployed throughout the business to work on specific six month projects. 

Intuit introduced me to the world of product management and what it means to fall in love with the customer and the problem. It was an amazing experience where I was exposed to a variety of businesses and products at various stages surrounded by world-class leaders and product managers. After three formative years at Intuit, burnt out on the commute from SF down the peninsula, I joined LendingClub as part of the product management team to help scale the business as it was rapidly growing. The transition was a drastic shift from a well oiled machine like Intuit to a young and hungry company that was growing extremely fast in a pre-IPO phase. 

LendingClub was in a period of rapid transition and growth. I like to think that Intuit was where I was coached on the fundamentals of product management and customer discovery, but LendingClub is where I learned how to get shit done, ship, learn and do it allover again with limited resources. During my time at LendingClub as a product manager, I collaborated with almost every part of the business to meet the growing needs of the company; however, my primary focus was on the retail investor experience focusing on funnel optimization and improving the experience for our retail customers. Most recently with a small nimble team, I was able to design and build LendingClub's first mobile app for iOS and Android from the ground up and deliver a fully featured mobile experience to our customers. 

All along, I have always had side projects that I enjoy working on to either scratch my own itch or to learn new technologies and tools. My goal has been to find a way to combine my product experience with my passion for fishing and hunting. I have tinkered with different product ideas for hunters and fisherman over the years, but in 2014 I set out to build a mobile app for whitetail hunters, which became Quiver. I grew up hunting deer, I know the user extremely well, and I saw the opportunity to build a better mobile app for whitetail fanatics. Think Strava or Map My Run but for hunting. A weather and tracking tool all combined into one easy to use app. Building Quiver and the community around it has been another amazing learning experience, and I'm proud to share that we've tracked over 40K hunts in the app to date and is one of the highest rated hunting apps on the market.

Interested in learning more or connecting?

I always love to hear what others are working on and find ways to help.