Serge Derby
Former founder, currently a product manager, always a builder.
I'm a 32-year-old living on the Upper East Side of New York City with my wife Michelle and our son Greyson. I'm endlessly curious, always tinkering on something, and happiest when I'm deep in a problem worth solving.
Professionally, I'm a product manager at SeatGeek, where I own the entire resale experience — from a fan selling a single ticket, to season ticket holders managing large packages, to professional sellers operating at multi-billion-dollar scale.
I'm a builder — a product manager, designer, entrepreneur, and tinkerer — with a deep passion for understanding what people are really trying to get done and helping them make progress with creative and delightful solutions. I think in jobs-to-be-done terms — what people hire, fire, and trade off — and I care deeply about craft: how a product looks, how it works, and the invisible details users feel.
I'm a zero-to-one builder who does my best work in the trenches — close to the problem, the customer, and the team. I naturally lean into a founder mindset no matter the role I'm in: own the outcome, reduce ambiguity, ship fast, experiment and learn thoughtfully, know when to pivot and just keep going until we've built something incredible.
I love all things tech. I'm an Apple and Tesla fanatic, a perpetual early adopter, and someone who gets genuinely energized by major shifts in what's possible. Right now, AI has me more excited than ever. It feels like a real step change in how products get built: small teams can operate at a scale that used to require far more people, large companies can move faster and deliver more impact, and entirely new categories of niche, purpose-built software are becoming viable businesses where the economics never worked before. That's incredibly exciting to me.
More than anything, I love the product discovery, design, and delivery process. Talking to users, spotting opportunities, strategizing, building, shipping, getting feedback, and iterating toward something great is what gets me energized. Whether I'm solving complex consumer problems at scale or tinkering on side projects late at night, it's just what I genuinely love to do.
- Built products across every stage — from 5-person startup to 5K public company — through fundraising, two acquisitions, and a PE take-private
- Grew consumer resale listing value 5x to $1.5B at SeatGeek
- Led SeatGeek's MLB integration — the company's #1 initiative in 2023
- Launched non-integrated fan-to-fan resale — >$6.5M GTV and ~$1.5M revenue in 6 months
- Redesigned the consumer resale listing flow across all platforms and increased conversion significantly
- Led the "Next Fan Up" product launch — personally quoted in TechCrunch
- Became an industry expert voice speaking on pro seller panels about the state and future of the ticketing industry
- Helped mentor and develop multiple associate product managers at SeatGeek, helping shape the next generation of product managers
- Led 4 product lines at Stella Connect — took one from my own idea to shipped product line, and redesigned coaching tool driving 16x usage increase
- Co-founded Zyp — scaled Boston → NYC, acquired May 2019
SeatGeek is one of the leading ticket marketplaces in the world — powering primary ticketing for big 5 sports teams and venues across the US as well as most of the English Premier League, and operating one of the largest secondary marketplaces for live events in the US. In an industry plagued by frustration and distrust, SeatGeek is built around being fan-first, with a focus on great design and delightful experiences. I own all resale supply on SeatGeek — from consumers selling a single ticket, to season ticket holders managing large packages, to professional sellers operating at multi-billion-dollar scale — the supply that powers the vast majority of SeatGeek's sales and revenue.
Lead Product Manager · Seller Experience · Mar 2024 – Present
- Grew annual consumer resale listing value over 5x to more than $1.5B in 2025 — transforming it into a core pillar of SeatGeek's supply strategy.
- Launched fan-to-fan resale for non-integrated partners, unlocking resale coverage for >85% of SeatGeek's transaction volume. In six months: >$6.5M in GTV, ~$1.5M in revenue, >$30M in listing value, >50K listings from >30K unique sellers. Reduced broken order rates by ~70% and contact rates by 70%.
- Expanded smart pricing to mobile and introduced price floors — generating millions of dollars in incremental annual value for SeatGeek while solving the #1 seller complaint.
- Led the cross-functional "Next Fan Up" product launch — personally quoted in TechCrunch and covered across industry press.
- Invited to speak on a panel at a major ticketing industry conference — recognized as a leading voice in how marketplaces and professional sellers are shaping the next era of live events.
- Mentored and managed 3+ Associate Product Managers, developing the next generation of product talent at SeatGeek.
Senior Product Manager · Seller Experience · Jan 2023 – Mar 2024
- Primary PM for SeatGeek's MLB integration — the company's #1 initiative — leading the core technical integration across multiple teams and contributing to a smooth league-wide rollout.
- Led a ground-up redesign of the ticket listing experience across desktop, iOS, and Android — shipped desktop web in 2.5 months and increased listing conversion rates across all platforms.
- Launched smart pricing, an algorithmic pricing tool that exceeded its adoption target by more than 2x. Smart pricing has now managed over $150M of tickets on behalf of fans with a 15–20% higher success rate of selling — earning more than fans who price themselves. Did >$100M in 2025 Smart Pricing listing value alone.
- Launched a self-service matching workflow that empowered pro sellers to provide better matching data and self-match events, improving match rates from 93% to 99% — doubling a key partner's market share on the platform.
- Modernized the developer experience for professional sellers with interactive API documentation and a product feedback portal, replacing static PDFs and leapfrogging industry standards.
Senior Product Manager · Consumer Marketplace · May 2022 – Jan 2023
Owned product strategy across SeatGeek's seller experience and event catalog — including the resale experience, event matching, event and performer data, venue maps, internal tooling, and automated intelligence systems.
- Rapidly developed deep expertise in the professional ticket resale industry through field research at industry conferences and direct user interviews.
- Led half-year planning within 6 weeks of joining with a compelling product strategy and championed adoption of a new product management tool across the organization — >90% of trial users reported they'd be disappointed to lose it.
- Co-developed the long-term technical and UX vision for SeatGeek's seller platform with engineering leadership, laying the foundation for the team's multi-year roadmap.
Medallia is a leading Customer & Employee Experience SaaS product used by many of the Fortune 500, taken private by Thoma Bravo in August 2021.
- Led 4 product lines — Feedback, Coaching, Performance Management & Retail — and increased Stella's revenue by over 2x.
- Proposed and delivered a new product line for Stella — Performance Management. Discovered a large need in the market, designed prototypes, validated hypotheses with clients, and worked with stakeholders across design, research, product marketing, engineering, sales & finance to bring it to market.
- Performance Management generated significant ARR while still in Beta.
- Worked closely with Design & Engineering to ideate, validate, and ship game-changing features, and tracked & optimized feature usage and performance post-launch.
Stella is a platform for front-line teams, primarily CX teams in contact centers, to view holistic performance, coach to opportunities, and be recognized for their accomplishments. Acquired in September 2020 for $100M by Medallia.
- Led the exploration of entering a new vertical (retail) — conducted market research and Jobs-to-Be-Done user interviews in the field, formulated a strategy, presented findings to executive leadership, built buy-in for a new product line, and went on to execute it.
- Led the redesign of the 1:1 coaching tool, increasing usage 16x. Led design, discovery, development, and go-to-market coordination including creation of marketing collateral from best practice guides to animated marketing videos.
Zyp was an on-demand home cleaning service — offering affordable, area-specific cleaning starting at $20. Co-founded and scaled from Boston to NYC before acquisition in May 2019.
Product Management
- Managed an effective development lifecycle with highly organized 2-week sprint cycles, delivering product stories and maintaining strict budget requirements.
- Instituted customer-centric and data-driven product development methodologies, allowing rapid deployment of the most requested features each sprint.
- Responsible for all QA team functions across all products.
Strategy & Business Outcomes
- Designed, strategized, price-tested, and implemented a recurring revenue model, increasing sales over 3x.
- Analyzed data from Google Analytics, internal tools, customer support, surveys, and 1:1 customer sessions to find informed and robust solutions.
- Identified and developed intimate knowledge of Zyp's 3 key market personas and their driving motivations. Developed personalized marketing campaigns for each, increasing engagement and conversions.
- Increased retention, organic growth, and built user trust using the Jobs To Be Done framework.
Design
- Led all branding, product development, engineering, and design across all mediums including iOS, web, and all marketing channels.
- Created full-fidelity UI/UX designs, animations, prototypes, and marketing materials using Sketch, InVision Studio, and Apple Motion.
- Used design thinking and lean concepts to wireframe, design, prototype, and implement new features and design languages.
Major in Economics-Finance, Minor in Entrepreneurial Studies, Concentration in Management
📊 GPA: 3.56
🏆 President's List (2 Semesters), Dean's List (6 Semesters)
🤝 Treasurer of Kappa Pi Alpha Fraternity 2013 & 2014, Bentley Certified Leader Program, Alumni Class Agent for Suffield Academy
🏆 Honor Roll (6 Semesters)
🤝 Dorm Proctor, Tour Guide Leader, Dinner Dish Crew, Young Alumni Board Member
