Justin Kim Tech

Case Studies

A track record of driving results, navigating technical complexity, and applying cross-domain learnings to deliver large-scale initiatives.

Vimeo

SaaS, Video, & Platform Infrastructure

Pricing & Packaging Transformation

The Challenge & Execution

Transitioning a global SaaS platform from a usage-based to a "per seat" subscription model required aligning multiple, deadlocked teams. Inherited a stalled initiative and unblocked it by establishing clear communication paths, holding cross-functional teams accountable, and directly writing the critical product requirements (PRDs) to push through inertia.

The Impact

Delivered self-service revenue growth, smoother pathways to upgrade from self-service to enterprise tiers, and enabled faster pricing and packaging experimentation through improved entitlement and pricing systems.

“As Justin joined Vimeo, he inherited a very difficult situation when he started working on the pricing and packaging project. I feel the project was in a deadlock situation, with low motivation from the teams, lack of product definition and no clear communication path between the leadership team and the product teams to solve these problems. “I genuinely think Justin deserves all the credit for unblocking this situation and for putting the project in motion until it was successfully delivered. “In a couple weeks time, he turned the project around, first by leading by example, writing the most critical PRDs himself and be a positive, solution driven presence, then by establishing himself as a valuable communication link between leadership and the rest of the teams such that he could be in a position to make product decisions, and then by holding people around him accountable for delivering on milestones or aspects of the project. A perfect blend of leadership and collaboration, where Justin showed he could own it big at Vimeo!”

— Vimeo Distinguished Principal Engineer

Pricing and Packaging

Strategic Integrations Ecosystem

The Execution

Evolved the company's thinking of integrations as merely a lead-generator to being core to the product itself. Defined a vision to offer a seamless, interconnected ecosystem of tools to empower users to create, manage, and distribute content.

The Impact

Increased customer adoption of integrations year-over-year, significantly reduced subscription churn for users with connected integrations, and successfully expanded the integrations team size during a belt-tightening environment.

“Justin has got up to speed and had a positive impact on BD/partnership integrations that far surpassed my expectations. He got a handle on the current reality within a couple weeks. And then quickly put together a strong initial proposed plan and framework for 2024. “Justin has a bias for action. He's moved quickly and forces us to make decisions quickly which is what we need. He creates situations where he limits other people's options to drag their feet and delay decisions / taking action. “Justin has worked collaboratively. While he has opinions, which are welcome, he goes out of his way to share his rationale in the few instances where we have differing points of view and he's persuasive. Overall, I really enjoy working with Justin and feel great about heading into 2024 with Justin overseeing strategic integrations.”

— Vimeo SVP and GM, Business Development

Integrations

Payments Platform Re-Architecture & Identity

Global Payments & Fraud

Continuously absorbed the new domain of global payments to solve a major fraud issue. Proposed and pushed forward a major 18-month initiative to migrate the underlying subscription billing provider. Impact: Improved payment success rates by 350 bps while reducing payments fraud and chargebacks by half with zero disruption to worldwide business continuity.

Identity & Access Management (IAM)

Stood up a centralized IAM function. This rapid architecture was based partially on cross-domain learnings from Amazon Ads, where I had previously delivered a complex account and permissions schema connecting Sponsored Ads with the Amazon DSP.

Trust, Safety & Customer Support

Continuously learned the domains of trust & safety and copyright law to drive major operational decisions in the EU. Additionally, reduced involuntary subscription churn by 399 bps by launching in-product alerts, and launched one-click refunds, eliminating 5,000 CS tickets per month.

Payments

Amazon

AWS, Advertising, Retail, & Fresh Grocery

Enterprise Billing Re-Architecture at Scale

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Led a globally distributed team for AWS bill computation and usage metering systems—among the most complex systems at Amazon.

The Impact: Launched a massive system overhaul capable of handling 11+ million payer accounts (35% YoY growth), with single accounts generating over 150+ million line items. Developed a Pricing Model SDK that enabled partitioning variation and compute parallelization. Built a billing anomaly detection system utilized by 14 distinct AWS teams to detect missing price plans for billed usage.

Cross-Domain Adaptation & New Paradigms

Amazon Retail & Fresh

Catalog Systems to Fresh Grocery

Adapted deep catalog systems and inventory management expertise originally built for the Video Games category to develop a groundbreaking ordering approach for fresh produce. Streamlined ordering processes, eliminated the need for specialized produce knowledge across the team, established a brand new supplier network for the first-ever city expansion, and wrote the definitive playbook for all future AmazonFresh city expansions.

Product Bundles Program

Figured out how to include bundles in "twister variations" on detail pages by connecting back to how I had to use catalog systems in creative ways for fresh produce. Grew the newly launched program to $489 million in just two years.

Redefining In-Stock Metrics

Deep-dived into the constituent parts of existing legacy metrics to define two entirely new in-stock metrics that were subsequently adopted company-wide. Improved in-stock rates by 350 basis points and reduced aged holiday inventory by 82%.

Consolidated Ad Tech Permissions

Amazon Advertising

Owned the OneDSP program. Drove a major platform consolidation project spanning dozens of teams to enable new business engagement models. Developed account management and permissions schemas enabling both granular and high-level consolidated account structures, resulting in greater aggregate ad spend for clients with multiple accounts.

Audible

Predictive Tooling & Marketing Tech

Predictive Tooling & Personalization

SEO Early Warning System

Continuously learned the new domain of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from scratch to develop an early warning system and content enhancement tools. Significantly improved organic traffic and keyword rankings across the platform.

Data-Driven Orchestration

Led the "Foundational Technologies" team spanning Platforms, CRM, Marketing Automation, and Data Infrastructure. Built a multi-step marketing campaign orchestration tool that resulted in higher click-through rates across campaigns. Applied data science models to personalization tools, increasing the usage of the platform's "next listen" feature.