Productboard founder Daniel Hejl bets the unicorn on AI

Productboard co-founder Daniel Hejl admits it honestly: after the pandemic-era boom and the market cooldown that followed, the company might not have survived the hard times. What saved it was a radical overhaul — a complete abandonment of the old platform and the launch of a new AI-based product called Spark.

Hejl, now 37, founded Productboard in 2014 together with Hubert Palán in San Francisco — back then the partners were crammed into an apartment they'd found on Craigslist. Over the years, the startup, which builds tools for product management, grew into one of only three Czech “unicorns” — companies valued at over a billion dollars.

But after the pandemic-fueled surge, when Productboard easily raised billions of crowns, the market cooled, demand fell, and the company had to go through several rounds of layoffs. According to the founders, they have enough investor capital to keep operating for another ten years, but there was no point continuing with the old approach. A year ago the company made its decision: development of the old platform would stop, and Productboard would bet everything on artificial intelligence.

Before that, Hejl himself went through an unusual career break. Starting 2024 with a sabbatical, he felt he'd run out of fresh ideas, handed day-to-day management over to colleagues, moved to Spain, and — coached by a trainer from one of the Tour de France teams — got hooked on cycling, covering 20,000 kilometers over the year, including 12-hour rides along the Prague–Dresden route and back. He returned to the company in the summer and now personally leads its AI transformation.

According to the entrepreneur, the essence of the business hasn't changed — Productboard still helps companies build better products, just now with the help of new technology. And good product managers, he adds, have nothing to fear: the template question “what's your AI strategy” is the worst thing you can ask, since it only produces an averaged-out set of ideas that never gives birth to a truly original product.