About Joshua Theophilus — AI Product Manager & Builder
I'm Joshua Theophilus, an AI product manager, AI builder, and AI engineer based in Lagos, Nigeria. I bring 10+ years across product, growth, and engineering leadership to my current work building AI-native products.
I work across the product lifecycle: understanding the problem, shaping the experience, deciding what to build, and turning it into working software. My work includes website design, web development, AI product building, and leading product and engineering teams. I care about the decisions behind a product as much as the implementation that makes it useful.
My growth product management background shapes how I build. I think about onboarding, activation, retention, and how users reach value, not only what ships. That perspective helps me connect product strategy, technical execution, and the way a product grows.
Earlier in my career, I worked in product training and enablement within Meta's ecosystem. Explaining complex tools to different audiences helped shape how I approach product development today: start with the user, make the experience clear, and connect the technology to a practical outcome.
Today, I'm deepening that work through hands-on AI building and an MS in AI Engineering, alongside my MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology. My portfolio documents the work I can share publicly, with clear distinctions between projects I led, projects I built, and experiments I'm still developing.
I also mentor tech professionals and founders, helping them think through product challenges, career decisions, and how to move from an idea to execution. Through Product Slice HQ, I share product thinking and resources for people building useful technology.
Based in Lagos and working globally, I'm open to select opportunities in AI product management, growth product management, and hands-on product building.
How I think — the principles I build by
Execution is the strategy
A good idea in a slide deck is worth nothing. The product that ships — even imperfect — compounds. Speed of learning beats quality of planning every time.
AI is a build primitive, not a feature
I don't add AI to products. I build products around AI capabilities where they genuinely reduce friction or create value. The question is always: does this make the user more successful?
Distribution is product design
How a product grows is a design decision made in the product itself. The best PLG products make growth inevitable — referrals baked in, sharing as core UX, value increasing with usage.
Location is not a constraint
Building from Lagos means you understand resource constraints, scrappy execution, and what it takes to earn users' trust without a brand behind you. These are competitive advantages — not limitations.
Teams multiply what strategy starts
The best PM work isn't in the PRD. It's in how you align engineering, design, and business so everyone is solving the same problem, with the same urgency, for the same reason.
Clarity is the most underrated skill
Most product failures are communication failures. The PM who can say “here's what we're building, why, and what winning looks like” in 3 sentences will ship better products than anyone with a 40-page PRD.
Career arc — the journey so far
- 2019 – 2023
Senior Meta Product Trainer (EMEA) + Lead Trainer
Meta / Teleperformance / Digify Africa
Product training and enablement across 15+ countries. WhatsApp chatbot platform (Naledi & Lesedi) for Meta. Trained 50,000+ professionals across 65+ countries. 2x Meta Lead Trainer Award.
- 2021
Digital Marketing Trainer & Product Specialist
Digify Africa (Meta Partner)
First product role. Digital marketing and product specialist work for a Meta channel partner, the starting point for the product and AI career that followed.
- 2023 – 2024
Product Innovation Manager & Business Lead, Growth and Transformation
Africa Agility (Global, Remote)
159% YoY program growth. $50K+ in grant funding secured. Built and launched the org's first MVP.
- Aug 2023 – Jan 2025
Head of Product & Growth (Contract)
Ibridge Innovative Solutions
0→1 for FoodBridgeNG and The Corporators. 5,000+ users in year one. Improved execution efficiency 30%.
- Mar 2024 – Apr 2025
VP, Product & Engineering
BOSS Global / SellMedia Group
Built and led the full product and engineering org. Delivered SellCrea8, SellMerch, and Settla Fintech. Increased delivery speed 30%. Led client initiatives across Canada, the US, and the UK. Co-founded and exited Colonies AI during this same period.
- Apr 2025 – Mar 2026
Group Head of Product & Engineering
Beden Holdings (PartyJor, VIP Closet)
Turned a 9-month stalled product into a working MVP in 2–3 months. Launched PartyJor Moments in 5 weeks, over 1,000 signups in week one. Integrated a multimodal AI stack including text generation, TTS, image generation, and translation. Reduced production bugs by 70%. Three products built in total, one scaled, one validated.
- Present
Full-Time AI Product Builder
Independent
Building AI-native products full-time, hands-on, using Claude Code, Cursor, and modern AI-assisted development. The AI Builder Portfolio on this site is a live record of that work.
Working together
Beyond full-time roles, I take on select engagements
0→1 Product Advisory
For founders with a validated idea who need product leadership to get from concept to shipped without a full-time CPO hire.
AI Product Strategy
For teams integrating AI into their product stack and needing a PM who's actually shipped LLM features — not just advised on them.
Growth System Design
For products post-launch needing a structured PLG system: acquisition hooks, onboarding flows, engagement loops, and monetization models.
Product & Eng Turnarounds
For teams with stalled delivery, misaligned product-engineering, or a roadmap that isn't moving. I diagnose fast and rebuild execution systems.
“I don't consult on theory. I come in, understand your system, identify the constraint, and build the thing that fixes it.”
When I'm not heads-down on my main work, I enjoy working through product challenges with founders who are serious about building. It's the kind of thing I'd do anyway — I just make it useful. If you're building something and want to check whether I have time to get involved, feel free to reach out.
Start a Conversation →Let's build something that matters.
Available for select consulting engagements with startups that need product clarity and execution depth. Also open to the right full time role, including Senior PM, AI PM, or Growth PM positions, with a team building something worth being part of.