My Probate Partner
Legal Tech
AI
Product Strategy
Roadmap Development
Turning an ambiguous product brief into a focused delivery plan
Snapshot
Role
Chief Product Officer & Chief Operational Officer
Team
11-13, with 8 directly within the Product team
Timeline
3 months, extended to 1 year 2 months
Context
Context, constraints and goals
A point-of-need legal service with strong customer outcomes, but a growth engine and product operating model that were not yet built to scale with growth.
THE COMPANY
A safer middle ground for a difficult legal process.
My Probate Partner helps people in Scotland obtain Confirmation - the probate equivalent and a legal must-have at a high-stress moment. The market is dominated by two poor options: DIY, which is risky, confusing and full of slow feedback loops; or solicitors, which often take 6–12 months and charge 2–5% of the estate. MPP solves this by sitting between them: guided DIY with expert to review, or fully managed options available to consumers. Cheaper and with higher success rates.
THE MANDATE
Turn strong service delivery into a scalable operating model.
When I joined, MPP already had a dependable, albeit manual, service delivery. I was brought in as the Fractional CPO & COO to create a clear roadmap to growth and improve conversion, while reducing operating dependency on the founder, and to modernise customer support and internal working efficiency.
Market context
Point-of-need. High anxiety. High perceived risk.
Confirmation is not something most people plan for. The emotional and practical context changes how conversion has to work.
A typical SaaS feature-led approach is not appropriate here. Users need orientation, confidence and clear options before they can buy.
Starting state
The service worked. The system around it did not yet scale.
Revenue performance was steady, but growth had plateaued. The team was mostly part-time, important skillsets were missing, and founder involvement had become the dependency between sales, product decisions and delivery.
Services
Top Initiatives
Four connected workstreams: acquisition and conversion, AI-enabled support, product operating discipline, and a measurement foundation for faster learning.
01
Funnel & conversion strategy
OBJECTIVE
Reduce overwhelm, increase user confidence, and shift the funnel from “book a call” to “buy online”.
WHAT SHIPPED
Homepage paths for “Ready to buy” and “I’m overwhelmed”; a simplified service-comparison grid; refreshed Confirmation and service-finder tools; and a new education journey covering Understanding Confirmation and Compare your options.
WHY IT MATTERED
It explains the process, compares DIY, MPP and solicitor routes, and makes the case for MPP. Education became a conversion mechanism: users feel safe, informed and in control.
02
AI-enabled customer comms & support
OBJECTIVE
Scale high-quality support, reduce repetitive workload, and enable self-serve confidence around the clock.
WHAT SHIPPED
Moved a scattered omnichannel chat, email and WhatsApp into Intercom; launched a customer Help Centre for self service; created SOPs, edge-case knowledge and reusable templates; and enabled AI-assisted drafting through Intercom co-pilot.
WHAT WE GAINED
FIN, the AI assistant was tested and launched with escalation rules, real user testing and a content-gap feedback loop established.
03
Product operating system & alignment
OBJECTIVE
Turn a fragmented, idea-heavy environment into a measurable execution system.
WHAT I PUT IN PLACE
Made the Atlassian stack the single source of truth across the company: Jira Product Discovery for opportunities and ideas, Jira for delivery, and Confluence for documentation, decisions and living artefacts. Added prioritisation cadence, clearer ownership, documented decisions and follow-ups, and OKR-aligned planning around sales, call dependency and operational load.
OUTCOME
Valuable ideas and priorities assessed and prioritised, guesswork removed from delivery and trade-offs visible to leadership.
04
Measurement foundations
OBJECTIVE
Make performance visible and experimentation possible by being able to accurately and effortlessly measure our impact.
WHAT PROGRESSED
Improved analytics hygiene with event-naming standards and a handbook documenting what fires, where and why. Made conversion and purchase events available at any time (instead of in monthly performance comms), scoped a cross-platform identity approach using unique identifiers, and initiated the move toward Amplitude with execution delegated to the marketing lead.
Key pivot
The decision that changed the trajectory: killing a risky build early
When I joined, an MVP concept was already being pushed forward through a Trello board, feature brainstorms and early estimates. My initial review exposed several classic early-stage risk signals.
Risk signals
Validation was weak - a list of “nice to have” features rather than validated needs. Prioritisation and user journeys were unclear, technical unknowns and dependencies were significant, and the backend-heavy internal workflow scope could be delivered faster with off-the-shelf platforms. Estimates also suggested misalignment on approach and delivery efficiency.
What I did
I ran a rapid product audit across scope versus value, dependency mapping, validation evidence and build-versus-buy options. I explored lighter alternatives, including an AI-assisted build and using existing platforms for internal workflow, then aligned leadership on the opportunity cost: efforts on near-term funnel and conversion improvements mattered more than an expensive internal platform.
Result
We stopped the initiative early, avoided compounding sunk cost, and redirected focus to top-of-funnel improvements and a more scalable support model.
Impact
Growth that shows up in the numbers.
Gross revenue
+50%
February 2026 month-to-date, as of 27 February, compared with January 2026.
Sales month
#2
February 2026 became the second highest-grossing month on record, month-to-date.
Sales calls
↓
Sales increased while calls declined, reducing reliance on one-to-one sales conversations.
Best sales day
+30%
New sales-day record, overtaking the previous high by 30%.
Average order value
£950
Typical order value increased from £760 over 6 months after extensive price sensitivity testing, a usability overhaul and improved user education etc.
Service quality
97% / 100%
97% first-time success rate; 100% overall success for customers.
After rebuilding the site with an education-led funnel and shifting towards purchase-first conversion actions, month-to-date gross revenue was 50% above the month before.
Client perspective
The work landed because it felt like partnership.
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