Product Strategy Analyst

Job description

The company Small businesses move fast. Opportunities often don’t wait, and cash flow pressures can appear overnight. To keep going, and growing, SMEs need finance that’s as flexible and responsive as they are. That's why we built iwoca. Our smart technology, data science and five-star customer service ensures business owners can act with the speed, confidence and control they need, exactly when it's needed. We’ve already cleared the way for 100,000 businesses with more than £4 billion in funding. Our passionate team is driven to help even more SMEs succeed, through access to better finance and other services that make running a business easier. Our ultimate mission is to support one million SMEs in their defining moments, creating lasting impact for the communities and economies they drive. The Team It's still difficult for business owners to sell their business, or buy others, in the sub-£10m enterprise value market. Information asymmetry, lack of knowledge, and low transaction amounts make it hard, and most M&A firms shy away from the segment because they can't serve it profitably. manda fixes this: leveraging iwoca's deep footprint in the SME economy, with 150,000+ UK customers, and our ability to build clean, efficient, automated processes, we're building the only M&A platform in the UK. We match buyers with sellers across three channels we already run: inbound from iwoca's SME base, automated outbound to vendors matching live buyer mandates, and referrals from our buy-side pipeline. And we're piloting acquisition finance through iwoca so buyers arrive pre-qualified and often pre-financed. You'll join an early-stage venture with the autonomy and pace of a startup, backed by the data, infrastructure, and credibility of an established lender. You'll work directly with the Venture Lead and alongside our Deal Team of buy-side and sell-side Transaction Managers to define, validate, and scale the product. The role As a Product Strategy Analyst, you'll sit at the intersection of strategy, analytics, and product, with the autonomy to find, scope and prototype, and thus shaping how manda evolves. You'll own projects end-to-end, from insight and validation through to launch and iteration. You will be reporting to Mike Hook https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-hook-807ba031/ (the ‘Product Builder’) who is responsible for building the Manda product. Your centre of gravity is product strategy, idea generation, insight, and M&A expertise, complementing the Product Builder who owns the technical build. PRODUCT STRATEGY, PROPOSITION AND ARCHITECTURE - Take a big-picture view of the whole M&A journey: map the long, complex process end to end, pressure-test manda's value proposition against it, and find where the experience, the economics, or the data we collect can be improved. - Shape manda's value proposition by monitoring M&A service models across the UK SME economy and beyond, from listing platforms to traditional advisory firms, including their fee structures, matching processes, and mandate acquisition channels. SCOPING THE OPERATING SYSTEM AND CUSTOMER JOURNEY - Translate operational reality into precise product specs: observe how the Deal Team actually closes deals and turn that into detailed scopes the Product Builder can build from, defining the variables, states, triggers, and mechanics of each workflow (e.g. our HubSpot automation and the systems that run the business day to day). - Dissect the complex M&A process into smaller structures, then scope each part for the Product Builder to digitise, automate and optimise, with clear logic, edge cases, and acceptance criteria rather than vague requirements. - Scope the customer journey across our channels end to end, specifying each step and decision point so we can systematically reduce friction for buyers and sellers, from first contact through to a closed deal. ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTATION - Design and run experiments to validate new product concepts, building lightweight prototypes yourself and iterating on customer feedback and performance data. - Combine quantitative analysis with qualitative insight to find friction and unlock growth, building the data pipelines and monitoring the team needs to track product performance post-launch. LEADERSHIP, COLLABORATION AND INFLUENCE - Work closely with the Product Builder and operations to turn ideas into shipped products, prioritising based on the raw friction of closing deals. - Distill complex market dynamics into clear, actionable recommendations for the Venture Lead and iwoca's leadership, then take ownership of the decisions that follow. The requirements Essential: - A commercial thinker with a bias for action who is comfortable navigating ambiguity in an early-stage venture. - Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to break down ambiguous business problems and translate complex data into clear, actionable insights. - Ability to understand operational reality and translate it into detailed, unambiguous scopes, with defined variables and mechanics, that turn into functional, automated systems, whether that's our HubSpot automation or internal tooling. - Strong capability using AI tools, including structured prompting and iterative interaction, to test ideas quickly and articulate clear product thinking, turning intent into execution with speed and precision. You'll have the mental rigour to validate, audit, and refine AI-generated outputs. - Comfortable building lightweight prototypes yourself, using AI and low-code tools, to test and validate concepts before handing detailed scopes to the Product Builder. Bonus: - 2–3 years' experience at an M&A platform, online marketplace, or tech-enabled M&A business, ideally in a strategy, product, or analytics role where you used data to inform commercially meaningful decisions. Or exposure to acquisition finance within a fintech context. - Previous experience with HubSpot software or in-house build CRM and Operating Systems. - Experience with Python and SQL for data analysis, or BI platforms like Looker. - A strong academic background (Economics, Business, Finance, Engineering, or another quantitative/STEM discipline). The culture At iwoca, the best idea wins. We model our culture on independent thinking, challenging untested logic, and evidence-based decisions. We prioritise learning and growth, and give people the autonomy to develop in the direction that makes them most effective. We're a tech company and believe in the power of AI to help us work faster and better. We provide the infrastructure where every iwocan always has access to the best models and where those models have access to all of our data. We will help our people to learn how to use and grow with the new tools available to them. The offices We put a lot of effort into making iwoca a great place to work: - Offices in London, Leeds, Berlin, and Frankfurt with plenty of drinks and snacks. - Events and community-led groups, including running groups, padel, and monthly ping-pong and pool competitions. The benefits - Flexible working hours. - Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership. - A private GP service (separate from Vitality) for you, your partner, and your dependents. - 25 days’ holiday per year, an extra day off for your birthday, the option to buy or sell an additional five days of annual leave, and unlimited unpaid leave. - A one-month, fully paid sabbatical after four years. - Instant access to external counselling and therapy sessions for team members that need emotional or mental health support. - 3% Pension contributions on total earnings. - An employee equity incentive scheme. - Generous parental leave and a nursery tax benefit scheme to help you save money. - Electric car scheme and cycle to work scheme. - Two company retreats a year: we’ve been to France, Italy, Spain, and further afield. And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer: - A learning and development budget for everyone. - Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers. - Access to learning platforms like Treehouse. Useful links: - iwoca benefits & policies https://coda.io/@iwocauk/iwoca-benefits-policies-uk