Ashley Neale

Director of Product, Co-Founder

Proof of Peach, INC － Seattle, USA

November 2022 - February 2025

A B2C mobile & desktop app that connected custom fine-tuned LLMs, diffusion and flux image-gen and voice ai technology to create compelling, lifelike AI companions; raised over $1M in funding.

• Delivered MVP in under 90 days, then implemented growth product management practices that scaled the app from 10 to 12,000+ DAU. Drove continuous iteration through bi-weekly feature updates, leveraging user feedback to boost retention from 1.2% to 4.2%.
• Designed an AI safety protocol ensuring compliance and ethical standards, resulting in market distinction, increasing media visibility through Guardian News coverage, and fostering a 2000% surge in revenue and user growth.
• Leveraged user feedback to refine product strategy, combining strong product intuition with deep AI expertise to craft a long-term vision and drive technical product development that included LLMs, image generation, and voice interfaces for 12,000 DAU.
• Led and grew the engineering team from 1 to 7 engineers, providing clear architectural vision and critical technical guidance to build a secure, user-friendly cryptocurrency rails payment system with a crypto-convertible points gamification platform that accelerated product growth.

Head of Product, Co-Founder

Degenerate Ape Academy － Remote

August 2021 - March 2023

A Solana DApp launched in 2021, pioneering web3 innovations like on-chain point systems and staking rewards, selling out in the initial mint in less than 8 minutes, earning the company approximately $20 million, and bringing Solana NFTs mainstream.

• Spearheaded cross-functional alignment among design, engineering, sales, marketing, and executive teams to architect and execute cohesive product features and go-to-market strategies, driving the creation of $500K in new revenue streams.
• Led the design and implementation of data-driven strategies, leveraging analytical skills and practices such as A/B testing, Agile methodologies, and user research to boost daily active users by 60% and drive sustained product engagement.
• Transformed complex technical product challenges into scalable solutions, including launching an auction platform that generated $360K in 8 weeks with 4,500 weekly users; these mechanisms became foundational, were adopted across all projects, and remain integral to the team's ongoing success.
• Developed a groundbreaking on-chain, open-source contract social product, driving $200K in revenue within two weeks, while establishing a scalable framework for the team to deliver future immersive experiences.

Program Manager, Developer Relations - Technical

NEAR Protocol － San Francisco, USA

November 2019 - June 2021

NEAR Protocol is a layer-1 blockchain platform providing scalable, user-friendly infrastructure for thousands of developers and enterprises to build decentralized applications. Currently valued at over $2.75 billion, I was among the first 10 team members.

• Led DevRel strategy using Agile methods to launch developer tools, including an open-source marketplace standard adopted in 10+ products, by securing leadership buy-in and aligning cross-functional teams for a high-impact, scalable GTM rollout across the NEAR ecosystem.
• Drove the product vision, strategy, and execution for developers, including building and announcing products, providing internal and external developer documentation, and establishing a cohesive, scalable foundation that empowered innovation and streamlined engagement across the community of 2,000 developers.
• Championed the adoption of a privacy-focused, compliant in-house CRM, securing leadership buy-in, and boosting closed partnerships by 40%.
• Scaled the team from 10 to 120 employees in under two years through interviewing and hiring top talent.
• Led operations for internal culture initiatives, and organized a two-week global offsite for 80 team members, delivering an impactful experience and internal hackathon within an $80K budget.

Montana State University － Bozeman, MT

Bachelors, Computer Science

June 2021