Andy is a Group Product Manager for ChromeOS Education at Google. If your children or students use or have used a Chromebook, you can thank Andy’s team! His work reaches more than 50 million children globally, with a particular focus on creative tools for teachers and students.
Andy is also a fantastic advocate for children’s creativity. In 2010, he co-created the Toontastic app, designed to help kids easily create and share their own animated stories. After 5 successful years, with more than 10 million cartoons created worldwide, and recognition in the NY Times "Top 10 iPad Apps" and the iTunes Hall of Fame, Launchpad Toys - the company that he co-founded to build digital toys and tools like Toontastic - was acquired by Google where Andy started the next chapter of his career. At Google, he helped relaunch Toontastic in 3D where it won the 2017 Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Media - and then he joined the Chromebook team to help put great creative tools into the hands of students and teachers worldwide.
In this episode, Andy shares his entrepreneurial journey building Toontastic from a master’s project at Stanford to an award-winning app used worldwide. He describes his design approach to support children’s creativity and the many iterations needed to build a successful product. Then, we discuss his role at Google, how he manages challenges associated with such a large scale product, what separates good product managers from great product managers, and his optimistic vision of generative AI for education.
I hope you enjoy this episode! Don’t hesitate to leave comments if you feel inspired, want to share your experience, or have questions for Andy!
Thank you for being part of the conversation!
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