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Manageable founder: ‘Build the plane while you are flying’

Inken Thomas is the co-founder and chief product officer at Manageable, a software platform providing tools for managers to be effective leaders.

Founded in 2020 by Thomas and her husband Farley Thomas, Manageable is a personalised skills development platform for new and mid-level managers.

The London-headquartered startup has created an “AI-powered digital companion”, which includes tools like peer-to-peer matching and automated scheduling. Manageable’s clients include UBS, Charlotte Tilbury and Solivus.

In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Thomas explains why you should “build the plane while you are flying”, why it’s important for employees to have projects that “move the needle” and shares her productivity tips.

1. What advice would you give to a first-time founder?

Inken Thomas: Go to market as quickly as you can to prove product-market fit and ‘build the plane while you are flying’. This means that you need to be more reactive as something might suddenly become very urgent, which you hadn’t yet thought of building....