My Name Is Alejandro Saenz — This Is Why I Joined Aha!

How many products do you use in a day? Probably even more than you realize. From enterprise software to your dog's favorite toy, we rely on all types of products to make life more productive and enjoyable. This has always fascinated me — I love learning the ins and outs of products and exploring their full potential. But it is even more satisfying when I can share this knowledge with others. It is a great feeling to help make someone's day a little easier.

To me, products truly become lovable when you give customers the same level of care as what goes into the technology.

In college, my first product-centric job was with Apple as a support advisor. I was a fan of the company — I wanted to understand the inner workings of their devices and be the expert among friends and family. But I soon came to appreciate the quality of the technical support we offered just as much as the tech itself. It was rewarding to help people find solutions to their problems. And I quickly fell in love with customer-facing work.

Around that same time, I joined my university's entrepreneurship club. It functioned like a mentorship program and incubator for student-run startups. As part of this, a few of my peers and I created a data management startup. Our aim was to help small businesses automate their Excel reports. It was challenging but exciting work — giving me my first glimpse into what it is like to work for a SaaS company.

Launching my own startup was inspiring — it fueled my entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to explore the world of building software.

After graduation, my business partners and I moved on to other career pursuits. Initially I explored marketing and support positions — including a year with Chewy, the pet supplier, in their customer service department. That was followed by a short period as a front-end developer, brought on by my interest in tech and a coding bootcamp experience. This deepened my understanding of how software is built. But ultimately I missed the relationship-building aspects of more customer-driven roles.

During my brief stint as an engineer, I was exposed to product management. I saw that it blended my love of great products and supporting the people who use them. Feeling inspired, I transitioned into a product management role at an information systems company — where I helped define features, prioritize backlogs, and collaborated with a cross-functional team. It was fulfilling to recenter my work on making customers happy.

While in this role, I happened to read Lovability by Aha! co-founder and CEO Brian de Haaff. The theme of creating businesses based on love, care, and happiness resonated with me. I knew immediately that Aha! was where I wanted to be.

I first joined through the Aha! Fellowship program where I delved into the fundamentals of company and product building. The culture exceeded my expectations — in addition to being kind, everyone was naturally curious, trusting, and feedback-driven. When the fellowship ended, I applied for a role on the Customer Success team.

Now as a Product Success Specialist, my product management experience and passion for customer support are combined into one unique role. We provide expert guidance to organizations of all different sizes, industries, and methodologies — helping them deliver more value, more effectively with our software. And I get to learn from them too. The more time I spend speaking with our customers, the better I understand the many nuances of product development. We have a window into the complex collaboration and innovation that goes into building some of the world's leading software.

At Aha! we support organizations that are building the future. It is a privilege to help guide product teams in being their best and happiest at work.

I am grateful to be somewhere I can grow. In the future I hope to start a business that can provide jobs to people in Colombia where I am from. Because we are a fully bootstrapped company, there are endless entrepreneurial lessons to learn just by being on the Aha! team. I know this experience will inspire and embolden me to build something lovable of my own one day.

That is why I joined Aha! — and why you should too.