product manager · ai-assisted discovery · payments
Naming the problem
before naming the solution.
I'm Phil Zaayman, a Product Manager working across payments, merchant experience, checkout certainty, reconciliation, AI-assisted discovery, and signal-led product discovery.
I use AI tools to support product discovery, research, structured thinking, requirements, prototyping, and clearer product decisions.
Good product work still starts with a signal, not a solution. Customer feedback, merchant behaviour, support tickets, operational issues, and metrics usually tell the story first. The work is to name the problem clearly enough for a team to act.
how i think about product
Signal → Outcome
Signal
What happened?
Problem
What needs to be solved?
Insight
What pattern matters?
Opportunity
What can we do?
Validation
What needs testing?
Outcome
What changed?
AI can speed up the thinking, but the work still starts with naming the problem properly.
about
The point where signal, payments and delivery meet.
My background spans FinTech, payments, iGaming, casino, digital subscriptions, wallets, onboarding, reporting, CMS, VAS vending, e-learning, and back-office platforms.
I use AI tools to support research, synthesis, ideation, product documentation, requirements drafting, and prototyping. I use signal-led discovery to understand what is happening before deciding what should be built.
I prefer clear problems, small bets, useful requirements, and work that helps teams make better decisions.
current work
- ·Merchant-facing payment experiences
- ·Checkout certainty, orchestration, reconciliation, and merchant trust
- ·AI-assisted discovery, research, product documentation, and prototyping
- ·Signal reviews across customer, merchant, support, operational, product, and data inputs
- ·Product discovery, roadmaps, requirements, and delivery alignment
journey in product
Marketing & digital foundations
Strategy, CRM, and customer understanding, where the instinct for signal began.
Gaming platforms & product systems
Back-office tools, roadmaps, specifications, integrations, and feedback loops.
Player, entertainment & payment experiences
UX, localisation, supplier work, payments, and cross-functional delivery.
Independent consulting
FinTech, iGaming, informal retail, e-learning, VAS, wallets, reporting, integrations.
Payments & merchant experience
Checkout certainty, reconciliation, roadmaps, UX collaboration, KPIs, continuous improvement.
The thread is simple: notice the signal, use the right tools, name the problem, and help teams ship the right work.
things i'm thinking about
AI-Assisted Discovery
How can AI help product teams move faster without skipping the hard work of understanding the problem?
Payment Confidence
What makes a merchant or customer feel certain about what happened during a payment?
Signal → Opportunity
How does a signal become a named problem, a framed opportunity, and a testable assumption?
what i work with
Product thinking
- AI-assisted discovery
- Signal-led discovery
- Opportunity framing
- Problem naming
- Product briefs
- Roadmap thinking
Payments
- Merchant experience
- Reconciliation
- Payout flows
- Cash-flow visibility
- Trust
Ways of working
- Signal reviews
- Discovery briefs
- Stakeholder alignment
- Support-ticket insight reviews
- Product reviews
Tools
- Claude
- ChatGPT
- AI-assisted prototyping
- Analytics
- Lightweight research
- Structured thinking
education & certifications
- ·B.Com Marketing Management
- ·B.Com Honours Marketing Management
- ·M.Phil Information Technology
- ·Strategic Planning Certification
- ·Product Strategy & Brand Management
- ·Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
- ·Continuous learning across Product, AI, FinTech, payments, APIs, analytics, and generative AI
beyond product
Outside of product work, I have a soft spot for obscure 80s big hair rock (I once played bass in a rock band called TonyDanza) and building things that feel genuinely useful. I do my thinking on trail runs, enjoy learning, and am drawn to problems that do not have obvious answers.
I also volunteer at the Friends of the South African Air Force Museum.
connect
Let's talk product, payments, or the useful things in between.