Jannis presenting product samples to a group in a showroom
At work
Jannis in cap and gown with his parents in front of the Cleveland State University sign
MBA graduation with my parents, 2024
Jannis speaking at a podium under a screen reading John McLendon Award, Jannis Schmidt
John McLendon Award, 2023
Jannis, as captain, carrying the trophy toward his Cleveland State teammates
Captain, Horizon League champions, 2022

Jannis Schmidt.

Engineer, MBA and former Division I captain. Currently taking new businesses to market at Leaf Home.

Get to know me
01

What I do

  1. 01

    Research

    Market, patent and customer research that feeds our stage-gate process, so we prioritize what to build next.

  2. 02

    Prototype

    CAD, 3D prints and vendor samples, until a product is ready for production.

  3. 03

    Launch

    Getting new businesses and products to market: keeping the team moving, driving decisions, and pulling together everything the launch needs.

  4. 04

    AI

    Internal tools, and new or existing processes rebuilt with AI to make the work faster.

02

Experience

  1. Jun 2024 – presentHudson, Ohio

    Product Development Engineer & Growth Leader

    Leaf Home

    I take new businesses and products from the first idea to launch.

    • Helped launch Lighting by LeafFilter, our permanent Christmas lighting business: product research and testing, competitor comparison, design decisions, and sales and marketing materials.
    • Set up the stage-gate process our new products go through, after interviewing teams across the company, from supply chain and legal to sales and installation.
    • Automated our new-hire onboarding, with an AI check on each badge photo, so the badge and gear arrive at the office before day one.
    • Built AI product visualizers that help our reps sell in the home, by showing customers their own house with new roofing, lighting or a stairlift.
    More
    • Designed an add-on part in SolidWorks, tested it with our own 3D prints, and took it through vendor samples into production.
    • Built the pricing model for a new window business and proposed its first launch offices.
    • Built AI agents for market and patent research.
    • Work across sales, engineering, purchasing, operations, quality and finance to bring new products to market.
    • Prepare drawings and CAD files for suppliers, including overseas vendors, and work with them through samples and production.
    • Set up GitHub for our engineering team and taught colleagues to use it and AI tools for prototyping.
  2. May – Aug 2023Cleveland, Ohio

    Business Consultant

    The Entrepreneurs EDGE

    • Advised the CEO of a manufacturing company on where to expand. I ran 30+ research interviews and turned them into go-to-market options and business cases.
  3. Aug 2020 – May 2024Cleveland, Ohio

    Team Supervisor & Supplemental Instruction Leader

    TASC, Cleveland State University

    • Recruited, trained and managed eight tutors for college math, chemistry and physics, while playing Division I soccer.
  4. Jun – Aug 2020Reutlingen, Germany

    SensorTec Engineering Intern

    Bosch

    • Tested MEMS sensors for autonomous driving and smart glasses, and presented what I found to the R&D team.
03

Projects

Some of the things I work on, at work and in my free time.

A house at night with warm white permanent lights along the roofline

Work · Business launch

Lighting by LeafFilter

Permanent Christmas lighting was a new business for LeafFilter. I was on the team that took it from idea to launch: testing products, comparing competitors, design decisions, sales and marketing materials, and helping get our installers trained.

See the product

Photo: LeafFilter

Illustration: a new hire's photo passes an AI check and becomes a badge

Work · Automation

New-hire onboarding

An automated onboarding flow: new hires pick a shirt size and upload a photo, an AI check makes sure the photo works for a badge, and the badge and gear ship to their office before day one.

AI render: the house at night with permanent lights along the roofline Original photo: the house in daylight

Work · AI tool

Product visualizers

An AI tool that helps our reps sell in the home. They take a photo of the customer's house and show it with new roofing, permanent lighting or a stairlift. The hard part was keeping the house looking exactly like itself. Drag the slider to compare.

Side project · macOS app · Open source

Transcriber

Dictation for the Mac. Hold Option, talk, let go, and the text appears wherever you're typing. I built it because I didn't want to pay $10 a month to send my voice to someone else's servers.

Read moreGitHub ↗
Illustration: a small clip-on recorder sends a voice note to a laptop, where it stays

Side project · Hardware + AI · In progress

Merk

German for "remember." A small wearable I'm building to record my thoughts on the go. The software already runs on my Mac: everything is transcribed and summarized locally, so it stays private.

Side project · Coming soon

My map

My soccer path as a short 3D walk, from my first club in Gensingen to Cleveland.

04

Skills

Product & strategy

Stage-gate and new product development, go-to-market, business cases, market research and customer insights, pricing models and commission structures, competitive and patent research, cross-functional leadership, sales enablement and training

AI

Claude Code, Antigravity, local AI models (Whisper, Gemma), AI agents and workflow automation, AI image generation, OpenAI API, Gemini, n8n

Built with AI coding

Python, Swift and macOS apps, HTML, CSS and JavaScript, three.js, Next.js, APIs and integrations, Bubble, Supabase, SQL, Vercel, GitHub

Engineering & business tools

SolidWorks, 3D printing, Excel and financial modeling, Power BI, Tableau, Shopify, SAP ERP

Languages

German (native), English (native-level), French (proficient)

05

Education

Cleveland State University diploma, Master of Business Administration
2023 – 2024

Master of Business Administration

Cleveland State University · 4.0 GPA

Cleveland State University diploma, Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology, summa cum laude
2018 – 2022

B.S. Mechanical Engineering Technology

Cleveland State University · Summa cum laude, 3.84 GPA · Minor in business

Oracle Certified Foundations Associate certificate
Certification · 2025

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2025 Certified AI Foundations Associate

Valid through October 2027

Leadership & honors

Jannis, wearing the captain's armband, giving a pregame talk in the team huddle
06

The story so far

From a small town in Germany to Cleveland, in a few pictures.

Jannis as a small boy, sitting on a stone ledge by a fountain
Young me, growing up in Germany.
Jannis with friends in front of a festival stage
With friends at a festival.
Jannis celebrating a goal with a Cleveland State teammate
Moved to the US to play Division I soccer at Cleveland State.
Jannis and two teammates next to the steel frame from their senior design project
My senior design project, the last step of my engineering degree.
Jannis with the Entrepreneurs EDGE consulting team
Consulting with The Entrepreneurs EDGE during my MBA.
Jannis walking with his parents along a tree-lined path
Out with my parents.
Jannis walking along the rim of the Grand Canyon
I like to travel. Here, the Grand Canyon.
Left: Jannis signing a young fan's shirt for Akron City FC. Right: Jannis celebrating a goal for the Cleveland Crunch
Still playing: captain of Akron City FC in the summer, indoor with the Cleveland Crunch in the winter.

07

Portrait of Jannis Schmidt

Let's talk.

If you're working on a physical product or building with AI, I'd like to hear about it. LinkedIn is the fastest way to reach me.

Connect on LinkedIn jannis.schmidt99@gmail.com