Profile

Brian de Haaff

Co-founder and CEO, Aha! | Author of Lovability

Pursues business and wilderness adventure

Professional background

Brian de Haaff is the co-founder and CEO of Aha! — the world's #1 product development software. He has spent two decades building market-leading software companies. Brian writes and speaks about product and company growth and the journey of pursuing a meaningful life.

He co-founded Aha! in 2013 with Dr. Chris Waters to develop a goal-first approach to helping enterprises build software their customers would love. They coined terms such as the Minimum Lovable Product, Complete Product Experience, and The Responsive Method, which have become industry standards. They also chose an unconventional path: self-funding the company, hiring product experts to work with customers, and building a totally remote team long before it was common.

Aha! defined an entirely new category — product roadmapping — and now offers a complete suite of products covering the entire development lifecycle:

Aha! Roadmaps: Set strategy, prioritize features, and create visual roadmaps
Aha! Discovery: Centralize meeting transcripts, uncover key product insights, and link them to your roadmap
Aha! Ideas: Crowdsource feedback, engage your community, and prioritize what drives revenue
Aha! Whiteboards: Define user flows, create mockups, and collaborate on roadmaps
Aha! Builder: Create robust prototypes and trusted business applications with AI
Aha! Develop: Ensure product and engineering seamlessly work together
Aha! Teamwork: Choose how you work, manage all tasks, and stay aligned with strategic plans
Aha! Knowledge: Craft documents, add visuals, and share everything in a central place

The company also established Aha! Academy to help teams develop strategic roadmapping skills and deepen their product development knowledge.

Brian has led Aha! to serve more than 1 million product builders worldwide — across companies of every size, from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — and to grow well past $100 million in annual revenue. Under his leadership, Aha! has achieved remarkable growth milestones, ranking #143 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies, #50 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, and in the top 100 on Forbes' 2021 list of best startups.

Brian has been a founder or early employee of five companies that were acquired by public corporations. He graduated with honors from UC Berkeley (B.A.) and Northwestern University (M.S.).

Areas of expertise

Product innovation

Pioneered concepts that transformed how teams build software, including Minimum Lovable Product, Complete Product Experience, The Responsive Method, and The Aha! Framework for Product Development.

Bootstrap growth

Built Aha! to more than $100M in ARR without venture capital, proving there is a different path from the traditional startup playbook to build a high-growth company. He has championed The Bootstrap Movement as a sustainable alternative to funding rounds.

Market category

Pioneered multiple new categories of technology including product roadmapping. He also develops breakthrough go‑to‑market approaches that help emerging companies build momentum quickly and establish durable positions in new markets.

Writing and speaking

Brian writes and speaks about product development, company building, and pursuing a meaningful life. His bestselling book Lovability revealed that love is the emotion product and company builders cannot afford to ignore — in how they serve customers and the culture they create.

He has written close to 1,000 posts on the Aha! blog with often contrarian perspectives. He continues the conversation in The Startup Adventure, his biweekly LinkedIn newsletter, where 350,000 followers get his honest perspective on choosing value over valuation and building products people love. His work has also appeared in Inc., Entrepreneur, and HuffPost.

Brian speaks at conferences and corporate events, giving product managers and entrepreneurs practical frameworks that push back on the growth-at-all-costs mentality. In 2025, he received the Gold Stevie Award for Thought Leader of the Year in Business Products.

Personal

Brian lives in Silicon Valley with his wife. Together they have three sons. He is an avid outdoor adventurer and landscape photographer who can often be found on the trails in the Bay Area and Sierras.

Learn more about Aha!

For speaking inquiries or media requests, please send us a note.

Connect with Brian

Subscribe to his popular newsletter, The Startup Adventure

Read more uncensored advice about product development from Brian.

Read Lovability to learn the secret behind the phenomenal growth of Aha!