Growth · Monetization · Retention

I turn subscription growth leaks into measurable retention and monetization systems.

Over eight years at Gen Digital leading experimentation, free-to-paid conversion, product launches and renewal journeys across products serving tens of millions of users.

Discuss a growth challenge Review selected work
  • 8+ yrsgrowth & retention at Gen Digital
  • 50M+eligible base, AI scam-protection rollout
  • 100M+combined program reach (owned / co-owned)
Michal Hlousek presenting on stage at the AI: Prague hackathon
Proof

Working at meaningful scale

Every figure below is scoped to what I actually owned or co-owned — the context sits in plain sight, not behind a claim.

8+ yrs
at Gen Digital

Continuous tenure across e-commerce, monetization and retention roles (formerly Avast / AVG).

100M+
combined program reach

Combined reach of products and programs where I owned or co-owned commercial strategy, experimentation or GTM — not a user base I managed alone.

50M+
eligible base, AI scam-protection rollout

Eligible product base for the AI-Powered Scam Protection go-to-market I led within Gen Digital.

30+
builders at {AI: Prague}

Builders brought together for the first {AI: Prague} hackathon, which I co-organized with Lukáš Bláha and Josef Tatíček.

What I do

I work where customer behavior, commercial strategy and product execution meet. That usually means diagnosing where growth is being lost, aligning teams around the most valuable intervention, shipping a measurable change, and turning what works into a repeatable system.

Selected Work

Programs I've owned or co-led

What I owned and the mechanisms I ran — described in full.

Experimentation & CRO

Free-to-Paid Monetization

Turning free users into paying customers across the purchase journey — offer relevance, pricing, packaging and conversion friction.

› Context · What I owned · Mechanism
Context
A large free user base with room to convert more of it into subscriptions, without adding acquisition spend.
Owned
The free-to-paid monetization program — commercial prioritization, the experimentation roadmap and cross-functional delivery. I didn't own acquisition budget myself, but partnered closely with the teams running top-of-funnel initiatives so the installs they drove actually converted and monetized downstream.
Team
Built and led the free-to-paid team directly — hiring, mentoring, and growing the program's output even as top-of-funnel volume declined.
Mechanism
A/B and multivariate testing on pricing, packaging and offer relevance; diagnosing and removing purchase-funnel friction; prioritization weighed against downstream LTV, not just conversion rate; decision rules set before reading results.
Product launch & GTM

AI-Powered Scam Protection

Bringing a new AI protection capability to market inside an established security product, at a 50M+ user footprint.

› Context · What I owned · Mechanism
Context
A new AI capability that needed clear positioning and in-product activation across a very large installed base.
Owned
The go-to-market — from positioning through to in-product activation.
Mechanism
Rollout across a 50M+ user base, with measurement planning and cross-functional launch coordination.
Retention systems

Retention Architecture

Protecting subscription revenue after the first purchase — renewals, resubscription, checkout and the SMB book.

› Context · What I owned · Mechanism
Context
Retention value that was spread across teams and tools rather than run as one coherent system.
Owned
Retention end to end — renewals, resubscription, the checkout experience and the small-business (SMB) customer portfolio from a customer-success and retention angle.
Mechanism
After the team shifted to an individual-contributor model built around fast, AI-assisted iteration, personally built the Retention Hub — an internal tool coded in Cursor and Claude Code that scrapes internal services and gives the broader team shared alignment on product and revenue metrics, replacing fragmented manual reporting.
Community

{AI: Prague} Community Build

Co-organizing a hands-on AI builder community and its first hackathon in Prague.

› Context · What I owned · Public links
Context
A growing appetite among builders to ship real AI prototypes together in one room.
Owned
Co-organized the first {AI: Prague} hackathon with Lukáš Bláha and Josef Tatíček.
Mechanism
30+ builders, partner tooling (Lovable, n8n, Apify) and lifestyle partners, hosted at Gen Digital.
How I Work

A repeatable operating model

The same five steps behind most of what I ship — from a conversion problem to a system that keeps paying off.

01

Diagnose

Identify the behavioral and commercial constraint — the real reason growth is being lost, not merely the loudest internal opinion.

02

Prioritize

Rank opportunities by expected impact, confidence, learning value and implementation cost.

03

Ship

Translate the hypothesis into an experiment, launch, workflow or customer intervention — and get it live.

04

Measure

Define the decision rule before interpreting the result, so the read is honest and the call is clear.

05

Scale

Turn successful interventions into repeatable systems, operating rhythms and shared capability.

Capabilities

What I bring across the funnel

Experimentation & CRO

  • A/B and multivariate testing
  • Funnel optimization
  • Pricing and packaging
  • Offer relevance
  • Conversion diagnostics
  • Experiment prioritization
  • Funnel economics (LTV/CAC-aware prioritization)
  • Team leadership (hiring & mentoring)

Product launches & commercial GTM

  • Positioning
  • In-product activation
  • Commercial rollout
  • Cross-functional launch coordination
  • Customer journey design
  • Measurement planning

Retention systems

  • Renewals
  • Resubscription
  • Lifecycle intervention
  • Churn reduction
  • Customer success
  • Retention operating models

Full-stack adaptability

  • Fast learner across new tools, channels and workflows
  • Built AI-native automation and internal tooling from scratch (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, MCP)
  • Comfortable owning ambiguous or undefined scope end to end
  • Cross-functional execution across product, data and engineering
Evidence

Grounded, not gilded

References and selected project context are available for relevant opportunities. The clearest public evidence right now is community work: co-organizing the first {AI: Prague} hackathon.

AI: Prague hackathon participants on stage
30+ builders, partner tooling, one Saturday of real prototypes.
Conversation at the AI: Prague hackathon
A community built around curious people who ship.
Visit aiprague.dev → Watch the recap
About

Beyond the roadmap

I like being the person who figures out the unfamiliar part of a growth stack — I taught myself agentic AI tooling well enough to automate real internal workflows, and I pick up new tools, channels and systems quickly when a problem needs it.

Football has been part of my life for as long as I can remember — from playing for years to now competing in futsal and beach soccer, with an increasingly humbling pursuit of golf on the side.

I'm based in Prague and value time with family and communities built around curious people. I like exploring new countries, but I keep coming back to the handful of places that actually give me peace of mind.

Contact

Have a conversion or retention problem that has survived three roadmaps?

Let's identify the constraint and turn it into something measurable.

Discuss a growth challenge LinkedIn

Best fit: senior growth or retention roles, advisory work, and product-led subscription challenges. A quick note with the product, the current constraint and the outcome you want is the fastest start.

View full career history →

MH
Michal Hlousek
Senior Manager, Growth
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