Hi, I'm Faina.
I've been building things for 20 years. Products, teams, companies, and the occasional thing that didn't work out the way anyone planned. I've been a founder, a product lead, and the person brought in when something's broken and nobody can figure out why.
I built heyfaina because I kept having the same conversation. A founder who needed thirty minutes with someone who actually understood what they were facing, and had nowhere to get it. They were building alone, they had nobody in their corner who knew enough to tell them the honest thing, and that conversation happened enough times that it became obvious it should just be a thing. The Practice is how we work together: a 3 month, 1:1 program to find a problem people already spend time or money coping with, validate it, and define the MVP.
The founders I work with are working hard. They're doing it alone, too close to their own situation, with nobody around who knows the work and them well enough to say what needs to be said.
That's the part I'm good at: when someone needs to hear the honest thing and there's nobody around to say it.
The Practice starts with a 3 month commitment. It's for founders ready to invest in finding the right problem and deciding what to build. If you're still exploring, the free workshop and the guides are a place to start.
Building is lonely. I'm the person who holds your hand while you do the pulling.
20 years
building products
100+ founders
mentored
50+ companies
worked with
PRACTICE AREAS
What I work on
The work spans five overlapping areas, all rooted in helping founders make better decisions with the evidence in front of them.
Customer validation and signal interpretation
Reading what people are actually telling you about your idea, telling genuine signal from polite encouragement, and turning founder conversations into something you can decide on.
Founder advisory for solo and small team operators
Biweekly calls with Slack in between for founders working alone or with one or two others, where senior judgment is needed but a full-time hire isn't.
Finding what people will pay for, in software or services
Whether you're about to build or you've built and have one or two users, we find the people who care most about the problem and the way to talk to them.
Feedback on customer interviews, positioning, and MVP scope
Reviewing interview notes, checking how you talk about what you're building, scoping the smallest thing that proves the idea, and answering specific decisions as they come up.
Decision support on what to build, when to pivot, and when to kill
Working through the calls that founders can't quite make alone, with honest pushback and the context to see what they can't see when they're too close to it.
CREDENTIALS
Background
20 years building products across B2B SaaS, B2C, marketplaces, fintech, healthtech, education, music tech, real estate, gaming, and entertainment