Saul SalazarLoading / 01Loading selected projects, product decisions, and the stories behind them.
Product Management · Sociology · Access
I use sociology to understand where systems create friction, product management to turn insight into decisions, and entrepreneurship to build clearer paths through education, information, and opportunity.
Sociology · Business · Music · Chinese
Featured
I built and launched Liu as an end-to-end product experiment in making serious Mandarin vocabulary learning easier to enter, understand, and sustain.
Missing image: /featured/liu-featured-1.png
Founder-led product
Founder and Product Manager
A Mandarin vocabulary and spaced-repetition product designed around durable recall, contextual understanding, and honest progress.
Collection 01
Internship and contract work translating customer, market, and channel insight into requirements, positioning, distribution, and go-to-market decisions.
Consumer Research → Growth PM
An independent consumer research project that progressed into contract product management work spanning growth, commerce, partnerships, and distribution.
February 2026 — Present
Product Manager, Growth & Partnerships
Product Strategy + GTM
Product strategy and commercialization work for GridLeaf, a modular vertical-axis wind turbine developed by Polymathic Innovations.
March 2026 — May 2026
Product Management Intern, Strategy & GTM
Collection 02
Using sociology and field research to examine power, coordination, innovation, and the systems surrounding product decisions.
Research and Perspective
Studying how product managers coordinate work, build legitimacy, and influence decisions without formal authority.
2026 — 2027
Sociology Honors Thesis
Global Business & Innovation
A Drew University business immersion across Beijing and Shanghai, connecting company visits with analysis of innovation speed, organizational design, and global legitimacy.
Summer 2026
Three-Week China Business & Innovation Immersion
Collection 03
Designing a durable pathway where an existing organization, community, or point of access does not yet exist.
The access story
Across entrepreneurship, language learning, career development, and product building, the recurring question has been the same: what prevents people from accessing a useful resource or opportunity, and what would create a clearer path?
01
2018
The earliest access-system idea
A middle-school telecommunications concept proposing tile-based global internet coverage, near-terabit minimum speeds, and an $800,000 seed ask for 4% equity. The technical and financial assumptions were wildly optimistic, but the instinct was already recognizable: identify an access barrier, imagine a system that removes it, and pitch a path to scale.
02
2023
First entrepreneurial build
In high school, I co-developed a sustainable portable charging concept for a market of more than 200 million commuters, built its business plan and go-to-market strategy, and pitched it as a Sabin Entrepreneurial Prize finalist.
03
2024
First access-oriented learning experiment
I created a small bilingual podcast to make introductory English-learning content more approachable for Spanish-speaking learners. It introduced the idea that access depends on format, language, and whether participation feels possible.
04
2025
From product access to career access
I began developing Drew’s first product-management organization to create an interdisciplinary pathway into a career field that lacks a dedicated campus presence. Formal launch remains pending university budget approval.
View project05
2026
Access translated into a product system
Liu extends the same question into a much larger build: how can serious Mandarin vocabulary learning become easier to enter and sustain without requiring a fragmented tool stack?
View projectApproach
My work connects sociological research, product judgment, and institution building. The goal is not only to ship an output, but to understand the system around it and create something that can endure.
01
Study the users, incentives, institutions, assumptions, and process barriers that make a product, service, career, or opportunity difficult to reach.
02
Translate research into positioning, priorities, requirements, experience design, commercialization, and measurable operating rules.
03
Create not only the interface, but the systems, organizations, and infrastructure required to make access reliable over time.
Capability map
Each capability is grounded in a product, research process, commercial problem, or institution I have helped build.
01
Evidence: Liu · Polymathic Innovations
Defining what a product should promise, whom it should serve, and which systems must exist to make that promise credible.
02
Evidence: Soft Edit Skin · Managing Without Authority · Made in China, Validated Abroad
Turning user behavior, organizational context, and market evidence into decisions that can guide a product or institution.
03
Evidence: Liu
Using AI-assisted development to prototype and ship while owning product requirements, system-design choices, debugging, validation, integrations, and release quality. The work demonstrates technical product fluency while remaining distinct from traditional software-engineering experience.
04
Evidence: Polymathic Innovations · Soft Edit Skin · Liu
Connecting customer value to adoption, distribution, monetization, and a realistic path into the market.
05
Evidence: Drew Product Management Association
Designing communities and operating systems that can make knowledge, participation, and career pathways available to more people once institutional dependencies are secured.
Beyond the work
Product and research are important parts of my life, but not the whole thing. Music, languages, and visual design shape how I spend time and what I notice.
Music
Beyond work, I produce electronic music and sing tenor. I am also (very) slowly learning guitar and piano.
Languages
I've spoken both English and Spanish from a young age, picked up some French in high school, and started studying Chinese in college. Language learning has always been a bridge of sorts between sociology and product for me, expanding my horizons while tackling complex problems and systems.
Visual Design
I enjoy making visual ideas tangible through Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects. I also draw occasionally, with considerably more enthusiasm than precision.
Current chapter
Building toward 2027 product-management opportunities spanning user research, product strategy, and accessible technology.
The current phase is about turning existing work into stronger evidence, clearer decisions, and durable next steps.
01
Validating the core study experience, reviewing sentence-based content, and collecting evidence to guide the next release.
02
Finalizing the interview guide, recruitment materials, and fieldwork process for qualitative research on product management.
03
Using upcoming entrepreneurship coursework to test Liu’s assumptions and decide which direction is worth pursuing.
04
Turning current work into stronger case studies while building the judgment and evidence needed for 2027 product-management opportunities.
