Shawn Farner

About Shawn Farner

I\'ve spent 20+ years working across publishing, marketing and enterprise environments. I\'ve led teams of 50+. I\'ve operated as a one-person department. I\'ve held down leadership roles on properties reaching 80M+ monthly sessions. I\'ve built things from scratch.My work has spanned strategy, data, operations and people — often all at once. I\'ve developed long-term plans and done the hands-on execution to make them real. I\'ve built reporting systems, led training initiatives, improved workflows and aligned stakeholders. I\'ve run large-scale operations and fixed small problems.I\'m effective in ambiguity. I don\'t need a clean brief or a well-defined role to be useful. I figure out what matters, I build consensus when it\'s missing, I make decisions when they\'re stuck and I FOLLOW THROUGH.I care about systems that actually work, performance that compounds, teams that get sharper and problems that stay solved.

Experience

1. Founder & Product Lead

   Railblaze

   Jan 2026 — Present · Brooklyn, NY, US

   Built and launched a real-time NYC transit app, taking it from concept through App Store release.Owned the full product from UX to development, optimizing for quick access to actionable information.Maintained a disciplined development process through prototyping, versioning and iterative testing.Launched with free subway access alongside a subscription model (monthly/yearly) to validate willingness to pay for additional functionality.Continues to refine app based on user behavior and a roadmap shaped by practicality and performance.

Education

• Indiana University of Pennsylvania

  Bachelors, English

  2006 — 2008

Skills

• Sem
• Editing
• Facebook
• Social Media
• Google Analytics
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Web Marketing
• SEO
• Digital Marketing
• Blogging
• Online Marketing
• Copywriting
• Web Analytics
• Web Design
• Marketing
• Web Content
• Content Strategy