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David Cutler

AMA: CookUnity VP Product & Design, David Cutler on Building a Product Management Team

June 30 @ 10:00AM PST
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CookUnity VP Product & Design, David Cutler on Building a Product Management Team
Top Questions
David Cutler
David Cutler
CookUnity VP Product & DesignJuly 1
In my experience a prioritization framework is foundational to establishing a great working relationship within your own team and stakeholders. I'd also argue that if executed well in the beginning, the framework may not change much regardless if you are the first or 10th PM at a company. In fact......Read More
1837 Views
2 requests
David Cutler
David Cutler
CookUnity VP Product & DesignJuly 1
The first PM hired into a company, or in a division of a company, will usually be an individual who can wear different hats on any given day. (see one of my favorite product management graphics: https://medium.com/@productboard/the-many-hats-of-product-managers-4692aab2fff) The decision to grow a......Read More
365 Views
2 requests
David Cutler
David Cutler
CookUnity VP Product & DesignJuly 1
All Product Managers need to be a sales person at different times in their career. As someone establishing a PM function for the first time, you'll be selling the vision of how an effective product manager will help the business and company achieve their goals. There's obviously at least one cham......Read More
378 Views
2 requests
David Cutler
David Cutler
CookUnity VP Product & DesignJuly 1
I love this question because it's something I'm currently involved with at CookUnity. At a B2C company the marketing team is a Product Manager's best friend, especially in the early startup days. You can build the greatest product in the world but there are only so many Field of Dreams "if you bu......Read More
982 Views
2 requests
David Cutler
David Cutler
CookUnity VP Product & DesignJuly 1
I've noticed a trend in the tech industry for product organizations to follow a structure that Spotify helped craft over the years, in which a company is organized into business sub-orgs that roll up into their own respective product and engineering leads. And those leads oversee various squads t......Read More
1786 Views
2 requests
David Cutler
David Cutler
CookUnity VP Product & DesignJuly 1
Assuming this is an early stage company, the priority should be learning the basics of the business and building relationships with as many colleagues as possible. Use those learnings to construct a map of current products, problems and opportunities. Considering you are the first PM, any foundat......Read More
286 Views
2 requests