Vasudha Mithal

AMA: Headspace Health Senior Director of Product Management, Vasudha Mithal on Developing Your Product Management Career

August 23 @ 10:00AM PT
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Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
No matter how many parents I saw before at work, I was nowhere close to realizing the true joys and challenges of working parents. A few things: As you are solving world...
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1172 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
My top-3 favorites purely from a product perspective: Google Photos, for very delightful and practical uses of AI Huckleberry, for attempting to solve the problems of ne...
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6053 Views
3 requests
What's something that you didn't know it took to become a Director back when you were a senior product manager?
Something that you didn't know you would need to do that you only realized later.
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
This is a mix of both seniority as well as working at a high-growth private company but clarifying R&Rs to ensure teams are built to maximize impact while minimizing ...
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359 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
The most important thing to prioritizing a product roadmap is to deeply understand your company's strategy. How does your leadership think about 1) Goals for the year (re...
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556 Views
3 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
Love the proactive thinking and the desire to excel :) Not sure if the learning curve is any steeper but there are a few things that can support career growth: Master t...
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349 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
Exemplary people leadership (ability to bring people along) Strong relationships across various functions (including non-R&D teams) - get done what's needed to solve...
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368 Views
2 requests
How do you manage the 1000 questions and tasks that are shot at you when you are a PM in an early stage startup?
I'm the first PM in a startup that used to be sales led. I'm trying to set up the proper discovery processes, prioritization tactics and strategy, but I find that extremely hard to do as I'm getting carried away in the day-to-day tasks around requests, issues reported and project management.
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
In a startup, the R&R is faintly defined at its best. You naturally get pulled into 1000 different things - that is both fun and a challenge :) A few things that you ...
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371 Views
2 requests
How to make a career change to PM?
Any tips, strategy, success stories?
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
Generally, where I’ve seen people best succeed in transitioning is when you change one dimension at a time. So, either change your company, role or industry. Trying to mo...
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389 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
This varies so much from company to company but my general lens while moving from PM to SPM: SPMs have had at least one meaningful product launch in their career. SPMs a...
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675 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
What do you value in your life right now? If it is career growth and you are not getting that, needless to say, it is time for a change. If you want to maximize your imp...
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379 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
A few things: A very deep understanding of the problems they are looking to solve. This gets reflected in how they speak about past experiences (why did you choose to wo...
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2234 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
For very role-specific hiring: "Knowing about the role, how does your experience and skillset fit the needs?" The best answer: Reflects the candidate really understands ...
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1309 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
The first question I'd ask is - what element of being a CPO/GM are you looking to NOT do? Second question - What do you like about being a PM that you want to bring along...
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427 Views
2 requests
Vasudha Mithal
Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn3y
You need to assess this based on the things that you care about. I have my few Ps: People: Do I love this team? Do I want to be at the table (in a zoom room?) with this ...
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300 Views
2 requests