Aubrey Cattell, VP of Product at Adobe : Bringing a product to market

and a former colleague um I’m excited to

chat with him more about the product

development process and also he’s led a

lot of some of my favorite products at

Adobe Aubrey you want to go ahead and

take a minute to introd introduce

yourself and we’ll get into some

questions yeah thanks Joe it’s great to

be here really a pleasure always love

our

conversations uh yeah I’m Aubrey Cel uh

as Joe said I I uh lead product at the

Adobe I tend to work on the new stuff uh

the the zero to one project so I’ve been

in Adobe about a decade I spent the

first uh six years uh building Adobe

Express as the original VP and GM there

uh which is a really a design app for

non-designers and a big Focus for Adobe

we’ve always had amazing apps like

Photoshop and Premier Pro and in design

and illustrator uh but we’re really

taking a lot of that technology and and

democratizing uh you know creativity uh

really helping visual communicators

stand out on social uh you know with

with uh with with presentations and now

even with with print capabilities uh but

a couple years ago uh Express got got

was getting bigger and I was looking for

the next thing uh and I took over the

developer platform which has been really

exciting uh what my team does now is you

know we basically run the App Store so

if people are building add-ons or

plugins for Adobe applications you know

my team provides the platform for that

uh we’re also taking uh adobe’s creative

and now generative AI superpowers uh and

embedding that uh in other applications

the idea being being you know we want to

go where our users are a lot of them

come to us already at Adobe and to our

applications but some of them are on

other platforms uh and so we wna we want

to be able to integrate there so that’s

been what I’ve been doing the last

couple years and you know we chat a

little bit today about you know product

development and marketing and growth and

you know I’ll share some anecdotes along

the way awesome yeah one thing I’ve

always loved about uh our chats and kind

of like the the role that you have is it

and I believe that you coined this with

me before is just that startup within

the Enterprise I think it’s such a cool

aspect and opportunity walk us through

kind of your product development process

how do you take an idea from conception

to launch and and really kind of hone in

on finding the market yeah it’s a great

question and you know I I think a lot of

it is is one of my favorite um mantras

is uh stay in the customer problem space

longer right uh a lot of teams you know

there’s pressure to deliver and so you

want to start building the solution and

and then you you end up falling in love

with that solution instead of really you

know focusing on the customer right um

supporting that with user research uh

with experience designs early on so that

you can play with a with a paper

prototype and even building um

engineering prototypes um to see how

something’s going to work and I think

you know if you can do that and and

spend more time there I think you get

closer to that customer problem and that

core set of needs and then you know you

can build a solution that can be

responsive um but also more

differentiated in the market because

part of that Discovery process with

customers is understanding the other

Alternatives that are out there and and

you know what I always try to look for

is you know where and how can we

differentiate with the products that

we’re building some things are just

table stakes and you know ultimately not

defensible in the long term but if it’s

something new um that hasn’t been in

Market before then that matters and then

obviously you know more durable

differentiation is really is really the

key

uh and and that’s what’s great about

kind of incubating the startup inside of

the bigger tech company if you do it

right you can take advantage of you know

the capabilities that that exist the

customer base that exists you can

provide more value so you know when you

think about Adobe Express um a product

um that we built you know we really

pushed on uh mixed media editing uh

because that was where customers needs

were they wanted more expressive content

for social platforms like Instagram so

we were able to do things like Leverage

The Power of Photoshop um as well as you

know video capabilities from the

premiere pro team and and bring those to

web and mobile which was something that

adobe hadn’t done before um that also

meant we needed to uh think about the

platform’s capabilities and the ux so

you know for example how do you take a

much simpler approach to layers where

you can just drag or drop layers versus

you know work with the panel in

Photoshop or you know how do you

simplify timeline based video editing um

and in terms of our process you know we

we tested internally at Adobe and then

externally with users until we we got it

right uh and now Express is a a key

growth engine for Creative Cloud and and

for Adobe we just and we just launched

um Express prer press which is a big

push now you know that it works for

individual users we can start to address

the needs of of broader

teams that’s awesome you mentioned kind

of obviously the launch of a product and

how you do internal Alpha Beta Testing

you involve custom customers for

feedback how do you how do you

incorporate those customer insights

along the way not just for like

obviously zero to one launch but know

when you have a mature product and

you’re trying to figure out the road map

and like what actually matters and

mixing the customer qualitative data

with the usage data how do you kind of

pull that all

together I think you nailed it right

there at the end I mean I’m a huge

believer in Quant and qual customer

insights and

too often you have teams that favor one

or the other right like you got a super

data Centric team that’s you know deep

in the dashboards and looking at the

numbers um and that’ll tell you what is

happening but it won’t tell you why for

that you need the call uh research where

and really talking to customers and

understanding now there’s other teams

who aren’t looking at the numbers and

are too focused on what customers are

saying and sometimes you know customers

say one thing but do something else and

so it’s you really you need the what and

the why the Quant and the qual to make

it work and so um you know I I I stuck

about my my current team you know the

developer platform team and how we

approach product extensibility you know

we take a pretty broad based approach

because ultimately we’re managing a

two-sided platform we have developers

who create experiences but then we have

end users who consume those experiences

within our products um or on other

surfaces you know but it’s but it’s an

embedded solution and so how do we do

that well you know we look at amplitude

data um and we’re constantly scouring

that end user usage and patterns we’re

also monitoring our developer site uh

and understanding what our partners and

developers are utilizing in terms of our

tool set um but then we we we have qual

on top of that so for example we hold

office hours uh with our developer base

and we do uh NPS pulse surveys to

understand you know is the developer

experience you know where it needs to be

or or how do we improve and then we go

really deep um with things like end user

research right so we’ll we will you know

take solutions that we built or things

that are in development um but we’ll

also look at just um you know more

broad-based uh problem areas that we

want to go deeper on um we also do that

with developers so I launched a couple

years ago our voice of the developer

Series so we spend and I invite

different folks from my team but I try

to spend an hour um every other week

with one developer in our platform and

really just talk about like hey you know

how’d you get into this you know tell me

about your business you know what what

do how do you spend your day you know

what things are you building are you

building on our platform are you

building on other platforms as well what

does that look like those are some of my

my favorite uh my favorite conversations

and I’ll I’ll I’ll share you know an

example Insight that comes out of this

process so uh when when you think about

Adobe Express the the app that we were

talking about you know my team now

supports that from a a platform

standpoint and we have a number of

storage add-ons uh that are kind of key

to business use cases so you know we

integrate with uh Dropbox with Google

drive with one drive um and we were

promoting those contextually um in the

app because if you’re going to make

something like a social post or

presentation you need to pull in your

content and a lot of your content is

stored in those other Solutions but what

the data showed us was you know users

were using those storage add-ons but

they were really keen on content add-ons

so they wanted things like well where do

I find additional images or design

assets or 3D models right I mean you

know additional kinds of topography uh

which is crazy because Express has so

much content built into it it’s kind of

a Content first application um and so we

dug into that more and we just what we

learned was that um there was this huge

demand for just additional

expressiveness people wanted building

blocks users wanted building blocks to

create stuff so we started promoting

those content add-ons in the express

media panel so that the discovery of

them was very contextual right you’re

going there looking at the built-in

content oh here’s additional um add-ons

uh that you can go to to find that

content and then on the developer side

um we started offering product grants to

developers via the Adobe fund for design

which my team manages to say if you’re

going to build these kind of add-ons you

know we’ve got grants for you to help

fund your development process so the The

Innovation there that was driven by you

know the the customer feedback was

really on both the supply side and the

demand side um in terms of you know uh

pushing on both that’s awesome yeah it’s

it’s so important to get that

information and pull the pull the teams

together and you know Z is is all about

a collaboration tool bringing bringing

things together making communication

easier you’re you’re leaving the product

side you guys have all this great

information then you have to figure out

how to collaborate and figure out how

the dev team pulls it in how the

marketing team pulls it in how do you

kind of work across teams and actually

like put together okay here’s what our

map is how do we Market this how do we

get customers to actually use these

things yeah that’s that’s that’s the

core process right and I and I love that

you included Marketing in that group so

let’s let’s come back to that because I

think that’s a that’s a key piece um you

know I always start with a product Triad

right management design and Engineering

so I’m a I’m a big believer in uh the

Marty Kagan school of thought you know

who wrote books like inspired uh so for

me you know product management focuses

on what’s the right product right like

what what ultimately are we building

here you know based on that

understanding the customer problem space

then you have engineering who focuses on

okay how do we build that product the

right way right and and kind of planning

for what we’re trying to get out the

door now but for also you know how does

that scale over time how do we ensure

the right level of performance

reliability and then design is part of

that process because you have to think

in terms of but what’s the optimal

customer experience right and and

ideally you’re thinking about that end

to end so done right there is inherent

collaboration there across pm and

engineering and design there’s also

healthy tension in that setup and uh and

I and I think that’s good right um and

and I I mean here’s where I can’t stress

it enough those three functions have to

work together from the beginning right

when engineering assesses feasibility or

scalability beyond the initial cycle or

design is brought in after the product’s

already defined to figure out the

experience it’s always a mess um and so

they have to work together and then

marketing gets into the picture because

and you know this joke this is your

world ideally they’re both inbound and

outbound right so the inbound means

they’re customer Centric as well and

they stay in that problem space that I

mentioned but the outbound means they

think in terms of the Cross Channel

marketing but they’re doing it in a way

that up level that focuses on the

customer and up levels from just the

features and capabilities of the product

to the benefits and ideally the

emotional appeal of a product right and

that’s that’s where the magic is is you

know can you get to that higher level

which is you know what is the Zen of

this product like why does it matter and

so you know what I find is that helping

those functions Define their swim Lanes

stay within them and know when and why

to cross over that’s the biggest part of

what I do as a product leader in a GM um

and frankly it’s it’s both the biggest

challenge and the biggest opportunity

because if you get the best ideas from

all of those teams and they’re really

working in concert then you know

ultimately you’re delighting customers

so so you’ve come up with let’s say

you’ve come up with a tier one release

it’s going to go out at Adobe Max which

is you know how Adobe loves to release

their big products um what’s your go to

market strategy how do you kind of pull

in those collaboration strategies you

mentioned and really get a team together

to be like hey this is a hard deadline

this is how we work back and hit it yeah

and I mean I I I have uh I have deep

empathy for you know the folks who are

who are leading that go to market charge

because in my experience you know

marketing is almost always

underresourced and asked to do too much

too late in the game so how do you how

do you get ahead of that I think you

know for me the and I’ve learned this

the hard way too many times the biggest

consideration is just a lack of focus

right like who’s the Target customer and

in turn what are the relative benefits

and emotional appeal and what does that

mean in terms of what are the right

channels to yield the highest Roi

because you can do anything you want but

you can’t do everything and if you don’t

have that Focus it’s not going to work

out so and what I see too often is the

the lack of alignment here means product

is building one thing and marketing is

trying to tell a different story right

like that’s the biggest problem so you

know we where where you know we we’ve

done that well is like with Express we

pinpointed social media marketing is our

early focus and we emphasize you know

speed and expressiveness and a fun UI

and ux as key benefits now that was

really the core of the product but you

know were we fully ready to address the

needs of at that time we weren’t right

did we have a solution that worked

really well in the classroom we weren’t

there yet either and so you know trying

to address those markets ahead of where

we were with the product that was

significant that was a big challenge now

we’re in a different place today and

that’s great um but but it’s alignment

between marketing and product teams um

around us that Zen that focus on the

customer on you know the solution and

the the right channels and and then it’s

building it’s building for that and you

know the other the other thing I’ll say

is in terms of go to market because yeah

I mean we love our Big Marketing moments

you know Max is it’s a fantastic event

and and it’s a showcase for our

customers and they all come together but

you know the only the other thing I

always remind my teams is marketing can

only do so much right like when when a

when a product team is like why aren’t

you marketing this feature I’m like what

are you talking about like they’re not

going to focus on this feature they’re

trying to tell a higher level storyline

so what what what and and as a product

team we have a lot more power than we

think so what what do we need to do two

things nail product Market fit and

invest in product Le growth right and

these are these are kind of the the real

keys that I think product teams need to

embrace right like I I think back to the

early days of Express when it was still

Adobe spark you know I had my team delay

product features that would add value to

the product because with a small team I

wanted to take resources and stand up a

cross functional GR grow Squad which was

the first growth Squad at Adobe that

could help new users discover value and

we I mean a great example that’s still

paying dividence today is we invested in

intent-based SEO so what does that mean

well adobe’s always done well with

branded terms right search for Photoshop

search for Premiere Pro search for you

know in design all roads lead to

adobe.com no problem but Adobe wasn’t

really investing because we didn’t have

a lot of web-based solutions that could

pay off the way Express can we weren’t

investing an intent based search things

like you know make a flyer make a poster

make an Instagram post and so my team

invested in you know landing pages to

address those keywords both you know

focused on the use case as well as

focused on um you know a set of

templates and when users would click on

those pages we would deep link them into

the editor uh with you know all they’d

have to do is just you know sign in and

they’d immediately be creating with the

thing the the starting point that we

gave them and that you know we we we got

at one point our traffic was um about a

third of adobe.com total traffic just on

the back of that that intent based

motion that we stood up uh within 12

months and so you know I can share other

anecdotes like that but you know that’s

where product teams they just they have

more power than they think if they’re

willing to invest in growth and that’s

even more powerful if they can do that

together with their marketing Partners

who probably see opportunities there if

they have product resources uh to put at

it no that’s awesome I think that’s such

a great example of a challenge in

product and like managing a road mapap

is like you do have like what I see as a

consumer is what you release at Max and

that’s like you know a very small

portion of your road map I don’t see

like all the bug fixes all the stability

Focus all the like ux changes like how

do you kind of balance that innovation

of bringing in these cool new features

that yeah you release it Max and

everyone gets stoked about

with like the growth stuff behind the

scenes the making sure people actually

use these features that type of thing

yeah it’s it’s a tough Challenge and and

it’s funny what you say right I mean I

remember in business school and

marketing uh I think that to to have

recall around a brand uh you need to be

exposed to it 30 times yeah yeah and I

mean like when you think about like

toothpaste and and the commercials that

you see on TV uh or at least you used to

back when when you and I were younger um

you know it’s these products that are

largely comparable to each other that

spend the most money on Advertising

right I mean think how many Insurance

Comm commercials you know we see now you

know on YouTube or or in other contexts

and so you know you gotta you got to

figure out how you can both acquire as

well as Drive successful adoption of

your product with the product itself

right and I mean this is why like

there’s this Pusher around how do you

drive virality or you know how do you

find the swimming holes where your users

Cong and and spend time there um you

know I I found that some of the toughest

trade-offs I’ve had to make were were

definitely around you know building new

value versus driving growth uh for so

the users can discover that value and I

think that’s a tough one that you know

every new initiative faces we’re we’re

in a different place with Express now

where we can invest in both um at a much

larger scale but you know it’s still it

still requires tough trade-offs and I

think you know the other part of that

that you know I I’ve definitely made

made m Stakes around are also investing

the right amount in you know performance

and reliability right I mean in the

early days of Express we did not have

the the snappiness that we needed for a

lot of features and it’s it’s always

hard to to figure out like how much

impact that has on your product but you

know users are not super patient for for

things that operate uh slowly and I

think you know when you’re building for

the web you have to be cognizant that

you know seconds matter milliseconds

even matter and so you know how do you

strike that balance as well I don’t have

any silver bullets other than uh I think

a big part of it is is you know it’s an

area where engineering really should

should exert itself in terms of the

customer experience right like at the

end of the day you know very few product

managers are like and I want you to

spend you know this much of your you

know bandwidth on ensuring performance

and stability and reliability Engineers

have to advocate for how are we going to

build this in a scalable way how are we

going to ensure that the performance is

going to meet the demands of of this

customer base and you know there’s a lot

of things you know that can be done

there you know both from a a white box

and a a blackbox QA standpoint but uh

you know automating testing right like

testing on different devices with

different internet speeds I I find that

you know with different connections from

a bandwidth standpoint I find that

really has made a difference in terms of

how we understand how well our products

perform and um not enough team teams

need the right devices and they need the

right way to simulate different

environments so that they can understand

like well 50% of our users are gonna

experience this but you know 20% are

going to experience this and and that’s

tough and you know what’s that trade-off

look like but that’s that’s a little

detail you got to get into my found my

foundation for this type of thing is

Mark Garrett um when Adobe was shifting

from box products to SAS I got to be a

part of that ride and we we were having

all hands like I don’t know monthly like

it felt like it was monthly and Mark was

up there CFO former CFO of adobe and our

stock was you know tanking and but like

subscriptions were going way up and he’s

like just like hang in there like stay

the course like we’re really confident

the street is talking about this so I

think at at some point too it’s just

like you have to make those bets and

hopefully it pays off like with z um my

first time around here we focused like

three quarters on stability and because

the product was was kind of buggy and

people were complaining that it would

crash and now it’s super stable it was

very painful to like show that to our

board and be like hey we’re kind of just

stable on growth but like you know the

product’s better and it’s going to pay

off um and it has paid off but yeah you

do kind of have to make some of those

big bets like you said and and that’s

well I love you gave two examples I mean

that’s incredible conviction right I

mean Adobe knew that we saw early on

that that move from Perpetual license to

subscription you know while there was

going to be this massive trough was

ultimately going to expand the

addressable market and and it’s paid off

in Spades and I think you know taking

the time to you know uh invest in

stability or even rep platform in a way

that’s going to drive not only you know

performance and stability but probably

developer velocity those are tough tough

trade-offs to make but um you know

ultimately what’s needed if you’re going

to be successful and you gotta you gotta

have the patience big bets rarely pay

off overnight right like we all make

them right and so that kind of patience

is so tough like to manage with your

stakeholders with your board right um

with your customers even with your

employee base um and it really like

means you know spelling out what’s this

future going to look like and why is it

worth you know investing to get there I

want to combine our last kind of two

questions here because I think they’re

fairly fairly in line with each other so

it’s competitive landscape um there’s

always new startups entering entering

and exiting there’s always big companies

making Acquisitions you have the

behemoths like Adobe and Microsoft

Salesforce always trying to one up each

other how do you combine the competitive

side with like future Trends where you

see things coming you know everything’s

all about AI right now um but how do you

kind of keep in line with parody with

your with your competitors but also like

stay ahead of them at the same time yeah

it’s a great question I mean I I always

think there’s three there’s kind of

three areas that you have to look at in

terms of innovation right um you know

one is you got to stay close to your

customers right I mean they’re they’re

not static anymore than your product is

and so you have to understand you know

where and how you know how are their

needs being met in certain areas but

where are new needs appearing right and

and what are those unmet needs whether

they can articulate them or they can’t

right um and a lot of times they’re

going to say say well I need this

solution but you dig in more and it

turns out like that’s not actually what

they wanted then you know you you have

to be aware of the competition I think

that you know there’s always this you

want I think Bezos said it right you

want to be customer obsessed but

competitor aware when that shifts to

obsession over the competitor I think

you’re in an unhealthy place and so but

you you have to be a breast of you know

how their what they’re where they’re

investing how their solution to solving

needs

um you know where and and there are

different ways to kind of look around

the corner um you know I’m one of the

tricks that I always love is is where

your competitors hiring right like go

check out where their open job listings

are it’s always insight into you know

what’s next for them and then the third

area is you know what does the

technology make possible right that you

know the competitors May or not even be

thinking about and certainly your your

customers aren’t going to ask for but

you know you know really is is is there

in terms of a a paradigmatic shift and

you know you you referen it it’s the one

everybody’s thinking about right now

generative AI you know certainly is a

game changer across a multitude of

Industries and you know creativity is

first and foremost among them right I

mean you know what we you know we we

have Adobe Firefly and I mean I think

some of the things that we’ve already

showcased are are incredible it’s also

you know I think we’re we are

differentiated there because uh

fireflies designed to be commercially

safe because we’re we’re training you

know on our own Adobe stock data you

know or or things that are um you know

are fully within the public domain and

that’s different uh than a lot of others

are doing we want to be we want to be

safe for business um in the terms of the

in terms of what we’re doing um and we

also have an amazing opportunity to

integrate generative AI into our

existing products right I mean it’s one

thing to be able to generate an image

it’s a very different thing to be able

to use like generative fill in the

context of Photoshop right and I mean

you know if you tuned into the last um

Adobe Max you know we LED off with you

know power users of Photoshop who were

just going crazy over you know the

Innovations um that we’ve been able to

ship in Photoshop that are that are

built on Firefly so I you know in terms

of staying ahead you know it’s Al it

also comes back to focus right like you

can’t you if you’re trying to do

something especially if you’re playing

if you’re catching up in a in a new area

you can’t try to win on every single

Dimension so like where

where do you have something that is is

truly differentiated I mean with Express

right now I mean I think we are pushing

hard on you know the the collaboration

between creative professionals and

visual communicators that’s something

that you know Adobe can enable um you

know we’re also investing a lot in the

partner ecosystem that you know my team

is enabling and that that’s something

that we you know we have a lot of

existing Partnerships in the industry

and so those those connections and

Integrations are something that we can

we can showcase um with Express that’s

awesome I like my my closing thoughts

and I’ll give you the chance to to add

any that you have but I want to combine

two things that you said like one thing

I always loved at Adobe is it’s never

left its identity so like you know

acquire took a long time to figure out

how omniture actually fit into a Doby

Doby’s ecosystem but it’s always been

creative at its roots it’s always never

abandon its

customers um and that’s how it’s always

LED with Innovation um so I think to

your point like the future and and

competing is really not going away from

your who you are your core competencies

yeah and you’re going to win with your

strengths more than your

weaknesses um and I feel like that’s how

adobe’s always kind of been that’s my

that’s my closing thoughts from our

conversation yeah I think it’s it’s it’s

spot on I mean I I’ve been fortunate to

spend the bulk of my career at two of

the largest uh design software companies

in the world udes and and Adobe um and

it’s you know building products for

creatives right work working at that

intersection of of design and and

technology has just it’s such a fun

customer problem space to be part of and

I think it’s part of what makes Adobe

such a special place I mean that that

kind of creative and Innovative DNA

because you’re you’re ultimately

building products for creative and

Innovative people um it’s just it helps

us attract some of the the best and the

brightest and the most passionate people

that you could ever want to work with um

and I think it it really sustains um it

sustains a lot of us I mean I you know

I’m I’m coming up on 10 years and I I

still feel like a short-timer at Adobe

and that doesn’t you know the I think an

outsider would be like ah it’s stodgy

and they don’t know how to move quickly

but you know if you look at the last

couple years I mean we’ve got some of

the most incredible Innovations um in

adobe’s entire history I mean certainly

Adobe Firefly and what we’re doing with

generative AI but even our core products

like you know Photoshop and which

continues to reinvent itself acrobat um

and new products uh like Express I mean

it’s I think it’s a great time um to be

at Adobe and that’s just on the digital

media side we also have the whole

digital uh digital marketing side of the

house you know that you worked for but

you know when you think about creating

end experienes you know it’s it’s the

magic of of adobe all of Al together

that you know helps companies just build

their whole digital experience their

whole footprint um and I I still enjoy

it I’m still having a good time epic

conversation as always my friend thanks

again for joining us today yeah it’s a

pleasure Joe let’s do it again soon okay