Learn more about business with this collection
How to align stakeholders
Best practices in product management leadership
How to create value together
Cake vs. Frosting
If you are a business that makes or sells products, it is important to be able to tell the difference between the cake (the product's core features) and the frosting (the product's extra features). The cake is like the foundation of a building - it might not look very pretty, but it is what makes the product work.
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132 reads
Using Tap as an Analogy
A tap is a household item that delivers water. It can be a simple, old tap, or a more elaborate tap with special features. The important thing is that it delivers water to your hands.
There are all sorts of different taps, like bronze, gold-plated, copper, marble, and tap with motion sensors. But, at the end of the day, they are all just taps that deliver water.
- A tap delivers water. That’s cake.
- A tap may look like a work of art. That’s frosting.
- The tap is still a tap without the frosting.
- The tap is no longer a tap without the cake.
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100 reads
Product Management Using the Analogy of Cake
Building a product can be exciting and fun. Sometimes, people get excited about the frosting (or the features) instead of the cake (or the main goal of the product). This can be dangerous because the frosting might not be the most important thing.
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88 reads
Frosting Sells
Some people focus too much on making frosting that looks good, instead of making a cake that tastes good. This is also true for investment pitches and sales pitches. People can be easily distracted by the beauty of a pitch deck or website, without realizing that the engineering might not be good.
5
96 reads
Demand the Cake, Not Frosting
The fancier the frosting, ask more about the quality of the cake.
- “What’s cake, and what’s frosting here?”
- “Let’s see the plumbing instead of the PowerPoint.”
- “I don’t care how great it looks. Tell me how it works.”
- “Forget the frosting, show me how good the cake is.”
You might buy a cake for the first time because of the frosting. But, you’ll buy it again because of the cake.
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98 reads
CURATED BY
CURATOR'S NOTE
A great comparison is drawn between cake and frosting in Priya Narasimhan's explanation of product management.
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