How Everything Started… 🥨

In 2007, Christian Strunk kicked off his career in a surprising profession: As a baker

That's right – a baker!

After 4.5 years of learning how to bake bread, cakes, and other delicious biscuits, he felt a new calling and decided to dive into the world of business administration.

It was during his studies that he met Alex Georgisn. The two found common ground while working a part-time job at a small IT station, fixing old PCs. Interestingly, they both shared a common observation at home: their girlfriends had a daily ritual of wondering what to wear, spending many mornings mulling over their wardrobes. This sparked an idea.

Their first app project Pocketrobe was born ("Your whole wardrobe in your pocket").

Pocketrobe wasn’t the only thing that was born. Christian started discovering the whole world of Product Management without realizing it back then.

After studying, Christian worked for companies founded by great CEOs like Ortwin Kartman (Founder of SOFORT), Stephan Schambach (Founder of Demandware), and lastly the hyper-growth fintech SumUp where he met Alex Dapunt. Nowadays, Christian plays a key role at Product Bakery, where he dedicates his expertise to guiding product people and companies as a Product Strategy Coach. Next to that, Christian helps people to find their purpose and vision in life with his clarity coaching business.

The Product Bakery Podcast 🥐

In 2016, Alex began his journey at SumUp, following his stint as a Design Lead at SIXT. At SumUp, he was pivotal in growing the Design Team, starting with just two members and expanding it to a robust 40-strong team within four years. His focus was largely on Product Design and Branding.

It was at SumUp where Alex and Christian collaborated closely as the “Product & Design Couple.”

Together, they spearheaded a significant project: a complete redesign of the SumUp platform and its various applications. This redesign introduced the innovative design system known as “Circuit UI.”

By January 2020, both Alex and Christian decided it was time for a change and left SumUp. Even so, their professional friendship stayed strong. They noticed something interesting: at Product conferences, it seemed like departments such as Product Management always talked about Product and Design. Similarly, Design conferences had the same focus.

Seeing this, they came up with the concept of a podcast that would offer a broader perspective on product management. By September 2020, they teamed up for The Product Bakery Podcast.

Their aim was to include insights from every department, creating a holistic picture of building great products.

The Need for a CPO Community 🧑‍💻

In late 2022, Christian and Benjamin Schulz crossed paths at a psychological workshop in Berlin. Benjamin, also known as Ben, kick-started his career at Volkswagen after pursuing studies in industrial and strategic design. He wasn't just another cog in the machine; he played an essential role in the Volkswagen research team and was the driving force behind the WeShare project. After leaving VW in 2006 he founded his strategy agency with over 40 employees helping companies to innovate and develop sustainable strategies for almost two decades.

They both realized soon that they wanted to start a project together and investigated the current situation of product leaders such as CPOs.

As Christian and Ben got closer, they soon realized they both wanted to work on something together. They started looking into the challenges faced by product leaders, especially CPOs. Their deep dive showed that many CPOs and product leads often felt alone, missing real conversations and a strong circle of peers. Seeing this need, they came up with "OnlyCPOs" – a special community just for top product leaders.