An independent advisory practice led by Justin Cudmore
Experience-led judgment and decision clarity across culture, commerce, and learning.
What I Do
I'm focused on understanding systems from the inside. I work by stepping into the customer or user perspective to clarify how an experience currently feels, how it should feel, and what needs to change to get there. The work combines imagination, judgment, and direct communication to help organizations make better decisions without unnecessary complexity.
Where I’m most useful
• When things feel overbuilt, unclear, or slightly off
• When teams need to decide what not to do
• When experience, tone, and consequence matter as much as strategyMy focus is coherence, restraint, and clarity, rather than output volume or performance theater.
Client engagement style
• Most work is structured as a light, ongoing advisory retainer.
• The role is judgment, review, and direction rather than execution.My style is direct and efficient. I don’t sugarcoat, but I’m careful with tone and consequence. The aim is to get to the point quickly while keeping the human experience intact.
Availability
I take on a limited number of advisory relationships at a time.
Founded and led by Justin Cudmore. Engagements are personal and limited. 2026.
Independent advisory practice founded and led by Justin Cudmore
This resume reflects my work across product marketing, education, and independent ventures focused on experience, judgment, and clarity.
Founded and led by Justin Cudmore. Engagements are personal and limited. 2026.
[email protected]
Independent advisory practice founded and led by Justin Cudmore
My work isn’t about deliverables for their own sake. It’s about helping people and organizations clarify what they’re actually trying to say, build systems that support that clarity, and communicate without distortion.
“Justin was incredibly thorough and always tackled his work through the lens of the consumer, making his contributions far more meaningful for the organization. I witnessed multiple instances where his research driven changes increased customer conversion and ultimately revenue for the product line.”
— Liz B., former VP of Product Marketing at Emeritus
My Approach to Problems:• I begin by absorbing the full context: people, organizations, constraints, and the incentives shaping decisions
• I pay close attention to feel: where things land cleanly, where they don’t, where something feels misaligned despite looking right on paper, and where care is either present or missing
• I work to name the real conflict beneath the conversation
• I treat narrative, systems, and human behavior as inseparable
• I optimize for grounded coherence and durability, so clarity turns into results
• I work best when the work is meaningful and not fully predefined
Defining How a New Category Should Feel
Product positioning and experience framingThinkful entered the market before standard infrastructure for online learning existed. Curriculum lived in shared documents, mentorship occurred over Skype, and the product experience itself was still taking shape. Rather than lead with tools or features, I focused on a more foundational question: how should this experience feel when someone first encounters it? Through that lens, it became clear that one on one mentorship was not simply a feature, but the organizing principle of the product and the most credible point of differentiation in an undefined category. I reframed the website and product narrative around human led learning, giving mentorship a clear conceptual home and shaping early engagement around guidance, trust, and presence rather than polish.Result: a coherent, human centered positioning that helped define Thinkful’s place in an emerging category.
Turning a Black Box into a Human Experience
Customer insight and experience clarityAcross dozens of conversations with prospective students and enrolled learners, a consistent tension emerged. People were not confused about pricing or curriculum. They were uncertain about what life would feel like on the other side of enrollment. The issue was not a lack of information, but a lack of felt understanding. I reframed the experience around visibility and human voice, capturing graduates describing their lived experience and pairing those perspectives with a clear walkthrough of what actually happens after someone joins. By replacing abstraction with lived perspective, the experience shifted from opaque to understandable, both before and after enrollment.Result: increased confidence, clearer expectations, and a more human entry into the product.
Aligning Demand Through Language
Product naming and market clarityWithin my program portfolio at Emeritus, Data Science was a consistent low performer. Despite strong interest in data skills overall, the program struggled to attract the right learners, and messaging changes alone failed to meaningfully shift outcomes. The issue was not the curriculum, but what the name was signaling. “Data Science” functioned as a senior job title in the market, discouraging beginners who were well suited for a six month entry level program while attracting candidates whose expectations did not align with the experience. After reviewing funnel data, curriculum depth, and job trajectories, and through conversations with faculty, it became clear the program reflected a foundational analytics track. I led a naming test that reframed the program as Applied Analytics, aligning language with learner readiness and the true scope of the coursework. The change broadened the addressable audience while improving self selection across the funnel.Result: a 19% increase in qualified leads following a program name change.
Founded and led by Justin Cudmore. Engagements are personal and limited. 2026.
[email protected]