el producto #288 🚀

Netflix<>Microsoft ads, The Uber papers, Revolut growth, Super apps, Core value-propositions, iOS 16 beta, Twitter custom timelines, Snap NFTs, Amber alerts UX, & more

Jul 16, 2022

Hey team,

Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto

🎰 The week in figures

$14.8B: In 2021, VCs invested ~$14.8B in LatAm, more than the previous six years combined; in 2022, VC dollars invested were down ~30% from Q4 to Q1

$3.4B: US consumers spent more on non-game apps ($3.4B) than game apps ($3.3B) in Q2 for the first time ever; non-game apps that topped $50M in US spending in Q2: YouTube, HBO Max, Disney+, Tinder, and Bumble

$800M: Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Klarna raised $800M at a $6.7B valuation; this represents an 85% decline from Klarna's June 2021 valuation of $45.6B, when it raised $639M

$400M: Berlin-based wefox raised $400M Series D; the insurtech startup is now valued at $4.5B; wefox is projected to hit $600M in revenue this year, while it has over 2M users on its platform so far

172M: 172M Americans now have access to an Amazon Prime account; Amazon gained 60M new members in 2020 and 2021, but growth has "stalled" in 2022

$111M: Michigan-based May Mobility secured $111M Series C; the driverless ride-hailing and shuttle company intends to use the funds to triple its workforce and scale its technology and business as it gears up to launch "driver-out commercial operations in 2023"

20M: fintech Revolut reaches 20M retail customers and 250M transactions a month as it marks its 7th anniversary - congrats to my ex-team!

40% of Gen-Z uses TikTok and Instagram for searches, instead of Google Search and Maps, according to the tech giant's internal data; Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan said younger users prefer "visually rich forms" of search and discovery instead of typing in keywords

-38%: funding for European startups has dropped 38% YoY, amounting to $23.7B; European startups raised $14B less in Q2 of this year than in the previous year

-28%: Stripe reduced its internal valuation by 28% to $74B; Stripe was previously valued at $95B following a $600M funding round in March 2021

-20%: NFT marketplace OpenSea laid off 20% of its workforce, although CEO Devin Finzer didn't specify the exact number of people that were let go; Finzer said the company had to prepare for a "prolonged downturn" amid the "crypto winter and broad economic instability." The crypto market is currently worth $936.3B, down from the $3T in Nov. 2021

-10%: quick commerce startup Gopuff will let go of 10% (1,500 employees) of its workforce worldwide; Gopuff will also shut down 76 (12%) of its U.S. warehouses; the moves are designed to help Gopuff cut costs and become profitable by 2024

+8.5%: Amazon Prime Day sales in the US were up 8.5% y/y to ~$12B; Amazon claims to have sold 300M+ items worldwide compared to 250M in 2021; top selling categories: consumer electronic, home goods, and Amazon-branded devices

📰 What’s going on

Uber allegedly attempted to lobby politicians during its global expansion from 2013 to 2017, acc. to a leak of 124K+ documents obtained by The Guardian; the docs included interactions with Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron

Spotify acquired Heardle, the Wordle-inspired music guessing game; Spotify said it is always looking for ways to enhance music discovery and create "innovative and playful ways to enhance music discovery and help artists reach new fans"

Netflix said it chose Microsoft as its technology partner to launch an ad-supported streaming plan by the end of the year; Microsoft will oversee ad sales and supply the technology for placing video ads on the streaming service

Facebook will allow select users to create up to four additional profiles as part of a test to drive more engagement on the platform; the profiles will all link back to the same core account and won't require the person to use their real name or identity; for example, a user could have one profile for co-workers and another for friends, with separate feeds for each

Meta and Ray-Ban's Stories glasses now support hands-free calls and texting via WhatsApp; the update can also read WhatsApp messages aloud; soon, users can use voice commands to send and reply to Messager and WhatsApp messages

Meta has developed an AI image generation engine, Make-A-Scene, in a push to create immersive Metaverse worlds and digital art; users can include their sketches along with text prompts to create a more accurate output

The Wikimedia Foundation is using a Meta-created AI model to help verify the accuracy of citations on Wikipedia; the software, called Sphere, automatically scans citations in large amounts and suggests alternatives when a citation is wrong or inaccurately sourced

Google announced it will slow the pace of its hiring for the rest of the year; in a memo sent to employees on Tuesday, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company would have to be “more entrepreneurial and work with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger;” the company said it will still hire for engineering, technical, and other critical roles

Apple has released iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, macOS Ventura, and tvOS 16 in public beta; anyone can try out the pre-released operating systems and give feedback if they sign up for Apple's Beta Software Program; iOS 16 adds the ability to edit and undo messages in the Messages app; it has a new customizable lock screen interface, Live Activities to manage notifications, a Pay Later feature in Wallet, email scheduling, and Face ID in landscape orientation

Etsy launched a new Seller app to make it easier for merchants to manage their stores from their phones; merchants can now track order statuses and manage inventory; they can also add photos and listing videos to their shop from their phones

Shopify explores Apple's RoomPlan API; the prototype showcases how e-commerce sites can take advantage of Apple's latest AR program.

TikTok said it will start rolling out new features designed to protect younger users from viewing mature and inappropriate content; one feature, called Content Levels, ranks and organizes content based on "thematic maturity," assigning a "maturity score" to block it from users under 18

Snap is testing a new lens program for NFT creators; If launched, the plan would allow artists to share their NFTs as AR filters or "lenses;"Snap's foray into NFTs highlights the company's plans to continue experimenting with new modes of engagement

Twitter is launching custom timelines in the US and Canada; timelines will be focused on specific themes and merge tweets, hashtags, and other media; the first custom timeline topic is focused on ABC’s The Bachelorette

Amir Shevat @ashevat

Today we launched a new custom Timeline experiment - just one of the many things we’re working on over at @TwitterDev 🚀 There is a lot of potential for the developer community to build features like this in the future, and we are just getting started. Congrats to the team!🌹

Twitter has formally sued Elon Musk in an effort to enforce their $44B takeover deal

There is now a Strava integration for the Oura Ring; previously, the smart ring only connected with Apple Health and Google Fit; the integration allows wearers to see their heart rate and “Readiness” score along their Strava timeline; glad to see two of my favourite products working together!

Peloton said it would stop manufacturingits exercise equipment in-house as it tries to simplify its operations and reduce costs; the company said it would outsource the manufacturing of its bikes and treadmills to its partner Rexon Industrial Corp, a Taiwan-based manufacturer

Ethereum's merge event has been postponed to Sept. 19; the merge is designed to move away from the proof-of-work to an energy-efficient proof-of-stake blockchain

Celsius, a crypto lender, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection rather than liquidation; the lender claims to have $167M in cash and will continue to freeze its customer's withdrawals; Celsius was one of the largest crypto lenders with > $8B in loans to clients

📚 Good reads

A nice animated infographic on the evolution of the most popular websites in the last 30 years. AOL reigned for nearly a decade, and BCC made it to the top 5 - “It is incredible to observe how fast the tech world changes. Companies which seem unassailable suddenly disappear into footnotes of history.”

Vitaliy Katsenelson 🇺🇦 @vitaliyk

It is incredible to observe how fast the tech world changes. Companies which seem unassailable suddenly disappear into footnotes of history.

Insights from Marty Cagan’s Coach the Coaches workshop. Noa Ganot shares some key lessons on coaching teams and Product leaders, communication, strategy, and overall leadership. You can read Part 2 here

The 7 core value-propositions. Matthew Halpern elaborates and shares examples of:

Save money — I can get a similar result at a lower price point
Save time — I can get a similar result faster
Social capital — I stand out (or fit in) amongst my peers more
Comfort — Reduce pain, especially physical
Certainty — Reduce ambiguity…because it’s uncomfortable
Novelty — Reduce monotony…because people don’t like being bored
Ethics — spending money on this makes me feel like a better person

Amber alerts - 5 UX improvements that could save lives. Another great visual UX case, touching important psychological biases, by the folks at Growth.Design

🔮 Emerging trends

Many large US-facing consumer apps, such as Twitter, Uber, Snap, and Square, (and UK’s Revolut) have flirted with the idea of building a “Super App” recently, similar to China’s WeChat; the goal would be increasing users’ time spent on the platform; no true “Super App” has been built in the West yet.

Complement with this research by CB insights from earlier this year, diving into the evolution of mobile wallets (a solid starting point for a potential fintech super app) and where the technology is going next - from AI-based financial assistants to super wallets and beyond

That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email

Angel

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