el producto #292 đ
Spotify tickets, LinkedIn creator tools, Referral programs, New WhatsApp features, The changing landscape of social media, Accessibility for Product Teams & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto
đ° The week in figures
$23.4B: SoftBank reported a quarterly loss of $23.4B in its Q1 earnings report, wiping off the $50B in gains made by the company at its peak; approximately $21.68B of the loss was attributed to the firm's Vision Fund, which recorded its second-largest quarterly loss to date; the most significant losses come from Didi Global, Klarna Bank, and Compass Inc
$210M: India-based UpGrad raised $210M at $2.25B valuation; UpGrad provides higher education courses through its online platform; over 300 universities located in 100 countries provide courses through the organization
$125M: FreshBooks has raised $125M in debt; FreshBooks offers an accounting platform that lets companies manage their billing, payments, and overall finances more efficiently
$105M: California-based customer engagement and retention platform CleverTap raised a $105M Series D
$100M: Wiz, a startup focused on cloud security, revealed it reached $100M in ARR 18 months after launching its first product. Wiz works on locating possible issues across network, identity, secrets, or workloads in AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Alibaba, and Oracle
$65M: Unstoppable Domains, a provider of NFT domains for the decentralized web (i.e., Web3), raised a $65M Series A at a $1B valuation
-9k: Alibaba cut 9000+ jobs in Q2 after cutting 4000+ in Q1; total workforce reduction in 2022 so far: ~13.5K, the company now has ~245K employees; stock is down ~23% YTD
+20%: Linkedin rolled out new tools to share visual content after reporting a 20% increase y/y in users visuals to their posts ; the move marks the social network's push further into becoming a creator platform; back in September 2021, LinkedIn even launched a $25M creator fund
-20%: The meditation app Calm laid off 20% of its staff, ~90 people, according to a memo sent to employees by CEO David Ko; the memo stated Calm leadership ârevisited the investment thesis behind every projectâ before making the cuts to stabilize the business; leadership cited macroeconomic trends as the leading factor for the layoffs, which they attempted to avoid in previous months by reducing expenses
-30%: Hootsuite reduced its workforce by 30%; a June report indicated it employed 1.4K+, meaning ~400 workers were impacted; in 2014, it was said to be worth $14B but its valuation fell 75% by 2019
FinTech valuations from January to July:
đ¸ Q2 results
Coinbase: Q2 revenue $808.3M (missed analysts' forecasts of $832.2M). Net loss came in at $1.1B, in stark contrast to the $1.59B profit reported in the preceding quarter. Revenue declined nearly 64% from last year. Coinbase's Q2 2021 revenue totaled $2.03B, while Q1 2022's total was $1.16B. Retail transaction revenue was down 66% to $616.2M
Disney: $21.5B in revenue, up 26% YoY. Disneyâs parks, experiences, and products generated $7.4B in revenue, up 72% YoY. Net income came in at $1.41B, or $1.09 a share, up 53% YoY. 152.1M subscriptions for its Disney+ platform, beating analystsâ prediction of 147M. Across Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+, the company has over 221M streaming subscribers
đ° Whatâs going on
Spotify launched a site to sell fans tickets to live shows directly, rather than redirecting to sites like Ticketmaster; the website lists upcoming concerts and lets those with a Spotify account buy tickets; the move comes after a massive June update for its in-app live events feature which gave users a better local shows discovery
Twitter outlined its election integrity plans for the upcoming US midterms, including redesigning Tweet labels and âprebunksâ for misleading narratives; its Civic Integrity Policy is intended to help mitigate misleading information including claims about how to vote, dissuading voter participation, and claims intended to undermine confidence in a election results
Wise and Plaid partnered to launch a secure open finance product for cross-border payments; the integration provides Wise customers with the ability to move money conveniently and securely across their own accounts; customers can connect their Wise USD local account details in their app of choice and use Wise with thousands of Plaid-powered apps and services, including popular ones like Venmo, Truebill, or Chime
Recent Amazonâs acquisitions of iRobot and One Medical represent CEO Andy Jassyâs search for a âfourth pillarâ beyond Prime, its marketplace, and AWS - according to author and Amazon expert Brad Stone; Stone anticipates healthcare or home automation will be the fourth pillar
Amazon will expand its biometric palm-reading payment technology to more Whole Foods stores in California; the Amazon One contactless identity service allows users to link their palm print to a credit card and scan their hand at a kiosk for automatic check out
WhatsApp is rolling out a way to hide your âlast seenâ status from specific contacts, as well as the ability to leave a group without notifying other users; WhatsApp is also launching another handy feature that will let you silently leave groups; WhatsApp says itâll start rolling out these two features this month
Facebook has started testing default end-to-end encryption (E2EE) among select users on its Messenger platform; E2EE significantly upgrades user privacy and security by making messages more difficult for third parties to read
Googleâs latest AI search model, called âthe Multitask Unified Modelâ, helps search results featured snippets become more reliable and accurate; the technology uses a general consensus of other sources that describe the same idea to improve the quality of the callout
Apple is working on four new smart home devices that could release in 2023 and 2024; the devices are expected to include a high-end version of the original HomePod and an updated HomePod Mini, along with two entirely new products
Disney has set pricing and a date for the launch of Disney+ with ads; the move comes as the entertainment company hikes its monthly subscription of the tier without ads and plans to raise rates for Hulu; the most expensive option will be Hulu + Live TV: Premium which includes Hulu SVOD without ads, Disney+ no ads, and ESPN+ for $82.99 per monthÂ
Nvidia introduced its Avatar Cloud Engine, a technology that allows metaverse devs to create lifelike avatars with animated human faces; a challenge they face is getting out of the âuncanny valleyâ where the avatarâs features blend real and artificial life in an uncomfortable manner
Snap is rolling out parental controls for Snapchat for the first time; parents will be able to see who their kids have talked to over the past 7 days, but will not be able to see the content of the messages, they will also be able to view friends lists and report spam
Fitbit is removing its Fitbit Connect app, disabling users from being able to sync their device with their Mac or PC and sync music for offline playback; customers can still use the Fitbit app on Android and iOS; current users will have to use Deezer app and Pandora app for music going forward
Shopify and Attentive have teamed up to build on text-to-buy services, enabling consumers to make purchases directly from an SMS conversation with a brand; Built with Shopifyâs Shop Pay checkout flow, Attentiveâs text-to-buy solution is designed to turn browsers into buyers with a frictionless checkout flow built for mobile devices
Xiaomi unveiled a full-size humanoid robot ahead of Tesla's planned reveal of its own human-like robotic prototype; Xiaomi is the world's second-largest manufacturer of smartphones but has been expanding into robotics in recent years
Robinhood's chief product officer Aparna Chennapragada quits; Chennapragada joined the company from Google a little over a year ago as its first chief product officer to oversee all product, design, and research
The FTC is planning to write online privacy rules which could place more responsibility on companies handling consumer data, including barring types of data collection processes; one option the agency is considering is viewing business data collection practices as exclusionary and unfair
đ Good reads
How to design a referral program, by Andrew Chen. Insightful and relevant, as anything from Chen, this article points out what work and doesnât in referrals, and points to where the value really is: triggering virality and generating network effects beyond âclassicâ referrals
The mythical land of Product-Market Fit. How do you find it? How long does it take to find? How do you know if you're there? Lenny Rachitsky answers to these questions, and many others, in part 5 of his 6-part series on kickstarting and scaling a consumer business
The D2C survival guide. The direct-to-consumer narrative â cutting out retailer middlemen, invigorating âtiredâ industries, etc. â has captivated investors and consumers over the past decade. But many D2C brands today are facing dropping valuations, declining revenue, and even total shutdown. From Casper to Peloton, CBInsights identifies lessons learned from major D2C brands that dug themselves into a hole
BeReal, Wordle and the changing landscape of social media. Fed up with mindless scrolling, airbrushed photos, and randos in personal spaces, millions of people are gravitating to apps that offer more intimate, filter-free experiences with their IRL friends
Accessibility tools for Product Teams. Lisa Zane has curated a great list of resources that every PM should keep at hand. Thereâs a gap between caring for disabilities and taking action, and this article will help you bridge it
What an Apple Bank Account may look like. Unitâs founder and CEO Itai Damti with a great article about Apple and Banking. Complement Alex Johnsonâs article delving into the same topic
đŽ Emerging trends
Western University researchers in Ontario achieved two-way holographic teleportation. The technology allows people to interact in their holographic forms and is applicable to the health care industry.Â
The researchers have achieved international holographic teleportation to enhance remote communication
The technology is called holoport and allows people to create a 3D version of themselves to meet people anywhere in the world
Healthcare applications are being explored for training and educating medical students
The system comes with a headset and a 3D scanning camera that generates holographic images of people to transport anywhere remotely
Thatâs all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email
Angel
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