el producto #302 🚀
Netflix growth & cloud gaming, New iPads, Uber ads platform, Measuring PMF, Revolut Shops, Amazon to sell insurances, Waymo expansion & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto.
🎰 The week in figures
5.3B mobile phones will make their way to landfills by the end of 2022; earlier this year, the Royal Society for Chemistry launched a campaign to promote the mining of precious minerals such as Copper and Cobalt from e-waste; only 17% of the world's electronic waste is properly disposed of, but the UN's International Telecommunications Union has set a target of 30% for next year
$250M: Indian edtech company Byju's has raised a $250M funding round; the funding round values the company at $22B, making it India's most valuable startup; Byju's offers online training courses on subjects such as Coding, reading, math, and music
$200M: Lulo Colombia, the holding company for Colombian neobank Lulo Bank, raised $200M
$125M: AI-powered writing assistant platform Jasper has closed a $125M Series A round at a $1.5B valuation; the large fundraise highlights the investments pouring into AI-enabled content creation technologies, including those that generate original text and art
$102M: Germany-based vacation rentals metasearch engine Holidu raised a ~$102M Series E led by 83North, including ~$24.5M of debt; the company compares listings from over 1500 sites, had >110M visitors in the last 12 months, and its revenue doubled y/y
$100M: Mexico-based Nelo has raised a $100M funding round in credit; Nelo is a fintech buy-now-pay-later app that allows customers to pay in installments
$60M: Photo-sharing social media app BeReal raised a $60M Series B valued at a ~$587M+ earlier this year; the app has ~20M DAUs, up ~2.5x since July
3M: Reddit users have created >3M crypto wallets using the platforms Vault blockchain, and 2.5M wallets were used to purchase NFT avatars to use as profile pictures; for comparison, in January, OpenSea was hosting over 1M active wallets while Metamask had 30M active wallets in March
-9%: in Q3, the global smartphone market dropped 9% y/y, tallying its third consecutive quarterly decline in 2022; Samsung remains in the top spot holding on to 22% of the market, while Apple was the only company in the top 5 positively grow its market share, from 15% to 18%
💸 Q4 financials
Netflix: Netflix's stock jumped as much as 14% after reporting Q3 earnings; revenue grew 5.9% y/y to $7.9B but was down slightly q/q; the company added ~2.4M subs, including +1.43M in the Asia-Pacific region
Snap: net losses rose by 400% y/y; the company's shares fell by 25% following its quarterly earnings release after already plunging by 77% earlier this year; Snap's revenue grew by 6% to $1.13B, the slowest growth seen by the maker Snapchat since it went public in 2017; the company's net losses rose from $72M in 2021 to $360M this year, marking a 400% increase; Snap's results come after the company began a major restructuring scheme that included firing one-fifth of its staff
📰 What’s going on
Uber launched its global ad platform and is targeting $1B in gross bookings by 2024; in Q2, the company's current ad business had an annual gross booking run rate of $350M; the new platform consists of ads being displayed in-app, on top of cars and on the back seats via tablets
Apple unveiled a new entry-level iPad, two iPad Pros with an M2 chip, and an updated Apple TV 4K on Tuesday; the iPads are available to order now, and will land in stores on Wednesday, Oct. 26; the next generation Apple TV 4K will have availability starting Friday, Nov. 4
Apple restored Russian social network VKontakte and the mail app Mail.ru on the App Store three weeks after removing them in response to UK sanctions
Amazon is launching a portal to buy insurance in the UK; the comparison service will initially focus on home and contents products; with more suppliers will be added early next year; Amazon takes a commission from each sale and will "ringfence" customer data from its other businesses
Microsoft made cuts across multiple divisions, cutting less than 1K jobs across different levels, teams, and countries; almost all major tech firms have slowed headcount growth, and many have imposed hiring freezes
Microsoft said it is developing an Xbox mobile gaming store that would directly compete with Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store
Netflix is exploring a cloud gaming offering for TVs and PCs as it seeks to push further into the gaming space, according to VP Mike Verdu; the streaming platform for games would complement Netflix's existing services and is not intended to be a console replacement, Verdu said
Netflix launched a feature enabling users to transfer their personalized viewing data to a brand new account; this move comes ahead of the platform's crackdown on account sharing, expected to start in 2023
Alphabet-owned autonomous robo-taxi service Waymo is expanding into LA; the service will first be available to local employees, then "trusted testers" before opening to the general public; Waymo's service is currently open to the general public in the Phoenix metro area; GM-owned competitor Cruise plans to enter Phoenix and Austin with a revenue target of $1B by 2025
Google launched its News Showcase product in France, partnering with 130+ publications from 65 publishers, incl. national, regional, and local outlets; Google licensed a limited amount of paywalled content from its partners that readers can access free of charge
Klarna has released its Klarna Creator app; the move comes as the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) e-commerce-focused fintech announces upgrades to its existing U.S. platform; Klarna's creator platform will provide new opportunities for retailers and influencers to work together to mobilize brand campaigns, measure sales, and track performance
Revolut is launching Shops in Ireland; Shops essentially let Revolut users browse and buy products from over 1,000 Irish online retailers, all from within the Revolut app; Revolut also launched ‘Homes’ - a holiday home rental feature with cashback in travel services
Stripe asked managers to start giving lower ratings on performance reviews; this could lead to more people being fired or feeling pressured to quit; potential cuts wouldn't have to disclose as layoffs because they would be performance-based
A16z’s general partner Chris Dixon announced the firm is launching the “Crypto Startup School” accelerator program; Dixon confirmed the accelerator program is scheduled to commence in March; A16z will provide $500k as seed funding to each of the participants; the first cohort is open to 30 founders
Adobe debuted several new 3D creation tools at its Adobe Max Conference; the suite of tools makes it easier for metaverse creators to develop 3D content for VR, AR, and other metaverse experiences; during the event, Adobe announced it would partner with Meta to develop immersive programs for Quest headsets
Lenovo announced plans to explore building a remote-work metaverse where even factory workers could work from home
The UAE is aiming to recruit high-end tech firms with special visas and less restrictive financing; the program has courted 300 companies and has successfully attracted 40, including US-based firms Change Foods and Gecko Robotics
The UK's CMA (Competition Appeal Tribunal) again ordered Meta to sell GIF platform Giphy after ruling that the acquisition limited user choice and reduced innovation in UK advertising; the CMA's original order came back in Nov. 2021 after Meta purchased Giphy for $400M in May 2020; Meta will not appeal the decision
PayPal has released its PayPal Rewards program; the company's decision to launch its new program ahead of the holiday shopping season is in line with the wider e-commerce landscape, in which several retailers are trying to boost consumer spending earlier than usual this year; PayPal Rewards will replace Honey Gold, a rewards program offered by PayPal since its acquisition of Honey in 2019; the new system will allow users to track and redeem their cash, gift cards, and PayPal shopping credits directly through the PayPal app
Mastercard is partnering with crypto platform Paxos to let financial institutions offer crypto trading to their clients; Mastercard will act as a go-between, monitoring security and handling compliance; the pilot product will debut in Q1 2023
Nubank, the Brazilian digital bank, will launch Nucoin by the first half of 2023 and is inviting 2,000 customers to participate; holders of the token will receive discounts and other perks
NFTs are to be taxed in the U.S. in 2022; the U.S. Internal Revenue Service offered investors clarity on stablecoins, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies, which are now subject to taxes
Walmart has announced the release of its content creator platform; the platform, which is still in beta, comes as Walmart works to expand into social commerce
Online food ordering and delivery platform DoorDash is rolling out self-serve features for its advertisers; the new features will allow advertisers to gather metrics and alter their campaigns directly from DoorDash's existing Ads Manager platform
📚 Good reads
Starpath’s framework for calculating product/market-fit. An interesting approach to get a quantifiable measure whether or not customers will want and adopt your product
Analytics and product/market-fit. Another interesting article on making PMF measurable; this time, from the Analytics team at Meta
Hick’s law and its impact on design. Hick’s Law states that the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number of options. In other words, if you have 10 things to choose from and pick one, you can move on quickly. But if there are 1 million things to choose from, selecting any one of them is going to take a lot longer.
That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email
Angel
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