el producto #304 🚀
Twitter and Stripe layoffs, Airbnb and Uber Q3 results, Gmail package tracking, Snap+Amazon virtual try-on, Ethical product job boards, Metaverse strategies & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto.
🎰 The week in figures
$182M: Volocopter has raised a $182M Series E to offer air taxi services; the company has received the necessary certification to offer the services in 2024
$123M: U.S.-based Alation has raised a $123M Series E, reaching unicorn valuation; the company's $1.7B represents a 17x increase over its previous valuation, beating the current industry trend; Alation is a platform that enables companies to collect and analyze data that would've otherwise been difficult to get
$110M: Quantum technology company ColdQuanta raised $110M in Series B funding; the Boulder, Colorado-based firm builds quantum computers, sensors, and networks; incoming funds will be used to further develop and commercialize its product portfolio
$100M: Canadian-based restaurant management platform TouchBistro raised ~$110M at an undisclosed valuation; TouchBistro serves >16K restaurants and processes >$13B in payments each year
$100M: Application security startup Apiiro raised $100M in Series B funding; the platform helps security teams and developers remediate vulnerabilities in cloud applications
$65.3B: US companies are on track to spend ~$65.3B on US-based social media ads in 2022 (up ~3.6% y/y, about 10x slower growth than 2021)
80%: Microsoft believes its AI-based Copilot system can write up to 80% of the entire code needed for programmers in the future; currently, the company says programmers use the software to write up to 40% of their entire code
+20.7%: Global spending on cloud services is projected to grow to ~$591.8B by 2023, up 20.7% y/y from ~$490.3B in 2022; IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service) is expected to see the highest growth at 29.8% y/y in 2023
-12%: Online banking app Chime is cutting 12% of its workforce (~160 employees) as the company reduces marketing spend, decreases contractors, and renegotiates with vendors to cut costs
-13%: Lyft announced staff cuts of 13%, or about 700 employees; Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green cited a possible recession and rising costs of ride-share insurance
-14%: Stripe cut 14% of staff (~1000 employees) returning headcount to its February level of ~7000; earlier this year, Stripe cut its valuation from ~$95B to ~$74B in a 409A valuation
-50%: Senior staff at Twitter were asked to cut their teams by ~50% with the goal of reducing Twitter’s headcount by 3700 employees (or ~50% of its total workforce); employees affected started getting notified on Friday morning; Musk has already laid off all of its ML Ethics, Transparency, and Accountability team; 5 employees have already sued the company alleging it violated federal and California laws by failing to give enough notice about ongoing mass layoffs
-91%: Crypto.com's trading volume has dropped ~91% in the past year from ~$4B to ~$380M/day; FTX, Coinbase, and Binance trading volumes are down 77%, 75%, and 57%, respectfully
💸 Q3 financials
Airbnb: $2.9B (+29% y/y), nights and experiences booked: 99.7M (+25% y/y) gross bookings: $15.6B (+31% y/y) net income: $1.2B (+46% y/y), FCF: $960M (+80% y/y); stock was down ~10% due to lower than expected revenue guidance in Q4
Block: gross profit rose 38% in Q3 to $1.57B, driven by a 51% increase in gross profit from Cash App, its peer-to-peer payments platform
Coinbase: missed analysts’ expectations for revenue and profits; the crypto exchange earned $576M in net revenue, down from $1.24B reported a year ago; Coinbase booked a net loss of $545M, down from a net income of $406M reported last year
DoorDash: revenue increased by 33% y/y in Q3 to $1.7B; the company's net loss increased from $101M in Q3 2021 to $296M in the latest quarter; order volumes rose by 27% y/y to 439M
PayPal: revenue increased by 12% y/y in Q3 to $6.6B; the company's net income increased from $1.1B in Q3 2021 to $1.3B in the latest quarter; total payment volume increased by 14% y/y to $337B; PayPal added 2.9M net new active accounts in the quarter, taking its total to 432M active users
Uber: gross bookings: $29.1B (+32% y/y), revenue: $8.3B (+72% y/y), net loss: -$1.2B (incl ~$512M unrealized loss on equity investments), FCF: $358M, unrestricted cash and cash equivalents: $4.9B; stock was up ~13% on Tuesday
Robinhood: $361M (-1% y/y), transaction-based-revenue: $208M (-22% y/y), net loss: -$175M (-87% y/y); September MAUs: 12.2M (-35.5% y/y) cash and cash equivalents: $6.2B; stock was up 10% due to shrinking losses
📰 What’s going on
Elon Musk gave Twitter engineers a deadline of 11/7 to revamp Twitter Blue, which will cost between $8-$20/month (up from ~$3/month), to help clear up its bot problem; current verified users will have 90 days to subscribe or lose their verification badge; Musk also told Twitter engineers to work on a Vine reboot that could be ready by the end of 2022; Twitter acquired Vine in 2012 and shut it down four years later
YouTube is rolling out Primetime Channels for US users, which will bring content from 35 partners, including Paramount+ and Epix, onto the app for users to subscribe to; the video platform plans to add NBA League Pass soon
Gmail is testing a new feature that allows users to track packages within their inbox; it works by scanning emails for tracking numbers, then displaying expected delivery dates in your inbox
Google unveiled new shopping features, including a promotion badge that will notify users of deals within search results; Google will also introduce a coupon clipping feature designed to make it easier for users to copy promotional codes
Google also said it's adding a limited version of Imagen, its AI software for generating images from text, to its app for testing out early AI systems; Imagen, which so far has not been available to the public, will debut as two demo options on the AI Test Kitchen app
Google is in the process of developing a C++ successor named Carbon; some of the known details are that the language will integrate seamlessly with C++ code and will be open-source
Snap and Amazon Fashion are partnering to create an AR-powered “virtual try-on shopping experience” where users can virtually try on eyewear from brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley; in the last year, ~250M Snapchat users have used AR shopping lenses >5B times
Amazon announced an expansion of its ad-free music library for Prime members as it seeks to draw in and retain subscribers; the music selection will grow from 2M ad-free songs to the full catalog of 100M songs, along with some podcasts
Instagram is testing a new feature that will allow users to create their own NFTs via the Polygon blockchain; Meta will not charge a fee for the creation or sale of NFTs until 2024, but users are subject to app store fees, such as Apple’s 30% App Store fee
Some Uber users report receiving advertisements as push notifications on their phones even if they aren't interacting with the Uber app; the company confirmed has launched a limited test of the ads, which appear to be from Peloton and other brands
Netflix has started rolling out its ad-supported tier in some countries, including the US, but it has not finalized licensing deals to run ads against content from Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, and others; Disney+ will launch its ad-supported plan next month
Disney launched an online shop that's only available to Disney+ members; they will be able to purchase merchandise from popular Disney-owned brands such as Marvel and Star Wars
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance launched an international e-commerce site to sell Chinese products to western shoppers; the company joins Pinduoduo, one of China’s largest e-commerce firms, in seeking new growth in western markets
Sony plans to release its next-generation PlayStation VR2 headset on Feb. 22 at a U.S. price point of $549.99
Revolut is adding a crypto-spending feature; the service is available since Nov. 1, and for a limited time, customers can earn 1% cash back on all their crypto balance spent, according to a company notice
Surojit Chatterjee, Chief Product Officer, stepped down from his role at Coinbase, saying he now "needs a break;" he will continue with the company as an advisor to CEO Brian Armstrong
GameStop's NFT marketplace is now live on ImmutableX's blockchain platform after operating in beta since July; users can access web3 games and other NFT gaming assets built on ImmutableX; the two companies partnered on launching a $100M grant for web3 gaming creators and builders
Alipay launches merchant payment toolkit, a business digitalisation solution for brick-and-mortar businesses in the service industry
The API for OpenAI's DALL-E 2 is now available in public beta, allowing software developers to start building apps on top of the image-creating tool; the launch of the API opens the door for developers and businesses to integrate the text-to-image capability into their products, websites, and apps
📚 Good reads
Finding Product/Market-fit with network effects. When building a network is a component of finding product/market fit, it's a lot harder to tell whether you are on the right track. Casey Winters explain some of the nuance there, and dominant strategies for marketplaces, platforms, and social / content networks
Ways to think about the metaverse. Ben Evans with an insightful reflection what the metaverse(s) could be, and what could mean for businesses
The rise of ethical Product job boards. In the midst of tech layoffs, Lisa Zane has curated a collection ethical job boards to help those looking for new opportunities
2023 Product Conference list. Teresa Torres has started populating her yearly Product conference list. This is not an exhaustive list, and will keep evolving as new events are created and shared
10 Product roadmap mistakes to avoid. Roman Pichler shares some advice on common roadmap mistakes. While some may sound obvious to senior folks, it is always good to get a reminder and to challenge how we have been operating lately
The default effect: why we renounce our ability to choose. Anne-Laure Le Cunff with another valuable piece in which she explores the reasons that lead us to accept defaults, often leading for suboptimal decisions
🔮 Emerging trends
Climate tech: a crisis is a terrible opportunity to waste. Matt Ward examines successful companies born out of past crises, and explores the opportunities ahead in climate tech, from founder and investor perspective
That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email
Angel
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