el producto #311 🚀
Generative tech, Building in Web3, Top PM courses & tools, Google to boost AI development, Netflix ad-supported tier results, 2023 predictions, NoCode guide & more
Hey team,
Happy holidays & welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$28.7B: The Chinese province of Zhenjiang plans to build a $28.7B metaverse industry by 2025; according to its metaverse development plan, the province could become one of the nation's largest metaverse hubs
$14B: YouTube acquired the rights for NFL Sunday Ticket; YouTube's $14B deal to stream NFL games marks the latest incursion by a Silicon Valley giant into territory traditionally dominated by broadcasters and pay-TV companies
$1B: Binance.US to buy Voyager digital’s assets in a $1B deal; Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder said he hopes the deal marks the end of “a painful bankruptcy process,” which was affected by the FTX bankruptcy
$405M: Toss, a South Korean super app, raised a $405M Series G valued at $7B; the company started as a money transfer app in 2015 and now offers banking, P2P lending, investing, insurance, and more
$200M: Indian grocery e-commerce startup Bigbasket raised $200M at a $3.2B valuation
$95M: Dropbox has acquired the document-editing app FormSwift for $95M in cash; the app has been used to edit over 10M documents, mostly for small businesses
$66M: Moneyhub has raised $66M in debt and equity to offer finance APIs to developers
2.5M: Mastodon, the decentralized Twitter alternative, saw MAUs grow from ~300K to ~2.5M between October and Novembe
48.4%: Alphabet and Meta's combined market share of US digital ad revenue is set to drop below 50% for the first time since 2014; together, they will own 48.4% of the market, down from a peak of 54.7% in 2017
9%: Netflix’s new ad-supported tier garnered just 9% of new Netflix signups in November; 57% of those users were either new to Netflix or users rejoining the service, while 43% of those users were downgrading their subscription
-42%: Total VC funding dropped 42% y/y to $286B in the first 11 months of 2022
📰 What’s going on
Google has been reassigning teams to pursue AI development as ChatGPT poses a threat to Google's core search business
Netflix announced it would add a collection of over 90 workout videos from Nike Training Club to its platform
TikTok says it will soon roll out a feature that explains why its algorithm has recommended a particular video to each user; the feature will launch soon as a question mark icon titled "Why this video" in the app's main "For You" feed
Twitter launched “Blue for Business” and will assign gold checkmarks to businesses and allow organizations to identify individuals and brands associated with it; Twitter has not disclosed Blue for Business pricing or other perks
Twitter has added new features and information to "$Cashtags," allowing users to find the price and details of a stock or cryptocurrency by typing its name or ticker into the search tab
Twitter announced new rules that would prevent users from promoting their other social media accounts on Twitter, but they deleted the tweets and webpage detailing the new policy
Elon Musk confirmed that he will step down as Twitter CEO but remain in charge of the company's software and server teams
Amazon unveiled Prime Gaming, a subscription-based gaming service complimentary to Amazon Prime, in India and Southeast Asia; it offers titles such as League of Legends, FIFA 23, Madden 23, Apex Legends, Destiny 2, and more
OpenAI has released Point-E, an AI platform that can generate 3D models from a text prompt
The No Code AI Model Builder makers announced the tool launch on ProductHunt; the model is available for free, and the makers are inviting feedback from users; no Code AI Model Builder enables users to build a custom GPT-3 model from CSV data in three easy steps; some ideas shared by the team:
Export a WhatsApp/Telegram chat history with a friend/relative and create an auto-responder based on you
Export your Intercom/Crisp support chats and create a personalised support chatbot
Upload your last few thousand tweets and get it to automatically generate new ones based on your tweeting
Export your previous blogs and get it to write new posts in your own voice
Apple will cancel or postpone production of the iPhone SE 4 after the demand for its previous lower and mid-tier phones is less than expected
Due to rising tensions between China and the US, Apple plans to move a portion of its MacBook production to Vietnam for the first time; Foxconn will reportedly begin manufacturing the devices as early as May 2023
Klarna will provide shoppers with sustainability data for electronic goods and will promote environmentally conscious brands to its global network of more than 150M active shoppers
📚 Good reads
Building in Web3. If you're a platform innovator, you won't want to miss out on Sangeet Choudary's recently released Web3 Playbook. This work looks like a good starting point, especially for semi-beginners looking to understand how web3 is changing the landscape for platforms and offers expert insights and strategies for leveraging its power. Sangeet is also releasing blog posts to deep dive into specific aspects such as this one on bootstrapping. If you’re a bit more advanced and you want to have a synthetic but extremely actionable overview of the underpinnings of building in Web3, check out Simone Cicero’s recently released piece: Building Products and Protocols in Web3: a Playbook. Good complements.
The explosion of B2B marketplaces. Dealroom and Adevinta have collaborated to release an amazing new report on B2B marketplaces that looks into how the marketplace approach has been reinvented to operate in the complex markets that characterize B2B
Brave, an alternative to Chrome. In this case-study, the guys at Growth.Design look at the smooth onboarding flow and value-prop of Brave, a great privacy-focused alternative to Chrome
The best PM courses (according to Lenny Rachitsky). Lenny has created a useful list of PM courses (5 for Senior, 5 for entry-level PMs). I can’r personally recommend any of them (I have not taken any, and I was teaching myself at Product School last year), but I have heard great feedback about Reforge, and plan to try them in the near future
The state of European unicorns: 2022 wrapped. In this article, Sifted breaks down how the unicorn scene has developed this year. Despite the slowdown, 2022 minted over 3x as many unicorns as 2020
The top Product Management and productivity tools used by the Head of Product of Writesonic, a YC-Backed multi-million dollar AI startup. A nice, useful, and comprehensive (he uses a lot of tools) list of resources for startups
Werner Vogels predictions for 2023 and beyond. Amazon’s CTO is back with his annual predictions. Vogel's predictions are quite technical and related to industrial developments. This clearly testifies how much data, cloud, and software are now becoming foundational to hard industries such as manufacturing, energy, and commerce. Here’s the list:
1: Cloud technologies will redefine sports as we know it
2: Simulated worlds will reinvent the way we experiment
3: A surge of innovation and smart energy
4: The upcoming supply chain transformation
5: Custom silicon goes mainstream
And while we wait for Scott Galloway’s 2023 predictions, here’s his review of what he anticipated for 2022. He did quite well!
🚀 Emerging trends
We are back with more Generative Tech/AI. This week James Currier (NfX) released a Generative tech market map and 5-layer tech stack (including a Generative tech open source market map to help you navigate through the huge number of players emerging in the space).
A good overview of the layers appearing in the market, plus some preliminary hints on creating defensibilities. If you have a bit more time, complement these readings with Currier’s reflection on the Lifecycle of uncomfortable tech where he distills strategic advice for founders moving into this space as a way to navigate the challenges that arise from bringing technology to the market that can generate some Luddite reactions. Applicable beyond generative tech! A bunch of must-reads
If you want a practical example of applied Generative AI, here’s a great one: ChatGPT helped Scott Middleton build a chat bot step-by-step
That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Angel
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