el producto #343 🚀
el producto #343 🚀
Big Tech Q2 results, New Nintendo console, Meta chatbots, Discovery mistakes, Uber ads drive profitability, Retention strategies, Onboarding plans, Raising price strategies & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$90B: China-based users traded $90B+ in crypto assets on Binance this May, despite an all-encompassing crypto ban in the country
1B: Apple's services apps now have over 1 billion paying subscribers, according to an announcement made during the company's Q3 conference call
$458M: Hong Kong-based Micro Connect, a crowd revenue-based financing platform for small businesses in China, raised $458M at a $1.7B valuation
$175M: Nile, a startup building a Network-as-a-Service product, raised a $175M Series C; former Cisco execs started the company and have raised $300M in total so far
100: Apple removed over 100 generative AI apps from its China App Store ahead of Beijing's new generative AI rules taking effect on August 15
💸 Q2 results
Airbnb: revenue: $2.5B (+18% y/y), net income: $650M, FCF: $900M, nights and experiences booked: 115.1M (+11% y/y); shares were flat post earnings
Amazon: revenue: $134.4B (+11% y/y), net income: $6.7B (up from $2B net loss last year), TTM FCF: $7.9B; ad revenue grew 22% y/y to $10.7B; shares were up 8%+
Apple: revenue: $81.8B (-1.4% y/y), net income: $19.9B (+2.3% y/y), services revenue grew 8% to $21.2B; shares were down ~5%
DoorDash: revenue: $2.1B (+33% y/y), net loss: -$172M, orders: 532M (+25% y/y); shares were up over 5% on earnings beat
Robinhood: revenue: $486M (+53% y/y), net income: $25M (108% smaller loss y/y), MAUs: 10.8M (-23% y/y); shares were down 5%+ due to MAUs missing estimates
Shopify: revenue: $1.7B (+31% y/y), GMV: $55B (+17% y/y), FCF: $97M; shares were down ~4% despite beating on revenue
Uber: revenue: $9.2B (+14% y/y), gross bookings: $33.6B (+16% y/y), FCF: $1.1B, net income: $394M; shares were down ~3% after missing on revenue, despite record-high FCF. Despite being their first profitable quarter, they have a long way to go:
📰 What’s going on
Microsoft has patented a new modular HoloLens device that appears more consumer-friendly, suggesting a potential shift in their mixed-reality strategy
Google's experimental AI-powered version of Search will soon include images and videos in results. Unlike AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard, Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) lists the sources it pulls information from
Google is overhauling its Assistant to focus on generative AI and will reorganize the current team, including a small round of layoffs
Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, confirmed that the company's significant R&D spending is partly driven by its investments in AI; Apple's latest earnings report shows the company has spent $22.6B on research and development so far in fiscal 2023, a $3.12B increase from where it was last year
During Amazon's latest earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy revealed that every team within the company is actively working on generative AI projects, spanning entertainment, AWS, advertising, and devices
Amazon appointed Rohit Prasad to lead its artificial general intelligence (AGI) team; Prasad previously worked as the head scientist for Amazon's Alexa voice assistant service; At various stages, Prasad has reported to former CEO Jeff Bezos and Amazon's devices and services chief David Limp; Amazon's AGI team aims to develop software that can think like humans, rather than simply mimic them
Instagram is developing labels to identify AI-generated content; a screenshot shows a notice stating that an image was "generated by Meta AI"
Meta is gearing up to launch AI-powered chatbots called "personas" on Facebook and Instagram, potentially starting next month; the chatbots will reportedly have unique personalities, enabling them to provide travel recommendations with a surfer's voice or speak like Abraham Lincoln; the personas will offer various features, including a search function, personalized recommendations, and interactive experiences that mimic human interactions
Meta has launched AudioCraft, an AI tool that creates high-quality audio and music from text prompts; Meta hopes it can lead to a new instrument similar to the synthesizer
Virtual events startup Hopin sold off its virtual “Events” and “Session” units to RingCentral, and Founder Johnny Boufarhat has stepped down as CEO
Nintendo is planning its next-gen console for H2 2024; reported specs: portable mode, possible LCD screen, cartridge slot for physical games
📚 Good reads
Uber Ads: Accelerating the path to profitability. One number stood out in their earnings: ads’ annual revenue run rate — $650M. Even though the advertising business has only been around for four years, $650M is ~15% of Uber’s annual free cash flow. What makes advertising attractive is that it’s a 100% margin product that can subsidize the lower margin core business.
Lesser-known mistakes PMs make during discovery. Aatir Abdul Rauf from Behind Product Lines recently put together an epic list of “lesser-known” mistakes PMs and founders make in this phase. It’s a goldmine of advice for anyone who speaks to customers in the context of research
Raising prices for your Product: should you do it? If so, how? A great piece by Dan Layfield (ex-PM at Uber and Codecademy). “Price raises are tricky because they have: knowable positive impacts, unknowable positive impacts, knowable negative impacts, & unknowable negative impacts. Some of these will show up within the measurement window of an A/B test, others won’t.“
Make the first 90 days count. Joining a new team is challenging. You go from company expert to the newbie who needs to learn and figure things out. Throw working remotely into the mix, and you have another element to add to the difficulties of getting fully up to speed. Deb Liu wrote about the onboarding plan she created for herself after leaving Facebook and joining Ancestry as their CEO. Get the template
Why Strategy Deserves more credit. Packy McCormick comes to the rescue of a term often criticized for being thrown around as a business jargon - “Strategy”. In this article, he emphasizes the need for strategy and highlights the interplay between strategy and execution, and the value of both. I also particularly enjoyed his take on the importance of network effects, and the focus on the relation between switching cost and scale economics
Product retention strategies. The good folks at Userpilot shared a simple an actionable list of actions that every PM can take to improve their retention
That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Angel