el producto #373 🚀
Apple ends car project, Upcoming Meta headsets + glasses, Spotify's audiobook subs, Instagram's friends map, Product surveys, Balancing CAC + LTV, & more
Hey friends,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$750M: Roblox paid developers $750M in 2023, suggesting that the metaverse isn’t quite dead yet. Here’s how other creator company payouts compared in 2023:
$675M: Humanoid robotics startup Figure secured $675M in Series B funding from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, NVIDIA, Bezos Expeditions, Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest. The firm was valued at $2.6B
$120B: Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi receives options to buy stock worth ~$136M after hitting a performance target to reach a $120B valuation for the company
$65B: Fintech giant Stripe’s valuation spikes to $65B in employee stock-sale deal
Klarna reports 2023 revenue up 22% YoY to ~$2.28B, net loss down 76% YoY to $241M, credit losses down 32% YoY to $369M, and its workforce down 23% YoY to 4,201
📰 What’s going on
Spotify launches a $9.99/mo standalone audiobook service for its free users
Apple has reversed its decision to block home screen web apps on iPhones in Europe. After a backlash, Apple says it will continue to offer progressive web apps (PWAs) in the EU
Apple has ended development on its long-rumored self-driving car, shifting many of its team members to work on generative AI projects instead
Meta will remove Facebook's news tab in the U.S. and Australia in April, citing low usage. Meta said it will discontinue the dedicated tab in Facebook's bookmarks section as it works to prioritize investments in products and services "people value the most"
Meta is testing the ability to cross post content from Facebook to Threads. Threads now has triple the number of daily downloads as rival X and appears to be building momentum
Meta is set to unveil its first "true" AR glasses at this year's Connect event, aiming to make AR glasses mainstream after the success of Quest 3. The announcement signifies a significant step for Meta in the AR domain, differing from previous ventures such as the 2019 Meta/Ray-Ban collaboration and the 2023 redesign
Meta Quest Pro 2, a collaboration between Meta and LG, is set to release in the first half of 2025. This headset marks a significant advancement in the VR industry, featuring innovative technologies and targeting a wide range of users
Instagram is reported to be planning to copy another Snapchat feature. After successfully copying Stories back in 2016, the next feature on the list is a friend map which allows users to share their location in real time
WhatsApp announces its “search by date” function for individual and group chats on Android devices
Google announces new Android features, including Gemini integration with Messages, AI-powered text summaries for Android Auto, and AI-generated image captions
Google Docs is getting a new feature that will allow users to hand write and draw on documents using a stylus. The new feature is designed to act as a new way of providing feedback suggestions on drafts. It looks super helpful but is currently only available on Android devices
Amazon plans to launch a low-priced fashion and lifestyle marketplace in India. The online platform, called Bazaar, will compete with Walmart-owned Flipkart, Reliance’s Ajio, and SoftBank-backed upstart Meesho
Figma confirmed this week that it is to acquire Dynaboard - a no-code platform that allows designers to quickly transform their designs into web apps, marking a strategic shift towards becoming a full stack product-building tool, not just a design tool
Superhuman launches an AI-powered instant replies feature, giving users three contextual replies as options to respond to an email quickly
Elon Musk has sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing them of abandoning the company's founding mission by placing profits over humanity. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who is no longer involved, claims that the original mission was to run the company as an open-source nonprofit focused on advancing AI to benefit humanity
Mistral AI releases Mistral Large, a cheaper GPT-4 rival that supports 32K-token context windows, and Le Chat, a ChatGPT-like chat assistant in public beta
Brave is launching its AI-powered assistant, Leo, to all Android users, allowing them to ask questions, translate pages, summarize pages, and create content
Stack Overflow partners with Google to launch a new program that will give AI companies access to its knowledge base through a new API named OverflowAPI
SeatGeek introduces features to simplify the ticket-selling experience, including a tool that recommends the best price, automatic tags that list extra perks, and the ability to list tickets to multiple events
📚 Good reads
Understanding how to balance Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). David Pereira argues that a bad LTV:CAC ratio will get in the way of business growth. That’s why you need to evaluate what creates value and what doesn’t continuously. You need to adapt your strategy according to your learnings. Luckily, there are many tools for you to use. You need to learn how to use the tools in your favor and make decisions that increase LTV and reduce CAC
[Video] Snap’s ex-VP of product on how to hire product teams. Will Wu is the CTO of Match. Prior to Match, Will was VP of Product at Snap Inc. As the 35th employee, Will spearheaded the creation of Snapchat’s “Discover” content platform. He also led the creation and growth of the “Chat” messaging feature, which today is a primary Snapchat engagement driver that connects hundreds of millions of people each day
Should you run a product survey? Surveys are one of the most frequently utilized research methods by UX designers and researchers. But are they actually worth it? This piece talks you through the pros and cons of running surveys for product design
How Stripe built its new ledger. Each day, Ledger sees 5B events and 99.99% of $ volume is fully ingested and verified within 4 days. In this technical case study, Stripe’s engineering team shares technical details on how they built this state-of-the-art money movement tracking system, and how teams at Stripe interact with the data quality metrics that underlie their global payments network
The ultimate guide to PLG onboarding. 10 steps to building great product-led onboarding, including actionable steps to building an onboarding that connects your users with the unique value of your product. A great resource to bookmark!
How Duolingo pushes users from freemium to premium. 5 product-monetization lessons from the world’s most downloaded education app. Here’s a recap:
Asks users multiple times: use a range of places across the architecture to trigger the paywall. You’d be silly to ask once
Make the paywall relevant: Contextual messaging on the paywall will ensure the UX isn’t jarring, but make sure your screens are not too similar to each other to avoid banner blindness
Reverse trial: Try bumping users up on a reverse trial to see if you can enlighten them with how great your paid experience is (for Duo, it’s the mistake review feature)
Work out what makes your users tick: Lean into user psychology. Do people want to learn fast? Well, ensure your premium service makes them feel like they’re jumping the queue
The-feature-that-shall-not-be-named **ads**: If it keeps your business afloat so you can keep providing a free service for millions around the world, why not? Just ensure you think about ad UX to avoid blocking users from getting to the core value
That’s all for this week. As usual, feel free to reach out and share your thoughts by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Thanks for your support!
Angel