el producto #375 🚀
Spotify videos, Cheaper Apple Vision, TikTok photos app, Stripe growth, ChatGPT's growth strategy, Heuristics for design decision-making, X's video products & more
Hey friends,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$1T: Stripe crossed the $1T mark in total payment volume in 2023. The payment value rose 25% YoY. The firm was "cash flow positive in 2023 and expects to be again in 2024," eliminating the need to raise additional capital before its anticipated IPO
$137M: Flagstone, a British neobank and savings account provider, raised £108M ($137.5M) in new funding
136M: US paid music subscribers hit a record 109M in 2023, rising to 136M, including SiriusXM and Amazon Prime Music; seven of every 10 US millennials pay to subscribe
$10M: Google's Vulnerability Rewards Team revealed that it paid $10M in rewards to 6,032 researchers from 68 countries in 2023. The total rewards were less than the $12M paid to bug bounty hunters in 2022. The highest reward paid last year for a vulnerability report was $113,337
64% of GPT-4V generated web pages are considered better than the original reference web pages. In a newly published academic paper, researchers from Microsoft, Stanford and Google Deepmind consider how long it might take for front end engineering to be automated
📰 What’s going on
Spotify has started rolling out music videos in 11 countries. The new feature comes as TikTok was forced to remove music from its platform following a dispute with Universal
TikTok's app code shows a separate TikTok Photos app, a potential Instagram rival that syncs with the main app and may debut “soon” on iOS and Android
Apple will soon let European users download certain apps directly from developer websites, bypassing the App Store. Apple announced the changes to comply with an EU law forcing it to open up parts of its closed ecosystem
Apple is reportedly working on a more affordable version of the Apple Vision Pro. This model aims to reduce its price from $3,500 to as low as $1,500 by focusing on cutting the cost of its high-priced micro-OLED displays
Apple Vision Pro is set to support 12 new languages. This expansion hints at Apple's strategy to gain global momentum against competitors, particularly in markets like South Korea, home to rival Samsung
Apple is testing an AI-powered ad tool that automatically decides where to place ads within the App Store, similar to Google's Performance Max ad tool
Amazon now lets sellers create listings through a URL by using AI. The new tool uses AI to parse details from an item’s URL on another site and create an Amazon listing. The feature is rolling out in English to sellers in the U.S.
Google Slides has unveiled one of its first Gemini-powered features. The new update allows users to remove backgrounds from images. Super handy for product team members who are currently resorting to Figma or Canva for little things like this
A significant security flaw in Meta's Quest VR system allows hackers to monitor and manipulate users' VR activities. Researchers successfully injected malicious code into the system, affecting 27 unknowing participants. Meta has acknowledged the findings and is reviewing the research pending an independent peer review
OpenAI's Sora, an AI model for generating 60-second videos from text, will launch publicly sometime this year, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said. Once it launches, Sora users will be able to edit the videos after they are generated. Upon launch, Sora will still not have sound in the videos, though OpenAI will "eventually" incorporate audio, she said
Reddit disclosed plans to raise up to $748M through its initial public offering, targeting a valuation of up to $6.4B. Reddit is set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange next week, trading under the ticker symbol "RDDT”
Telegram founder Pavel Durov says that the company expects to hit profitability next year with eyes on going public in the future
X plans to launch a YouTube-like app for users to watch videos on smart TVs. In a post on X, Musk confirmed the app is "Coming soon"
Klarna adds open banking settlements for 18 million consumers and 32,000 retailers. Klarna has begun to roll out open banking-powered settlements in the UK, meaning that consumers can now pay Klarna directly from their bank account instead of using a debit card, bypassing card networks
Uber is introducing a new “emissions saving” feature which allows users to discover the level of carbon dioxide emissions avoided if they take a trip in one of the company’s electric vehicle options
BeReal faces an uncertain future. Growth has stalled at the French social media app that aimed to counter position itself against Instagram/TikTok, and leaders of BeReal are apparently mulling an uncertain Series C funding round or a sale
📚 Good reads
10 heuristics to simplify your design decision making. Making design decisions is difficult. With endless different factors to take into consideration, heuristics can help. In this piece, Pat Morgan explains how tools like Jakob’s Law, Gaiman’s Law and the MAYA rule can help
Dissecting the Growth Strategy of ChatGPT. We are trending towards commoditization of the underlying model, and as with most things eventually it’s the growth levers that matter. In that respect, Adam Fishman argues that ChatGPT winning on just about every dimension of consumer, PLG and enterprise growth
The biggest waves across Productivity, Jobs, Shopping, Health, and Social, by Rex Woodbury. There are all sorts of waves you can hitch your startup to. The biggest undercurrent is simply exponential technological progress. But above that are more specific waves that can, and are, creating massive and enduring businesses. Think AI, Spatial Computing, and battery advancements for EVs. “The biggest wave in commerce, in my mind, can be summed up in the word circularity. Sustainability is bleeding into commerce; consumers want to shop secondhand, and brands want to do good by their customers and by the environment. Ask any brand or retailer what’s top-of-mind for them, and two topics consistently come up: (1) resale and (2) excess inventory. The two are interrelated, and both build on circularity“
How Figma engineers feedback with eng crits. Most engineering teams have some sort of approval process, often called a technical review, which is usually reserved for the later stages in a project. The problem with late-stage technical reviews is that when they happen too late, like when a direction or design has already been built out, they can lead to launch-blocking feedback. The engineering crit plays a very specific role at Figma. It’s a place to solicit feedback early and often. It is a forum to get expert support on technical designs. It is not an approval process. When things are positioned as a work in progress, the stakes are a lot lower and people feel more comfortable sharing and receiving feedback
Building your next product. Building multiple product portfolios has never been so important as it is today: not only for large corporations but also for Startups and Scaleups. Casey Winters always has great insights on the process of going multi-product and you should not miss this one
How to build an Opportunity-Solution Tree, by Ed Biden. A great brief guide on the popular framework created by Teresa Torres
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