el producto #389 🚀
Revolut targets $40B valuation, New Apple Pay features, New TikTok app, A simple Growth strategy, Find Problem-Solution fit, The case against routines & more
Hey friends,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$40B: Revolut is targeting a valuation exceeding $40B in an upcoming employee share sale. This move, which involves selling approximately $500M worth of existing shares, aims to solidify its position as Europe’s most valuable start-up
$665M: Indian quick delivery startup Zepto has raised $665M at a $3.6B valuation
📰 What’s going on
Anthropic released Claude 3.5 Sonnet, what it calls the “first release in the forthcoming Claude 3.5 model family.” It’s often better than Claude Opus, the company’s flagship model, and faster to boot. It’s also cheaper. Anthropic claims that Sonnet can beat OpenAI’s latest — GPT 4o — in several tests
TikTok is launching another standalone app. This time, it’s an Instagram-like photo sharing app called Whee. With other companies like Arc browser and Pinterest also launching separate standalone apps recently, this appears to be a new trend in mobile product strategy for larger companies who want to compete on specific use cases without polluting their core product with feature bloat. Potentially a smart move
YouTube is experimenting with a new Notes feature that will work a lot like X’s Community Notes
Apple may hedge its bets on its Vision line of face computers. Apple is pulling back on a new ‘Pro’ model while continuing work on a less expensive version for 2025. That’s pretty far in the future for what many hope will become Apple’s next major hardware line
Apple has announced the discontinuation of its "buy now, pay later" service, Apple Pay Later, which launched in the United States last year. Effective immediately, the service will no longer be available for new loans
Apple is bringing new features to Apple Pay this year, including paying with rewards and tapping card-offered installment loans
X is working on consumer fintech: New reporting indicates that X is serious about building a consumer finance app. Bloomberg writes that “Venmo-like payments feature that will let users store money on their X accounts, pay other users or businesses, and even buy goods and services in physical stores” could be coming to the social network
Plaid launched Layer, a new platform that allows fintechs to build customizable KYC and onboarding flows and which onboards prior Plaid users instantly. A really interesting product for fintech startups
Revolut launched a pan-European debit loyalty card program in the UK, and added corporate and government bond trading to its platform
The new version of Amazon’s Alexa is running behind schedule. The reason, according to interviews with more than a dozen former employees who worked on AI for Alexa, is an organization struggling with structural dysfunction and technological challenges that have repeatedly delayed shipment of the new generative AI-powered Alexa. Amazon has also, former employees say, repeatedly deprioritized the new Alexa in favor of building generative AI for AWS. It sounds like tough product prioritisation decisions need to be made even in larger organisations with R&D budgets bigger than countries
Snap has previewed an early look at a new feature that can generate AR features. AR creators can create selfie Lenses by generating highly realistic ML face effects. Plus, they can generate custom stylization effects that apply a realistic transformation over the user’s face, body and surroundings in real time. Creators can also generate a 3D asset in minutes and include it in their Lenses
Meta has released its Threads API. It’s free and will allow developers to build “unique integrations” into Threads - and potentially even result in third party apps for Threads, as Reddit’s Apollo did before Reddit hiked their API prices
📚 Good reads
Building an audience-first business model. Pierre Herubel shares how he boosted his solopreneur career. His playbook defers thinking about any potential startup ideas until you’ve built up an audience that you’re able to learn from and sell to. Audience-first is a massive advantage because you can co-create a solution to a real problem they have, build in public alongside them which provides ongoing learning and validation, and have Day 1 customers. You don’t need a big audience either, and you can start building one right now on LinkedIn, a newsletter, or even a group chat. Compared to the normal model, audience-first looks like this:
The case against morning yoga, daily routines, and endless meetings, by Andrew Chen. How to maximize 10x work and avoid thoughtless daily 1x work routines. “We are stuck in a world of routines: Wake up, answer email, go to a meeting, then another meeting, check off an item from a todo list, and repeat. The “hustle culture” of the internet tell us to add even more to the routine: Grind more hours, wake up at 5am and do yoga, remember to meditate, work out an hour a day, and so on. There’s endless tips on what successful CEOs do with their mornings, making us feel bad for not executing core loops with machine-like efficiency.” Doing the same tasks every day, while comforting, adds less new information, contains no risk, and as Andrew points out, no quantity of them will add up to 10x work. Embracing more serendipity can help being more thoughtful and finding those 10x opportunities
3 questions to help triage your dashboards, by Adrian Howard. TL;DR: Is it visible at the right time? Is it actionable? Is it used? If the answer to any of these questions is “no” the value of the dashboard vanishes and you need to probe further
How to find Problem-Solution fit; a framework to validate ideas before going for Product-Market fit, by Sahil S. All great products starts with finding a Problem-Solution Fit. Be prepared to pivot, persevere and even kill off bad ideas
The case foe keeping take rates low, by CJ Gustafson. a.) Having the patience to play the long game, and b.) Having he courage to make bold moves when you spot a unique opportunity in the market, produce long term revenues. You organize in a way that allows you to keep take rate low so that the hosts flourish and can build really powerful businesses. You both win, and have trust and faith in the business model. And over time you can start to increase the benefit you get from making everyone successful, now with even more participants on the platform
A simple growth strategy. Adam Fishman shares a 5-step process to kickstart your growth. While Growth Strategy creation can be complicated; if you’re just getting started you can drastically simplify. Following this process will get you to a straightforward growth strategy quickly and help identify where you may have gaps in your knowledge
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