el producto #433 🚀
GTM in 2025, Customer journey mapping, Building a successful onboarding, New Instagram app, New Grok and OpenAI models, Perplexity Assistant & more
Hi friends 👋
Happy weekend, and welcome to a fresh el producto
🎰 The week in figures
$1.3B: Revolut posted pre-tax profits exceeding £1B ($1.3B) for 2024, more than twice its result from the year before. Revenues climbed to £3.1B as the company onboarded 15M new customers, bringing its global user base to 52.5M. Founder Nik Storonsky called it a “landmark year” and pointed to a bold target ahead: 100M daily active users across 100 countries
$200M: Supabase, the open-source backend-as-a-service company based in San Francisco, raised $200M in a Series D round, reaching a $2B valuation. This significant investment signals rapid growth and potential market dominance
$152M: Altruist, the custodian and software provider for investment advisers, reached a nearly $2B valuation in its $152M Series F
$140M: Manychat raised $140M to enhance its AI-driven chat automation tools for businesses, aiming to accelerate global expansion and advance R&D
$75M: Butterly Effect, which became known for its Manus AI product earlier this year, has raised around $75M at a valuation of around $500M
-70%: Pony.ai, the Chinese robotaxi company, is focused on global expansion. It showcased three new models at the Shanghai Auto Show, with production costs reduced by 70%
-20%: Intel is reportedly planning to lay off over 20% of its staff
💰 Q1 earnings
Alphabet crushed expectations in Q1 2025, reporting $90.23B in revenue and $2.81 EPS—far exceeding analyst estimates of $89.12B and $2.01, respectively. YouTube ad revenue hit $8.97B and Google Cloud brought in $12.27B, both in line with forecasts, while traffic acquisition costs (TAC) landed at $13.66B
Netflix posted nearly $3B in profit, maintaining a strong operating margin and exploring video podcasts for future growth
📰 What’s going on
OpenAI has launched a “lightweight” version of its ChatGPT deep research tool—which conducts multi-step research from complex sources and compiles detailed reports—to Plus, Team, and Pro users. It’s powered by o4-mini, and although OpenAI has admitted it’s “not quite as capable” as the “full” deep research tool (”responses will typically be shorter”), it will maintain the “depth and quality”
OpenAI is looking into partnering with Shopify to let you buy Shopify products directly in chat
YouTube TV plans to launch a redesigned TV app this summer, which will include easier navigation, as well as playback and quality tweaks + Ask Music AI radio
Apple intends to move production of US-bound iPhones out of China and into the Indian market next year. The decision underscores the simple fact that mass-phone production is not moving to the US
Edits, Instagram’s new video editing app, works a lot like rival TikTok’s CapCut. It includes advanced editing tools that aren’t available in the standard IG interface, like making AI animations from static images and efficiently key-ing out greenscreens, alongside project management tools and analytics bells and whistles. Edits is now available for free on iOS and Android devices
Instagram is testing a new feature called Storylines, which allows users to add new Stories to their friends’ stories. This means, for example, if you’re celebrating a friend’s birthday, you could add some photos to your story, and your friends could add more content to it
Grok is getting new abilities that will allow it to see the world around it. GrokVision lets users point their phone at objects like products, signs, and documents and ask questions about them. It’s another example of AI companies playing catch-up with each other, and brings Grok in line with similar features released from Google earlier this year
Perplexity has released the Perplexity Assistant on iOS. Voice Assistant uses web browsing and multi-app actions to book reservations, send emails and calendar invites, play media, and more from the Perplexity iOS app. Meanwhile, a perceived lack of differentiators is seemingly prompting some users to cancel their subscriptions. With rumors that OpenAI is happy to buy Chrome if Google is forced to sell it, Perplexity’s new browser needs to ship fast
Linear has released a new feature called Pulse which takes everything that’s happening across your product development teams and transforms it into an easy-to-digest content feed. The content feed is available in both text and audio, and users can subscribe to get updates from specific teams or across the entire org. It’s a neat use of generative AI and a very handy way for product teams to keep stakeholders in the loop with everything that’s happening. Lately I’ve been playing with Glean for similar purposes. Curious if el producto readers use any similar products, and what’s your experience with them
Klarna sealed a deal with eBay to roll out its flexible payment options to millions of shoppers across the US
📚 Good reads
This LLM Roadmap blog is a fun way to learn about all the technical stuff related to AI—but it’s still VERY technical
A path forward for Go-To-Market. In a time where GTM has become a growing pain, especially in a saturated tooling landscape and with user acquisition channels in flux, this piece from Pete Flint at NFX offers a breath of fresh air. Rather than repeating stale tactics, Flint shares a refined, upgraded GTM playbook for the current environment: highly actionable and grounded in experience from backing some of the most successful marketplace and SaaS ventures
Microsoft's latest report predicts 2025 as the “year of the frontier firm.” The report emphasizes the necessity for companies to adapt and embrace AI technology to stay competitive. PMs should focus on integrating AI into their strategies to align with this transformative trend
Superhuman's onboarding playbook. Discover essential strategies for creating a seamless onboarding experience that enhances user engagement. This guide emphasizes the importance of personalization, user feedback, and continuous iteration to ensure long-term retention. Complement with the following article:
How to stop users skipping your onboarding. Users land on your product already confused. Not because your UX is broken—but because they skipped the onboarding flow you intentionally added. In this UX case study, Built for Mars (one of my favourite UX sites) explores why that happens—and how to fix it
Customer journey mapping: align product development with customer needs. This article details effective strategies for creating comprehensive journey maps that drive user-centric design, including a nice template. Product teams can leverage these insights to improve engagement and satisfaction throughout the customer lifecycle
That’s a wrap for this week! 🌟
I’d love to hear your thoughts—what stood out to you, and how are you thinking about integrating these insights into your Product strategy? Reply to the email or drop a comment on Substack to share your take. And if you found this valuable, forward it to a fellow PM, Product enthusiast, startup founder or entrepreneur who’d enjoy the read
See you next week! 👋
Angel