Growth, startups, and tech products
(Above: No, it doesn t really look like this and yes it s mostly office parks and tech billboards. But I like to pretend) You ll never regret spending time in SF If you work in tech, you ll never regret spending 3-5 years in the Bay Area. This is advice I ve been giving to people for years, and [ ]
The “Dinner Party Jerk” test is a solution to a common problem: Startups often struggle at pitching their team, even though for the earliest stage companies, it’s incredibly important to do it well to raise capital — as I’ve described it below: Pre-seed- Bet on the team Seed- Bet on the product Series A- [ ]
It s hard to be a product without a strong theory of distribution Here s a common startup situation. A team busts their ass for months building the first version of their product. It s almost done. Now a big question emerges how do you get the first people to use your product? Hmm If you find [ ]
Every time you ask the user click you lose half of them. (And this why tutorials, splash screens, and lengthy signup flows are a bad idea) If you’ve been building apps for a long time and have seen the results of a lot of A/B tests, you quickly realize that people are a flighty bunch. [ ]
Above: Many small business figured out the hard way why coupon sites generate worse users Incentive programs often don t perform The people you attract with referral programs, free trials, coupons, and gamification — folks who are “incentivized” as a broad umbrella category — are usually MUCH WORSE than organic ones. Worse LTVs, worse conversion, less [ ]
Grand Theft Auto 6 and the future of AI If you happened to miss it, a few weeks back, here is the game trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6. It s worth watching, and is amazing on multiple levels. But GTA 6 might be the peak of the open world category, untouched by the next wave [ ]
Dear readers, As we enter a new year, many of us are setting goals to write more and create more content. As someone who has been writing consistently for the past decade, I wanted to share some strategies that have helped me in my writing journey, particularly in a professional context. Collecting ideas First and [ ]
(above: Me in Sep 2023, a happy author, finding the Japanese translated version of my book at the wonderful Daikanyama Tsutaya Books in Tokyo) Dear readers, As many of you know, 2 years ago I published my first book THE COLD START PROBLEM. It aims to tell the story of why some products [ ]
Hey readers, This is a small deviation from my usual topics, but wanted to share. This is one of the most important graphs that I saw in 2023 that has led to behavioral change for me. This is in Peter Attia s book Outlive. Here s the graph: tldr: if you want to be able to briskly [ ]
Dear readers, I was recently interviewed by the great Brian Balfour (CEO/cofounder of Reforge) and Fareed Mosavat (ex-Reforge/Slack/Zynga) which turned into a lively discussion I think we could have gone longer! which we just published in two parts. You can listen to both parts below, and the kind folks at Reforge also typed [ ]
Hi readers, Doing a short round up on various links, books, a quick life update, and other stuff going on. First, I did not write much in 2023 (I was busy!!) but am proud of what I published Blog posts from 2023 How to design a referral program. I headed up Uber s driver and rider [ ]
Dear readers, I was triggered to write this post because ChatGPT apologies way too much, takes too long to get into the meat of an answer, and I wanted to fix that. This came up because like many of you, I ve been trying to incorporate ChatGPT into my workflows both at my job, and [ ]
Hi readers, Over the years, I ve shared lessons and tips from writing a professional blog previously 10 years of professional blogging – what I’ve learned. Recently, I ve had some major changes in my workflow, and wanted to share more. Pre-AI blogging workflow My pre-AI workflow for blogging what I ve been doing for over [ ]
There s been a big wave of Creator Economy startups over the past few years, as the rise of social media platforms has empowered content creators to become a focal point for consumer engagement. This wave of startups promised creators that they could help them better monetize their audience on social media if they only promoted [ ]
A simple question The last few years have been crazy, and no wonder there s a ton of folks thinking about making job changes right now. I know this since I ve been getting the calls. Often the conversations open with a laundry list of different companies, roles, and compensation packages. Every opportunity is completely different and [ ]