Hello everyone,
I have not been able to motivate myself to come back and write for the last three weeks. I feel good when I'm involved in multiple things at the same time, which leads to steep learning curves, pressure to execute and I also believe that it triggers the flow state more often - (no science behind this, just gut feeling). The downside is that you often find yourself overwhelmed with work and decisions to make.
I'd like to be able to make faster decisions, so I'm delving into Stoic literature and working on ways to embrace their mantra:
What the Stoics are saying is so much of what worries us are things that we have no control over. If I’m doing something tomorrow and I’m worried about it raining and ruining it, no amount of me stressing about it is going to change whether it rains or not. The Stoics are saying, “Not only are you going to be happier if you can make the distinction between what you can change and can’t change but if you focus your energy exclusively on what you can change, you’re going to be a lot more productive and effective as well.”
To kick off the day a masterpiece 👇👇 from Shane Parish from Farnam Street - one of the best newsletters out there.
Tiny Thought
Big ambitions, low expectations, and high standards are a powerful combination for living your best life.
Ambitions pull you forward when it’s hard. They connect you to something larger. One of my most important ambitions is to be a great father and friend. Another is to leave the world a better place than I found it. You can’t have a meaningful life without a connection to something larger than yourself.
Reality minus expectations = happiness. You will never be happy unless your expectations are exceeded. If you think the world owes you something, you’re going to end up disappointed. The world doesn’t owe you anything. You can’t sit around waiting for the world to come and hand you what you think you deserve. If you want something to happen, you have to take action. Go positive and go first.
High standards – When it gets hard, do not lower your standards. I am not always at my best, but I always give my best. I hold myself to a high bar. I don’t always meet it, but I won’t lower the bar to feel better about myself.
What's on my mind when it comes to AI
Early Stage Startups 👨🏻🚀
AI continues to dominate the innovation landscape and, as with any new hot topic, people are coming up with different predictions for the future. I'm going to skip the part where very smart people like Yuval Harari think we're heading for the end of the world as we've known it for thousands of years and stick to what I see around me and how I think it's going to play out.
I've had multiple conversations with early-stage founders trying to surf the AI magic wave, and it takes me five minutes to realize they're consuming OpenAI APIs and still experimenting with their models, but ok, I'll give them credit and sign up for the "my startup is going to save the world" mindset. They have the power to see their piece of technology make this place a better place, and I will say that when it comes to individual education from toddler to lifelong learning education, I see huge potential.
So what are they missing? I think they are missing the point that in a very crowded market, distribution - not the product - is king. And it's not that I don't think they're capable of building a great product, attracting great talent, inspiring and building a great culture, dueling the former Mossad and MIT students and winning gracefully, the problem I see is that they're denying the challenge of distribution. They are so drunk on their idea - in some cases drinking their own Kool-Aid and getting dopamine shots from the likes they get on social media - that they fail to acknowledge that the success of their business depends on thousands, maybe millions of people using it.
My two cents for these people: keep seeing what you see, keep building what you believe in, and keep pitching your vision of a better world to amazing people who can come on board and help you build this business, but please start researching and coming up with ideas - big ideas - about how to get people to use your product. A great product with zero users has no value.
The big boys club 🦸🏻 🦸🏻♂️
Ok, so where would you place your best bet when it comes to the AI revolution and large companies?
I started to ask myself: "Where can AI create value for large enterprises?" - it usually lands on generating additional revenue or reducing costs. Simple. Either you make me more money or you let me keep more of my money in the company.
From that point, I came up with the idea that companies with a high volume of customers, with multiple product lines (so their revenue isn't highly concentrated in one product), software first (it may have its physical product, but it's mainly a software distribution business), with low churn (great products, solid brand, high innovation, smart about its M&A, etc) have the best setup to succeed.
So what can AI do for their business?
I predict that AI will create new features and products - a great opportunity for M&A's in the next five to ten years for small startups - and these increments will increase their revenue per customer, leading to a bigger business. I also believe that AI will reduce operating costs for these large corps and the bottom line - with additional revenue coming in - will be solid.
So the incremental revenue that comes from innovation and lower operating costs will launchpad 🧑🏻🚀 these companies to the moon!
My personal bet today? Microsoft*
Why? They have the customer relationship, the brand and, more importantly, the distribution in place to deliver new products exponentially.
I kept asking myself: Where can AI have an exponential impact in the short term? I kept coming back to businesses that have relationships with many customers and low churn.
My second vision is that AI will benefit companies that are winners in the long tail of their market - the highest volume of customers. Targeting and winning the long tail of any market is one of the toughest challenges any organization can face, and I kept asking myself - what's the one company that I can model my thesis on and have a strong enough case for? I chose Shopify. (Maybe I should have the AI itself for that answer, but I still like to think things through).
Why Shopify? Well, Shopify has completely changed the e-commerce landscape. Its mission is to allow any small merchant to join and participate in the online shopping revolution. It's one of the most successful stories of this century. But I connected the dots when I remembered that in 2021 - I could be a year off - they distributed $1 billion to the app community. I mean, all the app builders in the Shopify ecosystem got a staggering $1,000,000,000,00 from doing business with Shopify customers. It shows how powerful their customer base is and how Shopofy can leverage their relationship to deliver new features and products so their customers can SELL MORE! It's a perfect flywheel effect.
So for my second vision, when it comes to creating value with AI, I chose Shopify because of their large customer base - I assume they have super low churn - and because they've shown they can distribute new features and charge extra for it. Imagine Shopify adding multiple AI features and charging their clients $.99 - yes, they will be printing money!!!
This is one of those newsletters I will save and come back to in a few years time to see if I got anything right!
*Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAi.
“We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas, when the time is right, is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire.
You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.”
― Charles T. Munger
Best from Linkedin
✅ Our individuality is our MOST powerful asset: Self-comparison is the thief of innovation and true fulfilment. - Read it All Here
Duolingo went from $70 to $369 million in annual revenue in 3 years.
Here are 4 growth strategies they used - Read it All HereFour genius ideas from the team at Amazon… Read it All Here
1. The 2-Pizza Team
2. The institutional Yes
3. The Future Press Release
4. The Empty Chair“Shankar [MD @ Google] , as you build this team, three years from now, how do you know you’ve succeeded?”
I recently penned a list of ten items that go beyond “hitting the numbers” in response to that question from a teammate. - Read it All HereTypeform was an early pioneer in PLG going back to 2012. And what a journey it's been:
🚀 Serves 125,000+ paying customers
🚀 Reached $70M in ARR in 2021
🚀 Grows organically with 80% of new customers signing up from word-of-mouth or virality
I met co-founder David Okuniev at the Point Nine Founder Summit in Spain. - Read it All HereMeta has tons of quality engineering managers (EMs), far more than most tech companies. They do this with an unfortunately rare tactic: Actually holding EMs accountable.
Every 6 months, Meta runs something called the Pulse Survey. It allows employees to provide upwards feedback anonymously. - Read it All Here15 powerful ChatGPT prompts to save you 15 hours a week - Read it All Here
1. Use the 80/20 principle to learn faster:
"I want to learn about [insert topic]. Identify and share the most important 20% of learnings from this topic that will help me understand 80% of it."🌐💬 Peter Thiel's 7 Questions: Mark Zuckerberg Edition!
Peter Thiel was the first investor in Facebook. - Read it All Here🔥 Let's talk about three crucial metrics 🔥
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), CAC Payback, and Lifetime Value (LTV). - Read it All HereRamp is the fastest growing SaaS business in history (hitting $100m run rate in 2 years!), and Keith Rabois described their product velocity as "absolutely unprecedented in my 21 years working with technology businesses." - Read it All Here
Startup of the Week
ementor.com.br - 🇧🇷 a troca de conhecimento entre pessoas é a maior forma de aprendizado, seja com ou sem AI. Olha o gregos e seus filósofos que até hoje impactam as nossas vidas!
A eMentor é uma das investidas no meu portfolio e com a missão de permitir a troca entre profissionais experientes e individuos em busca do conhecimento, essa startup de Vitoria, ES, liderada pelo resiliente Vinicius possui NPS92 e 65% da sua receita é recorrente de clientes atuais. Na veia!!
Recentemente a eMentor faz a maior aposta da sua vida: Criar uma plataforma que permite que essa troca de conhecimento aconteça dentro das empresas, facilitando a conexão entre a experiência e nova geração. Os primeiros pilotos são sucesso e eu não tenho dúvida que a eMentor vai trazer enorme valor para as estratégias de desenvolvimento de talento para muitas organizações.
Sucesso!
Made with my brain in Madrid, Spain.