December @ The Operators Collective

Hi,

Welcome to the December wrap up of TOC and our very first mailer for 2023.

We are experimenting with the format a little to club the content by topics - Do checkout the November Digest as well and let us know which one you liked better.

November @ The Operators Collective

#Marketplaces

• Interesting framework for evaluating marketplaces alongside the older 20/20/20 rule

• The story of B2B manufacturing marketplace Zetwerk

• Updated Blume Edtech Report

#UI/UX

• Duolingo the world’s largest language learning platform recently rolled out a major update to its 50M MAU - while the new “path UI” aims to simplify the learning experience, but it comes with some major usability flaws

• Less is more — how Facebook increased user satisfaction and app usage by sending only a few notifications

• How Slack decides to send a notification

• How Tinder converts 8% of singles into customers

#Growth / GTM / Positioning

• SMB SaaS companies invariably grapple with when to go upmarket, not if. Can product strategy guide the GTM sequencing of when to go upmarket

• What a monumental campaign! GE “taking over” The New York Times by being the sole advertiser in the print edition!

• SaaS GTM One Pager Template

• A16z’s playbook on How to sell to SMBs

• B2B Marketing Predictions : for most B2B companies the North Star Metric will be NRR due to the macro economic environement, so all the other initiatives & levers, IOO / OKR, will be around this with check metric being CAC (of course)

• 2022 wrapup of all the Growth advice from OpenView

  The best growth advice of 2022

• Ankur Nagpal on Innovating on the Fintech Go-To-Market Playbook

• Own the Problem, Not Just the Solution

• Away did a great job of not just selling the solution but owning the experience and emotion

marco marandiz @allthingsmarco

Away is owning the door-to-door travel experience, not the destination. 👩‍✈️At this time, make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position as we prepare for takeoff. We’ll be flying through @away’s content, product, messaging, and brand positioning 🧳🛫

#Productivity

• An insightful read on how Sam Corcos (Co-Founder, CEO of Levels) rigorously monitors and manages his time to get the most out of it

• Also a nice read on how Sam leverages his investor network

Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan

If you've ever interacted with @SamCorcos, you know he's a very special founder. Of his many superpowers, Sam is able to leverage his investor network unlike anything I've ever seen. In today's post, Sam share all of his secrets for making your investors truly "value-add" 👇

#Equity & Fundraising

• How to respond when a VC asks about your startup’s valuation best read with Paul Graham’s thoughts on how to think about EQUITY
  Investor offers to fund you in return for 7% of your company. In this case, n is .07 and 1/(1 - n) is 1.075. If you believe they can improve your average outcome by more than 7.5% you should take the deal. If they improve your outcome by 10%, you're net ahead, because the remaining .93 you hold is worth .93 x 1.1 = 1.023

• Co-founder effect extends beyond the people who started the company: The lessons hold true for every team member that contributes in a foundational way. The more voices you add, the more resilience you build

#PLG

• Absolute guide on PLG - enough to keep you busy over a weekend

Leah's Product-led Growth Guide

• If you want more - check out this guide from folks who coined the term PLG

#AI / Chat GPT3

• Loved the screenshots ppl have been posting with chat GPT3.. its either the most amazing thing or the end of the world.. just the kinda emotion a great product should generate.

• Kepping an eye out for Tome

Keith Peiris @keithpeiris

For people who hate making decks. So, everyone.

• Liked this bit from them on competing with big guys in a well discovered category

#Misc

• The world is filled with good quests that require massively leveled heroes to complete. good quest makes the future better than our world today, while a bad quest doesn't improve the world much at all, or even makes it worse. Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner with a helpful framework for choosing Good Quests

• Value of a single perk has a 2.6bn$ impact for Meta - also I wonder how much market cap gets wiped off from Lyft after this

  

  That’s all from us for 2022 - have a great 2023 and reply to this mail if you want to hang with some smart operators and founders at The Operators Collective.
  
  Cheers,

  Keshav