October @ The Operators Collective
Welcome to the October Digest of The Operators Collective.
October was a relatively quieter month, we were trying to wrap up stuff before hitting the holiday season and then obviously logged out for a bit to spend quality time with family and friends.
So while this issue is low on content, feel free to check out the previous issues from July, August and September.
On to this month’s programming..
How do you prepare to move upmarket?
Get crisp on your product value framework, use that framework to define your enterprise ideal customer profile (ICP), then align your product roadmap and sales motion to make sure you can service that ICP’s needs.
Abhishek and Robin went deep discussing the Huberman podcast on Dopamine. "There’s a pool of dopamine that synthesized, and you can only release the dopamine that’s been synthesized. It’s the readily releasable pool. The pleasure pain balance doesn’t only hinge on the readily releasable pool of dopamine, but a big part of the pleasure pain balance hinges on how much dopamine is there? And how much is ready and capable of being released into the system? So now we’ve given some meat to this thing that we call the pleasure pain balance, and now it should make perfect sense why if you take something or do something that leads to huge increases in dopamine, afterward your baseline should drop because there isn’t a lot of dopamine around to keep your baseline going."
- Huberbman in his podcast (
"If you looked at dopamine simply as a function, as a chemical function of peaks and baseline, it might make sense why this person after several years of work hard, play hard would say, yeah, you know I'm feeling kind of burnt out. I'm just not feeling like I have the same energy that I did a few years ago."
We LOVE nfx so their masterclass is a must attend. you can use the code "NFXVIP" to skip waitlist, if they still have the velvet rope.
Love it when people bring up content related to topics that were discussed a month or two ago, shows its influenced their thinking and hopefully sometime their way of working. One of our members posted about errors companies make related to retention NSM.
Part of the reason behind low programming this month is also cos I logged out for bit to complete my BHAG for 2022. I generally avoid talking about myself in the newsletter or the community.. but this one calls for it. I completed a Half Ironman distance race. It included 1.9 km 🏊♂️, 90 km 🚴♂️, 21.1 km 🏃♂️. Its been quite a journey as I grew up obese and struggled with my body to actually finishing one of the toughest races under the grueling October heat for 8.5 hours.
The best part I was actually inspired by our community member Shashank - so am really excited about levelling up professionally and personally with these incredible folks at TOC.
Lenny Rachitsky has been delivering gold with his newsletter, he did a wrapup of all the GTM & Growth research under the ‘Racecar Growth Framework’. Includes not just the components of how your startup grows, but also the most popular tactics within each component.
Its a long and valuable read. Infact if there is anything you wanna read for the next week/month - just spend time on this.. Did I already say this is absolute GOLD!
Payments break-down from volume + value. Wallet’s resounding failure evident in these numbers.
Abhishek shared with us his thoughts on incentivised referrals and how to decide if your product needs a financial viral loop at all, and how to think about it wrt execution factors. He had some fairly actionable and engaging thoughts. Thanks for all the learning you bring to the community!
Time to Value is a concept I have been nerding on a bit.. and This piece from Oleg Ya and Go practice team on TTV and how to approach activation based on a product’s specific level of complexity was fantastic.
We tend to believe that one must reduce any friction in onboarding and reduce the TTV, however it makes sense to add friction at certain stages of activation depending on product’s level of complexity. It can help filter out new users who don’t currently have enough motivation and can be given sufficient support throughout the user journey, all the way from sign-up to the “aha moment”.
We also sparred around the 4 fits growth framework by Brian Balfour (market / product / channel / monetisation) which goes beyond just PMF. Product <> channel fit (how certain products can’t be sold via paid ads alone as example or can’t build virality via incentivised referral or organic virality | Channel <> Monetisation fit (CAC : LTV issues etc.) | Monetisation <> Market fit (Willingness to pay | Capacity to pay etc)
I also fun Language Fit to be an overlooked/underrated growth lever.. Kind of a glue that helps bind the other 4 while helping easily communicate internally with clarity and externally to a point where the user feels you have read their mind!
We all talk about NSM very often, but what is a the second most important metric for a company? It is a check metric on the NSM, one that constrains the NSM and ensures that the NSM grows in a way that is sustainable and creates long-term value.
John Cutler on How do you help teams focus on WHAT they are measuring instead of fixating on HOW they will measure it? check the link to find the A, B, C & D to fill the template below.
Right now we are working to improve the ______A________ ______B________ for ______C_______ which we could potentially measure by tracking _____D_______.
Great insights on building a Consumer SaaS business
Internet is filled with contrary advise.. Here’s how Notion, Airbnb, Canva broke GTM rules to crack distribution.
Kunal Bajaj of Blume brings the traditional DuPont valuation model to measure VC performance.
Meta has been in the news lately.. Its crazy that Zuck’s metaverse leader is valued lower than Home Depot!!!
It still remains one of the largest tech companies in the world so we pulled up a few reads on how they Analyze PMF, do Product Management & think about Culture.
Three vital signs that measure PMF:
Stable Retention
Sustainable Growth
Deep Engagement.
Facebook’s Little Red Book on Startup Culture
The community members loved this video of Nassim Taleb -and his concept of ‘anti-fragile’ in conversation with the neuroscientist Daniel Kahneman.
Lakshman from Neverinstall introduced us to Happier no matter what by Tal Ben Shahar
I had covered Antifragile in one of my older newsletters.. where I used to write about non businessy and startupy stuff. I really enjoyed curating that newsletter.. Given the interest from members, maybe will tailor the weekend reads in our community towards personal growth.
Before we sign on off remember - while all this product, growth, loops and marketing talk is good - “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
If you liked reading this issue do Subscribe & Share - if you would like to take part in discussions with other founders, VCs and Operators, join the community here!