Product Habits - Bored people quit

If You've Raised Money From Investors, You Need to Send Them Monthly Updates

I tweeted about this last week, and think it's important to reiterate: If you've raised money from investors, send them monthly updates. This is especially important for pre-seed and seed-stage startups. These updates serve as an indicator of a founding team's ability to articulate their business and execute in the market.

By the way, this is not the kind of "it depends" advice. Every single founding team needs to do this, whether it's expected from your investors or not. Your investors can't help you if they don't know what you're up to—keep them in the loop and ask for the support you need.

Stripe Co-founder John Collison Explains How His Billion-Dollar Company Continues to Evolve

Stripe is a $36 billion company as of earlier this year, and expected to be worth considerably more now that 300,000 new businesses have gotten started on Stripe's platform since the pandemic began. Given how successful the company is, it's difficult to imagine a time when investors weren't certain about its future success. But fundraising wasn't always a sure deal. The key thing that helped convince early investors was they already had an existing product that was working. "Code wins arguments. It meant that people didn't even have to belief in us. They could just look at the data and see we were on to something," says Collison. One thing is for certain: No one doubts the data now. 

The Top Tech Trends of 2021

After 2020, it's somewhat hard to imagine what the "new normal" will look like as vaccines being to rollout early this year. These tech trend predictions from 30+ leaders in tech help paint a picture. Here's my take:

• Remote work, relocation, and online connection and learning will continue to trend upward in importance.
• More people will be paying attention to cryptocurrencies than ever before.
• We'll face significant challenges with "always on" technology, resulting in more people taking up digital minimalism and social media sabbaticals.
• E-commerce will continue to grow rapidly, and the brick-and-mortar businesses that thrive will be the ones that integrate online products and digital services. 

FarmVille Once Took Over Facebook. Now Everything Is FarmVille.

FarmVille, the Internet game that took Facebook by storm back in 2009, officially shut down at the end of 2020. At its peak, the game had 32 million daily active users and 85 million players overall. Even though the original game is gone, it instilled a set of behaviors in internet users, and the growth techniques it perfected echo on in virtually every online site or app you use today. This story is a reminder that few products last forever, but the impact they have on society just might.

Web Design in 2021

This is a beautifully done report about the major themes that will dominate the digital design industry this year, and the role they'll play in the work people create. I'm most fascinated to see how platforms will blur the boundaries between real and virtual life, as well as how human identity is used and reshaped to create digital experiences. Which trends most fascinate you?

The Ultimate Guide to Unbundling Reddit

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article about the myriad startup ideas that live inside of Reddit. Here's the premise: "There are hundreds of wonderful startups waiting to be built using this simple strategy: Create a product that serves the unmet needs of an individual subreddit." This is a great read for anyone who is in startup ideation mode, or simply curious about the groundswell of startups that may come out of Reddit just like so many successful companies came from the unbundling of Craigslist. 

The Inflection Point

I've consumed content about business growth ad nauseam over the past decade, and I think a lot of it can be too myopic. When you step back and look at the bigger picture, you can see growth is a concept that scales far beyond business. It exists in physics, biology, history, and humanity—and interestingly, you can thread commonalities about the nature of growth through all of them. This is a thought-provoking read about how natural growth patterns trickle down to all areas of life, including business. 

Bored People Quit

If you want to retain your top talent, keep them from getting bored (or, I'd add, overwhelmed). Boredom is an easier problem to fix than motivation or belief, and I'm betting if you can make work less boring for people, they'll eventually start to feel excited about and energized by work again. After a year of many changes, there are bound to be some people on your team who are feeling a bit bored right now. Here are some things you can do to help them feel invigorated again in 2021.