CB Insights - your newsletter feedback

Hi there, 
 

HNY to all you smart, beautiful, and extremely above-average readers.

Last week, I asked for your feedback on the 2 new newsletter formats we tried — “tweets of the week” and “worth reading or listening."

I got thousands of responses.

And I tried to respond to all of them. (If I didn’t, sorry. Feel free to ping again.)

You all provided amazing feedback, which I wanted to share below. For those of you thinking of building your own newsletter or other content efforts, this feedback may be useful for you.

So here’s the feedback.

Format — Tweets of the Week 

Overall grade: A-

• Lots of folks not on Twitter liked this format. They are not on Twitter cuz they find it overwhelming, negative, or anger-inducing, but they liked seeing a curated set of tweets.
   

• People didn’t realize the images linked to the tweets or found it unintuitive. This was a mistake. We should have linked to the tweets in text as well. Great feedback.
   

• The #1 recommended name for this newsletter format was “Tweeks.”
   

• 4 people were very, very, very upset about the DoorDash tweet and the other company mentioned in it. They thought it was inappropriate and cursed me. Some people love raging on the internet. I’ll never understand these people. I unsubscribed them. 

We will probably keep this one going with some tweaks based on your suggestions. Thank you.

Feedback on the other format — which wasn’t as liked — is below.

But for now…

A round of apple-lause

Apple hit a $3T market cap yesterday — the first US company to do so. That’s comparable to the value of every unicorn we track combined ($3.1T).  

As it asserts its market dominance, Apple has been making moves in everything from pharma to lending to artificial intelligence. Dig in.

Fintechy business 

US banks have eyes for blockchain again. In 2021, blockchain fintechs received renewed bank investor interest after steadily tapering off 2015’s high.

See how other fintech categories rank among bank investments here. 

Feedback on newsletter, cont’d

Format — Worth reading or listening

Overall grade: C+

• The general feedback here was that folks liked the videos, podcasts, and links, but there were too many. They like that our newsletter is generally a quick simple read, and they felt like this was the opposite.
   

• The post by VC Christoph Janz was liked the most by early-stage entrepreneurs. Digital transformation folks at larger cos really liked the Noubar Afeyan video.
   

• Several people disliked the Steve Jobs video, stating he contradicted these comments later in life.  

Not sure we keep this one going tbh. We might still share some interesting articles, podcasts, videos, etc. over time but will do so in a way that is less overwhelming.

Thanks again for all your feedback. It’s amazing to receive and read it, and it will hopefully help us make a better newsletter for you.

Clinically proven

The return on investment for drug R&D is down 80% over the past decade.

Sponsors and clinical research organizations (CROs) are rapidly adopting clinical trials tech to reduce costs, improve speed, and increase success rates.

From digital twins & biosimulations to real-world data, we map out 100+ clinical trials tech companies in this client-only report.

Eyes on the prize

Labor shortages, port congestion, and the ongoing pandemic have placed undue pressure on retailers when it comes to managing their supply chains.

Retailers are increasingly looking to supply chain visibility platforms to more effectively respond to and recover from disruption as well as identify inefficiencies along the shipping journey.

If you want to understand the supply chain visibility landscape or initiate a vendor selection process, download our 36-page ESP Vendor Assessment report here.

Fast Company. Ruth Reader (@RuthReader) covers the telehealth industry’s future and references CB Insights research.

VentureBeat. Shubham Sharma (@shubham_719) looks back at AI milestones in 2021 and cites CB Insights data.

TechCrunch. Alex Wilhelm (@alex) uses CB Insights unicorn data in looking at Apple’s valuation ascent. 
 

P.S. We’re looking for an onboarding specialist to provide a world-class training experience to our new customers. Apply here.