el producto #230 🚀
UX research framework, Slack & Zoom growth, Etsy buys Depop, Tesla restaurants, Getir funding, Facebook's Substack-like service, Experimentation fails & more
🎰 The week in figures
$1.8B: Prosus Ventures acquires developer Q&A platform Stack Overflow for $1.8B; Stack Overflow, which claims 100M monthly visitors, also offers a SaaS-based collaboration and knowledge-sharing platform for companies; Prosus owns stakes in Udemy and Codecademy
$1.63B: Etsy ($21B market cap) acquires London-based fashion marketplace Depop for $1.625B in a mostly-cash deal; users sell homemade items, modified vintage fashion, more; Etsy said it would continue to operate Depop as a standalone brand, as it did with musical instruments marketplace Reverb, which Etsy acquired in 2019
$1.3B: Audiobook sales rose 12% in 2020 to $1.3B
$500M: Turkish grocery delivery startup Getir raised $550M in its Series D funding round at a $7.5B valuation. The company, which only recently expanded outside of Turkey, will use the funds to enter additional markets such as France, Germany, and the U.S. The company operates hundreds of micro-fulfillment centers or "dark stores" to offer 10-minute delivery
$250M: Gong, which uses AI to provide revenue insights empowering B2B sales teams, raises $250M Series E at a $7.25B valuation; investors last valued the company at $2.2B for a $200M round in August; customers include LinkedIn, Monday, and Pinterest
$150M: Professional learning platform Guild Education raises $150M Series E at a $3.75B valuation; enables employers to offer their workers opportunities for up-skilling, certificate courses, etc; some employers, like Chipotle, offer free access, while others, including Walmart, charge employees nominal fees
$125M: SpotOn, which provides payments and software solutions to restaurants and SMBs, raises $125M Series D at a $1.875B valuation led by a16z; investors valued the firm at $625M for a $60M Series C in September; offers solutions for tablet-based registers, online ordering, delivery, booking appointments, and more
$100M: Yieldstreet, which enables retail investors to access investments in real estate, commercial loans, and other assets generally limited to institutional investors, raises $100M Series C; valuation undisclosed, but the company said it was near unicorn status; claims 300k users representing $1.9B in funding
$97M: Malt, a marketplace for freelance developer services, raises $97M Series C, reportedly at a $489M valuation; the Parisian firm plans to use the funding to fuel expansion across Europe and to the US; claims 250k registered freelancers and 30k businesses on the demand side
$60M: Tier Mobility, a Berlin-based micro-mobility operator, raised $60M. The funding will help the startup expand its fleet, team, warehouses, and network of battery charging stations
$45M: Personal finance app Truebill, which helps consumers track and cancel subscriptions, raises $45M Series D at a $500M valuation; provides credit reports, spending insights, budgeting tools, and discount negotiations for cell and cable bills; claims 10k signups per day
191%: Zoom ($96.5B market cap) Q1 beats: $956.2M revenue, up 191% YoY; 73.9% gross margin, up from 69.4% in the previous quarter; the firm expects $985M to $990M in revenue for Q3, and $3.98B to $3.99B in revenue for the fiscal year
60%: Asana ($6B market cap) Q1 beats: $76.7M revenue, up 60% YoY; the company projects $81M to $83M in revenue for Q2 and $336M to $340M for the fiscal year; Asana debuted on the NYSE via direct listing in September
35%: Slack ($25.4B market cap) Q1 beats: $273M revenue, up 35% YoY; 169k total paid accounts, up 39% (155.8k expected); ~1M active platform developers; Salesforce is expected to close its $27.7B acquisition of Slack in coming months
📰 What’s going on
Microsoft acquires ReFirm Labs, which vets IoT and edge devices to prevent network and other compromises; terms undisclosed; the firm's Binwalk Enterprise product analyzes device firmware, reveals device vulnerabilities, and notifies clients of relevant risks and threats
Tesla files a trademark to use its brand for restaurant services, likely indicating the company is moving forward with its plans to convert Supercharger locations; in 2017, then-CTO JB Straubel said the company was considering convenience stores with food services; in 2018, Elon Musk said Tesla would launch a classic drive-in restaurant with wait staff on roller skates
Uber and Lyft report increased pricing and wait times as customers get vaccinated and return to normal activities; Uber noted in its most recent earnings report that the number of active drivers and couriers was down 22% YoY; Uber and Lyft have established driver incentive programs to bring drivers back to their respective platforms
Facebook’s Substack-like service will be called Bulletin and will only publish writers paid by Facebook, at least initially
Amazon to activate Sidewalk mesh networking features for US devices (Echo, Ring, and other products) on June 8; owners who do not want to share connectivity and bandwidth with neighbors can opt-out via the Alexa app; Amazon says the service will share a small slice of bandwidth to keep devices online, improve Tile tracking performance, more
Twitter has partnered with a meteorologist to launch a weather news service, with subscriptions starting at $10 a month.
Twitter plans new tweet reactions, according to app assets discovered by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong; the reactions expand upon the platform's current heart icon to add “cheer,” “haha,” “hmm,” and “sad”
Apple plans to launch redesigned AirPods this year and second-generation AirPods Pro next year; the new AirPods reportedly will resemble the current AirPods Pro, but with shorter stems; the new AirPods Pro reportedly will feature upgraded motion sensors for fitness tracking
Crypto exchange Kraken launches its primary mobile app in the US, enabling US users to trade 50-plus tokens; as Coinbase offers primary and Pro apps, Kraken offers a primary app for establishing accounts, funding accounts from debit/credit cards, etc, and a Pro app for advanced trading
📚 Good reads
Top 9 Fails: Experimentation & Testing, by Avinash Kaushik. In a world filled with data with few solid answers, site/app testing provide answers that can dramatically shift your business' trajectory
Five mental models to improve your Product sense and decision-making, by Austin Nichols
The New York Times and dark patterns, by Nir Eyal. A recent New York Times op-ed, titled “Stopping the Manipulation Machines,” derided the use of dark patterns: design tricks that push people to do things online by confusing or deliberately inconveniencing them. Turns out they are not precisely avoiding them
The framing effect: how the way information is framed impacts our decisions. Anne-Laure Le Cunff, founder of Ness Labs, explains one of the largest biases in decision making, particularly in important areas such as health care and financial decisions
UX Research Excellence Framework, by Molly Stevens & George Zhang. A framework conceptualized, implemented and improved during four years by the UX research team at Uber
Have a great weekend.
Angel
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