John Lago

I loved Hannah Clark and Daniel Danker 's recent podcast episode. The best piece of advice was on scaling product organizations. Daniel mentioned that when scaling, he avoids the trap of more of the same and instead figures out what they should be doing as he scales. To paraphrase, what are the 10X ideas that they should incorporate? Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/guYMfMm3

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new episode alert: Magnite $MGNI CEO Michael Barrett breaks down the future of independent ad tech. we talk competing with Google, why The Trade Desk won, and what actually works in M&A. Plus some great insights on leading turnarounds: https://lnkd.in/eAKc84Qi

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3 years of pricing lessons at Equals condensed into one blog post. Since starting the company, we've tinkered a lot with pricing and packaging. It's one of the single most impactful levers early stage companies can pull. I think folks *don't* experiment with pricing enough, or take big enough bets when they do. We've tried free. We've tried completely sales led. We've tried not listing pricing on the site. Matt Hodges details all the plans we've had, why, and what we've learned in our latest installment on Wrap Text. https://lnkd.in/ecckEDba

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⭐ At defy.vc we've been exploring the evolution of pricing in an AI-first world. 🚀 AI-first companies are shifting away from traditional SaaS models and embracing more dynamic, transactional pricing strategies to capture larger market opportunities—especially those tied to labor spend. 🔑 Why the Shift? With AI automating workflows and replacing manual labor, businesses are exploring new ways to price based on input or output rather than the typical subscription model. The goal? Align with customers' specific ROI and cost structures while tapping into industries where labor is a significant cost. 💡 Key Pricing Models for AI-First Products: 1. Fixed Cost (SaaS) – Ideal for daily-use cases, like AI generated marketing collateral or compliance checks. 2. Input-Based – Charges by consumption (e.g., data processed or queries made). Think of AI-powered discovery tools for law firms. 3. Output-Based – Pay for specific outcomes (e.g., automating administrative tasks in healthcare). 4. Hybrid Models – A mix of subscription and usage, giving flexibility without sacrificing predictability. 💬 When to Choose Which? It all comes down to how often your customers use the product, their existing budget for labor vs software, and how aligned your pricing is with the value they perceive. As the AI market grows, so does the opportunity to experiment with pricing that reflects real-world savings and efficiency improvements. The right model could unlock new revenue streams—and new value for your customers. Curious how to navigate this shift? Dive deeper into the pros, cons, and use cases of each pricing model. 🌟 Link to the full post in the comments. Thanks to Ximei Li for the collaboration and thought partnership! #AI #PricingStrategy #TechInnovation #SaaS #AIProducts #StartupStrategy #BusinessModel

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Back in 1997, The New York Times highlighted a “Roundtable in Multimedia” attended by senior media executives. They lamented that apart from a few exceptions like pornography websites and Amazon, no one had cracked the code for a viable 'interactive' media business model. Fast forward to 2024, and Fable has launched Showrunner, a revolutionary platform known as the “Netflix of AI" , which allows users to create their own TV shows with just a few prompts. 📺✨ The way we create and consume content has evolved dramatically. But what does "interactive media" really mean today? We break it down, exploring how it intersects with massive shifts in technology, culture, and new media. And how with a growing "Swipe before Type" generation, there is now an ingrained expectation of interactivity in all digital experiences. We dive into the future of interactive media and gaming and see where we're headed next! Link in comments. #InteractiveMedia #Gaming #AI #TechRevolution #ContentCreation #NewMedia

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Founder intuition eats unit economics for breakfast. Yet, understanding go-to-market fundamentals is necessary before raising and deploying capital. A helpful question to ask is "how much do we spend per $1 new ARR?” (Screenshot is from our dashboard at Unloc) It's a useful metric that indicates how a business will likely perform after raising capital, and more importantly that helps founders calibrate spend. But beware: Spreadsheets are only theoretical and never capture reality. Founder intuition is the true leading indicator. Founder mode all the way.

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TL;DR: Hire me (and my team). Over the last year, my team and I at Endeavor Labs have developed: 1) A custom ML solution for predictive invoice coding for a fintech SaaS company 2) Predictive models for demand planning in the warehousing and logistics space 3) A RAG-based app for answering security questionnaires. (Still a work-in-progress.) We’ve also done a couple data platform builds, helped a legal AI startup hire their founding team, and provided technical diligence for several on M&A transactions related to data analytics and AI. Here are some nice things our clients have said about us: ▶ “Thanks to their capabilities and highly collaborative approach, we were able to get our AI product to market in record time. I would gladly recommend them to other CTO’s.” - Pauly C., CTO of Ascend Software ▶ “I was impressed with how quickly they understood our business, and navigated the quirks of our data and processes to actually deliver a working solution.” - Hill H., Co-CEO of Central Storage & Warehouse ▶ “The systems that Endeavor Labs set up significantly reduced the time and effort needed to get answers from our data.” - Alex F., CEO of Axl.net Are you looking for a partner to help get your data or AI/ML project off the ground? Or get an existing one back on track? Let's talk. (Calendar link in the comments.)

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Sometimes the best product features don’t come from a roadmap. They come from observing how users are already interacting with your platform. This week, I spoke with Sean (Solme) Kim, former Head of Product at TikTok and Amazon, he shared how the Stitch feature came to life. Instead of following the original roadmap, the team noticed users were stitching videos together using third-party tools and re-uploading them. Sean’s team recognized the friction in this behavior and turned it into a seamless, integrated feature within TikTok. What’s even more fascinating is how Stitch evolved. While originally intended for video reactions, users started using it in unexpected ways, like asking questions and creating interactive content that opened up a whole new genre. Listen now for more insights👇 🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/eyXPftpt 🎙️ Spotify: https://lnkd.in/ex4dMBm3 How do you observe user behavior to drive product innovation? Let’s talk in the comments! ________________________ Did you enjoy this episode? Don’t miss out on future insights—subscribe to the Product Thinking podcast newsletter! 🔔 Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ewU7KFwu #productthinking #productmanagement #innovation #tiktokstitch #userbehavior #productleadership

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Roblox has been Hindenburged. Cause for concern? Yes. But a slam dunk short? Not convinced. Here's my immediate thoughts on some of the points: Overinflated Metrics: 24%-42% of actual people DAU versus accounts. Roblox does disclose this, and has been asked about this as the report notes, but it does look misleading to call it "people" in other contexts IF the discrepancy is that much. Toxic (and worse) Content: This is bad. It's always horrible to see this kind of content on a platform with such young users. However it depends on how pervasive it is and how much is due to negligence from Roblox. Not clear to me they demonstrated that, but equally surprising to see how easy they could find explicit content. Never Made a Profit: This analysis seemed pretty surface level for a high growth company, I'd have liked to see more detail. Didn't look at bookings, took cash flow multiple from FactSet and just a comment on large stock based comp. Bookings growth largely tracks DAU growth so the issue would be with the absolute number. Overvalued vs Comparables: Looking at Take Two, EA, and Nintendo is overly simplistic. These are not similar businesses. Having said that, it's not an easy one to compare. https://lnkd.in/ekMiQiMA

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Big announcement below! 👇 Let's talk about the current state of GP-LP affairs: 🤯Emerging VC managers have absolutely exploded over the past 5 years. 📈 At the same time, more and more data has surfaced that shows that emerging VC firms tend to outperform larger, established firms. 🤔 All of this has made it intriguing but tough for LPs to know where to direct their attention. 🛍 GPs frequently meet LPs at conferences who are window shopping but not committed to the asset class or emerging managers. 🧾 And both crews get overwhelmed by transactional convos. So Sydney Paige Thomas and I created Abundance. Abundance is a private, nomination-based retreat for active LPs and top emerging GPs to form new experiences together and build lasting relationships. Why Abundance? Abundance is knowing that there is more than enough for more than one to succeed. And a single win within a community is a win for the community itself. The journey of an emerging VC manager from 1st close to final close or Fund 1 to Fund 2 is (1) communal and (2) requires an abundant mindset. LPs look for structure and confidence to feel comfortable investing in early VC firms. Yet many of the feeds we scroll and conferences we attend reinforce inherent power dynamics and transactional thinking, which allows scarcity mindset to creep in for emerging GPs. Some of the best events I’ve attended have been intentionally non-transactional, e.g. Camp Hustle, Recast Summit, and other GPs’ AGMs. The fundraising success stories we see usually involve a community (usually of other GPs & LPs) coming together to support and open doors for the emerging GP. We designed Abundance to be an immersive gathering that fosters these connections. Starting tonight, ~100 GPs and LPs are descending upon Seattle for the inaugural Abundance retreat. This has been under wraps for months and I can’t wait to see it come to life! Thanks in advance to our awesome sponsors who were the earliest believers in this vision: Sydecar, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gunderson Dettmer, & Zelda Ventures. And shoutout to my dad Ed Illig for logo design & Halle Kaplan-Allen being the first sponsor to say yes 🤩 Presented by The Council Capital & Symphonic Capital.

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Why we invested: Gratsi Wine 🍷💸 We led the seed round of Gratsi back in November of '22. At the time, they had zero distribution and their ecommerce revenue was modest. But we were blown away and ultimately decided to partner with the team for a few key reasons: 1. Metrics and efficiency: the underlying metrics of the business were unlike anything we've seen in the space. Gratsi's ability to acquire and retain customers (online and in retail) is unrivaled. 2. Potential for premium boxed wine: we remain convinced that premium boxed wine will continue to become one of the most important categories in the wine space. The volume, margin, and customer experience implications are massive. 3. Founder vision and execution: Stephen Vlahos has been executing relentlessly against his vision since day 1. As we met and got to know Stephen in the early days, it quickly became obvious to us that he would stop at nothing in his mission to build one of the most important wine companies in the world. It's been an amazing two years for Gratsi since we invested and I'm incredibly proud of what the team has accomplished. But I'm perhaps even more excited for the years to come. This team is truly just getting started. Exciting times ahead for Gratsi and the team! cc: Top Shelf Ventures Noah Slakter Jason Sherman

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Thrive is a silent killer of a channel. But driving velocity can be tricky. At least until yesterday. Thrive and Instacart have teamed up to provide Thrive Carrot Ads. Now you can drive velocity with a surgeon's scalpal. Oh, and if you're approaching Thrive's Innovation Program. This is your chance to secure a permanent spot on their digital shelf. If you're interested, feel free to DM me or book a call. (No, I cannot get you 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 Thrive. But I can help you stay there.) ——— 🔹 We grow brands on Amazon. 🔹 We increase velocity in Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Sam's, COSTCO, and lots of other cool retailers. #cpg #cpggrowth #retailgrowth #retailvelocity #omnichannel #retail #amazonagency #retailmedia #shoppermarketing #instacart #thrive #thrivemarket #carrotads

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Consider that Starbucks is a market leader in consumer technology and loyalty and is armed with data and insights to make strategic decisions that can mitigate the macro-economic impacts driving customer frequency down and they still can't hold the line. Restaurants that don't have those resources are absolutely suffering far worse, unable to understand why, and making guesses about what they can do to turn it around. Restaurant loyalty and top-notch apps in 2024 are a must-have to navigate such treacherous waters.

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Exactly this !! Such a good post from Satish. There are no binary, fake choices between founder mode vs manager mode. There is just good vs bad leadership. And there is context, importance and scale of the topic / company. Every good leader at every place I’ve worked at, can zoom into details of “pixels, code, metrics” and can zoom out to the “customers, why, where should we play, how to win” etc They know when to let a process be vs when to hack it and be a catalyst. I’m not a founder, not in the successful founder at scale sense … albeit I’ve partnered with Shruti Kierti Tiwari to build and start two products from ground up (music tech, edtech). But I’d safely say that all of us use both modes— founder and manager every day. It’s just something you do. The mental model is spot on though. A good leader at any company, treats their area with full accountability, and extreme ownership like a founder does. The buck stops with them. They don’t hide under fake career ladders, promotions, circumstances etc A bad leader works to get a quick promotion, knows how to fail upwards, hides under process, knows to subtly re-frame a loss as a win and still survive despite their area getting no results. Shreyas talks about some of these good vs bad leader styles in impact vs optics focus.

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Half of LinkedIn has already weighed in on Paul Graham's recent essay Founder Mode, which criticized the approach of running large companies with "efficient managers." The discussion was sparked by Brian Chesky, who, during an event at YC, lamented that hired management nearly destroyed his company. Everyone in attendance nodded in agreement. Let’s set aside the fact that guys in Patagonia vests may not be the best sample for assessing the success of "Founder Mode." The success of some of these individuals is hard to replicate, not just in other countries, but even in the U.S. under high-interest-rate conditions. Survivorship bias in action. The key question here is: are motivation and accountability for the company’s mission the critical factors for a startup's success? In my opinion, they come second, right after the ability to continuously learn and adapt to changes in the company. For example, the founders of Instagram stepped aside at the right time (maybe unwillingly), allowing efficient managers to build the second-largest social network in the world and a huge cash cow for Meta. An efficient manager, Imran Khan, came to Snapchat from Alibaba, helping the company make a great IPO and improving a lot as a CSO. Bill Gates handed over management to one of his early employees, Steve Ballmer, who in turn passed it to Satya Nadella, allowing Microsoft to become one of the world’s largest companies. Steve Jobs long resisted the necessity of releasing the iPhone and was ultimately convinced by multiple managers, who saved the company, which at the time was relying on a single product line. My conclusion from the stories above: one must constantly learn and evolve to align with the product's tempo. If you fall short due to a lack of skills, motivation, or health, it's better to let more flexible and competent people handle these challenges. You can't blame failure in people management on an inherent flaw in the hired management system.

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At Forum we look at thousands of deals each year across our Accelerator and Pre-Seed funds but only end up investing in a little over 1% of those startups.  As an early stage VC, I am in the business of saying no to nearly every startup I meet, and while there is nuanced rationale for many of the startups I pass on, a vast majority of businesses that don’t meet the qualification to get funded typically fall into one of two buckets. ▪ First time founders have a tendency to go out to market too early to raise pre-seed capital ▪   I’m sure most founders have heard some iteration of this from VCs that ultimately pass on their business.  In some cases it's a blanket excuse covering up for other pass reasons- perhaps a VC doesn’t believe in a team or isn’t bullish on the market opportunity - but in many cases founders simply haven't proven enough to the market to warrant an investment. I meet many teams with an articulate vision for the product that they want to build, but they either haven't performed enough customer discovery to prove demand for their initial wedge product, or need to raise pre-seed capital to build out an MVP.  In those cases, pre-seed investors are unwilling to underwrite those risks.  To be default fundable, teams need to be able to keep costs low, perform extensive customer discovery, and ship some version of an early product - pilots and early paid customers are key. A huge piece of this is having founding engineering talent on the team. ▪Not every startup is a venture opportunity ▪ By definition, a venture backed business is solving a problem within a market opportunity so massive and so desperately needed, that its growth rate is off the charts.   It spreads like a weed, absorbing almost unlimited amounts of capital to fulfill demand within its customer base.   Each year there are maybe 20 companies launched that ultimately have venture scale outcomes. The bar to reach this rarified air is unfathomably high and the reality is the vast majority of founders simply aren’t building for opportunities that have the potential to be one of these generational companies. Many startup founders view VC as the only viable option for capitalizing their business, but not every great business is a venture business, and most successful founders never take VC dollars.  In order to reach an IPO/acquisition large enough to generate venture returns, a startup needs a credible path to $100s of millions in revenue. This is the standard by which early stage opportunities are evaluated. The flip side to this, and I share this feedback often with founders I meet that are building interesting business in non venture markets, if you are able to scale to $10- $20M in revenue that can be a massively successful outcome for a founder.  There are investors who focus on these type outcomes, namely lower middle market PE shops, and the typical path to those deals is a bootstrapped business or a friends/family capital raise.

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If anyone is in North County San Diego, on Thursday May 2nd, we will be hosting a tech entrepreneur and investor meet up at 5:30pm. We’ll have a couple speakers, one of which is a fin-tech start-up raising a round, followed up by a presentation on the state of the stock & crypto market. We host these events quarterly and usually get a lot of founders and investors to attend. If anyone is interested, please message me and I can send you the details. LaunchPad San Diego #startups #startupincubator #entrepreneur #investing #crypto #meetup

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Join Me this Thursday 6PM with Nate Zaru for Creating Product Videos that Drive Sales Workshop. PLUS networking happy hour at Gambit Lounge. Learn and mingle with the top marketers in the San Francisco SaaS world! Join us for a workshop on how to jump into 2025 with an unforgettable product video. You’ll learn what makes the best product videos and what mistakes to avoid. Bring your projects and case studies. Hosted by Nate at MyProductVideo.com with yours truly. AGENDA: 6:00-6:30 Welcome and networking 6:30-7:15 Workshop Presentation 7:15-8:00 Happy hour networking What You’ll Learn: The New Opportunity of Product Videos Why SaaS is different and how to leverage it The Story Comes First Crafting a narrative that defines your brand Work Backwards from Your Dream Context and Formats Planning with purpose for maximum impact Focus on One BIG Idea and a Strong CTA Simplify your message for clarity and action Show People—People Love People Harnessing the power of human connection Show the Product Without Showing the Actual Product Building intrigue and interest creatively Remix and Repeat Strategies to keep your content fresh

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Are single platform gig workers a dying breed? The data points to yes. Gig workers are increasingly multi-apping, using multiple rideshare and delivery platforms simultaneously to maximize earnings and minimize downtime. This trend is reshaping the landscape of driver acquisition and retention. With drivers splitting time across Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart, platform loyalty isn’t what it used to be. Gig workers make real-time decisions based on which app offers the best opportunity, challenging any single company to keep them exclusively engaged. How can companies adapt? By understanding drivers' needs and motivations. Enhancing earning potential, improving user experience, and fostering stronger relationships can help retain drivers. Gig mobility companies and investors should recognize how driver loyalty dynamics affect the industry. Embracing this new reality is essential to stay competitive in the rapidly changing world of gig mobility. Want to learn more about this gig mobility trend? Read our latest blog post for more insights: https://lnkd.in/dkxePrWx

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