The Product Frameworks Behind Superhuman 💯
Frameworks around customer Onboarding, Product Development, Positioning & Pricing
Hello 👋
I’m Raj, and each week I curate interesting essays, podcasts, and resources around product, startups, growth, and anything else that’s hot in the tech world. Did someone forward this edition to you? To receive this newsletter in your inbox weekly, consider subscribing 👇
A timeless thought ⚡️
Poster designed by GoLimitless
It's important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree - make sure you understand fundamental principles, ie the trunk and the big branches, before you get into the leaves / details or there is nothing for them to hang on to — @elonmusk
What's new
Here are a few things that I've been reading this week:
💯 A masterclass in 10x product thinking
In this essay and podcast, Rahul(Founder and CEO of Superhuman) shares the frameworks behind Superhuman's success. Summary: Don’t launch, onboard. To 10x your product, study game design. To nail your pricing, start with positioning!
👇 The Hierarchy of Marketplaces
Marketplaces that are able to scale the hierarchy build dominant “winner take most” value. What is required to get there is a focus not on GMV, but on creating happiness.
🥞 The India consumer startup stack
A good way to see India is thus as a four-tier market, with each tier being able to support a set of native startups, which struggle to expand beyond their market. Product market fit (PMF hereafter) in one market doesn’t automatically translate to the possibility of a fit in another.
🚀 CRED: Unicorn or Popcorn?
A piece about India's hottest and most polarizing startup started by Kunal Shah. It covers how it built a consumer base, how it keeps members hooked, what the future of CRED might look like & their business model of course!
👌 Lessons Learned from Shutdown Startups
One way to look at shutdown startups is, there is a reason these products no longer exist, so why bother? Another way to look at it is, catching lightning in a bottle is so rare in successful communities, it's worthwhile to dissect what went right and wrong.
💪 Crossing the Canyon: Product Manager to Product Leader
Great execution as a Senior Product Manager, does not mean you will make a good Product Leader. You can continue to put wins on the board and still not make the jump. Fareed and Casey talk about the four key transitions.
Non-tech threads 💯
Things outside of startups & tech that I've been reading:
Did you know 📊
Random facts and stats from the tech world!
🤯 When yahoo.com was launched (1995), there were only about 3000 websites in total on the Internet.
🤭 When you think of Apple's founders, your mind probably pans to Jobs and Wozniak. But there was a third man who started the company with them: Ronald Wayne. 12 days after Apple started, Wayne had his name taken off the contract and sold his shares for $800 back then. Today, those shares are worth ~$100 billion!
🚀 YOLO is the best example of how Snap Kit can be used for growth. This reminds me of how cool it was when Steve Jobs gave shoutouts to apps on iOS.
😂 After the initial launch of the Windows Phone, a bunch of Microsoft employees held a mock funeral for the iPhone.
What if there was 🤔
Random feature and product ideas. Let's get creative! #becausewhynot
🛍 Amazon web conference tool where you can natively browse products if the call is boring (H/T: @ashwinizer)
🚫 Social networks like Facebook, Instagram should have a feature where they remove all ads automatically on their user’s birthday.
🔔 Enable push notifications on phone to receive airport announcements.
👎 Twitter should offer 'Unfollow Suggestions'. It should monitor product usage to find users you are less engaging with and automatically suggest unfollows.
⌛️WhatsApp should have an option to send self-destructing messages. Similar to Snapchat but for all content types: text, video, photo, audio, etc.
🗣 Podcast app that can replace any person’s voice with David Attenborough or Morgan Freeman.
If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, consider sharing it with friends, or subscribing if you aren’t already.
That’s it for this week! Hit me up if you have any stories, feedback, or insights to share. Otherwise, see you next week!
Curated with ❤️
Raj Abishek