We track Product so you don't have to. Top Podcasts summarised, the latest AI tools, plus research and news in a 5 min digest.

Hey Product fans!

Welcome to this week’s 🌮 Product Tapas. If you’ve been forwarded this you can sign up and check previous editions here.

What’s on the menu today? 🧑‍🍳 

📰 Not Boring - Permira is taking Squarespace private in a $6.9 billion deal, while Tesla's profitable Supercharger network is in limbo after Musk axed the entire team. Google I/O brought us a stack of updates, Glue emerges as a new thread-based alternative to Slack/Teams, and OpenAI's Chat-GPT 4o was released (with another impressive demo). Plus news on TikTok, ElevenLabs, and the list goes on!

⌚️ Time-Saving Tools & GPTs - Check out our picks for this week including: better insights from your data, creating code from GutHub comments to interactive voicenotes, creating beautiful demos and more.

🍔 Blog Bites - Essential reads for product teams include a strategy breakdown of Discord’s success with niche communities, insights from Stripe Sessions on the business value of design, and a Mind The Product article on the power of no-code for product managers.

🎙️ Pod Shots - Dive into the latest 20VC episode with Tom Blomfield, co-founder of GoCardless and Monzo. He shares his tips on fundraising, balancing vision and execution, and navigating regulatory challenges. It’s packed with insights for anyone looking to raise capital or build a successful startup.

Plenty to get stuck into - off we go! 🚀👇

📰 Not boring

• Permira is taking Squarespace private in a $6.9 billion deal

• Tesla’s profitable Supercharger network is in limbo after Musk axed the entire team

• GoogleIO took place this week. Notable announcements include:

  • Gemini AI capabilities added to Gmail (summarize long threads, it can search and organize information from multiple emails threads into a single, simple view without having to dive in and out)

  • Google TVs are becoming home hubs, and new Home APIs will give app developers access to all kinds of automations

  • Streaming apps like Max and Peacock are coming to Android Auto

  • Wear OS 5 will extend battery life for smartwatches

  • Android phones get new “smart” theft detection software

• Glue emerges from stealth mode as a thread based alternative to Slack/Teams

• OpenAI launches Chat-GPT 4o it’s new flagship model. O is for Omni, and marks another step towards much more natural human-computer interaction—it accepts as input any combination of text, audio, and image and generates any combination of text, audio, and image outputs. There’s an impressive demo video here (here’s a shorter one - is this the future of teaching??)

  • Equally as impressive is the live translation; in related news DuoLingo’s stock fell 10% this week…

• In other OpenAI news (as if we don’t have enough…) Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and longtime chief scientist, departs

• TikTok is testing AI-generated search results

• ElevenLabs (text to speech, podcast production and more) released a preview of ElevenLabs Music - AI model that can create entire songs from just a few words

• Sonos is on the backfoot trying to counter the backlash from a recent app redesign

• CEO of world’s biggest ad firm targeted by deepfake scam. Fraudsters impersonated WPP’s CEO using a fake WhatsApp account, a voice clone and YouTube footage used in a virtual meet. Here comes a new arms race. Interestingly, crypto fixes this.

• If you’re having a bad day, at least you didn’t accidentally delete a $125 billion pension fund's Google account

  Want even more news?? View more here → 

⌚️ Time-Saving Tools & GPTs

This week’s recommendations:

• datalab - upload a file or connect a database and get insights easily

• Ellipsis is an AI devtool that reviews pull requests and converts GitHub comments into working, tested code

• manyexcel - Generate Formulas for Excel and Google Sheets
  in seconds with AI

• voicenotes - Record new ideas, meetings, podcast takeaways etc., then ask your AI to review past notes or brainstorm new ideas

• Arcade: Create effortlessly beautiful demos in minutes

• Julius - analyse your data with computational AI

🍔 Blog Bites - Essential Reads for Product Teams

Strategy: How Discord won communities

Here’s a great teardown from strategy breakdowns of how “Discord had the foresight to see a new type of consumer behaviour emerging on the horizon: Niche fandom.” 

Design: Craft and beauty: The business value of form in function

At April’s Stripe Sessions 2024 Katie Dill (head of design at Stripe), Karri Saarinen (Cofounder and CEO of Linear) and Yukhi Yamashita (CPO at Figma) talk about why craft and quality maters in product design - including a how this links back to business value.

Learn: Interested in No Code? Here’s an approach to No-Code MVP

In this Mind The Product article Hardik Chawla, a product lead at Amazon, explores how no-code and low-code development platforms empower product managers to build and launch MVPs without extensive coding knowledge.

🎙️ Pod Shots

Today we cover a recent 20VC episode with Tom Blomfield, co-founder of both GoCardless and Monzo. He covers, moving from founding two unicorns to YC VC partner, The YC application process, Hw the YC batch works, AI: Consumer vs. Enterprise. It’s stacked full of useful advice for those looking to raise or likely to raise in the future (whether with YC or not) and well worth checking out.

⚒️ Tom Blomfield: Fundraising Advice for Startups

🎥 Watch the full episode here 

📆 Published: May 13th, 2024

🕒 Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes. Time saved: 69 minutes🔥 

🚀 The Founder’s Mindset: Balancing Vision and Execution

🎯 The Dichotomy of Vision and Execution

Tom discusses a critical aspect of the founder's mindset: balancing a grand vision with day-to-day execution. He emphasises that successful founders must juggle the big picture with immediate priorities. This balance allows them to dream big while staying grounded in practical steps to achieve their goals.

Key Takeaway: Founders need to envision their ultimate goal while also focusing on daily tasks. This dual focus helps maintain momentum and drive progress.

🧒 Early Entrepreneurial Spirit: Tom Blomfield's Beginnings

💼 Childhood Ventures

Tom’s entrepreneurial journey began in childhood. At just seven, he attempted to sell his mother's jewellery. By 14, he was building websites and convincing local businesses to pay for his services. These early ventures were more than child’s play; they were the seedlings of his entrepreneurial spirit.

Key Takeaway: Early entrepreneurial experiences can shape future founders. Encouraging creativity and business thinking in children can lay the groundwork for exceptionalism.

🎓 Y Combinator Experience: A Pivotal Yes

📞 The Transformative Call

Tom recounts the critical "yes" that changed his life: getting accepted into Y Combinator (YC) in 2011. Despite a disastrous interview, the acceptance into YC was a dream come true and pivotal in his journey. The exposure to high-achieving peers and role models like Mark Zuckerberg and Max Levchin was invaluable.

Key Takeaway: Perseverance through initial failures can lead to transformative experiences.

🛑 The Pain of No: Fundraising Challenges

💔 Rejection and Resilience

Tom faced significant fundraising challenges, notably in 2020 during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. After 96 rejections, he finally secured a $100 million investment, only for it to fall through due to the pandemic. This period was one of the most challenging in his career.

Key Takeaway: Rejection is an inherent part of the startup journey. Resilience and the ability to push through multiple rejections are essential traits for successful founders.

🏠 Cultural Differences: UK vs. US Startup Ecosystems

🇬🇧 British Realism vs. 🇺🇸 American Optimism

Tom highlights the cultural differences between the UK and the US startup ecosystems. In the US, there's a pervasive sense of optimism and support, whereas in the UK, there's often skepticism and a tendency to encourage more traditional career paths. This cultural disparity can impact the entrepreneurial environment and the types of startups that emerge.

Key Takeaway: Cultural attitudes significantly influence entrepreneurial success. Embracing optimism and support can foster more innovative and ambitious startups.

🏦 Navigating Regulation: Lessons from Monzo

📜 Regulatory Challenges

Tom’s experience with Monzo, a regulated bank, was fraught with challenges. Despite creating a product that customers loved, regulatory hurdles often disrupted their plans. The unpredictable nature of regulatory decisions made running a fintech startup particularly challenging.

Key Takeaway: Navigating regulatory landscapes is crucial for many startups. Founders must be prepared for unexpected regulatory challenges and adapt their strategies accordingly.

💡 Angel Investing Insights: Over-Indexing on Ideas

👨‍💼 The Importance of Founders

During his angel investing phase, Tom realiSed the importance of backing high-quality founders over great ideas. He admits that he initially over-indexed on ideas, only to learn that the execution capabilities of founders were far more critical to a startup's success.

Key Takeaway: Investing in exceptional founders is more crucial than backing great ideas. The ability of the founders to execute and adapt is paramount to a startup’s success, something for founding teams to think about closely.

🧠 AI's Impact: A Technological Revolution

🤖 Embracing AI

Tom is excited about AI’s potential to transform industries, comparing it to the advent of the internet and smartphones. He believes AI will create new categories and significantly impact consumer behaviour, offering vast opportunities for innovation.

Key Takeaway: AI represents a major technological shift with the potential to create new industries and transform existing ones. Embracing AI-driven innovation is essential for staying competitive.

📉 Lessons from Fundraising: Avoiding Over-Dilution

💸 Strategic Fundraising

YC advises startups to avoid over-dilution during their seed rounds. Tom emphasises the importance of raising sufficient capital without giving away too much equity, allowing founders to maintain control and continue to grow their companies effectively.

Key Takeaway: Strategic fundraising is crucial for maintaining control and ensuring long-term success. Founders should balance securing necessary capital with minimising dilution.

🌐 Building Networks: The Power of Community

🍽️ Facilitating Connections

Tom experiments with facilitating founder dinners to foster a sense of community and shared learning among YC founders. These curated experiences help build networks and provide valuable peer support.

Key Takeaway: Building a strong community and facilitating connections among founders can significantly enhance their startup journey. Shared experiences and peer support are invaluable resources.

🏁 Conclusion: The Journey of Continuous Learning

Tom Blomfield’s journey from childhood entrepreneur to successful founder and investor is a testament to the importance of resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning. His insights provide valuable lessons for tech-savvy founders and product managers navigating the complex startup landscape. Embracing both vision and execution, leveraging cultural strengths, and focusing on high-quality founders are essential strategies for building successful startups in today’s competitive environment.

Want to know more quickly? Just ask the episode below [web only]👇️ 🤯 
or if you prefer, 🎥 Watch the full episode here 

📅 Timestamps:

• (00:00) Intro

• (00:53) Background

• (10:07) Switch from Founder to Investor with YC

• (13:43) European Work Ethic Critique

• (17:14) Transition from Angel to Investor in Partnership

• (19:47) Signals of The Highest Quality Founders

• (21:55) Questions to Ask in YC Interviews with Founders

• (27:08) The YC Batch: How it Works

• (43:38) The Hype Surrounding AI

• (58:25) Quick-Fire Round

That’s a wrap.

As always, the journey doesn't end here!

Please share and let us know what you would like to see more or less of so we can continue to improve your Product Tapas. 🚀👋

Alastair 🍽️.