What We've Been Following (May 15, 2020)
A bi-weekly newsletter from The Takeoff
Hey everyone, welcome back to What We’ve Been Following, a curated bi-weekly newsletter with some of the podcasts, blog posts, tweets, startup news, and more that Lukas, Michael, and I found interesting during the past two weeks. If you missed the last Edition of What We’ve Been Following, written by Michael, be sure to check it out here.
Podcasts 🎙
Robinhood Snacks (Snacks Daily) is personally my favorite podcast. I’m not showcasing a specific podcast here, but the show as a whole. Snacks Daily’s mission is to give people quick insights into financial news / happenings. If you’re short on time and can’t listen to a 15-minute podcast, Snacks Daily also releases a daily newsletter. To get a taste, check out today’s podcast here (they say this is the best one yet) and today's newsletter, here.
What’s Next in Gaming from the a16z Podcast. As a casual gamer myself, I found this interview with the CEO of Unity interesting as he dives into topics such as e-sports and streaming, the potential of cloud gaming, and far-reaching applications for game technology.
Why Tesla Is Immune to Coronavirus from The Readback by Barron’s. Elon Musk’s name has been all over the news lately, whether it be over his thoughts on Tesla’s stock price, his newborn son X Æ A-12, or his recently concluded battle to reopen Tesla’s factory, so it was interesting to hear about how and why Tesla’s stock is still on fire.
Twitter 🐦
Lenny Rachitsky started a highly informative Twitter thread asking about how consumer apps acquired their first few thousand users. The replies were awesome, and Lenny even summarized the thread and his findings from interviews + conversations with founders into a post which I highly recommend: How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users
Personally, I’m not on Twitter too much, but when I am, I really enjoy checking Naval Ravikant’s feed. I think that the advice and content he promotes on Twitter is outstanding. Here’s one of my favorite @naval tweets from the past few weeks:
Articles, Newsletters, Blog Posts, Etc. 📝
Bye, Amazon. Tim Bray, previously a VP and Distinguished Engineer at AWS, shares some of his thoughts about Amazon upon departing from the company.
The Sequoia Guide To Pricing. Great post from Sequoia covering the importance of proactively thinking about pricing, and strategies that can help you figure out the right price for your product.
OKRs. This article by Niket does an excellent job breaking down what OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are and how you can use them. OKRs are a fairly simple concept yielding high value if used right, and our team at The Takeoff just implemented them into our workflow.
The Next Social Era is Here. James Currier, Managing Partner at NFX, breaks down how to create a great social product, and why now is the time for social products again.
Other Things… 💡
Quizlet, a favorite of K-12 students and college students alike, recently reached unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation. I’m sure most of our readers are familiar with Quizlet, but if you’re not, I highly recommend giving it a try.
Pocket is an awesome product that our entire team at The Takeoff uses. Pocket allows you to easily save anything you find interesting on the web so that you can access it later on Pocket’s user-friendly UI, on any device.
The Bitcoin halving just happened this past week, and The Block does a pretty good job breaking down exactly what that means.
Twitter announced that it will allow employees to work at home forever… but that’s not really what I’m showcasing here. I found the thread discussing this on Hacker News very fun to read through, and I hope you all do as well.
That’s all for today’s edition of What We’ve Been Following!
If you want to join the action on Twitter and see some of the Tweets and threads that other members of The Takeoff Community are following, be sure to follow The Takeoff on Twitter (@_TheTakeoff).
I’m on Twitter @roshanchandna 👋
Be sure to subscribe for more incredible new interviews with leading founders, operators, and investors. Stay tuned for our first Contributor interview on Monday with guest Jeff Morris Jr (Founder & Managing Partner at Chapter One).