Guillermo Albizuri

The Future of Online Marketplaces: A $468 Billion Opportunity Exciting times ahead for e-commerce! By 2024, US consumer spending on online marketplaces is set to hit $468.33 billion. Here's what you need to know: 🔑 Key Trends: 1️⃣ New players like Temu and TikTok Shop are shaking up the market 2️⃣ Gen Z is driving growth on mobile-first platforms 3️⃣ Consumers prioritize deals, low prices, and fast shipping 💡 Insights for Brands: • Amazon still dominates, thanks to Prime's appeal • TikTok Shop ads are killing it with 70%+ conversion rates • Opportunity to capture Gen Z through video ad formats 🔮 What's Next? As online marketplaces expand, success will hinge on meeting evolving consumer needs. Brands need to focus on building loyalty and creating compelling reasons for shoppers to return. Are you ready for the future of e-commerce? How is your brand adapting to these trends? #Ecommerce #OnlineMarketplaces #DigitalMarketing #RetailTrends

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THE LITTLE TECH AGENDA Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz July 5, 2024 Little Tech is our term for tech startups, as contrasted to Big Tech incumbents. Little Tech has run independent of politics for our entire careers. But, as the old Soviet joke goes, “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.” We believe bad government policies are now the #1 threat to Little Tech. We believe American technology supremacy, and the critical role that Little Tech startups play in ensuring that supremacy, is a first class political issue on par with any other. The time has come to stand up for Little Tech. Our political efforts as a firm are entirely focused on defending Little Tech.[1] We do not engage in political fights outside of issues directly relevant to Little Tech. But we will fight for Little Tech – for the freedom to research, to invent, to create jobs, to build the future – with all of our resources. We find there are three kinds of politicians: * Those who support Little Tech. We support them. * Those who oppose Little Tech. We oppose them. * Those who are somewhere in the middle – they want to be supportive, but they have concerns. We work with them in good faith. We support or oppose politicians regardless of party and regardless of their positions on other issues. We are in this for the long haul. https://lnkd.in/dv55TzU4

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+5,000 followers on Linkedin! 🎇 👀   Since leaving Amazon two years ago, I'm incredibly grateful for the sheer number of amazing people I have crossed paths with - from sellers and partners at numerous industry events, to investors and fellow founders. I am glad to have you all along with me for this crazy ride.   To celebrate this milestone I'll share some thoughts on KPIs, and the frameworks behind defining the milestones we are actively trying to achieve. My learning since founding Ecomtent is incredible discipline is needed to anchor the entire company around 2-3 core metrics.   In my previous role, leading a team of PMs at Amazon, I was guilty of the inverse of this. On my team, each PM tracked several individual KPIs we set at the beginning of the year, specific to their program. The goal was to give individuals ownership. However, the result was a laundry list, and different team members across the organisation optimizing for different things. Tech prioritisation was a nightmare.   A better framework is one Primary metric, and 1-2 additional secondary metrics. The Primary metric should be a monetary measure - revenue or profitability. Secondary metrics should be more business-specific, inputs to drive this primary metric. For example, in its growth stage, Airbnb had a primary metric of revenue, but the secondary metrics of beds on the platform and responsiveness of hosts. There are a thousand different ways teams across the company could help to drive up these two secondary metrics - initiatives and innovation on product, sales, marketing. Team and individual goals should be structured to contribute to these 2-3 KPIs.   Your KPIs also should reflect the overall strategy. By strategy, I mean specific trade-offs you are consciously making - betting on X and not Y. For example, at Ecomtent, one of our initial secondary metrics was # managed product listings to build defensibility. This dictated our behaviour, e.g. spending dev time building a robust product that could handle catalogues with hundreds of thousands of SKUs; and our pricing. However since filling a patent, our strategy has evolved. We fired this KPI and replaced it with reducing churn. This meant listening to customers, and from their feedback dedicating resources to improving our lifestyle image generation models to ensure it remains best in class in a competitive market. It also meant delighting and surprising customers with innovations such as 'auto prompting' to improve image quality. Since firing # managed product listings, and focusing on reducing churn, we have been able to move the dial on this KPI with a reduction of -51%.   I could imagine as Ecomtent grows, that we grow our number of secondary KPIs from two to 5 or 6. But I vehemently believe discipline is needed, that KPIs should be set by leadership, monitored on a weekly basis by the entire company or business unit and fired if the strategy or landscape shifts. Do you agree? Should large teams fire their KPIs? 

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Amazing Nubank! Funded 9 years ago is the most influential finance company, not only fintech but financial company, in 2024  1. Nubank got a higher valuation than Paypal, $62.9 billion (Nubank) vs $61.9 bn (Paypal).  2. In 2023, Nubank hit $1 billion in profit, a first for any Western online-only bank. Nubank in 2023 launched 40 new products with 9000 employees (around a quarter of what Santander has in Madrid for Tech Support) And remember that it was set up for 1 main expat founder, with no bank experience and a bunch of interns doing research and MVPs in Brazil. https://lnkd.in/dnbMAqdT Now tell me that the insurance industry is working well globally and that will not have similar change-makers.  Who is in? 😉 🚀

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Black-box automation systems like Advantage+ and PMax are designed to deploy the entirety of an advertiser's budget while meeting their performance targets. This creates the incentive for waste: a platform can balance high-value and low-value inventory to exhaust an advertiser's budget while delivering the requisite ROAS. How does this dynamic change in a recession? Advertisers will likely a) cut brand spend and b) shift budget to the largest, most dependable, and most sophisticated platforms. But to what degree do black-box automation campaigns scale? Far more low-value inventory exists than high-value inventory. With more money being allocated to the largest platforms' automation tools -- placing more demand on their high-value inventory -- can these platforms continue to deliver acceptable performance while consuming additional budget? What's the upper limit?

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Here is a market research for your next product idea. Verticals at which VCs want to throw their wallets. https://lnkd.in/d_EhqYcU It’s not a secret yet for some reason YC doesn’t get enough submissions in these domains. There’a at least 1 good idea I’ve got from reading this - Programming Language (or framework or fork) for New Space domain. There are some lessons to take from SpaceX approach to development and how they handle system recovery. Having this baked into language with set of testing tools to stress test the system is something that is needed to make programming for New Space more approachable. You could license tools on top of that. Do you have any other ideas? #vc #money #ycombinator #programming #spacex #newspace #startup

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From overcoming rejections to pioneering new markets, discover key strategies for first-time founders to thrive 👇 Drew Houston (Founder & CEO of Dropbox) provides valuable insights on overcoming early challenges, building a successful startup, and maintaining a strong mission and culture in “How to Win as a First-Time Founder, a Drew Houston Manifesto”. Check out the key insights in the attached presentation 👇 ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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Last week, Village Global and I hosted a dinner with some incredible AI founders and leaders in Paris. It was an intimate occasion where we shared successes and challenges building AI products, defensibility in the Gen AI world, AI safety, and a lot more. There is no doubt Paris has emerged as one of the most exciting AI ecosystems today. A huge thank you to Thibault Martin of Dust, Alice Schoenauer Sebag of Cohere, Gustave Ronteix of Orakl Oncology, Guillaume Candeli of Workera, Malo Marrec (Stealth), Marc Sanselme of Scopeo, Maxime Voisin of Cohere, François-Guillaume Fernandez of Quack AI (YC S23), Olivier Moindrot of Fragment (YC S23), Pablo Ducru of Raive, Paul Duan of Bayes Impact, Sarah Najmark of Osium AI (YC S23), Sébastien Boyer, Thomas Palomares, and Thomas Cloarec of CreateApp.ai (EF W23) for coming!

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Hello network! After more than a decade, my last day at Google was July 21, 2024. I’ll have more to share tomorrow, but I'm really excited about what's next. Moving to California in 2011, I was convinced my home-printed Google Bus pass wouldn't get me to the Googleplex. Once I was in, I never wanted to leave, and rarely did. I took full advantage, and I got the (literal) t-shirt. Some highlights: - 31 Google offices visited: Thank you, AdSense in Your City, NBU, and Pixel! - All the phones: I'll never forget the cloak-and-dagger pickup of my first hardware dogfood, and launching Nexus 6P/5X, Android One phones in Nigeria & Turkey, and the Pixel 2 & 3. - Google Pay India: Working around the clock and the globe to launch Google Tez to XX million users in India in the first year. - Puzzle pieces: 39 Google Patent Awards, 10 Defensive Publications, and 120+ IDFs. - Google Domains 5x5: We grew Google Domains 5x over 5 years to become the 3rd largest Domain Registrar globally, leading to Squarespace's acquisition. - Growing my Family: A Google conference introduced me to my wife, the dog-friendly workplace let us get Theo (dog, 4), and the benefits helped us grow our family (Miles, 3, and Norah, 1). If you find yourself visiting the Pacific Northwest, don't be a stranger✌🏻

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+++ exits exist +++ Last week Cobee 🇪🇸 from Speedinvest portfolio signed an agreement to join Pluxee (fka Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services) 👏 😎 quick recap: 2019 375k pre-seed round ESC Venture Capital SGEIC (antes Encomenda Smart Capital), LANAI Partners 2020 2.1m seed round Speedinvest and Target Global 2021 14m seriesA Balderton Capital DILA Capital 2022 40m seriesB Notion Capital Octopus Ventures 2024 trade sale To Borja Aranguren and everyone at the fantastic team Cobee: All the best for the next stage of your journey of redefining employee benefits and thank you for trusting us with your seed round!!! 🙏 Some personal observations and thoughts: 🔸 Pluxee spun out from Sodexo (roots dating back to 1892!!) and listed on Euronext (EPA: PLX) in January 2024 to form a pure player and the global leader in employee rewards & benefits. Pluxee serves 1.7m partner retailers, 500k corporate clients and 36m consumers. A large base for scale. 🔸 It took Cobee (only) 5yrs from pre-seed to exit. They started from scratch to build a digital player in the space. 🔸 The avantgarde of smart european corporates is actively driving the digital transformation of their industries and business models by M&A and investing in startups. With this acquisition Pluxee is going FFD in mastering the digital transformation of its industry. 🔸 If the economics make sense and the strategic and cultural fit is there then swift action pays off for all: 1) for the founders and the startup's employees who get the unique chance to grow and see their "baby" adding value to the economy 2) for the acquiring corporate to leapfrog digital transformation And last but not least for the VCs involved and all their LPs underpinning the attractiveness of the asset class VC. 🔸 We all need more of this! Esp in Europe. It produces full-cycle experienced founders in under a fund's lifespan. This is so crucial to the whole tech & VC ecosystem. And to the wider economy! Good Luck team Cobee for your onward journey!! EU-Startups has more: https://lnkd.in/eSZDKPXm Invest Europe invest.austria #venturecapital

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💼📈 Welcome to this next chapter in efficient-client communication, brought to you by none other than AI Parabellum! Their introduction of their new platform ToMate couldn't have come at a more critical time. 💻 In a world where everything runs at the speed of light, and technology is our best companion, being able to effectively liaise with your clients is non-negotiable. The continuous evolution of the digital landscape narrates an insistent demand for tools that keep businesses connected in a fast-paced and proficient manner. 🌐 Introducing 'ToMate', a tool developed strategically to tackle this burning issue. Between missed emails, delayed responses and passed deadlines, we all understand how communication snags can cost businesses dearly in terms of credibility and customer satisfaction. 🎯 Key points of consideration about 'ToMate': • It appreciates the urgency of business responses • It enhances mutual understanding and clarity • It facilitates businesses to streamline correspondences and tasks, making functions smoother and more reliable ✨ The dawn of 'ToMate' imprints a whole new transformative scenario for businesses. Sharing my excitement for what this may mean for the industry, I predict that 'ToMate' will evidently become the 'next big thing'. I envisage high-scale adoption across industries – a game-changer that confidently addresses the communication problem with clients, redefining standards altogether. 🚀 As professional as it sounds, 'ToMate' isn’t merely a tool, it is a catalyst empowering individuals, brands, and businesses to forge ahead in their game. It aims at facilitating an environment where nobody needs to settle for anything less than perfect when it comes to connecting with clients. And isn't that a step closer to business perfection? 🦾 Offering us with tools to combat existing gaps in client communication, ventures like 'ToMate' represent the outstanding possibilities of technology and artificial intelligence. I am keenly enthusiastic to witness how this solution alters the face of business communications. 🔮 It is both delightful and inspirational to foresee the prospects of breakthrough innovations like 'ToMate'. Notably, it transpires a positive sign for tech buffs like us to stay hooked for ground-breaking advancements around the corner. Indeed, the future looks radiant with 'ToMate'! Encouraging all communication experts and enthusiasts to stay tuned. Here's to a unbroken communication journey ahead! #ToMate #Communication #Innovation #AI.

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The Best Predictor of Startup Success Last week, I met with my cofounders for an off-site in London. It was a great moment to strategize and plan, but most of all, to reconnect personally. mxHERO’s most vital asset is its team. We (cofounders and team members) have been together since its inception over a decade ago. All these years have taught me about the most important predictor of startup success. When a team embarks on its journey, no matter how clear the destination or favorable the breeze is, the weather will change for almost every startup. When the gale force winds of insufficient capital, high waves of unresponsive markets, or lightning strikes of technical issues pound your little ship, it becomes hard to navigate when you’re scrambling to stay afloat. Under these dark skies, lofty ideas of “putting a dent in the universe” give way to the earthly “how am I going to provide for my family.” It is a crucible that destroys most entrepreneurial embarkments - ships torn apart, becoming the flotsam and jetsam that continually washes ashore on the beaches of the entrepreneurial seas. But now and again, a craft emerges battered from the maelstrom. Not because they had better strategy, technology, or deep insights - but because they simply refused to quit. In the darkest hour, when nothing was clear, they just hung on to each other. As a predictor of startup success, there is no better indicator than resilience. If a crew stays together and refuses to quit, even those with the smallest odds will succeed. It might take time, but it is almost guaranteed. What do I see in this picture? I see cohesive cofounders, weathered but never broken, proud yet humbled, older but energized. Importantly, I also see all of mxHERO’s team, invisible in the photo but just as present. With profound appreciation and gratitude, thank you, team.  #startups #cofounders #team #gratitude 500 Startups Photo: Me, Marcelo Marmol (CTO), Brunos Santos (COO)

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From a technological standpoint, building a solution like Onlive.site is no easy feat. ⛰️ But we couldn't be more proud of the work that has gone in to it. Here's a bit about our solutions: ▶ The ultra-low latency allows for the smoothest possible #videocommerce experience, something only Onlive.site has managed to accomplish. ▶ That, paired with high resolution video, 3D immersive technology, and many other factors creates a technical demand that Onlive.site has managed to sustain and grow. 📈

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Measuring the impact of launches for e-commerce companies can be quite complex. I’m thrilled today to share insights written by Liron Asulin, our Head of Growth & Analytics at Loops. Liron is a #datascientist and growth leader, with experience leading analytics teams in the e-commerce space. In this post, she’s outlined the challenges - and what you can do to help address them: By Liron Asulin: One of the biggest challenges of #ecommerce companies is to measure the impact of their product efforts. The main reason for that is that e-comm product metrics are affected by so many factors: marketing campaigns (digital and non-digital); changes in SKUs; external factors (competition, weather, holidays); pricing changes; discount campaigns; and product changes and content changes. Usually, those changes happen at the same time and as a result, it’s really hard to isolate the impact of this launch on your KPIs. Moreover, as opposed to SaaS platform, the user journeys are quite short, so the changes could easily affect each other. So what do you do? Here are a few potential solutions: ➡ Running Multivariate experiments - If you have enough traffic, you can test more than one change at the same time. ➡ Leverage causal inference models - Causal inference models create synthetic controls to calculate what would have happened had you not launched this new change. They take into account factors like seasonality, KPIs trends, marketing changes, and other launches. At Loops, we look at two different analyses: ✅ Release Impact - Measures the impact of your new release, without looking at specific features. This analysis is great for a new app version and improved performance/latency, for example. ✅ Feature Impact - Measures the impact of a specific feature on your KPIs. This analysis is great for measuring the impact of a new content piece, SKU changes and a new email marketing campaign, for example. So, how have you been handling this issue?

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Delivery Hero currently has a market cap of about $6.5 billion with a revenue multiple hovering around 0.5. If we compare this with its direct competitors or international players in the same space, Delivery Hero seems extremely undervalued right now. They made nearly $11 billion in total revenue in 2023, up 20 percent YoY from $9.2 billion in 2022. Here are some examples. 1/ Jahez, which Delivery Hero directly competes with, in Saudi, made $476 million in revenue in 2023, up 11.4 percent YoY. It currently has a market cap of $1.3 billion with the revenue multiple at ~2.8. (It has btw lost almost 50 percent of its value from its peak in March earlier this year, more on that soon). 2/ Doordash brought $8.36 billion in revenue in 2023, growing 27 percent YoY. It currently has a market cap of ~$46 billion. Revenue multiple is around 5.5. 3/ Zomato which has become the biggest internet company of India made $1.45 billion revenue in 2023 (calendar year), up 54 percent YoY. Its market cap is at $23 billion, with revenue multiple at 17. Doordash and Zomato are obv. in different geographies with so many other things at play. Jahez has been profitable for years now. Zomato also turned its first quarterly profit last year. Delivery Hero, on the other hand, has been making huge losses at the group level. It made a net loss of over $2.5 billion in 2023. Adjusted EBITDA was about $280 million and expected to grow three times in 2024. The company has been profitable in some of its markets with with the Middle East & North Africa (including) Turkey as one of its best-performing regions. Both in terms of profits and growth. There's also another way to look at it. Instead of comparing DH with international players or local competitors, we ungroup it. For example, if Delivery Hero Saudi (which is basically HungerStation) was an independent firm, it could have a market cap of $2.3 billion, based on 2023 revenue and using Jahez's revenue multiple (as a proxy). Let's take this a step further. Delivery Hero MENA made nearly $3 billion in revenue in 2023 (excluding dark store sales), up 26 percent YoY. If we use the same Jahez multiple as a proxy, Delivery Hero MENA alone should be worth $8.4 billion (which is more than the group's actual current market cap). The biggest risk it faces though is increasing competition from the local players. Jahez, for example, has been eating its share in Saudi, and could do the same in the rest of the region. The local players in other markets could also replicate that and there are also threats of other international large players like Meituan entering DH markets. But even with all those risks, Delivery Hero, with the track record it has, seems extremely undervalued. PS. This is not investment advice. PPS/Update. Yadgar has added a lot more context on what's going on with Delivery Hero in different markets in the comments below.

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Whenever I hear about new government incentives to attract people, I think of Balaji and the network state. Take Portugal’s Golden Visa program: it offers residency to those who invest in real estate or business. In the network state, there's a concept called a network union. It’s the idea that people can band together to secure better deals or benefits for its members, leveraging group buying power. These better incentives will lead to more people willing to move or make big changes. And incentives shape outcomes.

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Turns out, Sword Health has an interesting org structure where they hire ex-founders/wannabe founders as GMs, invest $1 million as a seed round, and give them 12 months to work. If the product performs well after a year, they follow up with a Series A investment. We do something similar at Docquity, and each time, the products have generated quite a bit of value for the organization in a fraction of the time it usually takes. In my humble view, this is the only way to create urgency and build value from 0 to 1 as a company matures. h/t Nikhil Krishnan

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"Healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news" ("The Hard Thing About Hard Things" - B. Horowitz, 2014) A few years after my first read-through of this #book, I decided to revisit it and see how my perception may have changed on some of the topics discussed, especially after gaining more personal experience working on a truly complex project. I'm about halfway through this reading, and above all, I've noticed that today the points shared by B. Horowitz produce a less "epic" sensation and a more realistic feeling when he describes tough decision-making, the urgency of action, the need to take responsibility, and the importance of remembering that there are more choices available than those initially presented. Today, I was struck by the importance Ben places on "sharing bad news" and being true to reality with your team to overcome the most difficult moments for a company. I definitely resonate with this sentiment since R. Dalio's radical transparency (https://lnkd.in/dc4KUFg7) has been instrumental in helping my team and I reach where we are today.

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Unlocking European Markets: Expert Insights on Successful Tech Entry & Expansion Q: As a founder of a B2B IT startup in Silicon Valley, I'm keen on exploring opportunities to introduce our products and services to the European market. What strategies should I consider for entering and building solid foundations?** A: Diving into the European market can be quite daunting for startups. While the European Community facilitates trade across its member countries, local and regional differences persist, creating complexities, especially with initial sales efforts. Many European sales teams, particularly the larger, well-known ones, may have widespread contacts but typically cater to established companies with recognized brands. These firms might not prioritize building new markets for startups. However, there are boutique go-to-market agencies that specialize in launching innovative technologies and startups in Europe, helping them connect with local firms eager for a strategic edge through early tech adoption. One standout example is AnotherTrail, a company I've had the pleasure of collaborating with for over 20 years. They excel in making these connections, significantly easing the market entry process for newcomers. Case Study Highlight:  One of AnotherTrail's success stories involves a tech startup from the US that introduced a groundbreaking software-define networking technology for datacenters. Despite initial challenges such as fighting the big mammoths in networking, AnotherTrail facilitated winning the initial logos/references and strategic partnerships, dramatically boosting the startup's visibility, growth and presence across Europe. PS: (April-May 2024): If you’re looking to explore European markets, you might be interested to know that Etienne Coulon, the founder of AnotherTrail, will be visiting the San Francisco Bay Area in early May. For those interested in making valuable connections or discussing potential collaborations, feel free to send me a LinkedIn connection request for an introduction to Etienne. This could be a pivotal step for your venture into Europe! Scott McGregor is a serial Start-up Co-founder, EIR, tech executive, advisor, consultant, coach, educator, speaker & mentor 

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