Anirban Datta

Google just announced at their I/O developer conference that they are officially rolling out SGE (Search Generative Experience) today! Understanding Google's SGE: Google's Search Generative Experience is an advanced feature that leverages AI to provide more comprehensive and contextually relevant search results. It integrates elements of generative AI to enhance user interactions with search, offering richer and more detailed responses to queries. This evolution aims to improve user experience by delivering more personalized and immediate information. How this might impact you: SGE has the potential to shift how users interact with search results, emphasizing the importance of high-quality, contextually relevant content. It will likely prioritize content that is informative, engaging, and answers user intent more effectively. At HV, we have been preparing for this and have refined our approach and strategies to ensure our client's businesses continue to thrive in the evolving search landscape. Some high level ways in which we have prepared for this are: 1. Content Strategy Optimization: We're focusing even more on in-depth, authoritative content by enhancing long-form pieces, implementing structured data, and optimizing for conversational queries. 2. Technical SEO Enhancements: Our thorough audits have additional focus on improved site speed, mobile usability, internal linking, and indexing. 3. Data-Driven Insights: Leveraging AI tools help us adapt to search pattern changes, identify content opportunities, and monitor performance in real time. 4. Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Our team stays updated with SGE and AI developments through industry webinars and training. 5. Client Collaboration: We tailor strategies to meet your specific needs through a collaborative approach. For more details message me and I will be glad to expand.

17

3 Comments

In a surprising twist, startup valuations have quietly rebounded to all-time highs, signaling what some investors believe is the end of the market slump. What does this mean for founders and investors? ✅ Optimism in Startup Market: Investor confidence is returning, paving the way for innovative ideas and disruptive technologies to flourish. ✅ Increased Funding Opportunities: As valuations rise, securing venture capital might become more accessible, enabling startups to scale faster and smarter. ✅ Economic Resilience: This rebound showcases the resilience and adaptability of the startup ecosystem even amidst challenging times. Key Takeaway: Now is the perfect moment for entrepreneurs to seize opportunities, pivot strategically, and drive their vision forward. 💡 #startups #leanstartups #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #leadership

141

59 Comments

This is a great read by Sachin Rekhi that outlines the deliberate startup methodology. If you want to learn more - join me while I facilitate his Finding PMF course where we cover the methodology in depth, including case studies. Link to the course in the comments.

8

1 Comment

Let the wave begin! Pioneer Fund company Recall.ai *grew their revenue 10x* in the past year, has 300 enterprise customers, and just raised a $10M Series A led by Ridge Ventures. David Gu and Amanda Zhu dropped out of college at age 19 to start the company. They've grown it exponentially with a tiny team. They make it easy to build meeting bots that are cross-platform. They're aggregating all these different APIs into one unified API, the way Twilio did with cell phones. At first it "sounds" easy to build a meeting bot -- just integrate with the Zoom API. But in fact there's a huge long tail of things you need to build, security and privacy pitfalls, automations, transcription complexities, integrations, the calendar invites where someone is using Google Meet or Teams, staying up-to-date with the libraries, etc etc. Recall takes care of all of that. It's WAY easier to build on top of Recall.ai and focus on the features that make you unique. Congratulations to the Recall team!

86

7 Comments

Ami Vora is the Chief Product Officer of Faire. Prior to Faire, Ami spent over 15 years at Meta where she was VP of Product and Design for WhatsApp (2B+ users), VP of Product for Facebook’s ads system (now a $130B business), and director of product at Instagram where she created Instagram's first ads platform. In our conversation, Ami shares: 🔸 Why execution eats strategy for breakfast 🔸 Using metaphor to rally teams around a shared goal 🔸 “Dinosaur brain,” “Toddler soccer,” and “hill climbing” 🔸 A pro tip for handling disagreement 🔸 Tips for working well with product-minded founders as a product leader 🔸 The story of Ami’s incredible 15-year journey from temp to VP 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gQasbCbp - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gQCjrhwn - Apple: https://lnkd.in/ghYTapTG Some key takeaways: 1. Execution eats strategy for breakfast: While strategy is undeniably valuable for guiding direction and setting goals, it’s the execution—the tangible implementation of those plans—that truly drives success. Without strong execution, even the best strategies can’t succeed. This means being willing to get your hands dirty, to tackle the mundane and sometimes tedious aspects of the work that lead to real results. Successful execution allows you to learn from both your triumphs and your setbacks, enabling you to refine and improve your strategy over time. 2. When handling high-stakes product reviews with executives (who are so inundated with information that they can't go deep on all of it, aka "dinosaur brain"), focus on distilling complex information into concise, actionable recommendations. By doing so, you not only clarify your recommendation but also empower execs to offer useful context, patterns, or insights at the right altitude. 3. When having a disagreement, use phrases like “Fascinating! You have to tell me more about why you think that” to show a genuine interest in learning. While everyone loves being right, delivering the best outcome is what truly matters. Put your ego aside, embrace curiosity, and collaborate to broaden your perspective and information set. 4. Use the “hill climb” metaphor to remind your team that moving from a local to a global optimum is like traversing hills and valleys. Imagine your product roadmap like climbing a mountain range, with your current solution being a local peak. Reaching the global optimum or the summit requires leaving your comfortable vantage on an arduous journey to explore other hills and valleys. Trying to play it safe by staying put means forfeiting your shot at reaching the global maximum. Use this analogy to remind your team that achieving the best outcome demands risk-taking and perseverance through challenges. Embrace these hurdles as crucial steps toward success, knowing each stride brings you closer to the summit.

1,338

53 Comments

Learn how to fine-tune your product to meet market demands with strategic customer conversations and data-driven feedback mechanisms 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Brian Long, CEO & Co-Founder at Attentive 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Nick Moran, General Partner at New Stack Ventures and Nate Pierotti, Principal at New Stack Ventures ✏ “The Playbook to Finding Product-Market Fit, When Founders Should Begin to Scale, and Lessons from Building Attentive” ⭐ 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀: 💬 "I think that what we got right were two things. One, I think that we talked to a tremendous amount of customers, before we started building things. So we learned to hear their problems, hear their issues, and then start building and assaulting those, you know, rather than kind of just jumping right into build-build-build, so that saved us a lot of time." ⭐ 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸, 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀: 💬 "I think you're also looking at things like NPS, you know… because if that number starts dropping, it's often because you're no longer solving the problem." ⭐ 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆: 💬 "I think that we've taken an even longer term focus. We know what can be big. And we know it's dangerous to start getting an ego to think you can do things because it's always very hard. You've always got to think towards taking a longer term view, having a thesis around that view, and then understand how the pieces can come together for success." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

1

Are you using AI audiences to see your RoAS pop on your paid media channels? Nowadays, it's getting much more difficult to see RoAS that truly has a good ROI for paid spend campaigns. Platforms are moving in the direction where costs have to go up every quarter, slowly chipping away at any profits left over for brands. With that, we've been working on an AI audience tool to help restore some power back to brands! 🎯 Why Targeting is the Heartbeat of Digital Marketing - Deep Audience Insights: To truly connect with your audience, you need more than just demographics. You need a deep understanding of their behaviors, needs, and decision-making processes (and ideally purchase intent). - Efficient Resource Use: By focusing on segments most likely to convert, you minimize waste and ensure that every dollar spent is going towards reaching potential customers who are genuinely interested. - Enhanced Customer Journeys: Targeted advertising helps craft personalized customer journeys. Delivering relevant messages at the right times enhances user experience, leading to higher satisfaction and brand loyalty. 🤖 Introducing JUICE AI Audiences (beta!): Transforming Good Campaigns into Great Ones - Predictive Targeting: JUICE's AI Audience machine learning algorithms analyze historical data to predict user behavior, targeting users who are at the right stage of their journey to engage or convert. - Granular Audience Segmentation: JUICE AI Audiences identifies micro-segments of your audience based on subtle patterns and similarities, making your campaigns precise and impactful. 🚀 Success Story: How a CPG Brand Boosted Its RoAS by 75.9% with JUICE AI Let’s dive into a real-life example. A well-known CPG brand was struggling to match its competitors in the digital space. Despite a robust marketing budget, their campaigns were not delivering the expected results, and their RoAS was stagnating. The brand turned to JUICE AI for a solution, and the results were nothing short of remarkable. The tool analyzed the brand’s existing customer data to identify high-value customer segments. By focusing on these segments, the brand could tailor its messaging to resonate deeply with each group. Within weeks of implementing JUICE AI audiences, the brand saw a dramatic increase in its digital marketing performance: - A 75.9% increase in RoAS, turning underperforming ads into significant revenue generators. - Enhanced customer insights, leading to even more refined and effective future campaigns. 💡 Takeaway: - This success story is a testament to the transformative power of JUICE AI Audiences. By leveraging sophisticated AI-driven targeting and dynamic adaptation, the brand not only improved its RoAS but also set a new standard in terms of results that are possible. 👉 Are you ready to see similar results? Comment below or send me a message to discover how JUICE AI Audiences can help significantly improve your RoAS!

142

10 Comments

AI-first fatigue is overwhelming us as Mitch Grothaus points out here: https://lnkd.in/g5ryKVq4. It's time we helped buyers understand how products use AI and GenAI. Does a company train its own LLMs or develop its own RAG models or does it just provide a thin veneer over APIs provided by LLM vendors? Would a framework that anyone can use to evaluate vendor claims help? A similar effort in the IT services industry (https://lnkd.in/gf-633dq) years ago helped IT departments understand the capabilities of IT service vendors, morphed into an ISO standard and ultimately created a larger market for IT services. Look for a follow up post that proposes a similar framework for GenAI applications! #AI #GenAI

5

4 Comments

🌶🌶🌶 Spicy take alert! 🌶🌶🌶 No one will tell you this, definitely not someone at Google, but my gut is that the odds of a delay of some kind of a 3rd party cookie deprecation are getting pretty high. There’s only one thing that can trigger a delay: If the UK CMA (the regulator monitoring Google during this process) says that Google has to delay - they’ve got the power here. And it's doubtful that a delay would be announced until much closer to the planned deprecation in order to keep the pressure on companies in the ecosystem. In my opinion, there are three reasons that the CMA might call for a delay: 1) Currently, the "Top Level Seller," which controls the Protected Audiences (PA) ad auction inside of Chrome, can't really be anything except for Google Ad Manager, extending Google's monopoly position in the market. 2) The reported data around ad latency being massively worse in PA is true - and few publishers will use it if this continues. Much of the latency is caused by problem #1, so fixing that would create an opening to fix this. 3) Ecosystem readiness. While many companies have invested a ton of time in building new solutions, this is such an enormous effort that some extra time really would help. There's also a fourth - it was always a crazy bad idea to do this in Q4 of any year. So what could this mean? I think maybe three possible components of a delay: 1) Google makes some token modification to show it is serious about privacy - maybe the expiry window on a 3rd party cookie decreases to 100 days (from 400), or maybe the test group increases to 5%. 2) A delay pushes this into Q1/Q2 of 2025, but not further - the industry has to get this done. Also packaged with this is some ramp-up period, maybe cookie deprecation increases to 50% in early Jan 2025, which will cause enough pain to get the final laggards moving but not enough pain to totally dislocate the ecosystem. And then the full deprecation hits on April 15 (Tax Day and the day the Titanic sank, poetic justice!) 3) Google Ads (since this is an Ads decision, not Chrome) is forced to open up the Top Level Seller functionality to a small number of other companies that meet some objective criteria. This wouldn't solve all of the problems of 3PCD or the Sandbox (cough, all of this is great for Google's core business), but it would make things significantly better than now for publishers and advertisers. I think the odds are better than 50% of a delay, I'm curious what others think and how others think it might happen!

282

36 Comments

Emily Kramer, co-founder at MKT1, wrote an amazing article on wedge marketing - her take on how to target a narrow niche with tailored content and messaging in the early days and how to expand over time. Loved this and couldn’t help but think about how generative AI tools are making this strategy more implementable and accessible than ever! Here’s how: 🎯 THE RISE OF NICHE TARGETING Content that doesn't address a specific audience and use case gets lost in the noise. The solution lies in adopting the wedge marketing approach – focusing marketing efforts on a specific B2B niche (a wedge), speaking to their acute pain points, and converting them into customers. By establishing yourself as the go-to solution for that particular need, you can build trust and extend your reach into adjacent audience groups. 🤖 IDENTIFYING KEY MESSAGING WITH GENERATIVE AI Generative AI tools are transforming the landscape for teams aiming to follow the wedge marketing strategy. These tools enable marketers to bypass a lot of the time-consuming and manual PMM work to craft messaging for distinct audience segments. By analyzing vast data sets, AI can help identify unique pain points, interests, and preferences of niche segments. It can highlight key lingo and terms to be used. And, it can do this at scale as you move beyond your initial wedge. 📝 TAILORED CONTENT AT SCALE Broad or generic content approaches often lead to diluted messaging, inefficient use of channels, and lower engagement and conversion. Generative AI tools enable teams to produce a variety of content pieces – from whitepapers and ebooks to blog posts and social content that are specifically tailored to each niche, all while adhering to your brand and tone. 🚀 STRATEGIC EXPANSION As Emily recommends, after capturing a niche, it's time for strategic expansion – either by broadening the reach within the same audience or capturing new audience segments with similar use cases. Generative AI tools allow you to rinse and repeat with new segments helping your team scale and adapt quickly as you expand to additional segments or use cases. This enables companies to test and iterate and stay responsive to market dynamics. Thank you Emily Kramer for always getting my gears turning and consistently putting out AMAZING content and ideas! 💪 Read more about implementing these strategies here: https://lnkd.in/gae3TTjc #B2BMarketing #WedgeMarketing #GenerativeAI #Personalization #ABM

30

2 Comments

Hello friends! We launched unSurvey on Product Hunt today 🚀 unSurvey lets you conduct dynamic and personalized voice and text conversations at scale. Whether you’re conducting interviews, gathering feedback, or doing check-ins, unSurvey transforms interactions into engaging conversations. Gain high-quality insights like never before! 🧠 We'd love to hear any feedback, and would appreciate your love and support ❤️ https://bit.ly/unSurvey-PH #unsurvey #conversationalAI #engagement #personalization

19

1 Comment

Product-market-fit (PMF) is achieved when a product addresses an existing need or generates new demand, thereby establishing its position in the market. “Rather than diagnosing whether you have product-market fit, this framework outlines three distinct archetypes of PMF which help you understand your product’s place in the market and determine how your company operates.” This framework created by Sequoia Capital is an absolute must-read for founders to self-identify the path that their company is on.

11

There's a new breed of CEO in town. The AI-Native CEO. These people are either rebuilding archaic companies or building in "adjacent possibilities," they're creating truly durable businesses with real customer value, and importantly, they're building their companies in an AI-native way; more efficient than ever, stitching together technologies that once required high-overhead, and focusing their hiring on people who are autodidacts, the ones who are inhaling knowledge on how to improve their own functions leveraging the newest tooling for the future of their jobs. A few of my favorite examples... Valley, backed by General Catalyst, getting 30-50% response rates for salespeople using conversational selling instead of archaic and annoying drip campaigns. AminoChain, backed by a16z, turning biobanks into to shoppable specimen centers so that healthcare institutions and researchers can purchase biomaterial like blood an stem cells and so donors can earn and track their participation in science. HIFI, backed by Blockchain Founders Fund, using stablecoin for B2B payments, creating instant settlement times and eliminating fee extortion. Dune Security, backed by Craft, using AI to test, identify, and train employees on their own risky actions, automatically reducing the biggest risk any business has--the behavior of its own employees. https://lnkd.in/eJUnuM4z #venturecapital #ai #artificialintelligence Antler

69

1 Comment

Three lessons from building and launching a P2P payments app without doing the proper customer validation first (despite knowing better): 1) Building something you need is a great starting point - but not enough to validate an idea. As someone drawn to building solutions, I’m an early tech adopter. This led me to overestimate consumers’ willingness to onboard, especially with a P2P payments app that requires KYC/KYB compliance and relies on a network effect to be useful. 2) Manual solutions are often best to start with It’s good business to be in business - transitioning from ideating to operating as early as possible is the BEST way to learn effectively. While the move fast and break things mindset has attracted well-deserved skepticism, getting stuck in a multi-year build trap distracted me from critical real-world validation. 3) Consumer appetite shifts quickly In my case, the proliferation of free and instant P2P payment options like Zelle added additional pricing pressure that I couldn’t compete with. This disincentivized the consumer event/payment collection market, turning my bottom-up go-to-market strategy upside down. Pitch (https://www.pitch.fun) is currently on the back burner as I’ve begun building custom solutions in various industries to sharpen my skills, solve specific problems, gain a hands-on understanding of operations, pain points, and workflows, and build a network of experts to lean on as I keep my eyes peeled for high-impact opportunities.

7

Last fall Ibbaka research found that the most common pricing metric for AI applications wasper user. This was confirmed in a recent survey by Kyle Poyar and Palle Broe for Growth Unhinged. What are the reasons for this? https://lnkd.in/gNzyy3r6 #pricing #pricingmodel #pricingmetric #AI #generativeAI

6

4 Comments

Reflecting on everything I've experienced, what I've learned continues to evolve. This much, I think, has stabilized: 1) A startup will test where you're at and what you're capable of, and it will amplify every fault and weakness in you until you do the work required to grow. 2) There's really no time to grow as a person during a startup, but you will be surprised by what you're able to do without the tools, talents, and perspectives that would have helped you. 3) Be gentle with yourself and take advantage of every opportunity to honestly look at yourself in the mirror. This may feel at odds, but the practice is to see with kindness, not to only see the bad nor ignore the faults.

19

2 Comments

One function that has greatly improved in GPT-style AI, is its (now seamless) ability to take in and discuss the content from a URL pasted into a prompt. And a great use-case for that, is instant landing page evaluation for quick tips on improving CRO. As with any prompt like this, improve its effectiveness by adding detail about your target market / ideal customer / nuances about your product or service. 🌟 BONUS TIP … and when it comes to finding the perfect content to add to your landing page, one great place to look is in reviews from your own customers. Look through them and see what common themes emerge about what it is that customers *really value* about your offering… So why not paste in the URLs of a few pages of reviews and ask ChatGPT to do that analysis for you… and distil those learnings straight into some finely-tuned benefit text!

6