Unsolicited Feedback

Our third guest at Unsolicited Feedback is none other than Ravi Mehta - previously the CPO at Tinder, Product Director at Facebook, and VP of Product at Tripadvisor. Now, he's the co-founder and CEO of Outpace, and Ravi is not afraid to swipe left as they

🧳 Analyze the migration from Jira to Linear, including the conditions that triggered Ravi’s switch (starts at 1:32)

🔥 Discuss Airtable's move to conquer the up-market (starts at 27:43)

🔮 Offer some hindsight Unity probably would have appreciated heading into their pricing change this week(starts at 50:41)

These discussions will uncover the secrets behind switching costs and the eternal question of whether to serve a niche or go for mass appeal.

Linear has just announced their latest fundraising, and experts are discussing their momentum. The question arises: How has Linear managed to attract customers away from Jira, considering Jira's powerful capabilities?

Ravi explains that there are two main reasons for his dramatic shift:

Fareed mentions that "the people who benefit the most from project management tools are project managers. However, for the engineers, designers, and bug filers—the ones doing the actual work—the end user experience is poor." 🤔

"If the planning process places all the responsibility on persona X, but the value goes to persona Y, failure is inevitable if the experience is bad for persona X." 💡

Then, the discussion turns to the significant topic at hand: 🔍🗣️

Conditions that enable someone to come into a market and disrupt the incumbent without significant innovation include:

Either you can focus on the power user, but risk alienating new customers (e.g., Salesforce).

Or you choose to remain simple but accept that some customers will outgrow the product (e.g., HubSpot).

The latter option is more challenging, and the trio express concerns that Airtable may be the next victim as they move up-market, away from their Product-Led Growth (PLG) roots.

🎨 Ravi believes Figma is at risk and for Figma Super-fans Fareed & Brian, jaws hit the floor. Ravi defends his stance saying, it seems to focus too much on new products and features for technical users, neglecting the non-technical users. 🎨

💬 In another surprising hot take, Fareed suggests Slack is also in danger due to communication overload. Although it is not entirely Slack's fault, the product has not effectively addressed this issue. 💬

🌐 Brian mentions Zoom. Why?

For those who are not aware, Unity announced a series of new pricing changes that will take effect in 3 months. The most significant change is that they will now charge per installation.

It’s clear Unity is in a real pickle at the moment 🥒, but where did they go wrong and what can we learn from it?

1) 🤔 Didn’t think about their customers’ business models.

2) 😵 It’s COMPLICATED.

3) 🔒 They broke trust.

4) ❌ It’s not aligned to the value that Unity is helping them create.

5) 👎 No Win-Win or Give and Take here.

Let's hope Unity can find a way to respawn ASAP! 🤞🕹️

🚀 Check out the latest episode of Unsolicited Feedback! 🎧

In our third installment, we're joined by the legendary Casey Winters, Reforge program partner and prolific growth expert. 🌟 In this episode, we:

🔮 Revisit our predictions for where Twitter and Threads will be in 1 year (starts at 1:21)

🔍 Uncover a hidden gem in HubSpot’s latest product release (starts at 14:26)

💡 Discuss the viability of the creator economy (starts at 44:17)

🏬 Understand Casey’s perspective on the future of marketplaces (starts at 1:07:41)

Tune in now to get the inside scoop on these topics and more! 🎙️🔥

HubSpot's annual inbound conference serves as a platform for announcing new product releases, with a particular focus on AI-driven solutions.

However, Brian argues that the true standout is not the anticipated AI-driven solutions, but rather a hidden gem that seems to be overshadowed - the Commerce Hub. 👀

🛒 The Commerce Hub is HubSpot's latest product offering, which aims to integrate payments, billing, and subscriptions into their ecosystem.

The experts believe that the Commerce Hub could be a game-changer for HubSpot for several reasons:

💰 It presents an opportunity for HubSpot to replicate the success of companies like Shopify, which generate a significant portion of their revenue from transaction fees and merchant solutions.

💼 HubSpot's SMB focus makes them uniquely equipped to release this offering. Unlike Salesforce's enterprise clients, SMB customers prefer simplicity and having everything under one roof.

🔝 HubSpot's focus on cross-selling and expanding their product suite within their mid-market customer base has been a key driver of their growth, following a successful B2B product expansion playbook.

But, Casey shares a reservation that betting against Shopify is a dangerous game. Only time will tell. 🤔⏳

Hunter Walk's recent article "The only thing which has failed about the creator economy thus far as venture capitalists attempt to get their piece, why there's never been a better time to be a creator," struck a chord with Fareed.

💰 In the article, Walk states that it has never been easier for creators to make $50,000 per year doing what they love.

Casey highlights a few key caveats:

🎯 Different segments of creators have different needs, so a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work 🎯

📦 Fulfillment alone is not enough to help creators monetize effectively, or is a venture back-able business 📦

📈 Creators need assistance in driving demand, which many creator economy companies fail to provide 📈

Brian points out the tension between creators' desire for demand and their desire to own their own audience. 🤝

📉 High take rates can lead to creators leaving once they become more successful 📉

Fareed suggests that there are two types of companies in the creator economy: low-margin businesses that prioritize efficiency and high-margin businesses that focus on craftsmanship.

⚖️ Most creator economy startups are low-margin plays, but can you imagine a high-margin creator economy play? ⚖️

We wrap up this episode by getting Casey's bullish perspective on the future of marketplaces:

Join us at https://www.reforge.com/podcast/unsolicited-feedback for more and subscribe to the podcast. We have another episode coming Thursday with Ravi Mehta!!

This week, we have special guest Adam Fishman, original proclaimed Growth Daddy (defined as a father and a growth expert), a Reforge mainstay, and formerly of Lyft, Patreon, and Imperfect Foods.

Today he and our hosts are discussing Figma for Dev, Zoom’s COVID strategy, and Twitter’s Creator Payouts.

Figma for Dev offers deep lessons and the experts agree it’s a brilliant move.

💰 Figma unlocked unparalleled PLG through their unconventional pricing strategy: Most tools price per seat, but Figma realized that this creates unnecessary friction because when you pay per seat, there’s often approvals that need to happen to add someone. At Figma, anyone who is not editing does not incur any charges.

🚀 Now, they want to capture revenue from the audience that’s already in their funnel: In every project, there are 5-15x more engineers than designers, greatly increasing the TAM if companies now opt to pay for seats for their engineers who are already used to the platform.

🎯 Focus is the name of the game here as Figma takes a step into the Dev audience: Figma could have built a wide range of features for engineering. Figma chose to focus on the part of engineering that is closest to design.

Zoom delivers a Growth Daddy Cage Match between Fishman and Balfour, with Mosavat as the mediator.

Background: Zoom has recently launched several new products, including Zoom Apps, Zoom Events, and Zoom Video Engagement Center.

Round 1:

Round 2:

Final Round:

COVID may have created some challenges, but these five core elements remain strong.

For more analysis, the opportunity to hear Brian Balfour rap, and to hear what the trio had to say about Twitter's Creator Payouts, listen to the full episode. Like what you're hearing? Please give us a review and a subscribe.

📢 Hey everyone! Welcome to Unsolicited Feedback! In our debut episode, co-hosts Brian Balfour and Fareed Mosavat discuss Twitter's creator monetization and enterprise verification offerings, as well as internal fears at YouTube that their YouTube Shorts feature will cannibalize their core longer-form content.

🐤 Let's start with Twitter/X (we’re still getting used to the new name…): 🐤

🔍 Twitter's recent releases include the Creator Monetization Offering and Enterprise Verification Offering.

👍 You cannot think your way out of a revenue gap. You have to ship your way out of it. Twitter used to be stagnant from a product perspective. Now, they are taking swings at filling revenue gaps. It is okay if some of these swings inevitably fail. 

👎 However, experts have reservations about these offerings:

🩳 Now on to YouTube Shorts: 🩳

Join the conversation on Slack & LinkedIn HERE and subscribe to the podcast to hear more Unsolicited Feedback from Brian Balfour, Fareed Mosavat, and upcoming guests like Casey Winters, Elena Verna, Joff Redfern, Andrew Chen, Ravi Mehta, Adam Fishman, and many more.