¼ down, ¾ to go 🕰
What do quarterly wrap ups look like in your company? Ours are reflecting on what we achieved in Q1, doing some goal setting for Q2 and gearing up for an intense Q3. Q2 and Q3 are basically the meat and toppings in the burger, and Q1 and Q4 are the essential buns holding it altogether.
Enough with the terrible analogies - we hope you enjoyed our special issue of Access last week! It was focused on one topic only, a different format and definitely shorter. Should we continue special issues? It doesn’t matter what you said, because we had SO much fun curating it that we’re gonna try doing it again anyway (please don’t unsubscribe).
News has been so sporadic, it’s hard to decide what to cover. Sometimes we wish we could just say it all, but we’ve picked top relevant stories and are sticking to our OG newsletter thesis: drench yourself in startup knowledge with Access.
Happy to report that 89% of people on our LinkedIn said they would choose SPAC over IPO hence proving our followers are #trendy and smart. From our Remote Issue poll, majority said they like WFH because they can be in their pj’s all day… Same here. |
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Share this newsletter with a friend and get a chance to feature your startup, contribute to HOV Opinion or join our upcoming Startup Investor Community. |
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A couple of weeks ago, we were looking forward to Deliveroo’s IPO in the London market. Expecting a market value of around $7 billion, the stock plunged when trading began and wiped almost $2.8 billion of the expected valuation. It's being quoted as the “worst IPO in London’s history.” Find out why. |
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In our remote issue last week we talked about Spotify and Coinbase going remote. Now, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are asking some employees to come back in. Oops, looks like we jinxed it. |
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Who else thought Peloton was just a fad? Today, it acquired 3 companies to add more talent and technology to their portfolio. How did Peloton create all the fuss? Some lessons from the case study here. |
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Remember the Cambridge Analytica - Facebook scandal back in 2015? This isn’t round 2, but in a similar scenario 533 million Facebook users find their personal data has been leaked and could help cybercriminals impersonate or scam people into handing over their login credentials. Why does this keep happening and why can’t we control it? |
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Have you heard of David Dobrik? The famous Youtuber is in trouble as allegations surface against sexual assault by a member of the “Vlog Squad”. Dobrik is the co-founder of Dispo, a photo-sharing app that has raised money from Spark Capital and other investors. The investors are now pulling out, but questions arise on how legit the vetting process is by VCs and whether or not VCs should be working with young influencers creating companies and brands in the first place. |
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Once you go SPAC, there's no going back - Issue 5 of Access gave you insight into SPACs and why they might be better than IPOs. Here’s a real life example: The highly anticipated WeWork IPO in 2019 failed. Now, through a SPAC (with BowX Acquisition (yeah we had to google them too)) WeWork is going public at $9 billion. |
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Need to unwind? Here are our top picks to help put your feet up and take a break. We all deserve it. |
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Mind the product / Video |
This is a great video that every founder and product manager needs to watch. Ken Norton is an accomplished product leader at Google and this talk is packed with learning. |
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The Valve / Handbook |
Valve built a reputation for the cult-like culture that was built at the company. It didn't end up working well and led to the eventual downfall of the systems set up. This handbook gives you insight into how the leadership put the culture together. |
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The recipe critic / Recipe |
Don’t know what to make on Meatless Mondays? We don’t lie so, no, this doesn’t taste “just like rice” and isn’t “even better” but it comes pretty close! |
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Time / Health and Wellness |
Owning a dog is GOOD FOR YOU. We had zoom-hall last week where all our PUPPIES said a virtual hello to each other and we had a really great day. No but for real, studies show that dogs can bring you actual health benefits. Watch this video and see just how happy a Corgi can make you. |
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Safi Bahcall / Book |
Recommended by Usman and one of his favourite reads of 2019. The author’s interview with Tim Ferris is also one that he highly recommends. It’s a good account of technical history, innovation and project management. |
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💬 Quote of the day |
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“In the spirit of April Fool’s Day” - Volkswagen had a great marketing idea but it seems the joke might be on them. They announced a rebranding to “Voltswagen” in light of their new EV investment, but others think choosing to joke about going electric undermines their commitment and capability. |
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💰 Digits or it didn't happen |
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of 186,000 employees at Ford have the option to work remotely. Forever. Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? The 100 year old Ford is moving in a progessive direction, to the desire of its employees. |
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The amount by which average NFT prices are down from their recent peak. Is the bubble bursting already? Well, this is embarrassing since we coined it as the biggest investment trend of 2021. Jk we’re sticking to that statement! |
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The amount Substack is raising, which lands it's valuation at around $650m. What are you even doing if you aren’t writing something on Substack yet? Learn more about the creator economy in the words of Antler here. |
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Sharing the tools we ❤️ - It's all about organization for this week. |
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Culture Code |
Use this to write down your notes, but also to track more complex projects like taking a vacation, learning a language, prioritizing tasks. |
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Roam Research |
As easy to use as a document. As powerful as a graph database. Roam helps you segment your thoughts better. Declutter your mind using Roam. |
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🤓 Pop Quiz |
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What is Bitclout |
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Brace yourself - this is tough. Using blockchain and cryptocurrency, Bitclout is a social network platform that fuels social activity. It’s like having trading cards (coins) that represent celebs and other public figures.
To make purchases on the platform, you use the platform's native crypto currency also called Bitclout (could they have made it more confusing). You can buy Bitclout with Bitcoin. When you create a profile on the platform, you automatically create a unique coin called the “creator coin”. This is yours! When more people buy the coin, the price goes up. What’s great is that the NFT concept we previously talked about helps understand this one a bit better. Imagine there’s a new famous person that everyone’s going gaga over, and they have a creator coin linked to them. If you think they’ll become even more popular, you buy the coin making the $$ increase. Elon Musk (although yet to claim his Bitclout account) is being traded at approx. $90,000. Poor Biebs is only somewhere around $20,000. It’s like horse racing but you’re betting on the jockey not the horse.
Here’s where it becomes really really weird. You aren’t just limited to betting on famous people becoming more famous etc etc, you can bet on regular people. You can bet on YOU.
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If you’ve ever met someone and thought “oh man, i wish I could buy a stock of you” well… now you can. So creepy… In summary; BitClout is not BitClout.com— the same way Ethereum is not Ethereum.com, nor Bitcoin, Bitcoin.com. BitClout is a decentralized network — Applications will be built on top of it beyond the proof of concept showcased on the website today.
Obviously Drake got it wrong when he said "this is fame not clout"- clout is literally the only thing it’s about..
For those who are interested, here's my (very) short Bitclout journey:
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I signed up easily on the site and got a weird combo of words. This is my password forever. |
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Honestly unsure what i’m signing up for at this point. Seems very snobby and cult-like. |
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At first it looks like a Twitter knock off. But then you try navigating and you really don’t know what you’re doing. So that’s me about to post my true thoughts right there ^. |
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I found my Boss's profile so I thought I’d follow him. Apparently you can’t even do that without coins.
That's a wrap on my really really short Bitclout journey. I need some $ for further investigation but that’s a bit above my paygrade so…
*UPDATE* After proof reading this, my boss generously sent me some $ to dig deeper on the Bitclout saga. More on this in the next issue. |
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Embracing your imposter syndrome |
Czarissa Navidad, Designer |
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Busting startup marketing myths |
Onur Ozer, Marketing Expert, Founder at Simple Matters
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🤦🏽♀️ How we felt this week |
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Was this news valuable to you? Let us know! |
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Enjoy this issue? Share it. |
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High Output Ventures, 3 Temasek Avenue Centennial Tower, #21-00 , Singapore 039190, Singapore |
© 2020 High Output Ventures, All rights reserved |
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