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As you make have noticed, we’ve started incorporating top news stories as a first segment to the show. By the numbers, it looks like this is driving more engagement and listens for each episode, and it’s something our team is enjoying putting together. We plan on rotating out the news with educational content and listener questions 1-2 days a week. As a reminder, we do “chapters” for each show, so you can click on the sections that interest you most on both Youtube and podcast players.
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- E1220: US crypto regulation, Robinhood IPO access + Magic Spoon’s Gabi Lewis on product-market fit
- E1219: Emergency Pod! Huge Bitcoin correction, Robinhood IPO rumors, Squarespace direct listing
- E1218: Marketing SEO & Conversion | Scaling Your Startup S2 E6: Doriane Mouret & Danielle Vincent
- E1217: Big tech streaming M&A + NYT’s Taylor Lorenz on creators, Clubhouse & Jake Paul’s VC fund
- E1216: Emergency Pod! Twitter is reportedly building a paid subscription called “Twitter Blue”
Click on the picture for any episode to go to the TWiST episode webpage, click on the titles to go to the Podcast Notes.
Magic Spoon’s Gabi Lewis – a product-led playbook for launching DTC | E1220
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E1220: Gabi Lewis – DTC Playbook
Magic Spoon
Gabi’s first company EXO made cricket protein bars that sold well in niche communities but never made the jump to mass appeal. Now, his new company, Magic Spoon has hundreds of thousands of customers. He shared how he approaches building a food brand.
“Sell something that people actually want, which sounds flippant, but I think a lot of founders don’t quite appreciate product-market fit.” – Gabi Lewis
- It’s incredibly difficult to innovate simultaneously on supply chain, product, and marketing. When you have a small team, you rarely will have the right skills to tackle all three in sync.
- Mass consumer behavior doesn’t radically change overnight, you need to frame your new product in the context of existing habits & routines.
- In the food industry, very few food brands are able to grow meaningfully beyond a “hero” product. It’s important to be focused.
Lessons on Marketing SEO & Conversion | Scaling Your Startup S2 E6
E1219: Bitcoin Price Correction & More
The Chinese Government reiterated and strengthened its existing restrictions on the use of cryptocurrencies in China. In this episode, Jason delivers his take on the long-term implications for bitcoin.
We also covered the business model & competitive landscape for both Robinhood and Squarespace in advance of their respective potential (rumored) IPO and direct listing.
E1218: SEO & Conversion Funnels
At the Launch conference in 2018, Chamath cited that almost 40% of all VC dollars funnel back to Facebook and Google for advertising. If your startup does spend to grow, it’s important to do so efficiently. This week’s guests cover the marketing concepts needed to scale.
Doriane Mouret, CEO of Gravity explains how to optimize your conversion funnel. Danielle Vincent‘s Outlaw Soaps has built a significant part of their multimillion-dollar business on an SEO strategy. She covers how small fixes can bring big results.
Top Takeaways
- Sales and marketing funnels need to be built holistically. Yes, focusing on a specific channel improves effectiveness, but only concentrating on one activity within the funnel is a waste of money.
- More than half the companies in each sector do not understand how to do conversions right. In nearly every industry, the average conversion rate is double the median.
- For Search Engine Optimization (SEO) start with the most specific keywords that relate to your product, so you can become #1 for a few niche terms. Then expand to larger keywords, exploiting opportunities where there is higher search volume but low competition.
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E1217: Taylor Lorenz on the creator economy & more
The New York Times
Taylor’s coverage of internet culture grew out of previous work running social media accounts for large publications like The Daily Mail. Her reporting digs deep into internet trends and influencers across social media apps and sharing platforms. This episode covered:
The Creator Economy – Some influencers with large, engaged, multiplatform audiences have grown that despite (and sometimes because of) bad behavior. Taylor translates why Jake Paul & David Dobrik have been able to grow unchecked by Youtube and what traits creator VCs will need to be successful.
Substack vs. Incumbent Media – A recent emerging narrative is that the best of legacy media & journalists will go independent to realize fair market compensation. Taylor refutes the broad applicability of that narrative, the NYT provides her with advanced funding to travel to report on stories and handles legal defenses. For many reporters, the structure of a media company is preferred, even if it’s not the most financially rewarding. However, she does think the emergence of newsletters and the extra competition is good for media in general. With declining ad revenues and the proliferation of the internet, journalists can’t cover every story they’d like to. She encourages companies to publish their own blogs and build up direct channels with an audience.
Twitter reportedly building paid subscription “Twitter Blue” | E1216
E1216: Twitter Blue
Twitter’s product velocity has been incredible since the beginning of 2020, as they’ve shipped Spaces (social audio) and Tip Jar (tipping functionality), and have announced Super Follows (allowing users to pay their favorite accounts for premium content)
Three of Twitter’s six acquisitions of 2021 (so far) are directly related to the product and provide a good indication of where they plan on adding premium features.
Product Acquisitions
- Breaker: This audio app was shut down and the team was reassigned to launch Twitter Spaces. Twitter Spaces just announced Ticketed Spaces last week, where it will take a 20% fee for collecting payment to live audio events.
- Revue: A newsletter product to compete with Substack will directly allow Twitter users to market their long-form content on Twitter’s platform.
- Scroll: This reading app shows content ad-free and pays the publisher for the ad revenue they would have received. This will now be part of Twitter Blue.
Listen to the full episode for the full breakdown.