TLDR FOUNDERS 2023-12-20

ADOBE AND FIGMA ABANDON $20BN DEAL

Fifteen months into the regulatory review process, Figma and Adobe no longer see a path toward regulatory approval. Figma will be continuing as an independent company.

STATE OF FINTECH 2023

Fintech has had a rough year. Not only has VC dollars to fintech dropped substantially, but we’ve seen public company share prices plummet and layoffs across the board. This slideshow summarizes fintech in 2023–from banks, to embedded finance and crypto.

“RESERVES EXHAUSTION” IS COMING TO VENTURE-BACKED STARTUPS IN 2024. EVEN REALLY GOOD ONES.

Beyond right-sizing and maximizing your cash runway, sometimes even your investors run out of cash, even if your business is booming. The reckoning is coming for a lot of really good companies. Deals will be had on the cheap coming in Q1’24.

THE BEST GROWTH ADVICE OF 2023

Here’s a recap of all the top content from Growth Unhinged throughout 2023 broken out into sections based on the stage of your journey–from finding product market fit to acquisition, automating sales, and expansion.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CHURN

Churn has been a painful subject for many founders across all domains and industries this year. There are many variations and flavors of churn metrics. This article breaks them down and offers guidance on how you can understand churn at your startup.

HOW LEADING AI STARTUP INVESTORS APPROACHED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN 2023

Most investors took a wait-and-see approach knowing full well that big, big disruptions are coming in the form of new silicon and solutions that go beyond fun parlor tricks. While funds may say they have seen this coming for a long time, no one can say with a straight face how big the impact will be on the general zeitgeist.

THE OFFICIAL OPENAI PROMPT ENGINEERING GUIDE

A comprehensive step-by-step guide that shares strategies and tactics for getting better results from large language models like GPT-4.

V0 BY VERCEL

Describe the interface you want and this tool will whip it up for you, complete with React code to go with it.

CAPGO

Fastest market research in spreadsheet.

ADOBE X FIGMA ACQUISITION TERMINATION: A FEW OBSERVATIONS

$1B breakup fee (3x the money raised by Figma due in 3 days) and the impact on the direction of both Figma and Adobe can’t be underestimated. Really thoughtful observations on what it might mean. Only time will tell.

HOW IBM SEES AI CHANGING THE GAME

AI technology is transforming businesses in various industries. IBM’s VP of Software and Technology Raj Datta and Director of Startups Kylie Rutherford share how AI is changing the game for companies of all sizes, presenting some use cases and various products.

WHAT INVESTORS GET WRONG

This is a fascinating teardown of an investor report on ServiceNow from 2012 betting against the company. It’s interesting to see how, despite common wisdom and deep research, life delivers something else. Today, the company has a market cap of over $140bn. A useful reminder if you’ve heard “No” from investors to keep moving forward anyway.

GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK

We’re coming up to the end of the year. We’re trying to reflect on the year behind us, make plans for the next, and take a break, all at the same time. Prioritize the last bit, if you can. It helps with perspective.

BEST PRACTICES FOR A MODERN DATA TEAM

Instead of being a reactive function, data is having an ops renaissance and becoming much more of a star player. Here are some insights on how Zoominfo structures its team in order to scale the use of data without increasing the headcount of the data team.

OZEMPIC

The impact of Ozempic (both real and potential future) cannot really be estimated. Beyond the health and economic impact, what about the cultural ones? The mind reels at the possibilities of how a startup founder might take advantage of this significant shift.

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