- Growth Classics
- Posts
- NFR #53 - Orangutan, Cuts & Creators
NFR #53 - Orangutan, Cuts & Creators
Orangutan, Cuts & Creators
🐦 Inspirational tweet
⬇️
🐦 Twitter thread of the week
⬇️
🤖 eCommerce News:
“Amazon announced that this year’s Prime Day event, which ended Wednesday, was its “biggest” ever. The company said more than 300 million items were purchased worldwide during the two-day discount bonanza, but it did not disclose total sales. Soaring inflation didn’t appear to deter consumers from the event, in which home goods, consumer electronics and Amazon-branded devices were the top-selling categories.”
“Stripe is the latest high-profile fintech company to experience a significant valuation cut as the market downturn begins to hit the sector especially hard. Last valued at $95 billion, the payments processor has seen the internal value of its shares slashed by 28%, sources told the Wall Street Journal.”
“Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today that the company is introducing a new searchable and dynamic map experience on Instagram. The updated map experience will allow users to explore popular tagged locations around them and filter location results by specific categories including restaurants, cafes and beauty salons.”
“Everdrop claims its figures include six-digit subscription numbers and 300% year-on-year growth in 2021. It markets 40 household products, body care products and has a footprint in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France.
Speaking to me over a call David Löwe, one of everdrop’s co-founders, told me:
“The investment is basically for three growth pillars. Extending our product portfolio; becoming an omni channel brand; and thirdly the international patent. We also set up our own R&D laboratory, including product-focused and research and development.”
“YouTube is introducing a slew of new shopping features for creators, including the ability to link storefronts and sell products directly on the platform through a partnership with Shopify. In a blog post published today, YouTube says its partnership with Shopify will allow creators to display products throughout their channels, like below videos, during livestreams, or at the end of videos. Inventory will sync with Shopify so viewers can see in real time if something is out of stock. YouTube will also give US-based creators the option to enable on-site checkout, meaning viewers can purchase products directly on the platform without leaving YouTube.”
“To use the new feature, users can start by sending a direct message to a qualified small business they’re interested in buying from. In that same chat thread, they’ll then be able to pay, track their order and ask the business any follow-up questions. The company says users often chat about their orders with businesses via DMs on Instagram before purchasing but will now be able to pay sellers directly within their Instagram chat thread. Purchasing via DMs also gives users access to in-app chat support, Meta says.”
⬇️
🐵 NFT Article of the week
“After seemingly pulling off the strangest unicorn success story in tech, the founders of NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) have an awful lot to prove with their startup Yuga‘s early beta vision of the metaverse, a gaming platform called Otherside. Few entertainment startups have had this level of community pressure riding on their first game, and fewer have had quite as many people rooting for them to fail. The NFT bull run, which made early Bored Apes holders and the project’s founders very rich, also minted plenty of enemies who decried NFTs as ponzi schemes parting vulnerable suckers with their cash. As crypto prices have crashed in recent months, many recent retail investors in the sector have indeed lost big.|
⬇️
🎶 Tik Tok Ad Of The Week:
“Meta's Portal family of video-calling devices makes it easier to feel connected with your closest friends and family even when you're miles apart. Portal's AI-powered Smart Camera pans and zooms to stay with the action so you can move and talk freely while always being in the frame.”
Why was this Ad good?
✅ Powerful transition - The creator clicks his fingers as he’s saying “This is my new home office” and his room transitions from being a mess to the perfect WFH Set up
✅ Storytelling - Everyone has experienced a LOT of working from home over the past few years and struggled with the separation of work & normal life. The Meta portal allows him to have a device for work calls only.
✅ Sold the benefits, not the features - This is an important distinction.
He didn’t say the Meta Portal has an AI , HD camera, Dual Microphone.
He says…
“The Meta Portal allows me to have a separate device for work calls only. This frees up my screen so I can work better and allows me to walk around and think away whilst keeping me in frame”
⬇️
📈 Trends Of The Week:
Digital Health
“Remote therapy could help bridge the specialist gap. Digital behavioral health companies raised $5.1B in venture deals in 2021. You could build a teletherapy platform like BetterHelp for pediatric therapy services, or a platform for schools and preschools, similar to UK-based startup Mable.”
Source: Rock Health
ByteDance-backed warehouse robotics startup Syrius picks up $7M
“Syrius Robotics, a Chinese startup that makes autonomous robots for warehouses, just secured 50 million yuan ($7.4 million) in a Series B funding round, lifting its total raised so far to $40 million. The four-year-old company specializes in what’s called autonomous mobile robots (AMR), in contrast to some of its competitors that offer automated guided vehicles (AGV). In essence, AMRs are robots that can plan routes and react to circumstances in real time and are considered more advanced than AGVs, which follow pre-determined paths.”
“Crop One Holdings and Emirates Flight Catering announced this week they opened Emirates Crop One, what they say is “the world’s largest vertical farm.” The over 330,000-square-foot facility is located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates near Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central. It has the capacity to produce over 2 million pounds of leafy greens annually. The facility got its start in 2018 when Crop One, an indoor vertical farming company, and Emirates Flight, the airline Emirates catering arm, signed a $40 million joint venture to build Emirates Crop One. AgFunder reported the $40 million was a majority debt funded.”