David Ukiwe

@andrewchen A new era for AI native consumer apps but a new playbook is needed. I totally agree that the viral strategies of the past don’t work any more. Thanks @andrewchen for these insights. Makes sense to me.

The end of the 1 billion active user ad-supported consumer startup -- and why highly-monetizing, useful, vertical apps are the next thing It's been a long time since we last built a broadly horizontal consumer app like YouTube, Instagram, Linkedin, or Snapchat. In fact, I'm convinced it may not be possible anymore, because we're in the final years of the mobile S-curve and 15+ years after the launch of the iPhone, there are major hurdles to apps to broad, billion user horizontal apps. Instead, the next generation might be "vertical apps" -- appealing to a vertical segment of the market, like Monopoly Go, Draft Kings, Canva, etc -- that are smaller audience products with higher "whale" monetization (sometimes even workflow/B2B) First, why these broadly horizontal apps are hard: - the novelty effect has worn off on new app ideas. Consumers have heard it all. And over the last 15+ years, founders have tried the obvious permutations on social/communication/photo/video apps -- the most horizontal of all apps -- and a lack of novelty creates a lack of intention to try new apps. - retention is more elusive than ever, because of the competition. At the start of the mobile revolution, all you had to do was to create a mobile app that was more entertaining than waiting in line, or sitting on the toilet looking at the blank wall in front of you. These days, new apps compete with the most addictive products ever created. If you don't provide every day value, people will switch over to TikTok or Instagram, and you may have lost them forever. (And no, spamming them with a ton of notifications won't help) - building an ad-supported startup is sort of a "two miracle" problem, as they say. First, there's a miracle of getting to 10s of millions of users -- enough scale so that ads can even be a revenue generator -- and then a second miracle to build an ads marketplace, targeting systems, bidding systems, etc, to attract millions of advertisers. It's a great system when it works, sort of a secondary network effect on top of an existing network -- but it takes years to build these ad systems - easy growth is mostly over. Mobile ads are expensive (and harder to target than before). Viral invites have low response rates and have gotten nerfed. Working with creators/influencers can be spiky but temporary. Prior web channels like SEO, getting traffic via press/PR, don't work well for mobile. If these channels don't work, and viral invites are ineffective, then it means it's that much harder to get your friends onto the same social app at the same time So what's next? Vertical apps with beefier monetization, and different network characteristics seem a likely candidate. When you look at products like Monopoly Go, Draft Kings, web3 games, Canva, etc., and start to generalize towards new opportunities, you can come to see them as vertical apps with distinct new advantages. - Rather than ads, these products often let customers spend big dollars directly to upgrade their experience. Free-to-play games often have "whale monetization" mechanics where the top users can spend $100,000s of dollars if they want. Same for a betting product like Draft Kings. If the top 10% of your users drive all the monetization, then it's the quality of users (and their ARPPU) that matters, not just the scale of users - the silver lining for all the new advancements in AI, of course, is that we are discovering novel use cases that are in particular useful for productivity use cases. These "prosumer" tools often often scale up in terms of $ on usage, or have tiers around teams and enterprise, all of which drives direct monetization. These amazingly visual/interactive generative AI tool also create sharable content that helps drive growth - network effects can work differently if the products aren't meant to be broadly horizontal apps where all your friends are on it -- instead the networks can be built around specific activities and interests. Dating apps are an example of this, or looking at multiplayer games like Valorant, where you mostly interact with non-friends. The product just needs to build a network that's big enough to create interaction (like dating, or gaming), rather than hinging on having all of your friends on board. This dramatically lessens the growth requirements - similarly, I think we'll see more apps focused on single user utility, and the use of game design mechanics (as Duolingo has done), to create stickiness without having lots of users commenting/liking/etc to drive interaction. In a world of more growth saturation, the ability to build products that are very useful by themselves, rather than networks, becomes a competitive advantage To conclude, tomorrow's apps might look more vertical. Higher spending, smaller audiences, focused on interactions that are useful and solo. Some may target productivity/utility use cases, particularly as AI creates novel interactions, at least until the next tech platform emerges. I certainly hope a new broad-based social consumer app can emerge, and I know folks are working on them still, but I also want to advocate for a more focused approach. I think more of these may work in the future.

The Startup Podcast has become part of my educational routine. As insiders they offer practical insights on how to build a Silicon Valley-style startup. I wish I discovered them sooner, I could have saved myself some earlier mistakes. Thank you so much @ybernstein and @ChrisSaad.

@Sachin_Shah_ Congrats @Sachin_Shah_ look forward to seeing what you are building. I wish you all the best!

Couldn’t be more excited to share that I’m making the jump from investor to founder! After an amazing 1.5 years of venture with the best team in the game (I’m biased), I’ve decided to go to follow a naive childhood dream and jump to the other side of the table.

@Sachin_Shah_ @Jason @Sachin_and_Adam This will be a real treat!

Very very keen to get @Jason on @Sachin_and_Adam to talk to all the great founders down under. Let's try make this happen 🇦🇺

@Sachin_Shah_ Interesting. Practical and makes sense statistically. Loving grandma wants a more guaranteed upside.

A Thought experiment I did with my Indian grandma 1) I told her I got into Stanford. She said she would cover my 150k fees no matter what it takes. 2) I said I wanted to start a company and needed a 25k angel check. She said it was too risky and she couldn’t support.

@callmehouck Congrats Houck!

Status Report by David Ukiwe #promo #scifi #sciencefiction #rabtbooktours @davidukiwe @RABTBookTours dlvr.it/St4dgM

@Sachin_Shah_ @_Timdoyle @airtreevc Look forward to the transcript.

Amazing session with @_Timdoyle last week at @airtreevc . Probably the most information dense Masterclass in startups I’ve ever heard. Transcript will be made available!

@JeremyNguyenPhD You can still write great stuff using AI as copilot by providing great plots or fine-tuning plots with AI collaboration.

In one sentence, what's your advice for screenwriters as AI gets better and better? Your advice could be directly to me: this is my future. I write for TV.

@Sachin_Shah_ How to build and nurture strong customer relationships

Founders, what are your most burning questions on how to build a great D2C business?

@mustafasuleymn Congratulations @mustafasuleymn and @inflectionAI team!

Excited to announce that we’ve raised $1.3B to build one of the largest clusters in the world and turbocharge the creation of Pi, your personal AI. forbes.com/sites/alexkonr…

Status Report: AI, Robotics and Healthcare in a Futuristic City amzn.asia/d/cTkDWIq

@Sachin_Shah_ @australian Congratulations @Sachin_Shah_

Beyond stoked to have my opinion piece published in The @australian. Having a copy delivered to my grandparents was a priceless memory. Bullish on Sydney.

That’s a wrap! I completed the Reforge Finding Product/Market Fit Program! #reforgefall2022 program.reforge.com/snapshots/D1Sr…

Founders: you must be ruthless about shipping product, making money, shutting down side projects, & cutting dead weight right now. there is no more time investors are raising the bar WHILE lowering valuations it's getting HARDER every week & it will not rebound

@Jason Cute

Like & reply with a kind statement and I will follow you back 💕

It's time! Join me at Reforge's 2022 Fall Cohort and unlock even more content to uplevel your career. #reforgefall2022 program.reforge.com/enrollment_sna…

@paulg Congratulations @garrytan

Jessica and I are delighted that Garry Tan is going to be YC's new boss. He's a hacker, a YC founder, was a YC partner for 5 years, started a very successful investment firm, built his own brand on Youtube, and is one of the best liked people in SV. ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-h…

@crystalwidjaja @reforge @ShaunMClowes I’ll be there

👩‍🔬 My @Reforge program, Data for Product Managers, is LIVE this upcoming Fall cohort. @ShaunMClowes and I spent many months developing this insight-packed program to help you do your most impactful work. reforge.com/fall-22-cohort…