Future growth
JC’s Newsletter #198
Dear friends,
Every week, I’m sharing an essay that relates to what we are building and learning at Alan. Those essays are fed by the article I’m lucky enough to read and capitalise on.
I’m going to try to be provocative in those essays to trigger a discussion with the community. Please answer, comment, and ping me!
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Future Growth
This is a short extract from what I shared to the team this week. Some parts were removed.
Future growth is always a little bit frightening because it is looking into the unknown, eye to eye. We can’t totally plan for the future, and it tends to make us uncomfortable.
Where we are lucky is that it is not our first rodeo, and we have faced the eyes of uncertainty more than once, and we prevailed. We have solved so many problems that were deemed impossible (an insurance licence, international expansion, enterprise, hotels & restaurants, new health services, …) that I don’t see why we should stop there.
What we want is to continue growing while making progress on the rest (less burn), and paving the way for becoming profitable in 2026. Both are very compatible as growth generates profitability.
Is such growth feasible?
Absolutely, and here's why:
In absolute terms those levels are not crazy compared to what we have achieved in the past or what it means in terms of conversion rates
We already have people in the Sales team who are operating at those levels
We are likely to add new talented individuals to the team who will help us improve in the company
We have an incredible pipe already built. For example, on Enterprise, our pipeline for 2024 is already more than twice the size of 2023.
We have tons of opportunities to get there!
How are we going to do it?
Full year effect of the playbook built over 2023: We have unlocked the growth on many segments all along 2023. In 2024, we will benefit from this asset from day 1.
Embracing technology: AI isn't just the future; it's the now. We will embrace every tool to help the team spend less and less time on tasks while increasing their quality. First trainings are already planned.
It is enough to increase efficiency by 1% per week during a year to have a 70% improvement over a year.
The philosophy of eliminating cynicism
I find it also very important to share that, in our journey, there's no room for cynicism. A negative mindset stifles creativity and impedes growth. If you are overly pessimistic or cynical, you might not be in the right company. You have the right to be critical with the objective of improving our plans.
Instead, we focus on solutions, adaptability, and forward momentum. A great mind combined with a great heart achieves the greatest results.
We are on track to achieve tremendous growth next year, and it is in the realm of the achievable. With the right strategies, tools, and team, we will succeed. Let's forge ahead, leaving cynicism behind, and make next year our best yet.
Some articles I have read this week
👉 Whoop’s new AI coach is a game-changer (9 to 5 Google)
“Interacting with Whoop Coach is sort of like messaging with a human coach. You can ask Whoop Coach almost anything.”
Using past data to make recommendations is powerful
👉 AI and Ambient Computing, Zuckerberg and The Verge, Amazon and Anthropic (Stratechery)
The IP deal between Anthropic and Amazon seems crazy if true.
👉 The Metagame: Think One Step Ahead (Brain Food)
It connects to the perspective of viewing your competition in the perspective of your customers, and the understanding of what is unique about yourself to win the market.
When you understand why your competitors do the things they do, you can choose to play a game they can’t play."
👉 How Linear builds product (Lenny's Newsletter)
Some things that resonate:
PM duties are distributed across engineering and design. ➡️ at our scale we need some PMs in my opinion and our PMs create value, but we might not need PMs everywhere!
Build a team where the project team both thinks and executes.
No metrics-based goals. Just a North Star company-level metric goal.
Decisions are based on taste and opinions.
We always look for product sense, taste, and judgment for all product roles, like engineering and design.
I like their beta program and I think that is how we should develop some of our features.
👉Spotify Subscription Audiobooks, Casual Fans and Bundles, Spotify’s Goals (Stratechery)
How to approach bundle + upselling
👉 A Tweet from Matthias Bohlen on pricing (Twitter)
I love this approach to understand retention of B2C products
The trick is to price your 12-month plan to be slightly more than your average LTV for monthly users.
You can look at any mature subscription business and basically guess their user retention by looking at the ratio between their 12 month and 1 month prices.
The retention of mental health is very interesting
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Let’s talk about this together on LinkedIn or on Twitter. Have a good week!