We’re all about social consumer today. I hope you get as much out of this as I did while putting everything together. What we’re covering:

1. Social Media 2024 Trends Deck - a must read, srs

2. Consumer SaaS Subscriptions - growth tactics

3. Week 03 - my build in public update

4. Lapse Blog Post - onboarding teardown

5. Ecommerce shopping with an LLM

6. Winter is coming basically here - check out these 8 fascinating travel startups

7. A nostalgic movie recommendation, 5 interesting links, and a Snap prediction that might not be that cray cray

Featured

🔸 Social Media Signals 2024 Deck 🔥 🔥 🔥

Know thyself, your values, and your customer. Whether you're selling B2B or B2B2C, understanding how and where trends are shifting is crucial. This social media deck captures the current sentiment and is, imho, insanely insightful - even if you aren't actively marketing on social channels or using socials. Read between the lines to see where we’re heading next.

Pour a supersized coffee, and fly with me through this presentation

🔸 Consumer SaaS Subscriptions - Growth Tactics

Lenny has consistently delivered top-notch content over the past year, and this collab piece is no exception. Consumer SaaS is rapidly maturing, and in this post, he highlights some impressive growth strategies. The scale of some of these companies is truly staggering. I’ve attached a screenshot and will share some additional thoughts and context below.

This post is also a must-read for anyone in consumer SaaS or consumer social. However, I believe we're on the verge of a major shift driven by AI. I'm starting to question how consumer SaaS will evolve in key areas that I think will be significantly challenged and transformed in the coming years:

• App Stores: It’s unclear if they’ll continue to exist in their current form, at all, or how they might evolve.

• Pricing Norms: Could we move away from monthly or yearly plans toward outcome-based pricing? It’s possible, and I foresee innovative new pricing models emerging.

• Acquisition: We could see new channels and a greater reliance on algo curation signals (curator agents), potentially leading to new affiliate networks or models. This would disrupt, or at least require significant changes to, today's App Store systems.

• Remixes & 3rd Party Apps: Consumer SaaS might move away from traditional developer APIs or third-party apps to AI-powered remixable apps created by users, with profit-sharing models. There may also be entirely new B2B2C models we haven't seen before. Exciting!!

I could write much more on this, but if there’s interest, I’d be happy to dig deeper and create a detailed post.

And Health & Fitness consumer social is something i’m following v closely.. and might be hacking on

🔸 Lapse App Onboarding - How’d they do that?

Last year, I did a quick teardown of Lapse’s onboarding experience because I was curious how they had skyrocketed to the top of the charts. I shared my thoughts on Twitter, which led to the most inbound dms I’ve ever received. Resharing it today as part of the ongoing consumer social newsletter thread.

Commerce

🔸 Shopping with Perplexity... whhat?

This screenshot is worth a thousand e-commerce words.

Is the future of commerce just containers? I can't help but picture it evolving into something like Contentful or an inventory manager like TradeGecko, driving it all behind the scenes. 🌶️

Just one of many channels? Thoughts?

My 35 Day Sprint

🔸 Week 03 Updates

As summer wraps up, I got a bit sidetracked by the sunny weather and enjoyed some outdoor time before 9 months of darkness sets in Vancouver. But now I’m back in a sweater, freezing, and focusing on two main side projects.

App 01 - The niche fitness app

I wanted to launch by Sept 15th and it’s behind. Further roadblocks due to 3rd party API restrictions and just overall interest levels for the app is fading. This app certainly scratches my own itch, but i’ve been rethinking how v2 or v3 would evolve, and in the new ai idea maze. Backend is 90% complete. Difficult to showcase code or progress atm. And laughing bc the last 10% is always the hardest

App 02 - ABM Magic

On the other hand, I’m making good progress with the B2B2C tool. What is it? ABM re-imagined. Yes, vague and meaningless by design. This past week, I’ve done some customer interviews, mapped a new v on paper, and will share a video update next week.. Promise, or i’ll buy you a OLIPOP. If you’re a founder and want to get involved or share your thoughts, just hit reply .. I’d love to hear from you.

“How to share updates”

I’ve been struggling with editing my video content. Who’s building an automated video editor? It’s far more time consuming and awkward than I anticipated, so I’m trying to keep the focus on the product instead of the vlog or video production. I’ve started using CapCut for editing, and it’s impressive what ByteDance and TikTok have created.

… This email is already long enough! More next week, but continued poll from last week below

Office Hours - Let’s Jam

Got a special project you need help with or want to explore funding opportunities for something I'm working on?

I’m currently taking on new clients and special projects. Whether you’re looking for a collaborator, need a hand on a specific task, or are interested in supporting a unique idea, let’s chat! Hit reply or schedule a time.

Travel

🔸 8 Travel Startups

Since travel seemed to resonate with a few of you last week and the weather has shifted, I’m sharing 8 startups.. let’s goo

• Fora - vip suggestions.. high end travel agents

• Mindtrip - text to interactive maps and itineraries

• Wander - the WeWork of luxury vacation rentals. Fully equipped and ideal for offsites or busy founders, with everything you need for a productive and relaxing stay

• Kindred - members-only home exchange community. Think communal higher end airbnb timeshare

• Corner - find your vibe, could this replace swarm/4sq

• TripBFF - join and create travel plans, especially popular with gen z solo travellers

• Flaire - travel lists. “see where ppl are traveling, save places you want to go, and share the places you've been ✈️”

• Travel Photo AI - get the vacation pics you wanted without the travel. Perfect for when the weather didn’t cooperate or your photos didn’t turn out

Out of the list, Mindtrip seems quite promising. There’s potential in disrupting the space currently dominated by Airbnb, Skyscanner, and Expedia, especially with the possibility of an LLM + agent suite. This aligns with the trend of using a client’s website or app while integrating your own algos or API keys.

I’ve attached a few screenshots of Mindtrip below. It doesn’t fully match my vision or what I think is coming, but they’ve raised venture, so it’ll be interesting to see if they (or whom) steps up to challenge Skyscanner and others. I was a bit disappointed, though, to see that Mindtrip recommended rollerblading in Kuta, which is probably one of the worst places for it (no thx Bali dogs! ).

Mind Trip

Corner

Replace 4sq?

TripBFF

Last week, we saw solo traveling as a huge emerging trend, and TripBFF is here for it

🔸 Digital Nomad Visas: Opportunity or Backfire?

In July, Canada joined the ranks of many countries worldwide by introducing 6 month digital nomad visas. However, Bali, once highly welcoming to remote workers, is now hitting the brakes on construction and re-evaluating its approach to tourism, remote work, and addressing overpopulation. Your vision of “The Bali villa” may be on hold, as a potential ban on new hotels or tourism properties could last up to 10 years.

Other

🔸 Interesting Links

Are fireworks fading

Interesting linkage that caught my eye

• AI meme (app) generator [Link]

• Love.Life is a new, elite L.A. wellness club from the founders of Whole Foods. Get the scoop on the new $50,000-a-year wellness club [Link]

• Spain’s 'pineapple-gate' sparks hopes of romance and shop chaos [Link]

• Are you accelerating your learning?! [Link]

• For anyone who's ever been a teenager, you might enjoy Didi (feature film movie) [Link]

🔸 Personal Camera Roll

Soaking in the last hours of Summer 2024!

Qs or Quotes Bouncing in My Brain

iykyk

Wrap Up

That;s it. Wishing you a wonderful day ahead.

If you've got a funny meme and made it all the way to the end of this post, feel free to hit reply

Kenny

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. Ready to grow your startup from 0 to 1 in less time? Let's chat. >> Schedule a call with me.

2. Want an extra pair of eyes on your product or pitch deck?

Newsletter Vibecheck

How'd I do? Slam dunk or airball? Lmk your thoughts on this issue so I can level up future content.

About

Hi there! I help b2b2c startups go from 0 to 1 with resources, consulting, advisory, and writing, spanning product, marketing, team formation, frontier technology, and the good life. Prev helped 50+ startups and launched 20+ digital products. Although my perspective is universal, I mainly cover the frontier of North America and Southeast Asia.

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