Hello 2018! Books, essays, and more from the past year.

Dear readers,

2017 was a big year, where we got Trump’s first(!) year in office, a renaissance in interest around cryptocurrencies, Brexit, Puerto Rico, and oh yeah, things got a little crazy at Uber too. I want to take a moment to share some of my writing from the past year, a few books I’ve read recently, and also include stuff from the last year just for completeness. One of my 2018 goals is to spend more time writing – stay tuned for that – and am looking forward to sharing some incredible learnings I’ve gotten from Uber over the past few years.

As always, thank you again for reading!

Andrew
Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA

Essays from 2017

Startups are cheaper to build, but more expensive to grow – here’s why
Lots of important trends – cloud computing, open source, etc. – are making it cheaper to start a company. However, growth is getting harder and more expensive because of consolidation, making paid acquisition one of the few channels that still work. Startups are responding by raising more money, monetizing earlier, trying paid channels, and experimenting with referrals instead of virality.

VIDEO: Three things you need to know to raise money in Silicon Valley
I spoke to an audience of French entrepreneurs and tech folks, and explained some of the key lessons from watching startups raise money in San Francisco versus elsewhere. This means focusing on a big story, growth trajectory (versus today’s metrics), respecting differing investor motivations, etc. This is a short video and hope you enjoy it!

How to build a billion-dollar digital marketplace – examples from Uber, eBay, Craigslist, and more
Marketplaces are magical because they both have network effects as well as clear monetization. This means that often when a niche marketplace works, it can grow into adjacent niches quickly. To grow to beyond an initial vertical, startups have to think about expanding geos, adding new products and price points, decrease friction, and grow demand+supply stickiness. I use examples from the major marketplaces to make my points. More to come on this topic!

10 years of professional blogging – what I’ve learned
Expanding on a tweetstorm, this essay breaks down the key lessons I’ve learned from running a professional blog over the last 10 years. This includes how to write content – opinion-driven, please! – and why writing is the best possible networking activity ever.

Books I started reading in 2017

I originally titled this section “Books I read in 2017” but I probably started more books than I actually finished :) Here’s a collection.

Superforecasting
Whenever you read a New York Times political column with a bunch of predictions – Trump is gonna do this! Saudi Arabia is gonna do that! – it’s entertaining, but who’s keeping track of these forecasts? This book covers the academic work of Philip Tetlock from UPenn, who puts together a forecasting competition and tracks who’s good at making these predictions. Lots of interesting learnings and relevant to those making startup investments also! Here’s a NYT article on the foxes versus hedgehog strategies for prediction, btw.

Venture Capitalists at Work: How VCs Identify and Build Billion-Dollar Successes
I read this awhile ago, but picked it up again and read more of the stories. It’s a series of interviews with many of the top venture firms – Floodgate, Founders Fund, First Round, Softbank, CRV – and the companies they’ve invested in. Each interview has a nice discussion and amount of detail. I found this much more compelling than many of the other books I’ve read on VCs, which remain a bit too high-level and adulating.

Reset
Ellen Pao’s story of her time at Kleiner Perkins, Reddit, and more. So much to learn from this experience.

The Ascent of Money
Sapiens for money :) Traces the history of money, the role it’s served over time, and the development of some of the major aspects of our modern financial system. Can’t wait for this to get revised for all the crypto stuff that’s happening now.

The One Device
History of the iPhone. Didn’t read this yet, but I love these recent tech history books.

Principles
Reading this because everyone else is too :) Lots of insights/lessons from Ray Dalio, one of the world’s best hedge fund dudes.

Stories of Your Life and Others
The recent film Arrival was based on this short story.

Area X
The director of my recent favorite movies – Ex Machina – is making a new movie starring Natalie Portman and a bunch of badass ladies exploring a strange, genetic-mutating world secured by the military. Reading the book ahead of time, before I see the movie! Here’s the trailer to the upcoming film.

Featured essays from 2016

10 years in the Bay Area – what I’ve learned
I’ve lived here for the last decade, and have learned a ton of about this region’s entrepreneurial drive, the unique culture, and wonderful folks. I wanted to share a couple lessons learned here.

The Bad Product Fallacy: Don’t confuse “I don’t like it” with “That’s a bad product and it’ll fail”
Your personal use cases and opinion are a shitty predictor of a product’s future success.

Growth is getting hard from intensive competition, consolidation, and saturation
It’s the end of a cycle, and we’re seeing headwinds on paid channels, banner blindless, competitive dynamics, and more. And it’s much harder to compete with boredom than with Facebook/Google/etc.

What 671 million push notifications say about how people spend their day
Here’s a study, based on Leanplum’s data, on how people spend their days – on sports, leisure, phone calls, and otherwise – in addition to what tech platforms they’re using.

Startups and big cos should approach growth differently (Video)
Here’s a video interview breaking down how startups evolve and change their strategies as they gain initial traction, hit product market fit, and eventually start to scale.

What’s next in growth? (Presentation at Australia’s StartCon)
Last year I presented this talk on how marketing has evolved over the last century, and how many of the ideas we think of as “growth” today are actually based on concepts from decades ago. I use this to talk about future platforms and where this might all go.

Uber’s virtuous cycle. Geographic density, hyperlocal marketplaces, and why drivers are key
In my last two years at Uber, I’ve learned a ton about the flywheel that makes Uber’s core business hum and grow incredibly fast. In this essay I draw from Bill Gurley’s essays on network effects, the labor market for part-time workers (aka drivers, “the supply side”), and how surge works within the company. A lot has evolved/changed since I’ve written this, but it’s a good overview from my first year of learnings.

Featured essays from 2015

The Next Feature Fallacy
“The fallacy that the next new feature will suddenly make people use your product.”

New data shows losing 80% of mobile users is normal, and why the best apps do better

This is the Product Death Cycle. Why it happens, and how to break out of it

Personal update- I’m joining Uber! Here’s why
“I’m joining Uber because it’s changing the world. It’s one of the very few companies where you can really say that, seriously and unironically.”