Handpicked articles, and resources sent once a week to Product People of all kinds - Product Leads, Product Managers, CEOs, Makers, and Entrepreneurs.
Initiator Creator - Issue 137
Initiator Creator - Issue #137
By Saurabh Y. // 08 October 2023
Entrepreneur
Mediocre Success Is Worse Than Outright Failure - Every
Avoid the messy middle and aim for unambiguous results
You Can't Hack Product Positioning - Felicis
This problem is acute in SaaS where it is exceedingly rare for there to be true product moats; many startups end up competing on distribution and positioning.
Big Tech’s Biggest Bets - Matthew Ball
Or What It Takes to Build a Billion-User Platform
Next-gen content farms are using AI-generated text to spin up junk websites - MIT Technology Review
More than 140 brands are advertising on low-quality content farm sites—and the problem is growing fast.
Things to keep in mind when preparing a launch - Substack
Today was supposed to be the launch of a product my team and I worked on for almost two quarters. This is the type of product you launch because you see an opportunity for your business to capture, but you're not sure yet that it will accurately fulfill your customer's needs. I call this type of product "surprise egg."
Marketer
Why is contextual advertising on the rise? - MarketingBrew
It’s exactly what it sounds like: Buying an ad based on the context of the placement, rather than targeting an individual based on their past viewing or purchasing behaviors. This kind of ad-buying is usually done with little to no user data.
HubSpot Marketing vs. Klaviyo: Two Titans, Two Paths - SaaStr
Both are incredible winners that huge industries rely on — but Klaviyo is much more a vertical play, and HubSpot far more horizontal.
Marketing Security - Substack
how to highlight your product's security or data management
Developer
Building machine learning products: lessons from Papercup's product team - Papercup
There is certainly no shortage of product building advice out there, but the majority of it doesn’t hold for products with machine learning (ML) at their core.
In a git repository, where do your files live? - Julia Evans
this blog is in a git repository, and it contains a file called content/post/2019-06-28-brag-doc.markdown. Where is that in my .git folder? And where are the old versions of that file? Let’s investigate
Product Development Instincts Are Bad for Building Platforms - Kronopath
there’s a subtle but important mindset shift that’s needed when switching between product development and platform development.
Learn and Test DMARC - Learn DMARC
a visual breakdown of how email servers communicate, giving you a better understanding of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and how they work together.
Designer
Logo Rewind - Trademarks of Medieval Norwich - Logo Design Love
A book about the visual language of Medieval Norwich, England. It preserves the city’s medieval “logos” and documents the history of Norwich’s past and its impact upon the earliest era of commercial branding.
How to Spot AI-Generated Images - Every Pixel
Insights and tips, guiding you on how to spot AI-generated images.
The case for AI hallucination - UX Collective
AI tool makers have been working hard to limit AI hallucinations. For large language models (such as ChatGPT), fighting hallucinations means making sure the chatbot won’t cite fake science publications or judicial decisions.
Framing Effect: Why context affects decisions - Growth Design
How your present information shapes people's perceptions and decisions. Like, 20% retention and 80% churn are mathematically equivalent. But positive framing makes the former seem better.
tttexture - A Collection of Free Grunge, Vintage & Concrete Textures - FFFuel
From real photographs captured using a macro lens, this collection offers genuine high-res textures from aged walls, concrete slabs, and grounds.
Interesting Read
AI-assisted Decision-making - Every
How to use ChatGPT to master the best of what other people have figured out
Burnout or Boreout? It’s Always About the Lack of Control - Ness Labs
There is no silver bullet, but it helps to understand that burnout is first and foremost emotional, and then ask yourself whether it comes from a lack of alignment and if you could brainstorm and experiment with different ways to better align your work with your emotional needs.
How I rewired my brain in six weeks - BBC
There is growing evidence that simple, everyday changes to our lives can alter our brains and change how they work.
Community Submissions
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Outro
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Handpicked articles, and resources sent once a week to Product People of all kinds - Product Leads, Product Managers, CEOs, Makers, and Entrepreneurs.
Initiator Creator - Issue #139 - ( Read in browser ) By Saurabh Y. // 21 April 2024 Presented by DesignThingy This Week's Notes: Ever-increasing Paradigm of Microsites The traditional concept of microsites is elegantly straightforward: build highly specialized small websites to target niche audiences for lead generation, sales, and brand visibility. Mainly utilized by companies, particularly for marketing (esp. engineering as marketing). These microsites are usually free tools, tailored to...
Initiator Creator - Issue #138 By Saurabh Y. // 17 March 2024 Presented by DesignThingy This Week's Notes: Phase II Starts Here This week's issue came 22 weeks after the last issue, a lot of things have changed. The purpose of the Initiator Creator was not clear from the start. Some of you know about and tested the tools that we created last year but we dropped all of them without releasing them for you all because of the poor market fit. After taking a long break and spending my time...
Initiator Creator - Issue #136 By Saurabh Y. // 24 September 2023 Developer TypeScript Origins: The Documentary - Youtube The Documentary features core contributors and community members like Anders Hejlsberg, Steve Lucco, Luke Hoban, Daniel Rosenwasser, Ryan Cavanaugh, Amanda Silver, Matt Pocock, Josh Goldberg & many more How Microsoft does Quality Assurance (QA) - Pragmatic Engineer Microsoft has played an outsized role in the development and importance of quality assurance across the...