Strategy Breakdowns

The 3-minute weekly email on strategy playbooks and growth hacks that built the world's greatest companies.

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Founder

Athyna

Athyna matches candidates from deep talent pools, with AI-precision. Meaning founders can grow their global team, at lightning speed. 

I made my first hire through Athyna, and the experience was 10/10 so I invested. Message me for an intro to the team (plus you'll get the white glove treatment as my referral)!

Investor

beehiiv

My entire business runs on beehiiv. 

I'm a power-user and super-fan of the product, and was invited to invest as one of the platform's early users.

Atlassian

Worked in the product strategy team, making sure a handful of Atlassian's developer products (Jira, Bitbucket, and Compass) are set for long-term sustainable growth.

Most days, my exam question was along the lines of:
"What should we be doing / building / investing in / betting on to ensure Atlassian's Agile and DevOps products are always the #1 choice for dev teams?"

Strategy & Operations Manager

KPMG

Worked in the Technology Strategy practice within Management Consulting, advising financial services clients on how to align their technology capabilities to business objectives. 

Notable projects:
• Fortune 500 payments fintech - Open banking strategy
• Australia's leading payments provider - Product strategy
• Big 4 bank / leading BNPL provider - Banking-as-a-Service architecture
• Australia's leading telco - Open data roadmap

Manager

Founder of StrategyBreakdowns.com

TLDR: Worked in strategy consulting → Joined strategy team at Atlassian → Started writing strategy case studies → People liked them, so I left my job and went full-time

👉 strategybreakdowns.com

This controversial email from Mark Zuckerberg to Facebook execs got leaked.

Here's everything you need to know:

Facebook established a secret internal operation with the aim of understanding how its users were interacting with its competitors.

Named "Project Ghostbusters", with reference to Snapchat’s ghost-like logo, Facebook wanted to figure out a way to analyse encrypted app traffic from users of Snapchat.

Facebook installed so-called 'kits' (using Onavo, a VPN-like service that Facebook acquired in 2013) on its users iOS and Android devices, which allowed Facebook to read network traffic before it got encrypted and sent to Snapchat's servers.

Facebook expanded the tactic, commonly called a "man-in-the-middle attack", to Amazon and YouTube.

Not all execs agreed that "Project Ghostbusters" was a good idea.

In another leaked email exchange, Pedro Canahuati, then-head of security engineering said: "I can’t think of a good argument for why this is okay. No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public. The general public just doesn’t know how this stuff works.”

Wild! 👀

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

Tom Alder

The difference between good and great marketing:

Good marketing makes you feel smart. 

Great marketing makes your customer feel smart.

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the marketing strategies and growth playbooks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Apple, Nike, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

The most powerful concept in marketing:

Show, don't tell.

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

Steve Jobs offered to acquire Dropbox for 9-figures in 2009.

Dropbox rejected the offer, and went on to grow from 100,000 users to 4 million in just 4 months.

The referral program accounted for 35%(!!) of their daily signups.

By April 2010, Dropbox users were sending 2.8 million invites to other people per month.

Roughly 1 invite per second. Every second.

They passed 50 million users in October 2011, 100 million in November 2012, 500 million in 2016, and 700 million in 2021.

In 2017 they became the fastest SaaS company ever to reach $1 billion ARR.


𝗔𝗿𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆.

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If you enjoyed this, it originally appeared in my free 3-minute newsletter, 'Strategy Breakdowns'.

Check out the full article here → https://lnkd.in/gc9-ih8J

Mark Zuckerberg emails WhatsApp cofounder about acquiring WhatsApp (2013)

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

When Shazam launched in 2002, it was known as “2580”. Customers would dial those 4 digits to identify music playing in the wild.

After 30 seconds, the call automatically hung up, and they’d receive an SMS with the song name and artist.

Constraints breed creativity → https://lnkd.in/gVeuJ-MR

The Apple website, every year since 1997, in chronological order: 

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

Apple Website Since 1997

Steve Jobs had a simple rule for designing the perfect user interface:

The 3-click rule.

Steve was intimately involved in the design and development of the original iPod.

Those that knew him said he had the same response to nearly every problem - “Simplify!”

During product demos, he would go over every screen and apply a rigid test:

If a user wants to use a core feature (eg play a song) ...

they must be able to get there in three clicks.

The success of the iPod changed the industry forever, and the 3-click rule quickly spread across product development circles.

Airbnb founder Brian Chesky was always adamant users are never more than 3 clicks away from a booking.

Same as reading trending content from your favourite subreddit.

Or watching your favourite Youtuber’s latest video.

If you're building a consumer product, ask yourself:

How many clicks does it take for a user to reach your unique-selling-point?

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

(2012) Mark Zuckerberg: “We’re moving very slowly… I wonder what we could do to move a lot faster”.

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 👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

My 2024 Wrapped: 

12 months ago I quit my dream job to write a newsletter full-time.

A week ago I asked my readers for their most pressing questions about the journey so far.

I've been working through them one by one, with complete transparency, while cooking up an interactive and authentic format to share this story.

Click here to see my 2024, Wrapped: https://lnkd.in/gb6RYPMB

This Calm ad is pure marketing genius.

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the marketing strategies and growth playbooks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Apple, Nike, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

How Duolingo wins with gamified design:

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Image source: @felixleezd

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

It's been 12 months since I quit my job and went full-time as a creator.

I'm currently writing my 2024 'year in review'.

What would you like to know?

Paul Graham on what defines a ‘startup’.

“A startup is a company designed to grow fast.”

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 60,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

Isaac is cooking up something truly epic with Pistachio 🚀 

Great job opportunity for up-and-coming marketers wanting a high-agency and dynamic role

Founder of Pistachio.so | Helping media brands scale

📢 Hiring: Marketing Freelancers

2024 was a big first year for Pistachio.

Now we need more hands on deck.

We're looking for growth-oriented marketers.

🤔 Who you are
→ Location = anywhere
→ 1 - 4 years experience
→ Strong problem-solver
→ High attention to detail
→ Content strategy experience
→ Interested in the media space

Learn more and apply here: https://lnkd.in/grX36-uf

Tag any friends who might be keen 👇

Taplio

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