Tom Alder's Linkedin Analytics

How to take over the internet for 48 hours: When most companies announce fundraising news, they follow a familiar playbook: press release, social posts, maybe a TechCrunch article if they're lucky. The story usually boils down to "we raised $X at $Y valuation." Clay took a different approach with their $40M Series B expansion ~3wks ago. Rather than just broadcasting numbers, they used the moment of attention to completely reposition their company and product and reward their most loyal users by opening up a community equity offering. Clay recognised their biggest growth lever wasn't capital (they hadn't touched their last round), but rather market perception. Through careful orchestration of media, content, and community activation, they claimed ownership of an emerging category: GTM development environment I sat down with Clay's marketing team to get an inside look at how they took over the entire GTM industry's feeds for 48 hours. Users + communities + influencers + partners + employees + earned media + content experiments + memes + IRL activations + … + .. + . Don't miss the full post 👇 (link in comments)

Handy little AI productivity tool I discovered recently: It’s called Rev and it’s the ultimate AI workstation for audio use cases. Here’s a few things it can do: 1. Instant transcriptions and summaries from every meeting 2. Summary templates for discovery calls, interviews etc. 3. Pulls out insights + actions from every conversation 4. Desktop recorder to dictate notes to yourself 5. Ask specific questions to your transcripts 6. Workspaces and dashboards for teams 7. Mobile app for on-the-go recordings 8. Real-time bookmarking during calls It also seems like the only player in this space with enterprise-grade security (HIPAA, SOC 2, TLS encryption, SSO), so they are crushing it with law firms, consultants, agencies etc. handing client info. Over 1 million (!) users worldwide. Link in the comments 👇

Whenever I see news like this, I always think: What opportunities does this create for builders? Skype is 23 years old and has 36 million users. A long way from its peak at 300 million users, but still a remarkable volume considering I couldn’t name a single person that’s used/mentioned it in the past 5 years. With Microsoft announcing it’s shutting down on May 5th, 36 million folks have just 10 weeks to figure out what to do next. Google searches for ‘Skype alternatives’ have shot up from 440/mo to 44,000/mo. Here’s a few increasingly unhinged ideas for opportunists: - Create SEO articles to tap into search spike - Create a Skype migration guide lead magnet - Build a ‘Skype migration assistant’ mini-tool - Use BuiltWith Trends to find websites with Skype embeds/widgets/functionality, and pitch them with hyper-relevant solutions to problems they might face if they still interact with customers via Skype - Pitch Slack, Discord, Zoom etc with a done-for-you marketing campaign targeting Skype users - Design a limited-edition merch drop with Skype memes and nostalgia graphics - Launch a digital archeology service recovering and preserving old Skype chat histories as searchable archives - Create a "Skype Funeral" service that uses the app’s built-in export tool to convert old Skype conversations into memorial books/NFTs - Launch "SkypeMates" - a platform connecting isolated Skype power users with each other on a retro Skype clone interface - Build a Skype alternative and get acquired by Salesforce 😂 Any other ideas?

Within weeks of starting my business, I was drowning in the overhead of managing my emails. → Hiring → Clients → Inbound → Vendors → Readers → Partners → Renewals → Outbound → Follow-ups → Onboarding → Negotiations I’d regularly spend an hour plus each day organising my comms.  A logistical nightmare. I tried stitching together a DIY CRM in a simple database, but that ended up adding to the problem because everything was so manual. → I’d have to remember to update a field when I sent an email. → I’d have to export everything as a CSV, pull it into Google Sheets, and create custom charts just to get some basic sales analytics. 💡 Then I found Attio. It syncs with my email and calendar, so it knows who I’m speaking to, frequency of interaction, plus a handful of helpful indicators like ‘relationship strength’ score. No more manual data entry or endless spreadsheet updates. The best part? It takes minutes to set up. No exaggeration. Literally took me ~10 minutes to configure enough of a base setup to save me 3-5 hours per week in admin work. The more I use it, the more it knows about my relationships, so it compounds in value month over month. Highly recommend for anyone looking to reclaim time spent on daily busywork. Link in the comments 👇

The last time my mate Jason guest-posted for Strategy Breakdowns... He shared the growth hacks he was using at Product Hunt to turn his execs into a social media mafia. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it, and now I see it everywhere. Fast-forward to today - a lot’s changed. He quit his job, launched a SaaS for creating memes, acquired a startup, and pulled off about 100 internet experiments that go viral each week. When we got chatting about writing another breakdown, I challenged him to bridge 2 worlds that Strategy Breakdowns is wedged between: → tech growth playbooks + internet culture Chef cooked up another storm. Link in the comments 👇 Enjoy.

How Atlassian landed 1000+ startup customers in just a few months: The old way: - Focus only on building your product The new way: - Engineer an ecosystem (beyond the product itself) to benefit your users Here's how it works: 1️⃣ Atlassian for Startups (launched June 2024) Free premium tools ($0 for 12 months, 5-50 seats of Jira, Confluence, Loom, Product Discovery, Compass, Bitbucket) → Accelerating startups by providing them 1 year of runway. 1100+ customers and counting! 2️⃣ Atlassian Ventures Direct investment in high-potential startups → Strategic way to partner and align interests with high-potential companies 3️⃣ Forge & Atlassian Marketplace Serverless app development platform, giving developers a global distribution channel → Opportunity for startups to tap into Atlassian's customer base, while expanding Atlassian's integration ecosystem 4️⃣ Startups Community Peer-learning, support, and content network → Provide customers with connection opportunities with founders, investors, and tech leaders, while strengthening Atlassian's community The best part?  Each pillar is a win-win. Atlassian grows when its customers grow, so it creates a virtuous flywheel of programs to help them achieve scale. (Links to each one in the comments!) 💬 Do you use any Atlassian tools / ecosystem initiatives? #AtlassianForStartups #AtlassianPartner

If you've ever clicked "Sign in with Google", you've witnessed one of most elegant and powerful product strategies of all time. Here's how it works: 1.  Win through convenience Google recognised 2 universal truths about online identity: 1) Users hate creating new accounts 2) Developers hate building authentication systems "Sign in with Google" was easy to implement, secure, and free. For users: ↳ One-click to initiate signup ↳ No new password to remember ↳ Universal 2-factor authentication ↳ No ‘verify your email address’ flow ↳ Notifications for any suspicious activity ↳ Centralised tracking of app usage history ↳ Consistent authentication process for all apps ↳ Automatic profile population (name, photo, etc.) ↳ No need to trust apps with commonly-used passwords ↳ Automatic Sign-in when returning for subsequent sessions ↳ Enhanced security options through Google Account settings For developers: ↳ App personalisation with user location, birthday, picture etc. ↳ Decreases likelihood of fake or temporary email signups ↳ Developer docs and community for troubleshooting ↳ Free access to Google's security infrastructure ↳ Reduced development time and complexity ↳ Increased trust through Google's brand ↳ Lower user drop-off during registration 2.  Create a data feedback loop Each ‘Google Sign-in’ is a win-win-win. It provides value to (1) users and (2) developers, but it also gives (3) Google: ↳ Data on frequency and patterns of usage ↳ Insights into emerging platforms and trends ↳ Visibility into which apps its users are adopting This data feeds back into Google's core business, helping them: ↳ Identify strategic opportunities (acquisitions, products, etc.) ↳ Improve search/ad personalisation based on app usage ↳ Track and stay ahead of competitive threats 3.  Build an ecosystem moat The beauty of ‘Google Sign-in’ is the flywheel it creates: → The more users who use it → The more valuable it is for developers → The more developers who add it → The more valuable it is for users → The more users who use it With each rotation of this flywheel, Google's position strengthens. Users become more dependent on their Google accounts, developers become more reliant on Google's authentication infrastructure, and the switching costs for both sides compound. Even Apple, with its extraordinary platform power, has struggled to break Google's authentication dominance. In 2019, Apple made it mandatory for all iOS apps using social logins to also offer 'Sign in with Apple'. As of 2022 Google still commanded 75% of social logins, with Apple capturing just 14%. -- 💡 If you enjoyed this, it originally appeared in my free 3-minute newsletter, 'Strategy Breakdowns'. Join 65,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

This was Yahoo’s homepage in 1996 before the dot-com crash. . . . Fun fact: At the peak of dot-com bubble, Yahoo was valued at ~$125 billion… until they: - Rejected an offer to buy Google for $1m in 1998, and for $5b in 2002 (Google is worth $2.1 trillion today) - Acquired Geocities and Broadcast for a combined $10b in 1999, eventually shutting down both of them - Bought Tumblr for $1.1b in 2013, and sold it for under $3m in 2019 - Sold half of their 40% stake in Alibaba for $7.6b, which would be worth $640b today - Declined a buyout offer from Microsoft for $44.6b in 2008 In 2017, Yahoo sold to Verizon for $4.5b. -- 👉 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 70,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

POV: Lining up at midnight to buy a new OS. What’s the equivalent of this today? -- 👉 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 65,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

The #1 rule in marketing: Sell benefits. Not features. -- Image via Yasmine Khosrowshahi -- 👉 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 65,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Apple, Nike, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

Tracy Young sold her 7-year old startup for $875m. From humble beginnings as the daughter of Vietnamese refugees to a Silicon Valley icon. Here’s her incredible story: Young’s parent’s fled Vietnam on a fishing boat with hundreds of others. After a stay in Malaysia, her family was sponsored by a Lutheran priest to live in a church in California. Even without speaking the language, Young’s parents started a wholesale food supply business. Fast forward to 2011, they had put all 3 children through college, and Young was working as a construction engineer. Frustrated by an industry that operated on paper, she identified a business opportunity involving Apple’s latest product: The iPad. Paper-based building plans were brought onto building sites, reprinted constantly, and worked on by many collaborators. This was expensive, inefficient, and a headache for construction teams. Young started PlanGrid - a suite of mobile-friendly tools for digital construction blueprints. Here’s 2 awesome stories showing the founding team’s grit, urgency, and willpower: 𝟭. 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 In order to get their product in the hands of customers, Young had to buy as many iPads as possible. At the time, Apple limited the number of tablets you could buy. Young and her team wore disguises and maxed out their credit cards to procure enough devices to load up with their software for early customers. 𝟮. 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲-𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗮𝗱𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Young’s team knew construction conferences were a dense market to attack, but renting a booth cost $5,000+. Instead, they bought $60 tickets and went up to strangers saying, “Hey, wanna see something cool?” Regardless of their answer, they’d run the demo. To this day, 2 of PlanGrid’s top 10 customers are from those early conferences. Over the next 7 years, Young scaled PlanGrid so flawlessly that their story is now considered 𝘵𝘩𝘦 Silicon Valley playbook to crack big, established industries: - Call every single lead. - Prioritise predictable growth. - All staff can demo the product. - Get the product in customers hands. - Attack core B2B personas and expand. In 2018, PlanGrid was acquired by AutoDesk for a whopping $875m. Today, Young runs TigerEye, software that tracks and predicts future performance of sales teams. She also runs a newsletter coined “Predictable Growth” where she interviews female leaders driving revenue for their businesses. -- 👉 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 “If you could buy Instagram, Foursquare, or Pinterest, which would you buy?” One of the wildest parts of this leaked internal conversation is Mark’s hypothesis that “Instagram can hurt us meaningfully without becoming a huge business though. For the others, if they become big we’ll just regret not doing them”. He was 100% correct. Instagram turned out to be more popular than Facebook, and could have hurt them tremendously if it remained independent. Foursquare split into 2 products, shut one down, and the other (’Swarm’) makes $100m per year (Meta makes $500m+ per *day*). Pinterest generates ~$4b per year, but is not (and will never be) a real threat to Meta’s core business. -- 👉 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 65,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

Blockbuster stores over 30 years: . . . Source: V1 Analytics -- 👉 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

In 1997, Apple was 90 days away from bankruptcy. A $150 million investment from arch rival Bill Gates and Microsoft saved the company. The conditions for Apple: ↳ Apple agrees to make Internet Explorer the default browser on MacOS for 5 years. ↳ Apple agrees to support Microsoft Office for Mac for 5 years. ↳ Apple agrees to settle all outstanding patent litigation against Microsoft, and to cross-license their patents for 5 years. ↳ Apple agrees to collaborate with Microsoft on Java programming and QuickTime streaming. The conditions for Microsoft: ↳ Microsoft agrees to continue developing Microsoft Office for Mac for 5 years. ↳ Microsoft agrees not to sell its $150 million worth of non-voting Apple shares for 3 years. ↳ Microsoft agrees to release new versions of its software for Mac at the same time as Windows versions. Today, Apple is worth ~$3.5 trillion, and is currently the most valuable company in the world. Microsoft is worth ~$3.1 trillion, the 3rd most valuable company in the world. -- 👉 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

If you want to become good at strategy, then learn these case studies: 15) How Apple makes you spend more: https://lnkd.in/gEdE8v2g 14) How Chrome ate Internet Explorer: https://lnkd.in/gpEfMKBe 13) Notion is a lifestyle: https://lnkd.in/g-ihhZ7i 12) Netflix's $1 million prize: https://lnkd.in/gU3PraiJ 11) Minecraft - a canvas for creators: https://lnkd.in/gZbEsrRT 10) Why Valve has no managers: https://lnkd.in/gyDPxJQ5 9) Nintendo's marketing playbook: https://lnkd.in/g_DfwQJB 8) Hotmail's viral growth loop: https://lnkd.in/gDikP5Ui 7) The legendary Dropbox referral program: https://lnkd.in/gc9-ih8J 6) How Airbnb gets users on autopilot: https://lnkd.in/g-Ztea7N 5) Unsplash's viral distribution playbook: https://lnkd.in/gyANNMHj 4) How Canva wins SEO: https://lnkd.in/gaDMPPBN 3) Everyone works for Reddit: https://lnkd.in/gZs45UuS 2) How Discord won communities: https://lnkd.in/gQ5HBgpF 1) Zapier's automatic traffic machine: https://lnkd.in/gPT43yrn What would you add to this list? -- 👉 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