Alvin's Newsletter: No. 22 [Late Edition]
Weekly newsletter on what I saw interesting in tech, venture capital and business.
📰 News
Retool raises $50M - low code apps: Low code SAAS startup have been coming into their growth cycles over the last couple of years - Airtable, Notion and Coda have all raised some large rounds. We have another this week - Retool raised $50M from Sequoia.
Retool looks different to the others mentioned above because it pitches itself as a somewhat go-between coding and drag-drop style. It’s also pitched at internal tools which is a good way to break in, tell its story and anchor it on a problem that every company has.
The upside is pretty simple if you are running a team - you want your developers spending as little time as possible coding, maintaining and supporting non-core tools. This is the way to go about it. Looks like already people inside big companies are doing this.
What may look like toys for the moment could be a challenger to the likes of the big ERP co’s like SAP, Oracle etc over the next decade. Bottom up disruption. Link
Since Retool launched two years ago on HN, tens of thousands of companies have come to rely on Retool. It's how Allbirds measures the efficacy of their marketing campaigns; how Brex builds applications to underwrite, onboard, and support their businesses; how Amazon manages GDPR exports for some of their customers; and how NBC manages scheduling for the Olympics.
TikTok just had a moment: There is no doubt TikTok is having a significant impact on pop-culture - particularly its impact on music. Music samples used in TikTok videos can send the corresponding song to the top of billboard charts. And to top it off, this seems to happen almost serendipitous. Incredible.
This isn’t confined to music. It can bring up brands and products out of nowhere.
Last week was a moment for the platform, Fleetwood Mac and.. Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry. 😆 Link
For the rare few who may have missed this, on Sept. 25, Nathan Apodaca of Idaho Falls, Idaho, posted a TikTok video featuring him skateboarding to work due to a broken down car, drinking Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice and signing along to “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.
📚 Reading
How the NY Times turned around from a dying advertiser based news brand to something more akin to Netflix. They cut loose non-journalism related assets, turned away from the chasing traffic obsession tied to ad based models and hired new talent from the tech giants. One of only a handful of media companies that have transformed themselves in the digital era. Great media playbook. Link
The rise of The Times from wounded giant to reigning colossus has been as breathtaking as that of any start-up. As recently as 2014, print advertising was collapsing and the idea that subscribers would pay enough to support the company’s expensive global news gathering seemed like a pipe dream. But today “The gulf between The Times and the rest of the industry is vast and keeps growing.”
Another media related read. This time on audio and the new gold rush - and more importantly how it plays out and who might win. ‘Super deep dive’ into the history and media as it relates to audio and its delivery. Link
Adores IPO’d last week at a $635M market cap - the first female led IPO in Australia. I know very little about beauty retail. Camille gives an excellent master-class into the segment. Looks to be primed for big growth locally. Link
Australia’s online beauty purchases make up only 7.3 per cent of total market. This is half of where the US and UK are at. That means Australia’s $10.9B personal care and beauty market is ripe for e-commerce growth, and retailers are trying different tactics to secure customers.
The CEO from CircleUp stepped down and talked about how he go there. Honest and inside look at some of the personal things that coincided with what was going on at his company. Being a CEO is hard - for everyone involved. Big props to anyone that goes after it whether you succeed or fail. Link
🦖 Entertaining & Interesting things
How an Indian carmaker won the market by following the Japanese - the Maruti vehicle. Link
3% of Starlink’s satellites have failed and how it may affect space debris considering they plan to launch 42,000 of these. Link
Autonomous driving may not be only few newer cars. Heres a look at Open Pilot - the project to add it to any car. Fun fact - the founder of Open Pilot, George Hotz aka. geohotz, was the first to unlock an iPhone. He traded the second iPhone he unlocked for a car. Link
Flipping burgers with flippy burger robot. The are coming for those jobs. Link
🎧 Podcasts
The best podcast episodes last week according to Bosco Tan:
Insight from Sequoia Partner Roelof Botha (The Twenty Minute VC) - 40 mins: Sequoia is a peak VC fund in Silicon Valley. Since the 70s, they’ve successfully invested early in household names like Apple, Google, Paypal, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp. Botha here covers his personal history, lessons he’s learnt from Sequoia founder Don Valentine, as well as how he approaches investing. Link
Hillary talks “openly” about the election (Sway) - 42 mins: As the US election swells and the partisan attacks fill the news, one person is unique in understanding what it’s like - especially against Trump. Hillary Clinton sits for an open (as open as a politician gets) interview with Kara Swisher. She covers her reflections of 2016, thoughts on the disinformation campaigns, and her hopes of a post-Trump world. Partisan but timely. Link
How Microsoft played the 2nd half (The Readback) - 22 mins: Not so long ago, Microsoft was a bit of a dog in the tier of big tech companies - recall the Mac vs PC ads and the numerous ill-fated attempts to win in mobile. Today, the company is worth over US$1.5T, in the echelon of Apple and Amazon. This is a brief overview of how the ship got turned around. Link
Bacardi, Havana Club and Castro (Brought to you by…) - 39 mins: In the cultural slot this week we go deep into the history of Cuban rum. It’s a story of entrepreneurism, political influence and national identity. Did you know the Havana Club rum in the US is not the same as the Havana Club available elsewhere in the world? Listen and find out why. Link
📹 TikToks
An apartment Reno while you are away. Link
Alien umbrella. Link
USS Enterprise. IRL. almost. Link
The real Wolf of Wall Street story. Link
Gucci/LV/Dior opening in China. Link