Greg Isenberg is a multi-exit Silicon Valley entrepreneur and owner of Late Checkout product studio. He has:
- Headed Product Strategy at WeWork
- Been an advisor to Reddit
- Founded a startup, Islands, which was sold to WeWork
- Founded 5by, which was sold to StumbleUpon
Guest Author: Greg Isenberg
I’M FEELING SPICY TODAY
I’ll say the quiet parts out loud:
1. I wish I enjoyed opening Notion.
Am I the only one who finds it slow and clunky?
2. AI is bleeding customers.
The consumer experience needs to be as addictive as swiping on TikTok or IG. Until that’s fixed, you won’t be seeing AI everywhere.
3. Dividend startups are going to become a big thing.
Raising money in exchange for future profits. The reason is simple. VCs have slowed investment pace. Private investors are looking for cash flow. Founders are looking for cash.
4. There is nothing more lame than saying “I don’t disagree”.
You either agree or disagree or don’t know enough to commit.
5. Everyone talks about “
” with boomers retiring and not talking enough about how the greatest wealth transfer will be scooping up distressed-VC assets which is happening literally as we speak.
6. The newsletter bubble is about to POP.
It doesn’t make sense for a person to subscribe to 10+ emails. Something is going to break. We either need a Google Reader 2.0 (i.e., a new way to read newsletters) or people’s newsletters metrics are going to nosedive in 2 years. Imagine spending $500k on acquiring 250k (cough, cough, many AI newsletters) and engagement rates plummet. That will happen.
7. A viral post can change your life.
It has mine. But it’s basically a casino. Luck is involved. But it’s more poker than it is roulette. 8. SaaS apps with 100% AI-written code will unbundle vertical SaaS. 0.4% of SaaS companies achieve $10M ARR. 4% of SaaS companies achieve $1M ARR. The less than $1M ARR companies will be “eaten” by AI-written, more bespoke looking SaaS apps.
9. I’m excited for the Apple Vision Pro but it’s probably the most uncool looking Apple product yet. It looks like an accessory for the ski hill.
10. Remember when there were talent agents representing top tier engineering candidates for multi-million dollar deals? Well, I think we’re entering the age of the marketer.
I studied comp sci so I hate to say it, but marketers/product builders are going to be cherished and just as sought after in this cycle. People with TASTE in an AI world who know how to build awareness.
11. You’ll probably trust your AI lawyer more than your lawyer in a few years just as you’ll trust self-driving cars over getting into a random Uber with a stranger driving.
12. The right 10,000 person audience on social is enough people to make enough money from for a lifetime. You don’t need more than that.
Everything more is gravy.
13. Everyone always talks about cold plunges and saunas. Steam rooms are underrated with similar effects. Where my steam room people at?
14. If the majority of their revenue is coming from courses, beware what they say.
15. You’re crazy if you think that if you’re the CEO of a Series A or later VC-backed business that you are the boss. You have a board and report to your board.
16. We’re moving from software as a service to software with a service.
SaaS companies will have service arms with them to implement and customize. The future of SaaS is software as service + service as onboarding/customization + media as distribution.
17. Most succesful solopreneurs are high paid freelancers.
Many will burn out and hire teams so they can scale and go on vacation.
18. Apple’s App Store competes with GPT Store.
I think they’re seeing what happens with OpenAI and are going to want a piece of it.
19. The size of the software market will 10-100x too due to AI being easy to create spin-up software.
20. I think one of the best jobs for an up and coming creator is to not go solo but to go work for a brand. You join a brand you like to make video content, you get paid well because brands need content, you get followers to your personal account and funnel them into your newsletter or community.
21. Don’t build a newsletter business, build a newsletter powered by the newsletter.
Buy a newsletter business for 1-2x revenue. 2x the revenue by turning a newsletter business into a business powered by a newsletter.
22. There’s no middle class for solopreneurs, VC-backed entrepreneurs, or creators. Think about it.
23. Someone will make $50M+ on TikTok shop no inventory, no VCs this year. Probably some 24-year-old.
24. If you get community noted on your X Ad, it actually performs better. It kinda makes sense too. Your real estate becomes bigger with community notes. So more people see the ad.
25. The only way to get noticed right now is to look, sound, feel different.
Tracking your competition messes you up to sound like them. Ignore. Okay, maybe that’s enough spicy takes for now. Just trying to keep it real on this platform.
Follow me @gregisenberg for more
What spicy takes would you add to this list?
Check out the original tweet here.
