Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
Spotify Has a Plan to Harness Hollywood for Podcasts and Create “the World’s No. 1 Audio Platform” Hollywood Reporter (reading time: 18 minutes)
Spotify is the clear music streaming leader, yet profitability is a challenge given its business model of royalties. The company is trying to capitalize on the relatively nascent boom of podcasting. This article explains the vision and strategy of the company’s founder, Daniel Ek. It’s a fascinating read on the company’s biggest bet to date.
Our decentralised future? A blockchain primer David Kelnar (reading time: 17 minutes)
While the hype of blockchain and cryptocurrencies more generally has fallen, the underlying technology itself remains quite important. I’ve been trying to better understand howit works and its potential. This article offers an accessible and balanced introduction to the subject. It was a great refresher for me.
Superhuman – Beware Service Providers Sean West (reading time: 7 minutes)
Software has become increasingly easy and inexpensive. As a result, competitive advantage has shifted to customer experience. A prime example of this trend is a company called Superhuman. It’s a subscription email application that sits on top of Gmail. This post dissects what makes their onboarding experience so special and what professional services can learn from this.
The Video-First Future of Ecommerce a16z (reading time: 9 minutes)
Looking at the Chinese internet is like looking at the future, it’s just not here yet. Purchasing directly via short-form video has exploded in recent years in the country. This insightful post by Connie Chan and Avery Segal at a16z dives into exactly this works. It’s a great follow up t their first post on the subject back in August.
Breaking The Walls Between Business and Agile Teams Itamar Gilad (reading time: 10 minutes)
This is an excellent post for those looking to bridge long term product roadmaps and agile teams. Itamar Gilad provides great tactical advice on how to make this work. He also explains how to use feedback loops to improve the process.
