- Startup Spells šŖ
- Posts
- šŖ Product-Channel Fit
šŖ Product-Channel Fit
PLUS: Discover Competitors' Ads and The Best Viral TikTok Products
Startup Spells šŖ
July 21, 2024
Hey,
The Spells Master is back!
Welcome to the 106th issue.
Today's topics:
Product-Channel Fit
A tool to Discover Competitors' Ads and The Best Viral TikTok Products
One recommended video on Lead Gen From Twitter (The Easy Way)
Product-Channel Fit
Everyone knows about Product-Market Fit but no one thinks about Product-Channel Fit.
Product-Channel Fit is simply when a product is molded to fit with a specific distribution channel.
Certain products work well on certain distribution channels.
Tabs Chocolate was specifically made for TikTok. The creator of Tabs Chocolate copied another chocolate brand that was going viral on TikTok but didn't have an online presence.
Musicfy, a $1.5m Text-To-Music SaaS, is another one that worked well on TikTok.
Many Student Ed Tech apps are blowing up on TikTok because Gen Z creators love video-first platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram for consumption. For them, Facebook is old people.
There are dozens of AI edtech startups founded by gen z printing 6-7 figures MRR
All copycats of each other, all marketing via tiktok, all have the same pricing and UI/UX
"Cheating" has become the norm and there are less incentives than ever for students to actually do work
ā Dennis (@dkardonsky_)
4:36 PM ā¢ Jul 19, 2024
Most musicians used TikTok in 2020 to funnel viewers to their Spotify Streams. And they specifically made trending sounds for TikTok, as back then TikTok algorithm had an exploit that made anyone go viral if they used trending sounds.
GymShark bet on Influencer Marketing before the term was even invented and went viral on Instagram.
Local Businesses mostly need Google My Business Listings and tons of reviews to get a steady stream of customers. SEO works fine as well for Local Business.
Imgur grew on top of Reddit.
Grammarly and Honey (sold to PayPal for $4 billion) are prime examples of growing on top of Chrome Extensions.
Substack grew on top of X.
At the end of the day, certain products work on certain channels. You need to find the ones that work for your product.
"Products are built to fit with channels, not the other way around. The reason for this is that you do not define the rules of the channel. The channel defines the rules of the channel."
Their game, their rules. When Substack started copying features from X/Twitter, Elon Musk made sure to give less engagement to anyone that posted links to Substack posts. Now, nobody posts external links to competitor platforms.
The platform giveth, the platform taketh. Remember, the time when Facebook killed Zynga.
"Facebook defines the rules of what content and feed items appear in peopleās feeds. They also define what is allowed via their APIās. They also define which ads get shown and how expensive they are. Google defines what content appears in the top ten search results. They also control what the top ten search results look like. They determine what ads appear and the rules that govern their cost."
The good news is you only need one channel to make a sustainable business. If you can find more than one, you can create a monster business.
What they say about money applies to business as well:
"Focus to get rich. Diversify to stay rich."
Focus on 1-2 channels to find one winning channel. Once you find it, exploit it. Finally, diversify into multiple channels.
"The kitchen sink approach doesn't work. Most companies get zero distribution channels to work. If you get just one channel to work you have a great business. If you try for several but donāt nail one, youāre finished. Distribution follows the power law."
Hat Tip to Brian Balfour for his $100M+ Growth Series.
A tool to Discover Competitors' Ads and The Best Viral TikTok Products
Pipi Ads is where you can discover the products going viral on TikTok.
Best way to go viral? Make a similar product to the one that is going viral.
This simple trick works across platforms.
One recommended video on Lead Gen From Twitter (The Easy Way)
This video covers how you can get leads from X using automation.
X is by far the best platform to reach more people via Cold DMs than any other platform.
For context, you can send 500 DMs per day on X per account. You can't do that on other platforms. Cold Email only allows 50 emails per domain if you want to avoid spam. Instagram and LinkedIn are very harsh on DMs.
Top Tweets of the day
1/
Offshore Agency Meme. Source: @MatznerJon
When you hire an agency, the person doing all the work is often a low-wage worker.
There's a reason why most small business owners want to work with freelancers unless the agency is top 1% in their field as freelancers income depend upon getting results and freelancers can only take a few clients at a time to fully provide value.
2/
What are the common characteristics of failed YC companies?
My friend @MaxHager66 compiled a list of ~5k YC companies. I asked Claude about what it noticed about the ~1370 Not Active YC companies. Here's what it said:
"There's a wide range, but many fit the pattern of consumerā¦ x.com/i/web/status/1ā¦
ā Lucas š“āā ļø (@edchucation)
4:20 PM ā¢ Jul 18, 2024
Its hard to build a successful global education business unless you give education through entertainment. This is one reason for the fast-paced Netflix-style videos on Educational Business YouTube Channels like Alex Hormozi's. See how Byju's and most Ed-Tech startups eventually go out of business. Sometimes its due to foundersā foolishness but sometimes its due to human nature of not wanting to get bored.
Musically Co-Founder Alex Zhu knows that building an educational business is hard. He started an Educational Company with Musically (now TikTok).
But the initial educational app didn't work because education is going against human nature so he transitioned the product to a lip-syncing entertainment app.
"People want to be entertained, not educated."
I believe the reason is due to dopamine overload for the past 2 decades. World's Best Minds are working towards making you addicted and dumber so everyone suffers from low-attention span nowadays.
Rabbit Holes
Notes on Alex Zhu of musical.ly - Alex Zhu is one of the genius behind Musically. He is a futurist and his insights are impeccable.
Alen Sultanicās genius advice for making more sales - Sometimes you don't need to change the product. You just need to change the packaging to make more sales. Don't make new stuff. Just present the old stuff in a new way.
Social-Media Influencers Arenāt Getting RichāThey're Barely Getting By - It is important to build a business around going viral. For sponsorship to work, you need to provide $10-$100 of value to make $1 yourself. It is much better to build your own product or own 50% equity in a company and make more money on the backend. Hacker News has a good discussion on this topic.
Until next time,
Your Spells Master!
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