brett goldstein Profile picture
Feb 11, 2019 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
👇👇THREAD👇👇

Happy #GrammysTNT night! It turns out that writing hit songs isn’t so different from building great products. Here’s what I learned about product from over 10 years as an indie songwriter:
🎵 Get to the point 🎵

Great songs get to the chorus within 40-50 seconds because that’s what converts listeners into fans.

@chamath was famous for identifying Facebook’s magic moment that drove retention. Every product should get to this ASAP during on boarding.
🎵 Competition is bad 🎵

It’s hard to be the best R&B artist because there are A LOT of them. @leonbridges found his edge in 50's Soul, something no one else was doing.

Messaging apps are hard for the same reason. Unless your product is 10x better, it's best not to compete.
🎵 Meet people where they are 🎵

Innovative music is almost always a derivative of popular styles and structures. @kanyewest didn’t start with Pablo, he started with conventional HS dropout

New paradigms like AR and crypto need to be tied to existing user behaviors to succeed
🎵It’s not enough to be great🎵

There are countless talented people who didnt have the luck or put in the work to make it. @PostMalone made it because he worked for a decade

Market timing and team dynamic have an outsized impact on success regardless of how great a product is
🎵 Simplicity is key 🎵

Great songwriters like Max Martin and @rickyreed say to "remove anything that isn't absolutely crucial to the song"

Product features that don't drive core metrics and/or delight users should be carefully considered against features that do.

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More from @thatguybg

Jun 10
what Jony Ive is to today's designers, Dieter Rams was to Jony

his 'less is more' minimalist philosophy influenced everything from iPhones to IKEA furniture

I recently bought a few of his books and went down the rabbit hole. here's what I found 🧵 Image
Rams is a revolutionary industrial designer who created iconic, minimalist products for Braun from the 1950s to the 1990s

his designs were considered beyond improvement

his sleek, functional designs for radios, juicers, etc changed the look and feel of consumer goods forever Image
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his rigorous design process and obsessive attention to detail set a new bar for the industry. Image
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May 19
I went looking for some good UI design inspiration

but instead, I fell down the rabbit hole of designers competing to create the worst UI possible

happy to announce I won't use any of these hilariously awful bangers:

1/ the best way to limit username size
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3/ vivaldi would be proud Image
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May 9
the tech industry has this obsession with building the "wechat of the west"

billions of dollars have been invested in creating new super apps over the years

yet we still don't have one. why? 🧵 Image
what exactly is a super app?

there's no set framework to define it but the closest we have is this description:

"a super app is a closed ecosystem of many apps that people would use every day because they offer such a seamless, integrated, contextualized & efficient experience" Image
this was given by Mike Lazaridis, the founder of Research in Motion and originator of the super app concept, at the 2010 mobile world congress

he said that twitter on blackberry was a super app

(.@elonmusk would be happy)
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Apr 26
zuck's leaked 2015 email on facebook's VR/AR strategy is a wild read

I did an AR strategy project for the CEO of Google when I worked there and this is next level.

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I obv had to dig in🧵 Image
it came just a year after fb dropped $2B on the Oculus deal

which had everyone scratching their heads at the time as a random move into gaming hardware. Image
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deepfakes are fun (like this video) but also a billion-dollar problem.

rigging elections, blackmailing, corporate scams are on the rise.

understanding how deepfakes work can give us clues about how to control them.

everything on deepfakes and how to tackle them 🧵
I mean the memes are funny but we need to figure this problem out.

how deepfakes work:

first, there are many ways of generating deepfakes but the primary types are

- face synthesis from data
- lip syncing
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Mar 24
just stumbled on sequoia's 2005 investment memo for youtube

when I was on google's M&A team, we considered it the best acquisition in the history of the company

It's 41 pages of juicy details on why they invested (thanks for the lawsuit, Viacom)

I obviously had to dig in🧵 Image
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backdrop: this was before smartphones and before streaming video really took off.

some key trends were emerging that the youtube team recognized:

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Read 21 tweets

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