Taylor's last voicemail can be found here
Themes
- Company direction and new launch
- Pricing models, values and trade-offs
- Distribution advantages in organic growth
Transcript
Beep... Hey Taylor.
Wow. I know I was gonna send you a voicemail on Friday. I was thinking about bunch of stuff I wanted to share, but at the same time I realized how the last week or so has been moving so quickly, and I needed a little chance to decompress over the weekend.
I'm coming into this week really energized. About where we are, and where we're going. And for the first time in a long time, I feel that there's a real directionality towards something that can start building momentum and we can and we can start building the next phase of this of this company. We have sufficient learnings and insights over the last few years that can be incorporated into the next version of Grove in multiple dimensions across product, across marketing, across the business model, and I guess in a way, I'm just energized about all three of those things and have big questions about them as we look at where do we go from here.
You know, I think just It was very clarifying that we have an aim for anyone else listening. I think this is a big, this is a an important stake in the ground for us to have a new version of the product out in October, which means that we only have a few months to get something together that we're all energized about and to start to see the designs come together in Figma. Anyone else that hasn't seen them, I'm excited to share some of these with you over the coming weeks.
In the run up to to what Groove is becoming and seeing that seeing that we saw, you know, this great circle of, we built something that a number of people have found extremely valuable. And understanding what the core value of it is for individuals and realizing that there's a gap for people coming into the product to us setting themselves up for success. To to really receive the full value of what the magic of groove can be in someone's life.
And now to see a product that reflects that, that helps you discover people like you, that helps make it easier to get into the grooves, to groove with the people that you want, and to build relationships around the groove is such a is not incremental change. Is us really truly stepping into this new product. And top of mind for me right now is is working with Sruli to make sure that we can deliver from an engineering perspective, that product. And and it also opens up so much for what we we're gonna get to do together on how do we bring this new product to the world?
And there are two things that are very alive for me in this. One is, now we have something that that we've seen delivers meaningful value and and real transformation in people's lives. It's the first time that I've felt a real confidence around charging for that. bBuilding any kind of social product, often the default is that there's an expectation that the product will be paid for by ad revenue. For me, both from a value perspective, but maybe more fundamentally, I think ad-revenues model doesn't really support the kind of relationship we wanna have with groovers, that we need something that aligns incentives that forces us to deliver more value into the hands of Groovers than into the hands of advertisers.
It allows us to focus in the most healthy ways. And more internally, You know, the consideration here is how do we build a sustainable business around the value that we've created? And therefore, there's always a tension between when you build a technology company between what does that price look like? How does that make sense for the end user? And also how do we balance a product that's inherently social and can grow through existing networks? And through word-of-mouth in a way that that the price isn't an inhibitor of of the right kind of growth.
And we see there's lots of different ways to package up paid products. You know, freemium, a trial, more emergent, a reverse trial, where as you probably know, but for clarification where new groovers get the full feature set of the product, sufficient to explore and see if that meets their needs and their lives. And if they do, then it becomes a paid product. As opposed to a limited trial where you get some of the value and from that, you are supposed to figure out whether you want more value.
So, even within them, I think the challenge for me that's just very alive is, and this probably brings it back into the metaphor of our co working space. If you come into a co working space and you check-in, What point do you get a membership? Can you come Can you bring your friends? If you bring your friends, your friends get a three day pass, do they get a one month pass? Does that allow them to start building their own space, or maybe they can just join you in your space?
Maybe anytime someone can be a guest of yours in the in the co working space Maybe you have a certain number of guest passes. Maybe they're not one day guest passes, maybe they're seven day guest passes. And where does the payment happen when you're hanging out in the room? Maybe you can hang out in the chat rooms as much as you want? Maybe it's only when you sit down at a table that that that that is a premium paid for feature.
That's what is alive for me and that's what I'm thinking about this week as It's very much my intention to as we step into the new product to launch with the first version of a paid for groove, especially as it's so important for us. To make sure that this is people that are here because they wanna be part of groove. There are other there are other services that a much more utilitarian, but this is much more of a holistic product. To give you a multidimensional benefits of being part of a co working space. So that's very alive.
One of the things that just has I've been meandering over in my mind over the weekend is distribution. We had this amazing session last week. I came away feeling very energized about about what the launch plan between now and the middle to end of October looks like. And in that, I think there are lots of great ideas about how to be truly groovy and leverage a variety of different marketing channels to onboard our early groovers.
At the same time, I still come back to what are we what what do we really need to be doing at the launch to enable groovers to, to be really effective at bringing their existing networks in. As with anything, as I'm starting to feel now, I have a new energy. There's a new momentum. There's some there's a new magnetic charge as I talk about what we're building and what we're launching. And I wanna be able to translate that through features and through communication. For our founding members to have the power to take ownership of building out the community they want to be part of. So alongside all the features that I see that are critical that we're building to help users set themselves up for more success for the first mile, as we start to get momentum and excitement around groove, as we talk about it more broadly over the coming weeks, what needs to be in the product, or what needs to be around the product, to be really, really helpful. In maximizing the momentum of this moment.
So those are the themes that are alive for me this week, and I can't imagine. If if from where we were seven days ago to where we are now, I can't imagine where we're gonna be in seven days from now, and excited for everything that we're gonna accomplish this week.
I'm particularly excited because I'm finally home, and I don't have any August travel distractions. That I can work that I can work full weeks to to realize this launch with you. Anyway, have a great beginning of your week. I will speak to you soon.
