If you’re reading this, congratulations – you made it past the 43% layoffs of this current newsletter!
Doing an annual cleanup, we purged over 6000 contacts and now gather about 7,400 subscribers here. This purge took place a week ago – and the open rates went from 34% to 58% by cleaning the inactive subscribers.
Moral of the story – readers come and go, but the algorithm loves high open rates, and we’re way past the averages on this business weekly journal.
Back to business…
The current macro environment is horrifying looking into the actual layoff rounds out there.
With over 25,000 public layoffs announced by well-known companies, January is already worse than anything prior to March of 2023.
Looks like most companies tried to capitalize as best as possible in Q4… But the rewards weren’t sufficient to sustain in the new year. The high employment costs with marginal returns make AI even more lucrative – for support, marketing, sales, and even engineering roles in many cases.
In another realm, however, sales are happening. Some investments I made in Q3 and Q4 are scaling, closing new business, and expanding.
I spoke with 40+ investors this month and made intros to startups that are currently raising. Some term sheets were exchanged by now – because funds are available, just looking for businesses with the right valuation and profitability in place.
Even some business acquisitions happened across threads I’m looped in this month. Some shrewd business veterans keep a close eye on opportunities and pay up once the right one comes up.
This is also a byproduct of shifting marketing budgets from Q4 to other growth initiatives with asymmetric opportunities. Instead of paying Meta or TikTok for leads, smaller acquisitions can yield brand results with actual customers or traction in place.
Worth considering regardless of what side on the table you sit.
Read up for the remaining business news over the past week.
And if you’re planning a faster-paced growth journey in Q1 and Q2, take a look at our Experimentation solutions picking up now!
Yours,
Mario
My Take
Avoid These 10 Business Habits – Explore ten common business activities that hinder progress and optimize your team and projects for smoother management. Because at the end of the day, busyness does not equal productivity.
AI’s Marketing Power Is Mightier Than Its Pen – When ChatGPT launched in 2022, marketers jumped on the technology’s ability to generate content in a fraction of the time and effort it takes a human writer or designer. Almost as quickly, they found good reasons to question whether that’s a net positive. Don’t rely on AI’s questionable creative capabilities – harness its potential to perform as your team’s most valuable content partner.
Newsletter Recommendations
Stacked Marketer – One of my go-to newsletters and a business that we’ve worked with a while ago on the DevriX front. It is loved by marketers who get hands-on with campaigns, who need to stay up-to-date with frequently changing platforms., who need to get an edge, and who need to achieve outsized results with limited resources, aka performance-focused marketers.
The Average Joe – Market trends & insights that are simple, concise, and impactful. This newsletter stands out to me due to the 200,000+ audience that go through market trends and ideas together.
Boldpush – А special newsletter for those interested in marketing intelligence and strategy to the most ambitious brands. Props to Julius Solaris for creating one of my top newsletter reads for GTM strategies and actionable content.
Morning Brew – Аn absolute classic, the Morning Brew delivers top news from a business-minded angle, and deliver it in a short, easy-to-read, actionable, and entertaining way.
Business Strategy
ChatGPT Violating EU Laws Again – OpenAI has been told it’s suspected of violating European Union privacy, following a multi-month investigation of its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, by Italy’s data protection authority. Confirmed breaches of the pan-EU regime can attract fines of up to €20 million, or up to 4% of global annual turnover.
Amazon Abandons iRobot Acquisition – I remember writing about this deal when it was first announced. Amazon and robot vacuum maker iRobot said Monday they would end their plans to merge in the face of opposition from EU and U.S. antitrust regulators. iRobot announced a significant restructuring plan to reduce costs and said it would cut about 31% of its workforce, or 350 jobs. The company also said founder Colin Angle has stepped down as its CEO of the Roomba robot vacuum manufacturer.
Google Search CPCs up 19% and Ad Spend 17% – Advertising spend on Google search ads in the U.S. rose by 17% year-on-year in the final quarter of 2023. Meanwhile, Google click growth remained steady at 8% year-on-year, while cost-per-click accelerated to 9% during the same period. Spend increase varies differently depending on the viewports.
Neuralink valued at $5 billion – Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink, which was valued at close to $2 billion in a private fundraising round two years ago, is now worth around $5 billion based on privately executed stock trades. Some purchases by bullish investors boosted the valuation in recent months, ahead of Neuralink’s May 25 announcement that U.S. regulators had approved a human trial on its brain chip, the sources said.
China Evergrande ordered to liquidate – A court in Hong Kong has mandated the liquidation of China Evergrande, recognized as the real estate developer with the highest debt globally. This decision comes after the company’s unsuccessful attempt to restructure its massive $300 billion debt, which is owed to banks and bondholders, heightening concerns over China’s increasing debt issues.
Global News
Upcoming are significant earnings reports from major tech companies Microsoft and Alphabet, coinciding with an impending meeting of the Federal Reserve.
- S&P 500: $4,924 (-0.07%)
Mortgage rates could gradually come down this year, according to Greg McBride, CFA, Bankrate chief financial analyst. Rates drifted downward in November and December of 2023 as the Federal Reserve held off on raising rates further. The central bank now forecasts rate cuts in 2024 — a move that would have broad economic impact, including on the 10-year Treasury, the main driver of fixed mortgage rates.
- 30-year mortgage rate: 6.96%(-0.02)
- 15-year mortgage rate: 6.50%(+0.05)
The 10-year Treasury yield was lower Tuesday as the first Federal Reserve policy meeting of 2024 kicked off and traders parsed through fresh economic data. Traders were last pricing in an almost 50-50 chance of rates being held steady or being cut at the next Fed meeting in March, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
At the Fed’s last meeting in December, policymakers indicated that they were expecting three rate cuts in 2024, but minutes from the meeting showed that the path ahead for monetary policy remained highly uncertain.
This week’s we see further thousands of layoffs and interesting moves in the 2024 election thread.
- UPS announces it will cut 12,000 jobs following a disappointing sales outlook. Managers and contractor positions will make up most of the layoffs.
- Former IRS contractor who leaked former President Trump’s tax records has been sentenced to 5 years in prison.
- Israeli troops dressed as medical staff raid West Bank hospital and kill three suspected militants.
Investing Updates
Happy Birthday to SeedBlink! Bringing opportunities to the European Angel Investing community for more than 4 years now.
- Willicroft – plant-based dairy alternatives
- €287,000 estimated revenues FY23, and €2,214,000 for FY24.
- Solution: plant-based cheese and butter products
- Europe’s 1st plant-based cheese certified by B Corporation.
- Sales in +600 stores, bakeries, and fine dining restaurants
- Bright Spaces– interactive 3D layer for buildings
- €670,000 ARR in Jan 2024 (2x vs Jan ’23).
- Solution: interactive 3D layer for buildings.
- Graduated Pi Labs, Star Venture, and Hyper Accelerator programs.
- Present in the UK, Finland, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, aiming to extend to the US and Asia.
- Easee – accessible eye care
- €614,020 forecasted ARR in FY23 and €1,620,677 forecasted ARR in FY24.
- 14 patents. ISO and MDR class 2a certification
- 14 clinical trials, a large data set and over 220,000 user accounts.
Note: Got a round going that you want to feature – your own business or a portfolio company? Get in touch.
Now let’s have a look at the latest top Flippa offers, including their newest feature – being able to buy and sell Newsletters!
Remote Job Board – This business is a marketplace connecting people looking for remote jobs and people looking to hire remote workers, and upon launch was voted as the #1 product on product hunt.
- Monthly Profit: $1.6K
- Registered Users: 44K+
- Age: 5 years
Full Service Amazon Consulting Agency – This is a full service Amazon consulting business with 13 clients and a fully systemized, documented and repeatable fulfilment process.
- Monthly Profit: $7.5K
- TTM Revenue: $442K
- Age: 4 years
Logistics Industry SaaS – This business has stable revenue, a lifetime customer value of $1.3K and a profit margin of 49%.
- Monthly Profit: $4.7K
- MRR: $2.4K
- Age: 8 years
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Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink and use Nimity to manage it.
Eager to incorporate my recommended solutions? Track my angel investments. Sharing, applying for open roles, or writing reviews helps a ton. And anything else I try to publish on my blog and my courses here!