Eric Seufert

Understanding AppLovin In the latest episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I present a long-form analysis of AppLovin's business and its significant recent growth. But understanding AppLovin the company is fundamentally predicated on understanding the market in which it operates, mobile games advertising, and the direct response digital advertising landscape more broadly. And so the podcast is structured in three parts: - Understanding direct response advertising - Understanding mobile gaming advertising - Understanding AppLovin’s growth Link below.

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Insightful look into bioplatform strategy, and what it takes to raise a Series A from my partner, Omri Amirav-Drory: https://lnkd.in/dFv7GbF6

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Yesterday, my team at Vareto announced the first-ever multiplayer modeling platform for Finance. 😍 Now that I can finally speak publicly about what we've been working on, the first thing I want to share is a screenshot from a live multiplayer session we did internally at the company. One of the interesting things about building enterprise software as a startup is that we're still too small to *need* our own product. So instead of doing what our customers do--expense budgeting, headcount planning, etc.--we use Vareto's multiplayer modeling to forecast fun things like total pet spend. Yep, that's right. We had 40 people go into a Vareto model and enter in bottom-up inputs for how much they expect to spend on their cats and dogs this year. 😂 While this isn't very useful--especially since many people entered in clearly exaggerated numbers--sessions like this helped prove that our new 2.0 platform can handle even "extreme" usage situations. (In reality, even if some enterprise customers have thousands of users in Vareto, only a handful are ever likely to be in the same model page at the same exact time given granular data permissions.) You can see more useful, realistic ways that finance and business teams can use Vareto multiplayer here: https://lnkd.in/gV9gqKwz

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I think there could be a next step in liquidity pool mechanics, something I'm dubbing "Agentic Liquidity Pools" (I'm sure someone's already thought of it). Imagine LPs that don't need human oversight but instead are created with baked in, preset instructions to maintain a tokens health and liquidity. Exisiting versions of AMMs + LBPs are still too "manual". Founders and Market Makers still need to intervene during periods of high volatility. But by creating "ALPs", we could start to see: - Better price stability 📈 - Better price discovery 📈 - More efficient pools resulting in cheaper fees 💲 - Less reliance on project teams to manage treasury 💻 - Less reliance on forcing community to keep liquidity locked in pools 👨‍🚀 And who knows - AI Agents might begin transacting for people onchain in future using something like an ALP. I wrote about it in detail over on the Tokenise blog. Check it out and let me know what you think https://lnkd.in/grre_rbe

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You've already seen the data from Edmunds. For the sake of this post, we will call it 'Market Based Unaffordability' where 17.4% of consumers in Q3 financed a new vehicle at over $1,000 per month. What's even more disturbing is the 18.4% of loans that are 84-months, which is sure to "weld the customer into the vehicle" due to inequity (famous phrase from Robert Hollenshead). Are things actually getting better with rate cuts? No. Carmatic data is showing many makes and models are actually increasing rates as we close out October. You can see in the image below, the average best deal APR is creeping back up. Perhaps this is how the OEMs intend to regain some of the incentive dollars they've promoted throughout the month. Are OEM incentives going to change the course? So far, not even close. Some OEMs are sort of playing along (like Stellantis), but most others aren't. OEMs need to turbo charge incentives. Instead we see them robbing Peter to pay Paul. Incentives go up, rates go up. Incentives down, rates down. Or at least that seems to be a recent trend. It's almost irrational to watch some of the incentivized rates, like Nissan Motor Corporation's (up to) 36 month loan for 0% APR. If they understood the data, they would know that the majority of consumers can't afford loans that are less than 60 months anyways (nearly 70% are over 60 months per Edmunds). Wouldn't a couple thousand incentive dollars on the hood be more appealing? So then, is it just going to be left to the dealers to adjust prices and make deals? Maybe, but that's not a winning strategy at the macro level. I saw any interesting post from Ramp and Car Dealership Guy that said almost 50% of car dealers are using vAuto by Cox Automotive. That's great... except that means half of the market is using the same pricing strategy. With growing inventory counts and the same strategy as the guy down the road... how will you stand out? Here's a thought: In many cases, Dealers know their customer, their affordability profile and frequently, what vehicle they are in. The data lives in the DMS and CRM. What if we targeted individuals with a personalized and affordable payment on a new(er) vehicle that fits their budget?  What if we did this at scale? It's a very real strategy for attacking the market. Instead of carpet bombing consumers at the make-model level based on lackluster lead data, let's talk about Market Based Affordability and how you can start targeting your next customers with VIN specific payment offers. It goes without saying, advertising units with real payments do indeed perform better. Learn more about Market Based Affordability here: https://lnkd.in/g5HYbTpr Source: https://lnkd.in/gZ4s6qFd

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A not very obvious aspect about fundraising: it's seasonal. 👇 From second-half of June to first-half of September: Investors are more in the grab-the-towel-and-flip-flops mindset. From late Nov to early January: You'll find them skiing in St. Moritz/Tahoe. If you're speaking with European investors, those periods get even more acute. Fundraising is about generating a sense of competition. During those dates, they will be focused on closing operations they already had in the pipeline, and less open to kickoff new dealflow. Therefore, it would be harder to generate that sense of competition for you. Keep that in mind for your planning. #entrepreneurship #fundraising #venturecapital #startup

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I think this is right Danny; to add true value in an LLM-ubiquitous economy, you have to build products that leverage LLM functionality but go far beyond for (increasinly narrow) use-cases. We are building a highly flexible tech-stack that leverages multiple LLMs (and can easily hot-swap) in a way that demonstrates compelling content now but is componentized for the future.

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Corporates just want a chatbot that works. They don’t care if you trained Llama 3 on trillions of proprietary data points, or if your data scientist has a Stanford paper with thousands of citations, or if you’re an angel investor in Perplexity, or if you took a selfie with Sam at the GPT-o event. After dozens of meetings with corporates in Latin America, we’ve confirmed their excitement for generative #AI but also their frustration with its current performance. Focus on making AI that delivers. Corporates just want a chatbot that works.

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💼 Ready to take your startup to the next level? Explore our extensive list of 220 #VCfirms in New York! Get all the details you need to connect with potential investors. Dive in: https://lnkd.in/d_mb-2n9 #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #managementconsulting

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I've talked to 50+ crypto projects over the last few weeks and they're all looking for help onboarding KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) Many are hiring agencies, BD people, assistants - just to fail miserably Here's what they don't get: Before we get into how to onboard KOLs, just know: KOLs won't fix your problems If users can't understand your product, if your value prop is not strong enough... then go work on fundamentals and then work with KOLs KOLs work great when they amplify sth that's already great Now, back to onboarding KOLs 1) Outreach Most of the teams I've talked to use cold outreach, copy-pasting the same DM over and over again If that's you, you need to stop that NOW - nobody likes spam This is how you win and set yourself apart: - Try to get a warm intro if possible (this is where agencies can help) - Personalize your outreach! - Own your pitch! 💡No agency can do a better job than you at pitching your product! 2) Why your project is a great fit Make it obvious why their followers should care about a project like yours! Share metrics that show traction, Social proof (investors, PR articles, etc) Demo about how to use your product 💡Onboard them to your product as if they were users! 3) Remove friction from generating content Ok so now they buy that your project is legit, but now are thinking how painful could it be to generate content? (yes many of them are lazy) 💡Share some of your own content that has worked, content from other projects/KOLs can work too 4) Landing a good deal Lastly, negotiating a deal that makes sense for both sides is what will make or break this process Make sure incentives are aligned 💡Remember: No deal is always better than a bad deal! That's all - there's not much else to it tldr 1. Personalized outreach 2. Make it clear why your project is a fit 3. Remove friction from generating content 4. Land a good deal If you'd like me to go deeper into KOL deals, please reply to this post and I'll follow up with you

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tl;dr: Finding external advocates for your product is one of the most foolproof ways to build developer trust. If you’re generous enough with your incentives, loyal customers don’t just become endorsers — they become revenue-generating machines. Your biggest fans could be generating 10% of your revenue. At ScraperAPI, our affiliate program did just that by converting loyal users into top salespeople. Here’s how we spotted the opportunity: We realized that a lot of our customers would outsource web scraping tasks to freelance software engineers who would use the same tool over and over again for different companies. That left us with a great opportunity to build relationships with those freelancers who had the potential to bring us more and more new customers over time. Here’s how we did it in practice: It’s super simple. We offered killer incentives to everyone involved: -25% recurring commissions for affiliates -10% first-month discount for the new customers they referred Because our product was well-designed and easy to use, freelancers were happy to recommend us over and over again.

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Fundraising Series Part 2: Until...November 13th. Bitcoin crashed by 30% and our previous $80M valuation was no more. Now some VCs were asking for a $20M valuation. We were screwed! We ended up taking term sheets for $60M, then $40M, and we got stuck unable to close our round when we were previously even turning away investors! We ended up closing $3.5M instead of $10M at around a $40-50M valuation so I think I did a pretty good job all considering. Here are the numbers. Around 95% of the funding came from in-person meetings at conferences. There was a rare exception where I got a term sheet from a VC I never met. 😲 The lowest amount we got from a VC was $100K and the highest amount was around $300K. We didn't have any angel investors commit but I later found out there was a secret angel that put in $1M+ before I joined with the previous understanding that my wife and I had already joined the team which wasn't true. Even though I wasn't the CEO, I had single-handedly raised 50%+ of the round myself.

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A not very obvious aspect about fundraising: it's seasonal. From second-half of June to first-half of September: Investors are more in the grab-the-towel-and-flip-flops mindset. From late Nov to early January: You'll find them skiing in St. Moritz/Tahoe. If you're speaking with European investors, those periods get even more acute. Fundraising is about generating a sense of competition. During those dates, they will be focused on closing operations they already had in the pipeline, and less open to kickoff new dealflow. Therefore, it would be harder to generate that sense of competition for you. Keep that in mind for your planning. #entrepreneurship #fundraising #venturecapital #startup

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Crypto artist and digital music shapeshifter, Michael Smith finds himself under the spotlight, not for a chart-topping performance, but on serious allegations of manipulating music streaming numbers! The audacious 52-year-old North Carolinian has been accused of leveraging emerging AI technologies and bots to artificially enhance his streaming statistics, thereby orchestrating a fraudulent windfall of never-before-imagined proportions in royalty payments. • This situation echos an increasingly common question: Can technology always be trusted? • Does AI, with all its benefits, expose an underbelly of potential misuse? 1. My prediction: This case could serve as a sharp reminder of the need for constant adaptation in governance and regulations encompassing AI technologies’ use. Expect a clampdown on such activities, along with tighter protocols being instituted for data validation and verification on streaming platforms. 2. Observations: It's hard not to marvel at the entrepreneurial if misplaced ingenuity involved in conjuring such a scheme. However, a word of caution; adopting unethical practices yields quick, short-term gains at best. On the other hand, it could lead to severe legal penalties, not to mention the irrevocable damage of reputation. 3. Takeaway: As this incident brings to light, any innovation is only as good as its use. We're living in an era defined by extraordinary tech breakthroughs. Yet, it's crucial that these innovations are employed not just smartly, but also ethically. The experience of Michael Smith is a stark reminder of the pitfalls when this fine balance is disrupted. To sum it up: • Technology, while promising unprecedented opportunities, must be leveraged responsibly. • Regulators and platforms need to constantly evolve to be a step ahead of potential miscreants. • Let this incident be a clarion call to developers worldwide to build robust safeguards into their innovations. This, my friends, is the duality of AI - a profound tool but one that can be misused. Let's rise to the challenge & ensure its potential is fully, but rightly, harnessed. After all, as Newton's third law reminds us, every action has an equal and opposite reaction! #AINews #ArtificialIntelligence #EthicsInAI #TechInMusic

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