Happy Friday and welcome to the second edition of Tech YOU Out!, the Linkedin newsletter experiment that has amassed a whopping 239 subscribers so far and also links in nicely with “The Culture Punks Project”. A project which is slowly but surely taking shape for launch sometime in early 2022. As you can probably see from the picture, it will focus on Purpose, Employee Experience and Customer Experience. However, don’t let the punchy language fool you. It is built for creating and supporting positive change. Its guiding principle is the golden rule. “Treat others as you expect to be treated yourself”. DM me if you want to learn more. (P.S. the website is WIP/MVP).
With the golden rule in mind, I had a complaint from someone on eBay 8 days after they received some headphones they purchased from me. They were claiming that they’d only just seen a large scratch on one of the arms. (For the record, I’m pretty sure I would have noticed it.) They seemed upset, but after some back and forth they decided to not make a meal of it and changed their tune. What was my response? I asked them to pick a charity and I would donate £5 (plus £1.25 gift aid). They picked the Make A Wish Foundation, so I sent a couple of screenshots of the reason for donating and the thank you message. The person was extremely surprised and very happy. In truth, I’d rather pay it forward than start an argument about returns and giving more money to the Post Office, though they do need it. (More on that later).
Back to my experience with the LinkedIn newsletter and its features for a moment. The metrics are a bit odd, though basically the same as writing a normal LinkedIn article. So why is it odd? Well sharing a post about the newsletter does not show you the impressions as you get in a normal post, it just shows the views of the newsletter as a result of that post. So your barometer for success is purely the views of your newsletter and any extra subscribers. That said, one does not directly correlate with the other as I appeared to get more subscribers than views of the newsletter during the period since I posted the update. Impressions of posts alongside views would be super useful to understand why a post did or did not drive interest. I’m a marketer, I need DATA, I need attribution.
All that said, I’ve been really impressed, not only by the number of people who’ve signed up for my newsletter but also the quality of people. Some of them I consider mini heroes/legends. No pressure then.
So, seeing how quickly people were signing up for my newsletter. I thought I better get my act together, so I spent the week(ish) collecting my thoughts, with a 48-hour life break thanks to man flu-like reaction to my booster jab. Though, it is good to see Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie sponsoring the new booster drive against Omicron, the Transformer that no one wants for Christmas.
I even managed my own personal movie-like moment as I raced back from London to watch my son’s Christmas play, sneaking in at the back with literally seconds to spare. Zac didn’t think I was coming and the look on his face was worth it and of course, he was an excellent announcer (bias be dammed). Anyway, hopefully, my 2nd newsletter won’t bomb like The Darkness second album, One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back. Remember that? Do let me know what you think in the comments.
So, let’s dive in.
To collect my thoughts I’ve been using Notion, which is my tool of the week, most weeks actually come to think of it. If you haven’t guessed, it’s quite possibly my favourite tool, one that gives me an alternative to using Excel in a number of horrific ways that it was never designed for. Speaking of which, Excel has become a focus of this week’s newsletter. WAIT!!!! I promise it’s good. There’s also DUMB DOLPHINS and my puppy Oreo who is yet again compared to another world-famous beard.
Let’s talk about spreadsheets…
So Excel, also known as “We can put stuff in here”, however, even with today’s technology and tools, people still use it for a multitude of what I would refer to as sins. That said, even with technology reducing the need for Excel, there are still important uses for it. Even I will admit that…
There’s one person in particular who is making serious BANK on the pent-up demand for Excel training that doesn’t make you die inside. Miss Excel, The Chief Excel Officer is smashing it on Instagram and TikTok with her SUPER energetic style of teaching people how to use Excel. She has been earning up to six figures a day $$$ with nothing more than her mind, an overabundance of energy, giving a ton of tips away for free and a virtual assistant.
And she’s recently blown up in the press from her unique approach and she deserves all the credit she’s getting. TBH, she’s so energetic that she kind of tires me out after a few videos, but you can see why people like her energy, especially with what is quite often tedious and difficult to use tool.
In the biggest “They probably should have just used Excel scandal ever” The Post Office and by proxy, the Government are finally paying Post Office post-masters compensation that they deserve. In truth, they deserve their lives back and much more. The sad thing is that ‘we’ the taxpayers are paying for it and not the Post Office or the makers of Horizon. I’ve been following this story for as long as I can remember, but if you want to learn more, there’s an excellent BBC podcast series.
If you have a University student or recent graduate in your household who’s looking for career and networking advice. The latest Guild blog is a must-read, and not just because I’ve been quoted in it several times. The power of community cannot be understated at any stage of your career and it’s never too late to start.
Back into the world of startups and funding raising.
Crunch, whom I mentioned last week smashed their target and closed the round at 127% of said target. Nice!
DiviPay, the spend management champion from down under has raised a cool $20m, in part because of the superstar team they are assembling with the likes of Adriana Amato and ✌️Trent McLaren.
Everyone’s favourite hot coral payment card provider Monzo is now valued at $4.5bn which is quite the jump but perhaps surprisingly $200m less than European B2B spend management rocket ship Pleo as they casually picked up $200m in funding like they were submitting an expense for lunch.
Not to be outdone, however, Accounts payable automation startup, Tipalti (a name you should get used to) raised an eye-watering $270m in a Series F raise and are now worth $8.3bn. Come to think of it… Has anyone ever done a Series Z raise?
The world’s largest start-ups.
Here’s an excellent infographic about the world’s largest startups, at least I thought it was excellent until I saw Epic Games on the list. That’s the same Epic Games that was founded in 1991. When does a startup stop being a startup? SANTA ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A GLOBALLY ACCEPTED STANDARD DEFINITION OF A STARTUP. Perhaps when a ‘startup’ is worth $5bn its called something else. I dunno, right now I’d settle for calling them a Megatron. In all seriousness, it’s the word ‘scaleup’ that I feel sorry for, it just hasn’t taken off.
Finally, MASH GANG, one of my favourite startups in the world right now won best Alcohol-Free larger at the AF awards. If you’re looking to reduce your alcohol intake in 2022, there is pretty much no cooler way to do it right now. You can thank me later.
Oh and Scott Lenet of TechCrunch published an interesting about “The ‘art’ of VC startup valuations is a forgery”. It’s well worth a read, let me know if you agree with Scott’s thoughts.
WAIT… YOU PROMISED US DUMB DOLPHINS???
The CEO better.com fired 900 employees over Zoom. Shocked? Surprised? Perhaps if you knew more about his management style, you might not be.
As the story goes, he’s got form, form in spades as it happens. “Mr Garg’s management style has been criticised before, after an email that he sent to staff that was obtained by Forbes last year. In the email, Mr Garb wrote: “You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS… SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.””
WOW… So much to say. So little time, but I’m going to just point out that dolphins are not dumb and let you fill in the gaps or drop your thoughts in the comments.
…AND a picture of your puppy???
This week Oreo has been compared to Romesh Ranganathan because he’s relaunching the Weakest Link on Saturday after the Strictly final. However, will the new format and a nicer host work? iNews isn’t convinced. “Will Romesh Ranganathan usher in a kinder The Weakest Link? Its nastiness is the whole point” Personally, I’ll give it a watch before making my thoughts known.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back next week with lots of predictions for 2022. It’s a fool’s game, I know, especially in these strange times but it’s Christmas.
Stay safe and be kind to each other. Oh and if this is your first time reading my newsletter, and you liked it, feel free to subscribe.
Originally published on LinkedIn
