Author: Matt Collins
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How AI Helped Me Create a #1 Product Hunt Tool in Hours
What if AI could help you generate ideas for products and build them? That’s what happened when I used AI tools to create Flowdrafter—a writing app that solves a common problem for writers. (It even became Product Hunt’s #1 productivity tool of the week!) Can AI Coding Agents Help with Marketing? My wife is a…
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FastHTML: The Perfect Framework for Simple AI-Powered Web Apps?
I heard about FastHTML a few months back and was immediately intrigued by its pitch: “Modern web applications in pure Python Built on solid web foundations, not the latest fads – with FastHTML you can get started on anything from simple dashboards to scalable web applications in minutes.” https://www.fastht.ml/ This sounded like something I could…
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5 Ways to Make an Agentic AI System More Reliable
Lots of people are starting to explore what can be done with agent-based AI systems. It feels like there’s huge potential in them. But getting an agentic system to work reliably enough to use in practice often turns out to be very hard. Here are a few techniques that can help with reliability. Technique 1:…
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What the 2023 Hollywood Writers’ Agreement Says About the Use of AI in Screenwriting
As of 27th September 2023, the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) has ended its strike with the big studios, having reached a tentative agreement with the big studios that will now be voted on by the WGA’s members. The deal has some key terms about AI and could be a sign of what will be…
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How to Regression Test Software Built on Large Language Models
A challenge when developing software that makes use of large language models is writing automated tests for it. With traditional software, you tend to know exactly what output you expect to receive for a given input. When large language models are involved, however, it’s common to expect a chunk of text as the output and…
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How to Name Your Company
If you’re looking to name a new company or product, it can be tricky to know how to go about it. Arielle Jackson of First Round Capital shared a great process for coming up with a name on Lenny’s Podcast. 1. Figure Out Your Positioning “For (target customer) Who (statement of need or opportunity), (Product name) is a (product category) That (statement…
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How To Know If Product-Led Growth is Viable for your B2B Company
The idea of product-led growth is an appealing one to many company leaders. But is it really viable for your product? Elena Verna, an expert on product-led growth shared some great insights into this question in this episode of Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast. Here’s a quick run-down of some of the main ideas. Product can contribute…
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Product Vision and Strategy – Advice from Marty Cagan
How do you feel about your company’s product vision, product strategy and product roadmap? These are high-leverage areas where many companies could sharpen their thinking and ways of working to become more effective. One of my favourite product management experts, Marty Cagan (author of Inspired), was recently interviewed on the ‘This Is Product Management’ podcast about these topics and…
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15 Marketplace Startups That Have Raised Over $50 Million
One of the interesting things about online marketplaces is their inherent network effects. They’re hard to get going (not least because of the chicken-and-egg problem) but — if successful — can become very valuable as it’s hard for other businesses to compete. As a result of this defensibility, online marketplaces have been popular with VCs.…
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How to Use Scarcity to Hack the Marketplace Chicken-and-Egg Problem
Solving the chicken-and-egg problem is a key one for any marketplace business. Here’s one hack that uses scarcity to help with solving it. What is the marketplace chicken-and-egg problem? When you’re starting a marketplace, you typically have no customers and no suppliers. With no customers, it’s hard to get suppliers on board. And, having no…
