Black Mirror's SaaS collab, Google Maps for Zelda, Super(loom)inal communication, and more...

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Mar 31, 2022

👋 Hey, Ruchin here! Welcome to this week’s edition of the ✨Top of the Lyne✨ newsletter. Each week we publish the hottest news from the beautiful world of product-led growth! (PLG)

The outcome we're shooting for is simple... to get enough folks excited about the product-led world that we so dearly love ❤️

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Into the Twitterverse 🐦🌌

If you ever find yourself lost in Hyrule, Replit’s got you covered 🗺
Replit ⠕ @Replit
another super cool replit project - Google maps' street view but for Zelda Breath of The Wild 🤯
10:50 PM ∙ Mar 24, 2022
224Likes33Retweets
Superhuman for X goes mainstream 🦸🏻‍♀️
All hail the king of category (re)creation, Rahul Vohra 🙌🏻
Ankit Pansari @ankitpansari_
We gotta give @rahulvohra for creating a whole new category of fast enterprise software. We have so many Superhuman for X today. @linear for issue tracking. @vimcal for calendar @Scratchpad for CRM Even @intercom announced a new inbox today. Real category creation!
6:07 AM ∙ Mar 26, 2022
28Likes1Retweet
Super(loom)inal communication ⚡️
A holy grail of science fiction in which communications occur at faster-than-light speeds without any drop in context and quality!
A crazy sci-fi idea till yesterday, brought to reality by Loom today 🦄
Vinay Hiremath @vhmth
Today marks the beginning of an entirely new Loom. 🔍 Search by transcript 👤 Profiles 🏷 Tags 📢 Posting videos for discoverability 🏡 Home feed - looms you care about and are trending ➿ @ mentions to loop people in ✂️ Comments using transcript snippets for context
Loom @loom
💻 Introducing Loom HQ. Starting today, we’re rolling out access to a new video HQ. It’ll help you stay connected async and scale knowledge across teams. We’re excited to help organizations foster a tight-knit workplace with video: https://t.co/TE2hpyym8x https://t.co/kldXyrkAyQ
3:12 PM ∙ Mar 30, 2022
115Likes12Retweets

This Replit story should be a Mr. Robot episode 💻
Here’s how the early team pwned a group trying to abuse Replit:
Amjad Masad ⠕ @amasad
Going into startups, no one tells you that fighting is part of the job. At Replit, the toughest people we have to fight are dark web hackers. One time we went head-to-head against an underground group doing really bad things on our service -- this is the story:
1:15 AM ∙ Mar 28, 2022
5,336Likes874Retweets
A SaaS x Black Mirror collab 😈
A (dystopian?) thread on drumming up SaaS sales with AI-generated LinkedIn profiles 🧵
Shannon Bond @shannonpareil
Meet Keenan Ramsey. Her LinkedIn profile says she sells software for RingCentral & has a business degree from NYU. She likes CNN, Amazon, & Melinda French Gates. Her pitches come punctuated with emojis. npr.org/2022/03/27/108…
3:55 PM ∙ Mar 27, 2022
12,786Likes3,757Retweets

🔎 The PLG hunt

Patreon reclaimed 90% of the time they used to spend implementing and fixing analytics. How? Meet Avo.
The analytics governance platform founded by Stefania Olafsdóttir and Sölvi Logason is reimagining how verticals within organizations - PM, Dev, Data Science - plan, track, and govern analytics.
Deep down, most companies, especially after past a certain stage, do not trust their data. Avo is the cross-functional glue that fixes this deep pain point using Inspectors, observability platforms, typesafe code, and unit tests.
Avo @avohq
✨ New in Avo ✨ › Free trial of the Avo Team Plan › Name Mapping › Source-dependent values › And more… 🧵 bit.ly/3Da4oEN
bit.lyNew in Avo: Free team plan trials and fresh features!Try out our paid features on a 7 day trial, get better tracking plan documentation with name mapping, billing roles, pinned properties, and more stuff to make your work smoother.
2:51 PM ∙ Mar 24, 2022
7Likes3Retweets
Their team plan now has a free trial. 👆
Which hot and upcoming PLG company are you most excited about? 👇🏻

Growth Stories 🚀

Breaking down the Lusha-machine 🛠

This week, we dive deep into one of PLG’s poster children.

Lusha, the sales intelligence platform raised two rounds in 2021 but grew to 12k paying customers fully bootstrapped prior to that. This is the story of the Tel-Aviv/Boston based company’s hyper-growth:

Toplyne @Toplynehq

12k paying customers and 500k+ registered users in just 4.5 years, with $0 in funding. Followed by two rounds of funding in 2021. A community of 800k+ A $1.5B valuation. Here's the @LushaData hyper-growth story: ft. @yonitseru @Assaf381 @PSG_equity

bit.lyLusha and the science of super-targeted prospectingThe story of the sales-intelligence platform’s hyper-growth to a $1.5B valuation in five years while building a community of 800k+

Fundraising, Venture Capital, and Exits 🤑

Figma’s collaboration layer brought to the modern data stack:
Hex.tech announced their Series B this week
Sarah Wang @sarahdingwang
1/ Excited to share that @a16z is leading @_hex_tech ’s Series B! One of the biggest gaps we’ve seen in the modern data stack is the collaboration layer aka what @figma brought to product design & @benchling to life sciences… That is, until we met Hex 👇a16z.com/2022/03/22/inv…
a16z.comInvesting in Hex | Andreessen HorowitzMuch has been discussed, written, and reconfigured around the modern data stack – and for good reason, it’s one of the most significant shifts in data architecture of our time. But as close followers of its evolution, one of the …
3:30 PM ∙ Mar 22, 2022
148Likes20Retweets

The “AWS for testers” announced their Series C round this week 💸
Congratulations to LambdaTest!
LambdaTest @lambdatesting
We are happy to announce that we have raised $45M in a round led by Premji Invest with participation from existing investors.🎉 We want to use this opportunity to thank our customers, investors, & team members for trusting and supporting us. Here's to growing stronger, together!
2:20 PM ∙ Mar 29, 2022
36Likes16Retweets
End-to-end encrypted document editor Skiff announced $10.5M in Series A funding led by Sequoia 💻
Skiff @skiffprivacy
Today's the day we announce our Series A - led by @sequoia 🌲🌳🌴 And covered by @zackwhittaker 📰 techcrunch.com/2022/03/30/ski…
techcrunch.comSkiff bags $10.5M to build private/collaborative workspaces – TechCrunchThe startup already has more than 20,000 people using its end-to-end encrypted document editor.
4:09 PM ∙ Mar 30, 2022
123Likes28Retweets

Launches, events, and releases

Figma now supports right-to-left languages 👇
Figma @figma
انتهى وقت الانتظار: أصبحت لغات الاتجاه من اليمين لليسار متاحة في كلّ من Figma وFigJam 🥳 أصبح بإمكانك الآن الكتابة وصياغة المحتوى بأي من لغات الاتجاه من اليمين لليسار، بما في ذلك العربية والعبرية والأوردو. مزيد من المعلومات: bit.ly/36IQxsW
10:20 AM ∙ Mar 29, 2022
1,114Likes165Retweets

YC Demo Day will feature 400 startups from 42 countries 🌎
Y Combinator @ycombinator
Today, we're kicking off our 34th Demo Day — featuring founders from 42 countries and over 400 startups building in every sector, from fintech, B2B SaaS, Web3, consumer, healthcare, education, climate, energy, and more. Meet the YC Winter 2022 batch:
ycombinator.comMeet the YC Winter 2022 Batch | Y CombinatorFor the Winter 2022 batch, we received 17,000 applications from founders around the world and funded 414. Today, these founders will present their companies to an invite-only audience of investors at Y Combinator’s 34th Demo Day.
2:51 PM ∙ Mar 29, 2022
283Likes69Retweets

Nerding out on PLG 🤓📚

What does today’s PM Stack look like, compared to a year ago?

The results of Lenny’s informal survey saw Loom, Coda, and Github climb up the list and a pattern emerge of decreasing reliance on spreadsheets.

Lenny Rachitsky 🇺🇦🇺🇸 | lennysan.eth @lennysan

PM Stack, one year later: 🏆 Top: @SlackHQ @NotionHQ @figma @Jira @MiroHQ @googledocs (same as 2021) ⬆️ Up: @loom @Zoom @linear @asana @coda_hq @github ⬆️ Down: @trello @msexcel @googlesheets ↔️ Staying strong: @Confluence @productboard @airtable @MicrosoftTeams @whimsical

Lenny Rachitsky 🇺🇦🇺🇸 | lennysan.eth @lennysan

Final results of the informal Product Manager stack survey Surprises: 1. @SlackHQ 🥇 2. @MiroHQ at 6th 3. @NotionHQ over @googledocs 4. @WhimsicalPowers in top 20 5. For tasks: @Jira ➡️ @trello ➡️ @productboard ➡️ @asana ➡️ @linear_app ➡️ @mondaydotcom ➡️ @clickup https://t.co/CPeqGLVoJc https://t.co/k8Ou9UjJu9

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