Happy Sunday 👋 Welcome to all the new readers and those already tuning in every week. As a reminder, TTS is a twice-weekly email:

1. Friday: Curated list of new features and products from the week

2. Sunday: Breakdown of a new product launch + other good finds

One Big Ship

Cameo launched a personalized video service for kids.

Details: Parents can get personalized video greetings from popular animated characters for their kids. Highlights include:

• $25-30 price point

• Videos from the likes of Thomas the Tank Engine, CoComelon, and Santa Claus

• Powered by AI voice technology from Veritone Voice

As an example, here's a pretty damn cute video of Thomas the Tank Engine thanking two kids for doing their cleaning.

Why it matters: My first reaction was "meh - it expands Cameo's TAM but so what". Upon further reflection, the move feels like a sign of two major trends to come.

The first trend is a broader shift from UGC -> AI-generated content (see 'Good Finds' section below). Instead of relying on human creators, Cameo is leveraging AI and animated characters to more efficiently deliver value for kids.

If you're in the kids entertainment business (e.g. TV, movies, games), why limit yourself to selling physical toys of popular characters, when you can just hop on the AI bandwagon and deliver personalized products at high-margins?

AI-generated content will also create large opportunities for "non-human" creators. The likes of Miquela have already gained cult-like followings, and will undoubtedly benefit from using AI to expand to new formats (e.g. podcasts similar to the AI Joe Rogan / Steve Jobs interview).

The second trend is the role that AI will play in making humans more efficient at creating UGC. This is already occurring in cases such as writers using GPT-3 and artists tapping DALLE-2 to assist with parts of the creative process.

In Cameo's case, one can imagine the company eventually licensing celebrities faces and voices to create personalized videos at a fraction of the cost. Why stop at Thomas the Tank Engine when you could have Taylor Swift sing personalized videos to millions?

Good finds

Andrew Chen - UGC v AIGC

The last decade was defined by user-generated content (UGC), but the next decade will be built on AI-generated content (AIGC).

• UGC challenges

  • Creators need a value prop, can be fickle, and demand a cut of revenue

  • Cold start problem to generate initial UGC loops

• AIGC benefits

  • Ability to create endless stream of content

• Upcoming transition phases

  • 1) Human in the loop: (e.g. ChatGPT going viral based on human prompts)

  • 2) Creator-free: Fully AI-generated content, AI-driven UX

Reforge - The secret to building a customer-centric culture

Customers are being left behind when:

• Conversation focuses on colleagues

• Everything needs a process

• Definitive decisions are hard to come by

Customer-centric activities to operationalize:

• Block off time weekly for async consumption of research artifacts

• Ask research to create "movie trailers" of research projects

• Begin team meetings with highlights from recent customer research

First Round Review - Airtable's lessons for building horizontal products

Airtable's early contrarian approach for approaching horizontal products:

1) Airtable's MVP was not "any one thing"

• Team kept loose expectations around what their MVP "should be"

• Focused on constantly unlocking new use cases

2) Early development refrained from going too deep on any one use case

• Aimed for a completely horizontal blank-slate product

• Built with specific use cases in mind, but kept solutions general enough for several use cases

3) Customer-led GTM

• Started off broad, and narrowed in GTM & messaging over time (based on organic adoption for specific use cases)

Twitter shennanigans

And that’s a wrap for today. Stay tuned for more!

- Amol