5 lessons from Mailbox’s shut-down

Most recently, I have been comparing the current AI frenzy to previous platform shifts and their aftermaths. For example, do you remember the explosion of applications in the early days of the iPhone? There were hundreds of apps that unleashed all sorts of superpowers, and then entire cohorts of these startups got destroyed every year at the Worldw... See more

Coupled with this stemming of developer space for innovation, the place for startups to “ship” things and users to find new things — the app store — has atrophied. Maybe we have reached a natural apex for innovation on the UX of this device, or maybe discovery was badly implemented. Regardless, as the chart below illustrates, getting

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Rob and I had to face the truth: Matter is a great product—3x App of the Day, with many thousands of passionate users—but it isn’t the next Duolingo.