Opinion
Harries: Retool is 'dead at the wheel' amid AI transition
“And I think Retool is kind of dead at the wheel at the moment. I don't hear the recent things they've been launching, and so I could imagine Loveball going in that direction.”
Opinion
Harries: Apple marketing unreleased Apple Intelligence features is bad growth strategy
“The thing I'd most like to change about the world of growth is is you just should not launch products which aren't actually ready. The biggest villain I see doing this at the moment is Apple. And so we've always held Steve Jobs in our mind as just like this be…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Harries: Conversational AI agents will completely replace inbound SDR roles
“The function of an inbound SDR is I'm sure the best ones are persuasive and they're friendly, but really the function is data collection, and so instead, one, why don't you just add that to the form in the first place? Well, the reason is people don't really w…”
Opinion
Harries: Retool Is Dead at the Wheel Compared to AI App Builders
“And I think Retool is kind of dead at the wheel at the moment. I don't hear the recent things they've been launching, and so I could imagine Loveball going in that direction.”
Opinion
Harries: Apple Is Marketing Unfinished AI to Drive Hardware Sales
“The biggest villain I see doing this at the moment is Apple. And so we've always held Steve Jobs in our mind as just like this beacon of marketing and product and engineering. And now you have Apple pushing that the reason you should upgrade to the newest iPho…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Harries: ElevenLabs founders want to build a bigger company than Google
“Matty and Peter literally want to build a bigger company than Google.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Harries: AI will push product managers into growth or product engineering
“Yeah, I think PMs move to either growth, so you combine the PM role with marketing, and depending on your size and how strong your engineers are, you do more or less of the PM, or many PMs will actually move towards product engineering, which is they're somewh…”
Insight
Harries: Organic LinkedIn is today's most underappreciated tech growth channel
“The most underappreciated growth channel I see is organic LinkedIn. On Twitter, you're competing against the best writers in the world. You're competing against Harry Stebbings running shorts. Yeah, Bill Ackman. Like, it's really tough. On LinkedIn, you're com…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Harries: ElevenLabs Founders Aim to Build a Company Larger Than Google
“Matty and Peter literally want to build a bigger company than Google. They want to build something absolutely massive.”
Insight
Harries: Long founder-led monologue launch videos fail to retain viewers
“And the big mistake that I see with most people's videos is that they put the founder themselves, they do a full five minute monologue themselves about the company mission, And unless you have the editing skills of Mr. Beast, you're just not going to keep peop…”
Opinion
Harries: Superhuman's Staircase Launch Video Loses Viewer Attention Due to Pacing
“The staircase was beautiful, but you're watching Rahul walk down this beautiful staircase, and by the time he's walked to the bottom, kind of, you've moved on. And so then, in this, like, attention economy, you really need to make it short and snappy.”
Disclosure
Harries: ElevenLabs Tracks CAC Payback Period Over CAC to LTV
“Actually, the day-to-day metric and ratio we're really thinking about is CAC to payback period, rather than CAC to LTV.”
Opinion
Harries: Controversial viral growth stunts destroy trust needed for enterprise sales
“He's also putting a big black X on himself if he ever actually wants to sell to enterprise sales teams, where you're like, ah, do I really trust this person? You know, I think it's a risky move.”
Insight
Harries: Sub-100% user retention in prosumer AI is acceptable if viral expansion keeps NRR over 100%
“And I think when you look at consumer and prosumer, yes, for that individual user, you may only be on 87% revenue retention, but what then happens is you build a product on Lovable, you then share it with a bunch of your friends, a handful more people sign up …”
Insight
Harries: Paid marketing before PMF is early B2B startups' biggest mistake
“The biggest mistake I see early founders making, particularly for BtoB, is doing paid marketing too early. Because if you don't have PMF yet, you're not going to get paid marketing working, and you're going to spend all your time and all your engineering time …”
Insight
Harries: Organic LinkedIn is today's most underappreciated growth channel
“The most underappreciated growth channel I see is organic LinkedIn. On Twitter, you're competing against the best writers in the world. You're competing against Harry Stebbings running a short. Bill Ackman. Like, it's really tough. On LinkedIn, you're competin…”
Insight
Harries: Conversational AI agents can completely replace inbound SDRs
“Really the function is data collection, and so instead, one, why don't you just add that to the form in the first place? Well, the reason is people don't really want to go through this back and forth and go into more detailed questions and, you know, trying to…”
Disclosure
Luke Harries passed on angel investing in ElevenLabs early on
“I was kind of angel investing them. I was like, this is not something I want to invest. What do you mean? Step one, you're going to build the world's best AI audio model. Something no one else has ever done. Anyway, so I did an invest.”
Opinion
Harries: Semaglutide is the biggest medical advancement since penicillin
“This is, like, the biggest thing in medicine since penicillin”
Insight
Harries: Five-minute founder monologue videos fail to retain launch audiences
“The big mistake that I see with most people's videos is that they put the founder themselves, they do a full five minute monologue themselves about the company mission, and unless you have the editing skills of MrBeast, you're just not going to keep people for…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Harries: Long-form blog SEO content will increasingly die over time
“This is, you know, long words, long-form articles. That, I think, will increasingly die over time.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Harries: Interactive SEO tool pages will remain effective for five-plus years
“The part which I am confident will stick around for at least five years are tool pages”
Insight
Harries: Startups should hire a front-end growth engineer early for mini-tools
“This is why I think right at the start you should hire a growth engineer that's front-end focused that can independently be focused on building these and exposing these small bits of value to Out so that people can get and experience the value as quick as poss…”
Disclosure
ElevenLabs' affiliate program generates tens of thousands in MRR with zero maintenance
“So for example, affiliates, we set up over a year and a half ago, and that now is bringing in over, you know, tens of thousands of dollars of MRR Per month. But this was set up a year and a half ago by one engineer in one week, and then no one's touched it sin…”
