💡 From the brink of bankruptcy to a near-billion-dollar exit
This week, we're diving into Loom's story and telling you how to crack a PM interview at Juspay!
If you've been closely following the tech world, you've undoubtedly heard the recent buzz about Atlassian acquiring Loom for a staggering 975 million dollars.
Behind this impressive deal is an 8-year roller-coaster journey of building Loom. In today's edition, we'll delve into their story.
The founding story
Loom's journey began as Opentest, envisioned as a tool for teams to gather video feedback directly on their sites. Despite its promising premise, the initial phases were marked by unsuccessful launches and fundraising challenges, leading many to believe that their innovation wasn't resonating.
However, amidst the setbacks, feedback from their dedicated early adopters reaffirmed the team's belief in the untapped potential of video in the workplace. Facing financial constraints and a mere two weeks of operational funds left, the team made a pivotal decision: they separated their Chrome extension to function as an independent video recorder and introduced it on Product Hunt.
Loom co-founders Vinay Hiremath, Shahed Khan, and Joe Thomas with friends
Product Hunt Launch
Product Hunt has served as a pivotal launchpad for many renowned products, and for Loom, it was no different. Their launch on Product Hunt on June 30th, 2016, was a game-changer. This critical moment saved Loom from potential failure and set them on a path to success. The buzz generated from this launch enabled Loom to secure its first venture funding from the 1517 Fund. Subsequently, the team relocated to San Francisco, as Vinay highlighted in his conversation with Forbes. Let's delve into what Loom did right to achieve this turnaround.
Sharp prioritisation
After its momentous launch, Loom found itself with a rapidly growing user base and the momentum to match. The challenge now was to ensure that this initial success translated into a consistently excellent experience for their users.
In a conversation about this phase, Vinay shed light on their approach to feature development. He believed that the most impactful features were those that hit a trifecta: they were highly requested by users, they fit seamlessly within Loom's existing framework (the extension and website), and they were features that the team, as power users of their own product, found genuinely useful. Vinay shared an interesting anecdote, "We began using our own recorder for daily internal communications. Some features we developed not only elevated the experience for our users but also transformed how we used Loom internally."
This user-centric and self-reflective approach led the team to identify three primary areas of focus:
Viewer Notifications: Users wanted to know when someone watched their videos. By building a notification feature, Loom made it easier for users to track engagement and follow up accordingly.
Performance Enhancements: The speed and reliability of the recorder were paramount. Continuous improvements ensured that users could record without glitches, making the process smooth and efficient.
Full Desktop Recording: While initial versions allowed for limited screen recording, users expressed the need to capture their entire desktop. This feature expanded the range of content users could share, from presentations to full software demos.
Venturing into Enterprise & riding the PLG wave
In 2020, Loom, known for making video recording easy, took a new direction by stepping into the business software world. They shifted their focus to helping companies communicate better. Their message changed from "making video recording simple" to "express yourself with video." This showed Loom's belief in using videos for clear and personal work chats. The timing, amidst the pandemic, further propelled their growth, as the world leaned heavily on digital communication tools, making Loom's offering even more pertinent.
Just like Slack and Dropbox, Loom benefited from the power of product-led growth (PLG). As users shared Loom videos, it naturally introduced others to the platform, creating a ripple effect of organic growth.
A creative campaign launched by Loom encourages users to replace meetings with Loom videos.
Closing Thoughts
Asynchronous video is fast becoming an essential tool for distributed teams, and this deal promises to embed Loom's capabilities seamlessly into Atlassian's suite, notably Jira and Confluence. Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian's co-founder, rightly points out that async video is the "next evolution of team collaboration," emphasizing the human touch it brings to digital communication.
Financially, the deal, primarily cash-based, showcases Atlassian's strong belief in Loom's potential. While there might be short-term financial implications, the long-term vision is clear: to integrate video deeply into team collaboration. Joe Thomas, Loom's CEO, captures this sentiment, highlighting the combined potential to transform how teams communicate.
Product Management Interview Process at Juspay
That’s all for today, folks! We hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. 🤗
Until next week, keep learning and growing! 👋