Gonto: What was your take?

Hank: Yeah, I mean, I didn't watch the full reaction. There was a lot of it. 

Gonto: Booo.

Hank: And I don't watch WWDC ever. Windows guy and Android guy.

Gonto: Oh, I'm sorry, I don't watch that shit.

Hank: Um, you guys enjoy your cult.

Gonto: Hello everybody and welcome to a new episode of Code to Market. Today, you'll see that my bed is made up because Mariana came before the podcast. So be happy that everything is looking great.

Hank: Did you pick up all the clothes off the floor? 

Gonto: Look, there’s nothing.

Hank: We've had comments before. Okay, good job. Gonto cleaned his room. He's ready to podcast everybody.

Gonto: Let's do it, baby. So we have two topics for today. One larger one, one smaller one.

The first topic this week is about Raycast versus Spotlight. I don't know if you saw, but Apple recently did their WWDC event and they shipped a new Spotlight. This new Spotlight has some features that Raycast has.

Like for example, searching in menu items, being able to like run shortcuts, being able to put like keyboard shortcuts to launch something and stuff like that. And I thought that first the Raycast reaction was bad, but then I actually think they fixed that. They made it really, really good.

So what we want to talk about is this Raycast versus Spotlight, it's just an example. What we really want to talk about is how do companies and startups react when a big corporation launches something that copies some of your features or that is copying some of your product?

What should you do? How should you think about it and why?

Hank: This is called, when Apple does it, they call it getting Sherlocked, which I had to look up, but Raycast put out a tweet about this. They're like, did Apple just, or did we just get Sherlocked by Apple? That's because there was some app or something, I don't know, like some search feature used to be a third-party only thing, and then Apple released it and basically killed this third-party app.

So every once in a while, Apple just releases a feature of their operating system that completely kills a third-party app. So people are wondering, well, did this just happen to Raycast? And what you found here is Raycast, rather than like hiding from it, they went all in.

They're making content about this. They're tweeting about it. They're tweeting out, “Did we just get Sherlocked?” And answering it head-on, which is a very interesting approach.

Gonto: Yeah, I thought it was really good. And it's not just Apple. Like OpenAI, everybody, like I see on Twitter all the time, like, oh, these startups are cooked…OpenAI just shipped this. And I think it applies to everything.

At first, when I saw the reaction of Raycast, I thought it was shit. I even tweeted about it. 

Like Pedro, who runs marketing for them, started to bash Apple on the launch. And not just on Spotlight, but on the liquid glass and on everything that they were doing.

And I thought it was a bad look. Not because I like what they shipped, because I actually hated it too. But I've been hating what Apple ships for years. And I think Pedro has too. And he didn't talk this much shit before. But oh my God, when Spotlight is shipped, he did it.

So that I thought was very bad look. I actually tweeted at him and he replied, saying like, no, and I hate it. Like, I don't know.

I didn't buy it fully. But then I think they fixed it by, as you said, talking about it. I have a couple of things that I liked about it.

Like number one was the CEO actually sent an internal message to the team on like, “hey, what happened now that Apple shipped these features? What does it mean for Raycast?” And not only did he share that Slack message internally with the team, but he actually made that text public, which I thought was really good, really well written. And I liked that they made it public. 

So that to me was step one. That was really, really good.

Step two that I think was really good was they were really clear. The CEO did another tweet that I really liked saying like, okay, “Apple just copied us this feature, this feature, this feature, this feature. But what about these other features?”

And they had a list of like 20 features that Apple didn't copy. So I thought it was really good because it was specific on, these are the things that are copied. These are the things that are not copied.

And this is why. And third thing I mentioned here is then they did a video, as you mentioned, “Did we get Sherlocked?” And the video was incredible because of two main things I really liked.

First, they actually shared the entire reaction from the team. They were talking about how, when Apple did the WWDC, they saw the logo of Spotlight. And when they saw the logo, they were like, holy shit, what is Apple releasing?

And they were all scared. And they talked about how the entire presentation where and how their expectancy of it. So I thought it was really, really good.

Pedro and the CEO also has a really good vibe on bad cop, good cop and how they connect with each other. But I think it's really good. We talked about it in another episode as well.

And Pedro actually talked about how people thought that he was angry based on his tweets, but he didn't mean it that way. And he explained why he tweeted that, what he liked, what he didn't, how he thought about it. So I thought he took the feedback, probably not just for me, but also from others that thought the same as me.

And actually replied to people like us on the video. And they also explained what things got copied, which ones did not. And overall, I thought it was absolutely incredible.

What was your take?

Hank: Yeah, I mean, I didn't watch the full reaction. 

Gonto: Boohoo.

Hank: There was a lot of it. And I don't watch WWDC ever. Windows guy and Android guy.

Gonto: Oh, I'm sorry, I don't watch that shit.

Hank: Um, you guys enjoy your cult. But yeah, what I did see, cause you sent me some stuff and I saw some tweets organically as well. It just got me thinking a lot about other times I've seen this and how people react.

My first thought in similarity was when Zuckerberg did a reaction video on the Vision Pro. And Zuckerberg was like, wait, what's the big deal? Their thing costs like $3,000.

I've got this thing for like the Oculus. It's way better. And it's way cheaper. Like, and he did a similar thing. And I think it actually was good for him then. 

It also reminded me of, there's an app I've been using for years. Used to be called Cloud App. They rebranded to Zight, Z-I-G-H-T. It's basically Loom, a cheaper Loom.

And I'm stuck on it because I've been on it for years. And I was friend with the CEO. I should have gone down the Loom track, but whatever.

But I remember they were scared of getting Sherlock too with when Apple and Windows improved their screenshotting and screen recording stuff. But actually the tech of both Zight and Loom and others like them, like they've been doing better. So there's ways to recover and not be scared of these.

And it also got me thinking about our recent conversations on going multi-product and like, okay, when is it more important to have more feature depth versus getting other products? And in this case, it seems like the feature depth of Raycast is critical because they were able to say, yeah, sure, Apple finally brought a couple things, you know, up to par, but actually here's all this other stuff that people need and want. And if you're willing to pay for it, we've got it.

Gonto: And I think when you react to something like this, you have to make it loud and make it public. Most companies don't talk about it. I think Raycast did.

And they even shared some data. There was another tweet where they shared how their sales and the people that were trying increased because people started to see a lot of tweets like, oh, Raycast is dead now or stuff like that. So people went to see what Raycast was and then they actually saw their tweets and like, yeah, we're not dead.

They just copied four of our features like fuck them. And that's when they started to get so many more downloads, which I think was absolutely fascinating. They've been trying to get Marcus Brownley, I don't know if that's how his name is pronounced, to mention Raycast for years.

And there was a show that they did where every week they tweeted, no, this week they didn't talk about us. No, this week they didn't talk about us. And finally, this time they said, yes, he talked about us, finally.

So in some sense, it was really good for them. And it even forced them to ship features that they didn't have before. If you wanted to use the AI product from Raycast before, you had to pay.

And having the AI as part of it is a big differentiation compared to Spotlight. So one thing they shipped the same week was bring your own key. So now if you don't pay Raycast, but you add your own API key for OpenAI, you can actually use one of the OpenAI features without paying Raycast, but rather just paying what you use.

And that was also a great push from Apple so that they made for free some feature that they have and potentially they'll add more and more features as well. 

The other thing I liked was, Spotlight will have this feature where if you do like command space, you're able to search any menu item from the app that is focused, which I actually think it's a fantastic feature. Raycast already had it, but it was harder to do it.

And they actually tweeted like, hey, we actually really like this feature, we're gonna steal it. And I love that openness as well. Like they like what they did, they're gonna steal it and add it, and they're talking about it.

So overall, I think Raycast did a fantastic job with pushing back on Apple.

Hank: I think so too. And I think if we broaden out principles, one, you should always be aware of, hey, where do you have depth? And if you're a third-party app in a larger ecosystem, what are your threats?

Always your biggest threat is that you're gonna get Sherlocked. So how are you prepared against that? Like there's all these GPT wrappers and AI stuff, and like there's tons of new technologies out there.

So how are you gonna be ready when the open AIs and the Apples and the Microsofts of the world release a small feature for them that's half of your app? You better be ready. And then the other part is bundling and multi-product, which we've talked about, you know, a couple of podcast episodes ago, and when to do that.

I don't know. It was just a very interesting thing for me to think about. Also, as a person who has like zero interest personally in these products, like I just don't think, I think it's funny that there's all these updates about, is Spotlight basically just search for your Apple computer?

Gonto: It has a lot. I'm a big fan of Raycast. Like I use it, I don't pay for it, but I use it daily.

So it's not just search. No.

Hank: Okay, I'm over here in Windows land. I know, boo.

Gonto: But when I... Raycast is coming to Windows.

Hank: But when I wanna… When I wanna find something, I just hit my Windows key and I find it. I've never struggled to find anything, you know, I've got good folders.

Gonto: There's so much more. For example, with like keyboard shortcuts, I copy my Calendly links. And I do one special Calendly link for each meeting.

So people can't book me more than once. I do this AI text and stuff like that. I use a lot like the Clipboard history to be able to like copy things from the past and stuff like that.

Like, I don't know. I'm personally a big fan of Raycast.

Hank: We got a big Raycast fan over here. Well, we'll see when it comes to Windows, maybe I'll find a use for it. 

Okay. So we had maybe a couple other things worthy of mention this week, probably a shorter episode. But this VC Accel, they did a video of Scale and Scale just did a, Scale’s going through some weird quasi acquisition with Meta. Like, we don't know enough, I think to get into that.

But like Meta just acquired them for like, they bought 49% of Scale. So it's not an acquisition that the SEC will block. I guess.

I don't know. Fun Zuckerberg loophole stuff. Good job, Zack.

But this means that the VC Accel, you know, had an opportunity to put a video out and do a little PR. What they chose to put out was a one minute video of the partner at Excel, Dan Levine, who we both know.

Gonto: Don't worry, Dan is awesome.

Hank: Dan is awesome. Shout out, Dan. We both know and love him, especially from Vercel days.

He's also involved with Laravel. So basically he let the founder of Scale, like work out of his basement for some time. And they go through, they talk about the founder fixing the toilet at one point.

It's just like a very, it's not about Scale. It's not about Accel. It's literally about this interesting, just a snippet of this personal relationship that a venture capitalist had with a founder.

And boy, is that just great positioning all around to show the most human side possible of VC. I mean, they should have put Dan's wife in there and her experience of dealing with some crazy founder in the basement, breaking their toilet. I would have liked to see that, but I love that little video.

You have more reactions as well. What were your thoughts?

Gonto: I agree. Like to me, it's fascinating now that videos, and it was like, first of all, it was a really good video production. Like it wasn't a shitty video.

It was a video production. And it's fascinating that we were talking about the past two weeks. Now it's not just startups doing video production.

Now it's VCs too. At least I haven't seen it before, but I thought the video was really good production. It was really well made. And I think it's a really good way to sell yourself as a VC because they really, really added value. Like you are lending the basement. They couldn't have started without you.

You really went above and beyond. And that is real value that the VC is providing them. Like other people say like, no, VC is not that value.

And it's sometimes hard to prove what value they give or what they don't. It depends on the VC. But this is like really clear what the value did.

And showing that and showing Dan, I think it's a fantastic promotion for Dan, but also for Accel in general. So I think it's really smart of them to show more of that and show how they went above and beyond. Overall, I think we're going to see more VCs doing this in the near term.

Hank: Well and I didn't prep you with this, but Accel's YouTube channel is incredible. So we just did, they have a podcast, Spotlight On, where they interview their founders that they funded. And it's always a partner.

So it'll be Dan or Miles interviewing one of their founders that they funded. The production value is off the charts. They have a dedicated room for this at the office.

I've been there. They actually have a second dedicated filming spot where they record shorts and little quick, rapid interviews. And you should go see what they filmed with, we can link some of them, with Taylor, my CEO.

They just did an episode and some shorts with Rouch G at Vercel.

Gonto: I'll check it out. I didn't know it existed.

Hank: They do great. I mean, they get 10,000 to 40,000 views on YouTube. And that means their podcast episode.

Gonto: That’s pretty good.

Hank: It's fantastic for a VC. 

Gonto: Yeah, that’s pretty good. 

Hank: VCs are not good at producing content. And it says something about, you know, this VC.

Lots of them, they all have their South Park offices, but they're not using them like this. And all the VC partners they have, you know, these guys have the basements to spare, but they're not necessarily lending them out or inviting you over. And so they're doing some, it's almost counter positioning here because VCs are seen as evil by many people.

When you take funding from a VC, you know, you're going to take a hit in some ways publicly, especially if you're open source, which is what I've dealt with the most at all the open source companies I've worked at. 

But Accel, like, I don't know, shout out to these guys. I'm at least grateful they're thinking of this because it makes my job easier at an open source VC backed place that I can point to this stuff and be like, no, no, they're cool. Like you should be happy we're taking their money.

Gonto: Yeah. And they can also show what companies they work with, highlight them, show they have like real winners in their portfolio. So it's good overall.

It's not just like on how much they help and how much value they really are, but it's like, these are the companies we help. They are all awesome. Like you should join us and stuff like that.

I'll check out the YouTube channel later, but overall they did a fantastic job.

Hank: It's good stuff. There you go. A video that's different. So therefore you liked it because different is better as you say.

Gonto: Exactly. This one was good. I think we're done for today.

We're going to make a shorter episode today, but we have some news we're going to do…We're going to try some different style for the podcast soon. I don't want to spoil it yet, but we're going to try something different.

So you'll hear from us on some different things in two, three weeks as well. But overall, thank you all for listening to us. And as usual, if you have any feedback, let us know.

Ciao.

Hank: Bye!