Chris DeLuca

led comms & brand at some of canada's fastest-growing fintechs.

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@hamburger I've often thought that lack of meaning is tied to lack of product/market fit. if you have a clear ICP who is very bought in, your brand means something and you can figure out what that is. but v hard if p/m fit is scattered or weak.

would be interested in your thoughts

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

love the jcrew americana aesthetic that you mentioned. haven't bought their clothes in a long time because of declining quality.

they seem to not be doing too hot, so this is probably an attempt to try something new and court a new demographic who only has tangential relationship with the brand.

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding on what Airbnb is doing with reviews here.

Most people are in the market for an Airbnb 1-2 per year at most.

If you make $100k and have to pay $3k for where you stay on vacation, you don't want to mess it up. Picking where you're going to stay is a big decision, which is stressful.

What people don't want when they're stressed is nuance and lots of details. They want someone to say that it's going to be ok, you're making the right decision.

I assume that Airbnb's goal is to minimize the time to purchase and reduce how many different properties people look at before they pull out their credit card.

Through that lens, removing negative reviews helps get people over the line for a big infrequent purchase.

[@levelsio @levelsio]

This is pretty much most of my friend's Airbnb stories

I have no clue what @bchesky is doing every day

He could stop removing negative reviews on Airbnb to make it better

When people stop believing in Airbnb listings credibility, it creates such an anxiety around booking because you simply don't know if you will have an experience like the QT below

And people will just go book elsewhere for more certainty, as I did

We live in the time of honesty and transparency so Airbnb is literally off trend

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@levelsio @bchesky I would assume that they've tested listings with accurate ratings/reviews and the impact on new bookings wasn't good. If it increased bookings then it would already be done

[Afshine Emrani MD FACC @afshineemrani]

1/ I'm a cardiologist. I've practiced for twenty-five years, through a lot of "breakthroughs" that turned out to be press releases. So understand the weight of what I'm about to say: I have never seen a single week in medicine like the one we just lived through.
In the span of a few days, four separate scientific breakthroughs landed. The stock market treated them as four unrelated stories and sent a handful of biotech companies soaring. But that's the shallow read. Look closer and they are not four stories at all. They are four faces of the same story — the biggest shift in medicine since the discovery of antibiotics.

Medicine is becoming programmable. Individualized. Written for one human being instead of the average of millions.

Let me walk you through exactly what happened, in plain language, and show you where this is actually headed. Because the future arrived quietly this week, and most people scrolled right past it.

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@LoganARobison @KopeBuilds hard to know what's going on without tracking workouts and food. honestly becomes part of the routine once you start doing it. probably don't need do to food forever if you eat mostly the same stuff. impossible to know if you're progressively overloading without tracking lifts.

[Negligible Capital @negligible_cap]

Lululemon's new big-ass bag is oddly symbolic for shareholders

Now we get to carry two giant bags around

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@negligible_cap @jshmuel Ludicrously capacious

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

The tech media landscape is shifting and there's high demand from founders that I've spoken with to be on shows like @tbpn @etnshow and @MTSlive.

Part of the pull is these shows each treat visuals and design as a priority. Founders get artifacts that feel very polished.

Given the high demand for media placement, there's opportunity to create media priorities that grow quickly by emphasizing design (not the only factor of course).

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

One of the things that people often overlook about landing media coverage for a company is the positive internal effects.

At DealMaker, we landed the CEO on @MTSlive within the first few weeks of the show going live. @JackFarley96 and @maxwiethe's segment, Monetary Matters, was already regularly getting big names like Vlad Robinhood at that time.

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@drjoshcsimmons @netcapgirl ah, sir, I just came here to say that those albums are objective masterpieces in the kanye oeuvre and the reference is apt. apt!

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@cplangfo I definitely align with the preference to go 100 some of the time vs. 20 all the time.

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

the last time they texted the reporter isn't really relevant as a proxy for how good they'll be.

a one-month trial to place your story: what firm would agree to this?

I do agree that asking who will actually be managing the account is important.

the problem with PR is that it's a zero-sum game (1000s of companies competing for limited space) and there's no incentive to accurately assess the demand for the company's story.

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

Founder-led comms is an expression of tech accelerationism.

It gives founders a worldview and a network to amplify them for holding it.

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@Web3Kristel agree! everything feels like content, even if it's from founders. I read this great post by a founder about how they're going to spend more time with their family but they had to tag their company and mention its recent success. marketing your company too hard makes me tune out

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@groverlight packaging looks great

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

I feel like this period with AI must have been what living through disco would have been like. Ubiquitous, just all consuming. Impossible to make a historical movie about this time without it touching every part of that cinematic universe

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

People forget how Groupon's irreverent writing style was really key to its whole identity.

I've never seen this message before but cool to see the CEO lean into that writing style even in a resignation, err, I mean, termination letter.

[Sheel Mohnot @pitdesi]

Anytime someone steps down to “spend more time with their family” I think of @andrewmason’s excellent letter when he got fired from Groupon

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

Most founder content on LinkedIn:

Here’s a cheeky story with a business problem.

Lots of specific details so you know it’s real.

Why am I telling this cheeky story? Because it just so happens that I sell the solution to this problem.

Are there other solutions to this problem? Why should you trust me? Who am I? Nevermind those pesky questions. This cheeky story, or 30 more that I’ve got lined up just like it, will be what influences your decision-making.

I won’t include a call sales CTA because you are too clever for that type of outright ask and I will call this top of funnel content.

You scroll by and mentally ignore my future posts.

Predictably, nobody wins! 😢

[Chris DeLuca @hichrsdl]

@nixmarch @WHOOP @willahmed I like how you used this as an opportunity to lay out how you think about growth/retention. And you got a response from the CEO! good stuff