NPLG 10.27.22: Browser-based Collaboration is the Magic Recipe for PLG
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NPLG Startup of the Week: Liveblocks
Social feedback loops are critical to PLG success. Many of the most iconic PLG companies grew organically through in product real-time collaboration and sharing i.e. Figma, Miro, Slack, Zoom etc. However, building realtime, browser-based collaboration is not easy. This was actually one of Figma’s more monumental technical breakthroughs (check out Figma co-founder and former CTO Evan Wallace’s personal website or Figma’s longform blog on multiplayer technology to see how big of a deal multiplayer is). Now PLG startups, or incumbents thinking about PLG, can embed collaboration diretly into their products without having to go through the headaches of building it. Enter Liveblocks.
Liveblocks is a set of APIs and tools that helps developers create performant and reliable multiplayer experiences in minutes. Liveblocks integrates directly with popular frameworks and state‑management libraries, making it easy to convert an existing product into a real‑time collaborative experience. For this edition of Notorious PLG, CEO and Co-founder Steven Fabre shared with me how companies should think about implementing collaboration into their product experience. Read more below:
Browser-based Collaboration is the Magic Recipe for PLG
“When a product is designed for seamless collaboration, people love it and spread it which in return drives organic user growth and increases user retention and engagement.
Historically, building and maintaining browser-based collaborative products was time-consuming, expensive, and required expertise. That’s why we created Liveblocks, a set of tools and APIs to enable companies to create world-class collaborative experiences in a matter of days, not years.
Converting an existing product to collaboration doesn’t have to be a large investment where it’s all or nothing. Instead, the transition can happen iteratively in a way that’s much more practical for companies.
1. Add real-time presence to your product
Real-time presence is about making people feel like they’re together in room when using your product. In most cases, real-time presence can be added to any product in just a few days and this already improves the experience and efficiency of your product drastically.
With real-time presence, you can take your existing product and let other users know who’s in a document and what they’re doing. On top of that, you can automatically optimistically update parts of the document when people make changes.
2. Add features that make it easy for users to bring people along
Once you have a good real-time presence foundation, it’s now time to start adding features to your product that will incentivize people to invite others to the document they’re working on. This should integrate perfectly into your notification system and messaging providers to bring in users outside of your product. Whether that be on Slack, Email, or elsewhere.
For instance, you could add a share dialog with permissions that makes it easy for people to invite people to collaborate on any given document. You could also start adding commenting features where people can be mentioned and notified automatically where they are.
3. Implement shared data types
If your application is highly interactive and often requires multiple people to edit the same areas of a document at the same time, it is important to implement shared data types. Instead of doing an optimistic update when people make changes, this will enable people to edit the same data at the same time and resolve potential conflicts in real-time. This is what tools like Figma and Google Docs do so well.
While this would take a complete re-write and months of work if done in-house, Liveblocks enables you to do this in a matter of days in most cases.”
I would love feedback. Please hit me up on twitter @zacharydewitt or email me at zach@wing.vc. If you were forwarded this email and are interested in getting a weekly update on the best PLG companies, please join our growing community by subscribing:
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Web3 Builders, a developer of security software intended to keep end users safer and more secure, has raised $7M. The round was led by Road Capital, with participation from OpenSea Ventures, Sparkle ventures, Greylock Partners, Global Founders Capital, Picus Capital, ACME Capital, TTV Capital, G20 Ventures and Haven Ventures.
Series A:
Jasper, a startup developing what it describes as an “AI content” platform, has raised $125M at a $1.5B valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, IVP, Foundation Capital, Founders Circle Capital, Coatue and HubSpot Ventures.
Stability AI, the company funding the development of open-source music and image-generating systems like Dance Diffusion and Stable Diffusion, has raised $101M at a $1B valuation. The round was led by Coatue and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from O’Shaughnessy Ventures.
Series B:
HYCU, a developer of multi-cloud data management software intended to offer cloud data backup and recovery as a service, has raised $53M. The round was led by Acrew Capital, with participation from Atlassian Ventures, Cisco Investments, Okta Ventures, and Bain Capital Ventures.
Series C:
Enable, a startup selling access to a platform that helps B2B companies manage their rebate programs, has raised $94M at a $844M valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, SE Ventures, PSP Growth and HarbourVest Partners.
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