Turing's Tofu #33

📰 This Week in AI & SaaS 📰

• Anysphere, a 2 year old startup founded by Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark and Aman Sanger, raises over $60M in its first major round of venture-capital funding. Read more.

• Global payroll platform CloudPay grabs $120M in funding. Read more. 

• Bardeen, the “#1 Chrome extension for workflow automation” that uses AI to automatize repetitive tasks, is launching a new service off the back of funding from HubSpot and Dropbox.  Read more. 

🌟Turing’s Top Picks 🌟

FEATURED TOOLS 

• Aurora: Aurora is a new marketing AI-tool that’ll help you gain valuable insights for your market research. It helps to identify the scope of your market and finds opportunities using trustworthy sources of data. Try it. 

• IdeaMap: IdeaMap is an AI-tool that’ll help you brainstorm ideas quickly and share them with your team for collaboration. It gives you clear, visual strategies, simply by typing your ideas into a search bar. Try it. 

• AskCory: AskCory is an AI-driven tool that’ll help you create, deploy and evaluate your tactics and marketing strategies. It allows you to generate sophisticated marketing strategies quickly. Try it. 

Read of the Week: 

Authenticity In Sales

Close more sales by learning from “Silicon Valley’s most prominent sales hustler” Steli Efti, heeding his tips on how to harness and maintain authenticity in your business. Read the full article here.

💡 Marketing Moments with Mounier 💡

The Sisyphean Inbox: A Modern Myth

Let’s talk about the inbox. Not just any inbox, but the Sisyphean inbox—a never-ending cycle of emails that seems to multiply the more you engage with it. Oliver Burkeman, in his book Four Thousand Weeks, paints a vivid picture of our relationship with email, one that mirrors the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus.

The Infinite Emails, Finite Time

You remember Sisyphus, right? He’s the guy condemned by the gods to push an enormous boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down every single time he nears the top. Now, in our modern world, we’ve traded the boulder for the inbox. You clear it out, you lean back, take a breath, maybe even smile at your accomplishment—only to hear that familiar ping: “You have new messages.”

The number of emails you could potentially receive is infinite. There’s always someone, somewhere, typing out a new request, a new question, a new piece of information just for you. But here’s the kicker: the time you have to process those emails is not infinite. It’s painfully finite.

The Paradox of Productivity

Think about that for a moment. You could get better at processing your email—faster, more efficient, mastering all the latest productivity hacks. But no matter how quick or clever you become, the emails will keep coming. You’ll never reach the top of that ladder because it doesn’t have an end. It’s the same with Sisyphus’s boulder. The more we push, the more it rolls back down.

The Email Feedback Loop

But it gets worse. Every time you respond to an email, you’re likely generating another email in response. You’re feeding the cycle. By being prompt, by being efficient, by being so very good at email, you’re encouraging even more people to send you more emails. Your efficiency breeds more work, more urgency, more pings demanding your attention. It’s a feedback loop that traps us in a cycle of perpetual motion, but no progress.

Rethinking the Climb

Here’s the thing: it’s not about how many emails you process or how quickly you can clear your inbox. The real issue is that the very act of “getting through” your email generates more of it. The more you engage, the more there is to engage with. It’s a paradox, a cruel joke played by the universe (or your email server), and it’s one that’s worth thinking about.

Choosing a New Path

So, what’s the takeaway? It’s time to rethink how we approach not just our inboxes, but our work and our lives. Maybe it’s not about conquering the inbox, about reaching that mythical “inbox zero” where everything is perfectly handled and nothing is left undone. Maybe, instead, it’s about recognizing the futility of the endless climb and choosing to step off the ladder altogether.

Conversations, Not Tasks

What if we stopped seeing emails as tasks to be completed and started seeing them as conversations to be managed? What if we let go of the need to respond to every message, to be on top of every thread, and instead focused on what truly matters—on the work that brings us fulfillment, on the projects that move the needle, on the connections that enrich our lives?

Embracing Balance

The inbox will always be there, just as Sisyphus’s boulder will always be waiting at the bottom of the hill. But we have the power to choose how we interact with it. We can keep pushing that boulder, or we can step back and ask ourselves: Is this really the hill we want to die on?

Final Thoughts: Don’t Let Your Inbox Conquer You

In the end, it’s not about conquering your inbox. It’s about not letting your inbox conquer you. It’s about finding balance, focusing on what truly matters, and remembering that life is too short to spend it chasing an endless stream of pings and dings. So, take a deep breath, step away from the inbox, and remember: there’s a whole world out there beyond the screen, waiting for you to engage with it in a way that’s meaningful, fulfilling, and—most importantly—human.

👉 Watch Oliver Burkeman discuss Sisyphus’s Inbox

👾 TOFU Quick Bytes: Crystal Teardown 👾

Crystal Knows teardown

Crystal Knows is a personality data platform, founded in 2015 by Greg Skloot and Drew D'Agostino, that uses AI and personality assessments to gather insights and predict behaviors and personality traits.

Strategy overview: 

Crystal Knows operates in both the B2B and B2C spaces, using a multifaceted marketing strategy that includes content marketing, personality-driven marketing, B2B partnerships and more.

Performance Analysis:

• Crystal Knows has an annual turnover of $7.5M.

• They have over 1000 customers.

• They’ve raised $5M in 4 funding rounds.

• They currently have 11-50 employees.

How have they achieved this? 

Critical Teardown:

What does Crystal Knows do well?

Free subscription: They offer a free subscription so that customers can gain access to basic personality insights free of charge, which allows them to attract a larger customer-base, and gives users value before they commit to a purchase.

Partnerships with big brands and testimonials: Crystal Knows includes many testimonials, including star-ratings, demonstrating what customers think of their service. They also include huge brands that use their service, which gives prospective customers social proof and trust. 

Cost transparency: Crystal Knows show customers what’s included with each type of membership and are transparent about costs.

Detailed case studies and social-proof: Crystal Knows includes detailed case studies with reputable companies, giving key performance metrics, to clearly show how they have helped them.

What doesn’t Crystal Knows do well? 

Accuracy and consistency: Given that the behavior insights are based on publicly available data, despite having sophisticated algorithms, sometimes, the accuracy of the personality assessments is inconsistent (as it may not offer the most comprehensive data or misrepresent some people).

Privacy concerns: There is some concern around Crystal Knows’ use of publicly available data that’s being used for analyzing personalities/traits. Those who are unaware that their personal data is being analyzed may consider this concerning.

Pricey: Crystal Knows is quite expensive, particularly if you’re a smaller business, individual or startup, which could lead to some prospective customers looking to cheaper competitors, particularly if they don’t intend to use the platform regularly enough to justify the purchase.

Context-limited insights: Although they use AI analytics to get insights, they are usually derived from platforms like LinkedIn and emails, which are professional contexts and don’t necessarily demonstrate an accurate depiction of what a person’s personality may be like. 

AI integration

Personality profiling: Crystal Knows analyzes publicly available data using AI, such as information from social media profiles, emails and texts. This enables them to create personality profiles.

Integrates popular digital tools: Crystal Knows integrates Gmail, LinkedIn and other popular tools, to give users ease of access, which allows users to access personality insights in their workflow without having to go elsewhere.

Key takeaways: 

• Use AI to integrate and centralize other services, such as LinkedIn, HubSpot and Gmail, to make it easy for users to access everything in one place.

• Offer a free-subscription or trial to enable potential customers to sample your services before they make a purchase. 

• Build greater social-proof and expand your client-base by clearly showing how your service/product has helped reputable brands.

• Consider your target market: offer flexibility with your price plans to reach a wider client-base.

What campaign or content marketing strategy would you like to see torn apart, next? Let me know! 

📢Spread the Word📢 

If you found value in today's insights, share Turing's TOFU with your network. Let's grow this community of AI-driven SaaS professionals together!