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Welcome to Volume 167 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 🖼️ Improve Your Image Creation Process by Writing Better DALL-E Prompts
- 🛑 It Wasn’t Meant to Be: Adobe & Figma Merger Blocked by Regulators
- 👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week?
- 🎧 A Distribution Master Class with Conversion Cast
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
Let’s get into it.
B2B MARKETING STRATEGY
Unlocking the Power of DALL-E: A Guide to Creating Captivating Visual Prompts
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but with generative AI tools like DALL-E, you can make one with far fewer.
OpenAI’s text-to-image generator has ushered in a new era of creation, allowing those of us with limited artistic ability (ahem) to create stunning visuals with words. And it’s not just to the benefit of art enthusiasts and creatives:
According to McKinsey, generative AI is projected to add nearly $500 billion annually to the marketing industry through increased productivity, and the majority of that assessment focuses on text-based applications. That impact could be substantially greater now that DALL-E 3 is available to the masses through ChatGPT and Bing Image Creator.
The essence of harnessing text-to-image generation lies in the art of prompt engineering. It’s not just about asking—it’s about asking the right way.
In our most recent post for Labs, I cover the nuances of crafting prompts that bring your creative visions to life. From specifying subjects to capturing moods and styles, I look at how experts in the field formulate prompts to create images for use in a wide range of contexts. This includes:
- Integrating Art with AI: Exploring the seamless integration of ChatGPT’s language understanding with DALL-E’s image-generation prowess, offering a more intuitive creation process.
- Prompt Modifiers Unveiled: Understanding the six types of prompt modifiers and how they can transform your visual storytelling.
- Practical Tips for Perfection: Learning to balance creativity with clarity, the importance of using visual art terminology, and strategies to refine prompts.
- Scenario-Based Applications: Outlining six of the many marketing scenarios where DALL-E accelerates image creation, from social media graphics to user interface design.
Imagery has always been central to the communication process—whether it’s illustrations in a graphic novel or product renderings for a SaaS website. However, the ability to create images at a high level requires extensive training or collaboration with experts. Both are time- and resource-intensive.
Now, you can optimize that process with the right DALL-E prompts. Subscribers can check out the full case study on the Foundation Labs page.
🎧 Learn How to Create Like the Greats 🎧
Looking to build out your company’s content marketing and distribution engine? Interested in learning how leading brands like Loom, Toast, and Calm create winning content? Or just want to hear conversations with the likes of Tamara Dworetz, Dave Gerhardt, and Dr. Julie Gurner?
Have we got the podcast for you.
In Create Like the Greats, Foundation CEO Ross Simmonds discusses marketing, the creative process, life, and everything in between. Here are some of the most recent episodes you can catch up on:
- How Ross prepares for a big keynote presentation
- Debating the value of long-form vs. short-form content
- How Ross successfully maximized his time on a 48-hour trip to New York
- Marketing frameworks, mental models, AARRR pirate metrics, and B2B buyer journeys
Kickstart your creative journey today by checking out the podcast on the Foundation website or listening through Apple and Spotify!
B2B SAAS INSIGHTS
Adobe & Figma: The Merger That Wasn’t
Adobe sent waves through the design and SaaS community in the early fall of 2022 when it announced plans to acquire the popular design platform Figma. Some were excited; some were upset. Either way, the $20 billion deal was poised to reshape the landscape of digital design tools.
Fast forward 27 months, and that deal is dead in the water.
On Monday, Adobe and Figma announced their mutual agreement to terminate the contract, which involves a $1 billion payment from the former to the latter. The merger faced significant hurdles as regulators from the UK, EU, and US expressed concerns over potential harm to competition in the digital design market. Both companies “strongly disagree with recent regulatory findings” that found Adobe to have a near monopoly in the design niche.
For Adobe, this is an obvious setback in its strategy to consolidate its position as a leader in the digital design space. Adobe had eyed Figma’s collaborative design platform as a key asset to bolster its suite of creative tools and appeal to a younger, more collaborative user base. The termination of this deal means Adobe will need to recalibrate its growth strategy, possibly focusing on internal innovation or exploring other acquisition targets.
Figma, in contrast, emerges with its independence intact but faces a future where it continues to compete with giant rivals—including InVision, Miro, and Adobe itself. Its popularity within the design community, however, put it in a strong position to continue as a significant player in the market.
On a wider scale, the collapse of the Adobe-Figma merger is a clear signal of the changing regulatory environment in the tech sector. There’s an increasing trend of scrutiny over tech acquisitions involving big tech brands, reflecting a broader shift towards more rigorous enforcement of antitrust laws.
SaaS companies and investors need to be on watch. There’s a more challenging path to success for large-scale mergers and acquisitions.
As we move forward, it’s evident that the dynamics of growth, competition, and regulation in the tech world are becoming more intricate. As ever in the tech space, staying nimble and adaptive is key to thriving in this ever-changing landscape.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week?
💵 Private equity firm Verdane invests $65 million in Meltwater for an 11% stake
📰 OpenAI announces partnership with publishing house Axel Springer
⚠️ MongoDB investigates unauthorized access that exposed customer account information
📈 The a16z team explains why it’s investing in “open source” Mistral AI
❄️ Snowflake announces deal to buy Samooha—its eighth acquisition of 2023
🚨 Traffic & Conversion Summit 2024 🚨
Better get those 2024 calendars out because your January just got busier. You can ring in the New Year with Ross and a panel of amazing speakers—including Sir Richard Branson—at the Traffic & Conversion Summit from January 9th to 11th, 2024. The event will be full of can’t-miss insights from experts on the most pressing topics of digital marketing, including:
- The high-ROI, low-CPA channels you need to target
- Improving acquisition and retention rates with customer-centric marketing
- The results from thousands of A/B tests on landing pages, emails, and social posts
- Unlocking a new level of productivity by producing high-quality AI-generated content
So, what are you waiting for?!
Get your tickets for the Traffic & Conversion Summit 2024 before it’s too late!
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
It’s my last edition of this newsletter before the Foundation Team signs off until 2024. We all have things to wrap up before then (presents, mainly), so I’ll keep this short and sweet.
Whether you’re bundling up against the chill or enjoying a sunnier side of the globe, I just wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season full of good food, good laughs, and good people.
It’s always a pleasure working on these—hopefully, it’s the same for all of you reading it! If there’s anything you want to hear more about over the coming year, feel free to hit me up!
Cheers! 🍻
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🏅 X Post of the Week
Figma-Adobe and the Christmas Breakup Peak by Laura Wendel
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
The revenue split between OpenAI’s B2B and B2C products by Kelvin Mu
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- OpenAI’s guide to prompt engineering
- What Is TikTok’s ‘For You Page’ (FYP) & Why It Matters
- Ilya Sutskever’s plan for keeping super-intelligent AI in check
- Studying the top posts in business-related Subreddits
- Looking at the EU’s new rules to regulate artificial intelligence
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week:
Cozy Christmas Coffee Shop Ambience
This SaaS news smattering is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email me at ethan@foundationinc.co. We always look for ways to improve and provide the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend, and see you on the other side!
