China isn't Apple's only problem

Plus: Plasso's founder on scaling and selling a startup [View Online]( [Nvidia]( The world's first trillion-dollar company suddenly seems a bit vulnerable. On Wednesday, Apple lowered its sales estimates for the first time in over a decade. While Apple had once predicted $93 billion for first-quarter revenue, the company is lowering that projection to $84 billion—and Apple's shares fell over [8% as a result](. Thursday morning, the Dow dropped over [650 points](. Apple is dealing with two distinct problems simultaneously: - The Chinese market isn't generating the revenue Apple expected. - U.S. iPhone users aren't upgrading their iPhones like they used to. As recently as 2016, Apple was the [market leader]( in Chinese smartphones. In Q4 of 2017, the Chinese market accounted for nearly [20%]( of Apple's revenue. In 2019, however, things seem to be changing. The slowdown of the Chinese economy, rising tensions from the U.S.-China trade war, and increased competition from smartphone providers like Huawei have all contributed to Apple's [poorer-than-expected]( performance in China. But while the Chinese economy and U.S.-China relations aren't quite in Tim Cook's control, Apple's problems in the U.S. market certainly are. Four years ago, iPhone users would upgrade their phones about [every two years](. As a result, Apple enjoyed a fairly consistent demand for new iPhones within its existing customer base. In 2018, however, studies found the average iPhone user was waiting [almost three years]( before upgrading. The majority of people who haven't upgraded, according to [Barron's](, held off either because they found their current phone to be “just fine” or because the price of a new phone was too high. Simply put, new iPhone models no longer have that “must have” appeal to make customers shell out more money to upgrade as quickly as they used to. This slowdown in upgrades in the U.S. market, as well as uncertainty in the Chinese market, has hit Apple hard, contributing to the tech giant's [28% slide]( since November 2018. It remains to be seen if Apple will be able to course-correct quickly and—perhaps most importantly—course-correct with Tim Cook's credibility intact. Plasso's founder on scaling & selling a startup In 2016, Drew Wilson had just raised funding to grow Plasso, his payment-subscription startup. By September 2018, the company was acquired by GoDaddy. "I was coming at this brand new, but I absolutely love trial by fire—that gut feeling where you're just super-nervous and you know you're way outside your comfort zone," Wilson said. "I love learning that way." As a first-time team-builder, this was also Wilson's first time dealing with an acquisition offer. He shared a blow-by-blow account, from the day GoDaddy's business development team reached out to how he felt once the deal finally closed. He also outlined a checklist for any founder who may be considering an acquisition offer: - Figure out if the person reaching out to you has decision-making power - Research the terms and people involved in past acquisitions the company has completed - Map out the competitive landscape to get a sense of how valuable your company would be for the acquirer [Keep reading]( Living phone-free in Silicon Valley & the future of music tech [Product Hunt Radio]( Justin Kan’s career blew up in the mid-2000s when he started live streaming himself 24/7 on Justin.tv, a Y Combinator-backed startup he cofounded. Justin.tv eventually turned into Twitch and sold to Amazon for nearly a billion dollars. Ranidu also has a unique background. Before jumping into tech, he rose to fame as an R&B and hip-hop artist. He went on to join Google before founding the first of many startups. In this episode of Product Hunt Radio, Kan and Ranidu cover everything from the ways going phone-free will change how you work to whether distributed teams make sense. [Keep reading]( Hot startups hiring now 🔥 💰 [Boost Insurance]( partners with cutting-edge startups and consumer brands to create white-labeled insurance programs so they can offer any kind of protection to their customers. [Hiring a senior back-end engineer.]( 🏢 [OnSiteIQ]( brings construction sites to its users, without all the dust and debris. It maps 360-degree imagery to building floor plans, enabling people to virtually walk through sites and monitor progress. [Hiring a senior computer vision engineer, enterprise account executive, and more.]( 📈 [Orbital Insight]( is a big data company leveraging satellite, UAV, and other geospatial data sources. Its goal is to understand and characterize socio­economic trends at global, regional, and hyper­local scales. [Hiring a senior user experience designer, core software engineer, and more.]( 🔊 [SpokenLayer]( powers voice-driven media for virtual assistants and connected devices. Its platform helps media partners create, distribute, monetize, and track voice media experiences. [Hiring a senior back-end engineer, brand partnerships lead, and more.]( [Search now]( AngelList Weekly 90 Gold St San Francisco, CA 94133 [Unsubscribe]( | [Update Preferences](