Anchor's Podcast

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Attention, trust, and retention drive design The Daily Struggle Every trader’s screen is a battlefield. Charts jumping every second, alerts buzzing with no pause, and social feeds flooding with hot takes that all sound urgent. On top of that, there are the e...

Hi everyone, a few days have passed. Last Friday I was fully occupied at a three-day startup exhibition in Taipei. This week finally brings some space to reflect and write again. Life inside a startup means every day is a challenge, and we keep moving forward regardless of the difficulty. For any Mandarin-speaking readers, feel free to leave a comment in Mandarin at the end of this article. I woul...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X I. The Shift in Platform Growth Logic Platforms initially grew by adding features and improving technology . Early success relied on functional differentiation and technical advantage. Over time, the growth model shifted. Platforms now prioritize traffic ove...

Quick Take: Tech Hiring in 2025 * Companies want smaller teams that deliver bigger results. * Mid-level pros with proven impact get more attention. Entry-level candidates face a narrower funnel. * Taiwan’s market is feeling the heat. Returning overseas grads increase competition, salaries have slowed, and STEM-heavy roles make it intense. * Portfolios matter more than resumes. Side projects, demos...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X I. Opening: Awareness vs. Cage If no one tells you the cage exists, you move along with the social framework, never questioning its edges. If someone points out the cage, you feel drained, caught between awareness and fatigue. You try to rise, and others tra...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Last week I published a piece breaking down Substack’s growth engine . It looked at how writer and reader behavior form loops that sustain the platform. Among the comments, one stood out. Jennifer Houle , who writes about rethinking HR systems, left this rep...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X The hardest part of Substack is not the writing, it is finding readers when you have none. Atomic networks help you solve that by breaking your work into small pieces that spread faster and pull people back to your newsletter. Running a Substack is like runn...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Lately I’ve had a lot more subscribers from Taiwan, so feel free to interact with me in Mandarin. ( 最近多了很多台灣訂閱者，可以自由使用中文跟我互動。 ) : )Today’s piece uses Substack as an example to break down how a product’s growth loops work. Every produ...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Why I Keep Paying for That One Newsletter In a world of noise, what makes a reader pay for a smaller, sharper signal - and how creators keep them coming back. After work, I drifted into a nearby bookstore without a clear plan. I found myself near shelves fil...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Quoting Melanie Goodman ’s comment under this article, I think it’s a perfect opening: The real magic here is that YC’s Requests aren’t just them saying “we like X”, they’re publishing a structured demand map for systemic inefficiencies. It’s a form of marke...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X The User in the Loop You open Substack and check the view count on your latest article. It’s gone up by one or two since yesterday. Sometimes you’re pretty sure those views are just you refreshing the page or accidental clicks. You start wondering if anyone’...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Building Products in the AI Era: The Deep Logic of Speed, Content, and Data Ownership In a world shaped by AI-native platforms and infinite noise , the way you build is as strategic as what you build. In 2025, traditional feature stacking and superficial dif...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X What makes commitment sacred? The best products don’t win by outcompeting others. They win by aligning with the part of the user that’s trying to win back control - from distraction, from inconsistency, from themselves. I. The Founder’s Quiet Panic: Your Use...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X How social media platforms manipulate creators Have you ever felt that being a creator today means slowly giving up what you’re best at, what you love most? Like your voice is being reshaped, quietly and algorithmically, into something else. Something that f...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Crisis as Growth Fuel There was a time when “crisis management” meant a reactive memo, a press-trained spokesperson, and a few weeks of silence. That time is over. Today, what used to be reputational wildfire is increasingly being treated as free oxygen for...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Before They Search, They Decide Search Is Losing Intent Why Google’s dominance is eroding and what replaces it is not another search engine For the first time in two decades, users are not starting with Google. They start with ChatGPT. Perplexity. Claude. Ev...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X Surviving Value Migration in AI Platforms Explore how AI platform governance reshapes product innovation and strategy. Learn actionable approaches to build resilient, workflow-driven AI products that survive value migration and platform constraints. Agility...

Hi I’m Angela 🧸A product growth marketer who exists in the space between caffeine highs and retention lows. For more: Anchor | instagram | X AI & Personal Brands Changing Growth Building on Lenny Rachitsky’s Growth Inflections framework, this article explores how AI automation and personal branding create new growth engines for startups. Discover actionable strategies to harness these emerging tr...