Several products in one retrospective
At the end of 2023, Vatsal Sanghvi described 1811 Labs as a flexible five-person team behind Audionotes, Podnotes, Summarify and other work, including stalled attempts. These are products in one business group, not separate five-person teams.
Our analysis: shared technology does not mean shared tasks
Notes and podcasts may share transcription and summaries, but users need different outcomes. Notes emphasize retrieval and review; production adds proofreading, segmentation and repurposing. List users, inputs, frequency and accepted outcomes separately before identifying reusable capabilities.
Products compete for maintenance and promotion. Track problems solved, support consumed and recurring use per iteration. Keeping only successful products erases experiments and unlaunched work. This review method is our suggestion.
One-off receipts are not recurring subscriptions
The retrospective discusses sales, subscriptions and product sales with different definitions and no independently audited profit. Channel deals and ongoing service may carry different duties. This is historical evidence on portfolios and failures, not an income-copying formula.
Further reading: authorized audio delivery; reading business metrics.