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You are receiving this email because you signed up to Caffeine for your Inbox, a weekly newsletter about living a more intentional, innovative life. It’s kind of like caffeine for your life. If you were forwarded this email, you can get your own here.

🥛Cream & Sugar

Ideas about living a more intentional, innovative life. The kind of stuff that makes a newsletter (and coffee) good.

Growing up, Vimeo was for the times when YouTube was too quick with detecting copyright infringements. I used it to watch movie clips and other illegal content when I couldn't find it anywhere else.

Much has changed since then. YouTube has become the second-most visited website in the world. And Vimeo has become a $6B company that stands its own in the digital video space.

Vimeo had its IPO this past Tuesday, led by CEO Anjali Sud. Sud stepped in 4 years ago when Vimeo was still indie YouTube.

She knew why people like twelve-year-old me used Vimeo, and so she reached a formative conclusion: the world didn't need another YouTube. Who else could a video platform be?

How do you innovate in a saturated market?

At the time, all of the video platforms at the time were playing the same game. The Netflixes made money off of subscription revenue and the YouTubes made money off of advertising. Every company wanted to get more viewers.

In all of this viewer obsession, creators were left in the dust.

Sud decided to bring a new business model to the space: SaaS. Instead of being another platform for creators to put their videos, what if they could make tools for creators to make better videos?

Sud reinvented Vimeo to do just that. For all the mom and pop shops struggling to stay hip in the age of Instagram, she created a video studio with templates, AI, stock licensed footage, and music. For the home instructors trying to earn a living, she created a video portal where they could live stream classes and put up paywalls wherever they wanted. For Fortune 500 companies who wanted to connect with their employees scattered around the world, she created a tool for them to have secure, internal video events.

Sud embraced radical change for a company that had been stagnant for years. Today, 60% of the Fortune 500 have an active account with Vimeo. 80% of its users pay for membership. The company experienced a 57% growth in sales just in the past quarter. And as an Indian American woman myself, seeing Sud's company on the Nasdaq is incredibly exciting.

Markets often become saturated when everyone is attempting to do the same thing. Whether you're trying to stand out as a content creator on Instagram or you're creating yet another streaming service, you cannot win by playing the same game as everyone else. Instead of trying to be better, be different. Bring a new business model into the space. Focus on a different target market. Don’t be afraid to pivot your ideas.

Where in your life can you play a different game?

💥Jitters

For that moment when the caffeine hits: a random assortment of resources, articles, and other fun things.

• How Much Confidence is Too Much?: An interesting look at the various levels of confidence startup founders experience while building.

• The Art of Finding What You Have: A fun article that explores filing systems of writers and how to effectively organize your scattered notes. An especially good read if you work best on paper.

• Terms & Conditions May Apply: A fun brainteaser game that tests how good you really are at avoiding Internet popups.

💻What's Brewing at My Desk

Updates on Think Outside the Odds and other projects.

I am in the early stages of planning out my beta reader program. In a few weeks, I'll be sending out my manuscript to some of you for feedback, ideas, and criticism. If you're interested in getting an early peek at Think Outside the Odds (plus some extra fun things), shoot me an email letting me know.

☕Espresso Shot

All the actionable insights from this newsletter condensed into a few bullet points.

• When you're trying to innovate in a field that seems "saturated," find the pattern in what everyone is currently doing. Then, find a way to do the opposite.

• If you see that what you’re doing hasn’t been working, embrace pivoting and radical change.

• Uncertainty and low confidence is natural when you're creating something new. When you experience it, try to turn your doubt into curiosity. Ask yourself, why is this happening?