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Welcome to Extra Crunch Friday | |  Image Credits: LaylaBird / Getty Images | | This is not a boast, but a warning: I can write a how-to article on almost any topic. With enough time to research, I could put together a reliable step-by-step story for building a custom gaming PC or interpreting public health data. But since I’ve never done those things, I would encourage you to ignore any advice I have to offer. Trusted advice comes from experience. That’s why Ron Miller interviewed three entrepreneurs who have each built multiple companies to uncover some essential truths about achieving product-market fit. - Pouyan Salehi, CEO and co-founder, Scratchpad
- Rami Essaid, CEO and founder, Finmark
- Melonee Wise, CEO and co-founder, Fetch Robotics
The basic tenets presented in this story will resonate with anyone who’s launched a startup.
Alex Wilhelm was particularly prolific this morning: for The Exchange, he studied UiPath’s 2020 quarterly results to get a clearer picture of its first S-1/A filing. Is the “somewhat slack news regarding UiPath's potential IPO valuation” a harbinger of things to come? In a follow-up, The IPO market is sending us mixed messages, he recapped news from the public debuts of Coinbase, UiPath, Zenvia, AppLovin and Grab, all of which “adds up to a somewhat muddled picture of the current IPO market.” It feels like we’re in a turbulent window, but it’s also possible that we’re in the calm after the storm, he suggests. Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch this week; I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Nigel Sussman | | Robotic process automation platform UiPath filed its first S-1/A this week, setting an initial price range for its shares. The numbers were impressive, if slightly disappointing because what UiPath indicated in terms of its potential IPO value was a lower valuation than what it earned during its final private fundraising. In this morning’s edition of The Exchange, Alex wonders if the somewhat slack news was a warning to late-stage investors. Read More | | | |
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| |  Image Credits: Mohd Hafiez Mohd Razali/EyeEm / Getty Images | | To cap off the week, let's run through IPO news from UiPath, Coinbase, Grab, AppLovin and Zenvia. The aggregate dataset should help you form your own perspective about where today's IPO markets really are in terms of warmth for the often-unprofitable unicorns of the world. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: twomeows / Getty Images | | The “billion-dollar B2B” paradigm refers to the forces shaping a new class of cloud-first, enterprise-tech behemoths with the potential to reach $1 billion in ARR — and achieve market capitalizations in excess of $50 billion or even $100 billion. One of the biggest factors driving billion-dollar B2Bs is a simple but important shift in how organizations buy enterprise technology today. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch | | Dear Sophie: For the past few years, our company has put very promising candidates into the annual H-1B lottery. None of them have been selected — and none of them meet the requirements for other work visas like an O-1A. We lost out again in this year's H-1B lottery. Are there any other ways we can obtain H-1Bs for our team members? — Soldiering On in Sunnyvale Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Nigel Sussman | | In broad strokes, the United States had a crushing venture capital start to the new year. That is especially true when we consider 2020's full-year figures. Last year, VCs deployed some $166 billion into U.S.-based startups across 12,546 rounds. In contrast, if the first quarter's pace was maintained during the rest of 2021, the U.S. would see around 16,000 rounds worth around $280 billion. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Alexa von Tobel | | Few people are more knowledgeable on the topic of how founders should manage their finances than Alexa von Tobel. A certified financial planner, she started her own company in the midst of the recession (which happened to be a wildly successful personal finance startup that sold for hundreds of millions of dollars), and is now a VC who invests and advises founders. At TechCrunch Early Stage, Von Tobel outlined the various steps you can take to stay out of debt, build credit and accumulate wealth through investments to ensure you have financial peace of mind as you take on the most stressful venture of your life: Starting a company. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Olive | | A few years ago, founder Sean Lane thought he'd achieved product-market fit. Speaking to attendees at TechCrunch Early Stage, Lane said Queue, a secure digital check-in tablet for hospital waiting rooms, was "selling like hotcakes." Still, he sold off the product, laid off two-thirds of the people affiliated with it and redirected the employees who were left. Lane says what he really wanted to build is what his company — since renamed Olive — has now become, a robotic process automation (RPA) company that takes on hospital workers' most tedious tasks so nurses and physicians can spend more time with patients. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: jayk7 / Getty Images | | Many believe that consumer privacy and business results are mutually exclusive — to excel in one area is to lack in the other. Consumer privacy is seen by many in the technology industry as an area to be managed. The truth is that the companies that champion privacy are better-positioned to win in all areas. This is especially true as the digital industry continues to undergo tectonic shifts in privacy — both in government regulation and browser updates. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Chris Jongkind / Getty Images | | Platforms can help startups scale and innovate faster while controlling costs, but they can also limit exit outcomes, according to TX Zhuo, managing partner of Fika Ventures, and Colton Pace, co-founder and CEO of realAppeal. Platform dependency can be a real danger: what happens if your largest data provider restricts access? In this guest post, two investors offer advice for building successfully and creating long-term value. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Nigel Sussman | | Coinbase's direct listing was a massive finance, startup and cryptocurrency event, and the transaction's effects will be felt for some time in the public market, but also among the startups and capital that comprise the private market. In the buildup to Coinbase's flotation, there was a general expectation that the unicorn's direct listing would provide a halo effect for other startups in the space. The widely held perspective raised two questions: Will the success of Coinbase's direct listing bolster private investment in crypto-focused startups, and will that success help other areas of financially focused startup work garner more investor attention? Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Bryce Durbin | | Hydrogen is capturing the attention of governments and private sector players, fueled by new tech, global green energy legislation and post-pandemic "green recovery" schemes. Our latest market map lays out its current and potential applications and looks at how new technology and shifts in regulation are helping the most common element in the universe become “the star of the show” when it comes to transportation. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: tumsasedgars / Getty Images | | Data is the most valuable asset for any business in 2021. If your business is online and collecting customer personal information, your business is dealing in data, which means data privacy compliance regulations will apply to everyone — no matter the company's size. Small startups might not think the world's strictest data privacy laws — the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — apply to them, but it's important to enact best data management practices before a legal situation arises. Read More | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images | | When Dell announced it was spinning out VMware, the move itself wasn't surprising; there had been public speculation for some time. But Dell could have gone a number of ways in this deal, despite its choice to spin VMware out as a separate company with a constituent dividend instead of an outright sale. It seems Dell hopes to have its cake and eat it too with this deal: It generates a large slug of cash to use for personal debt relief while securing a five-year commercial deal that should keep the two companies closely aligned. Read More | | | |
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