Dogs of Lordstown

Extra Crunch Newsletter

Tuesday, May 25, 2021 • By Walter Thompson and Annie Siebert

Welcome to Extra Crunch Tuesday Image Credits: Nigel Sussman Lordstown Motors released its Q1 earnings yesterday, and the electric vehicle manufacturer is facing a few challenges. Expenses were higher than expected, it plans to slash production by about 50%, and the company reported zero revenue and a net loss of $125 million. Oh, it also needs more capital. “But there's more to the Lordstown mess than merely a single bad quarter,” writes Alex Wilhelm. “Lordstown's earnings mess and the resulting dissonance with its own predictions are notable on their own, but they also point to what could be shifting sentiment regarding SPAC combinations.” In light of the company’s lackluster earnings report (and a pending SEC investigation), Alex unpacks the company’s Q1, “but don't think that we're only singling out one company; others fit the bill, and more will in time.” Join TechCrunch reporter Ron Miller and Patrik Liu Tran, co-founder and CEO of automated real-time data validation and quality monitoring platform Validio, on Thursday, May 27  at 9 a.m. PT/noon ET for a Clubhouse chat about ensuring data quality in the era of Big Data. The world produces 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily, but modern data infrastructure still lacks solutions for monitoring data quality and data validation. Among other topics, they’ll discuss the build versus buy debate, how to better understand data failures, and why traditional methods for to identify data failures are no longer operational. Click here to join the conversation. Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch; have a great week! Walter Thompson Senior Editor, TechCrunch @yourprotagonist Read More

5 predictions for the future of e-commerce Image Credits: Busakorn Pongparnit / Getty Images Despite e-commerce growth skyrocketing over the past year, the U.S. has still only reached an e-commerce penetration rate of around 17%. During the last 18 months, we've closed the gap to South Korea and China's e-commerce penetration of more than 25%, but there is still much progress to be made. Here are five key predictions for what this road to further penetration will hold. Read More

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When to walk away from a VC who wants to invest in your startup Image Credits: cruphoto / Getty Images Pay attention to red flags when meeting with VCs: If they cancel late or leave you waiting, it's a sign, just like being asked generic questions that demonstrate little or no understanding of the proposition. If you fail to spot the warning signs, you'll live to regret it. But do your due diligence and work constructively with them and, together, you might actually build a sustainable future. Read More

How Expensify shed Silicon Valley arrogance to realize its global ambitions Image Credits: Nigel Sussman Expensify may be the most ambitious software company ever to mostly abandon the Bay Area as the center of its operations. It makes sense that a company founded by internet pirates would let its workforce live anywhere they please and however they want to. Yet, how does it manage to make it all work well enough to reach $100 million in annual revenue with just a tad more than 100 employees? Read More

Brian Chesky describes a faster, nimbler post-pandemic Airbnb Image Credits: TechCrunch Managing Editor Jordan Crook sat down with Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder and CEO, to discuss the future of travel, how his company worked to support a changing market and what it was like leading the world's biggest travel startup during a global pandemic. Read More

Embedded finance will help fill the life insurance coverage gap Image Credits: alexsl / Getty Images There's latent demand for life insurance currently unaddressed by much of the financial services industry, and embedded finance can be the solution. It's imperative for companies to consider product lines and partnerships to expand markets, create new revenue streams and provide added value to their customers. Connecting consumers with products they need through channels they already know and trust is both a massive revenue opportunity and a social good, providing financial resilience to families at a time when they need it most. Read More

Zeta Global's IPO filing uncovers modest growth, strong adjusted profitability Image Credits: Nigel Sussman Zeta Global raised north of $600 million in private capital in the form of both equity financing and debt, making it a unicorn worth understanding. The gist is that Zeta ingests and crunches lots of data, helping its users market to their customers on a targeted basis throughout their individual buying lifecycles. In simpler terms, Zeta helps companies pitch customers in varied manners depending on their own characteristics. You can imagine that, as the digital economy has grown, the sort of work Zeta Global supports has only expanded. So, has Zeta itself grown quickly? And does it have an attractive business profile? Read More

Develop a buyer's guide to educate your startup's sales team and customers Image Credits: Nora Carol Photography / Getty Images Every company wants to be innovative, but innovation comes with its share of difficulties. One key challenge for early-stage companies that are disrupting a particular space or creating a new category is figuring out how to sell a unique product to customers who have never bought such a solution. This is especially the case when a solution doesn't have many reference points and its significance may not be obvious. Some buyers could use a walkthrough of the buying process. If you are building a singular product in a nascent market that necessitates forward-looking customers and want to drastically shorten sales cycles, create a buyer's guide. Read More

Deep Science: Robots, meet world Image Credits: Westend61 / Getty Images This column aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter. In this edition, we have a lot of items concerned with the interface between AI or robotics and the real world. Of course, most applications of this type of technology have real-world applications, but specifically, this research is about the inevitable difficulties that occur due to limitations on either side of the real-virtual divide. Read More

2 CEOs are better than 1 Image Credits: PeopleImages / Getty Images Splitting the Chief Executive Officer role between two people is untraditional, but it’s not unheard of: at Netflix and Warby Parker, it’s the norm. Dividing responsibilities lets each leader play to their strengths and shortens the learning curve by 50%. So why aren’t more startups doing it?   Read More

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