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Sunday, February 28, 2021
Qualcomm veteran to replace Alain Crozier as Microsoft Greater China boss
Microsoft gets a new leader for its Greater China business. Yang Hou, a former executive at Qualcomm, will take over Alain Crozier as the chairman and chief executive officer for Microsoft Greater China Region, according to a company announcement released Monday.
More to come…
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How Machine Learning Helps Analytics Be More Proactive
"Many organizations claim that their business decisions are data-driven. But they often use the term "data-driven" to mean reporting key performance metrics based on historical data — and using analysis of these metrics to support and justify business decisions that will, hopefully, lead to desired business outcomes. While this is a good start, it is no longer enough".
The traditional role of data and analytics has always been in supporting decision-making. Now, they are applied where they have never been before. Today data and analytics are not only used for describing, diagnosing, predicting, or even recommending the best actions but also triggering those actions automatically. The motivation behind this new area of application is the goal of many businesses to reduce task performance time and the volume of human labor.
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Autonomous drone maker Skydio raises $170M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Skydio has raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund. That pushes it into unicorn territory, with $340 million in total funding and a post-money valuation north of $1 billion. Skydio’s fresh capital comes on the heels of its expansion last year into the enterprise market, and it intends to use the considerable pile of cash to help it expand globally and accelerate product development.
In July of last year, Skydio announced its $100 million Series C financing, and also debuted the X2, its first dedicated enterprise drone. The company also launched a suite of software for commercial and enterprise customers, its first departure from the consumer drone market where it had been focused prior to that raise since its founding in 2014.
Skydio’s debut drone, the R1, received a lot of accolades and praise for its autonomous capabilities. Unlike other consumer drones at the time, including from recreational drone maker DJI, the R1 could track a target and film them while avoiding obstacles without any human intervention required. Skydio then released the Skydio 2 in 2019, its second drone, cutting off more than half the price while improving on it its autonomous tracking and video capabilities.
Late last year, Skydio brought on additional senior talent to help it address enterprise and government customers, including a software development lead who had experience at Tesla and 3D printing company Carbon. Skydio also hired two Samsara executives at the same time to work on product and engineering. Samsara provides a platform for managing cloud-based fleet operations for large enterprises.
The applications of Skydio’s technology for commercial, public sector and enterprise organizations are many and varied. Already, the company works with public utilities, fire departments, construction firms and more to do work including remote inspection, emergency response, urban planning and more. Skydio’s U.S. pedigree also puts it in prime position to capitalize on the growing interest in applications from the defense sector.
a16z previously led Skydio’s Series A round. Other investors who participated in this Series D include Lines Capital, Next47, IVP and UP.Partners.
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Space startup Gitai raises $17.1M to help build the robotic workforce of commercial space
Japanese space startup Gitai has raised a $17.1 million funding round, a Series B financing for the robotics startup. This new funding will be used for hiring, as well as funding the development and execution of an on-orbit demonstration mission for the company’s robotic technology, which will show its efficacy in performing in-space satellite servicing work. That mission is currently set to take place in 2023.
Gitai will also be staffing up in the U.S., specifically, as it seeks to expand its stateside presence in a bid to attract more business from that market.
“We are proceeding well in the Japanese market, and we’ve already contracted missions from Japanese companies, but we haven’t expanded to the U.S. market yet,” explained Gitai founder and CEO Sho Nakanose in an interview. So we would like to get missions from U.S. commercial space companies, as a subcontractor first. We’re especially interested in on-orbit servicing, and we would like to provide general-purpose robotic solutions for an orbital service provider in the U.S.”
Nakanose told me that Gitai has plenty of experience under its belt developing robots which are specifically able to install hardware on satellites on-orbit, which could potentially be useful for upgrading existing satellites and constellations with new capabilities, for changing out batteries to keep satellites operational beyond their service life, or for repairing satellites if they should malfunction.
Gitai’s focus isn’t exclusively on extra-vehicular activity in the vacuum of space, however. It’s also performing a demonstration mission of its technical capabilities in partnership with Nanoracks using the Bishop Airlock, which is the first permanent commercial addition to the International Space Station. Gitai’s robot, codenamed S1, is an arm–style robot not unlike industrial robots here on Earth, and it’ll be showing off a number of its capabilities, including operating a control panel and changing out cables.
Long-term, Gitai’s goal is to create a robotic workforce that can assist with establishing bases and colonies on the Moon and Mars, as well as in orbit. With NASA’s plans to build a more permanent research presence on orbit at the Moon, as well as on the surface, with the eventual goal of reaching Mars, and private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin looking ahead to more permanent colonies on Mars, as well as large in-space habitats hosting humans as well as commercial activity, Nakanose suggests that there’s going to be ample need for low-cost, efficient robotic labor – particularly in environments that are inhospitable to human life.
Nakanose told me that he actually got started with Gitai after the loss of his mother – an unfortunate passing he said he firmly believes could have been avoided with the aid of robotic intervention. He began developing robots that could expand and augment human capability, and then researched what was likely the most useful and needed application of this technology from a commercial perspective. That research led Nakanose to conclude that space was the best long-term opportunity for a new robotics startup, and Gitai was born.
This funding was led by SPARX Innovation for the Future Co. Ltd, and includes funding form DcI Venture Growth Fund, the Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, and EP-GB (Epson’s venture investment arm).
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10 Commandments of Microservice Decomposition
While we are talking about microservices, we talk a lot about Domain-Driven Design, Event-Driven Architecture, Core Domain, Subdomain, Bounded Context, Anti-corruption Layer, etc.
Whether you are working in a Brownfield project or a Greenfield project, if your organization wants to adopt microservices, (assuming your organization has a compelling reason for adopting microservices, as it is not a free lunch), then you need to understand the above terms in detail to properly decompose your business domain logic (Business Space) and map it with microservices architecture (Code Space), so you can gain the benefits of microservice traits.
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Split Testing With Netlify
Split testing is a feature you aren’t using enough. It’s a great way to test changes with your visitors without minimizing risk. In this tutorial, we’ll learn what split testing is, why you need it, and how to set it up with Netlify.
What is Split Testing?
Split testing is the idea of creating another copy of your website that you can send users to, so you can test new features. Let’s say you have a new design you want to try out. Rather than push that new design to production where everyone can see it, you can test it with a few people.
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Saturday, February 27, 2021
TDD Typescript NestJS API Layers with Jest Part 3: Repository Unit Test
Context
This is a 3 part series for unit testing the controller, service, and repository layers in a typical REST architecture. There are many approaches to doing this, I'm sharing a pattern that I find very flexible and hopefully, you can pick up some tips and tricks along the way.
Part 1 — Unit Testing the Controller | Git branch can be found here.
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Dare Mighty Things — ASCII
Introduction
NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover landing was a historic moment. It was the first time we saw those moments of a rover landing on Mars. That event was huge for many people watching this on their screens and it will inspire us for years.
Every single image we saw after this landing contains a new surprise and one of those were talks about hidden message found on the NASA Mars rover parachute.
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SKP's Agile and Scrum Basics: Part 02/02
I have about 15+ years of Software Development Experience (2018) and have been working on Agile Projects since about 2006. My First Formal Introduction to Agile was through a Training by Thoughtworkers (Thoughtworks is a Leading Agile Company). This was while I was a Senior Software Engineer at Huawei, Bangalore, India. I have worked on Agile/TDD/Pair Programming (Various Variants) in multiple companies including Huawei, Symantec, Yahoo, Finastra*, Oracle*, OpenText*. Recently and Once Again, I attended a Formal Classroom Training (Company Internal) on Agile. I jotted down the most important points and now am presenting them in this Blog. I hope it helps and becomes a Ready Reckoner for Understanding/Learning the Agile Basics (Needs, Motivations, Practice, and Evolution Story).
* [Original Product Firms were Acquired by these Current Companies]
* [Original Product Firms were Acquired by these Current Companies]
Scrum Basics
The term Scrum was first mentioned in 1986 Harvard Business Review Article by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka. They compared High Performing Cross-Functional Teams to Scrum Formation in Rugby. Scrum is a way to Implement Agile and teams working are called as Scrum Teams. The Five Values that should Drive Scrum Teams are Below:
Focus: Because we Focus on only a Few Things at a time, we work Well Together and produce Excellent Work. We deliver Valuable Items sooner.
Courage: Because we work as a Team, we feel supported and have more resources at our Disposal. This gives us the courage to Undertake Greater Challenges.
Openness: As we Work Together, We Express How We're Doing, What's in Our Way? and Our Concerns, so they can be addressed.
Commitment: Because we have Great Control over our Own Destiny, we are more Committed to Success.
Respect: As we Work Together, Sharing Successes and Failures, We come to Respect each other and to help each other become Worthy of Respect.
Three Pillars of Scrum that are Fundamental to Scrum Include the Following:
Transparency: Advocates that the Significant Parts of the Process to be Visible to All.
Inspection: Scrum Artefacts Constantly Inspected as also Progress towards Milestones.
Adaptation: Deviation of any Process Aspects Outside Acceptable Limits must be Adjusted.
[Reference: http://www.agilistix.com/scrum/three-pillars-of-scrum/ ]
Scrum Roles
The real world Implementation of Agile through Scrum has Three Important Roles.
Development Team/Member
Takes on Tasks and Delivers Chunks of Work, In Frequent Increments
Scrum Master
Protects the Scrum Process and Prevents any Distractions.
Product Owner
Determines what Needs to be Done and Sets Priorities to Deliver the Highest Value
Companies Adopting Agile
I myself have worked for Top Software Companies of the World including Yahoo (Altaba), Symantec, Huawei, Siebel (Oracle), GXS (OpenText), and Misys (Finastra). Also, I have worked for some well known IT Services/Consulting Companies like Infosys, Headstrong (Genpact) and also relatively smaller Product Brands like Persistent and Aptean. Since I started my career in 2003, I saw the move towards Agile Adoption (Variants, Loose Variants) in Various Companies throughout my Experience — It was really exciting for me as a Software Developer since the greatest crib that I ever had was Excessive Software Documentation and the Lack of Energy and Excitement. The idea of Regular Delivery of Working Software (Demos) was inherent and natural to me as a Software Developer. It is the one that brings the Greatest Joy (Apart from Everything, as Discussed in Earlier Sections) in Software Development. I am enlisting few of the Other Companies that have Adopted Agile (or are Agile Proponents), across Business Lines.
- Microsoft
- ThoughtWorks
- CA Technologies
- Barclays
- Ericsson
From my Own Experience, I can comfortably say that almost all companies in the world now use Agile/Scrum (and/or Variants) as one the Software Development Methodology of Choice. Also, Most Software Development Companies (Read Product Software) were always almost Agile, but now may be using the Formal Agile Principles as their Driving Factor to achieve Greater Efficiency. Many Companies use Variants of Agile or Mix of Agile with Other Processes for their Teams. Agile is also not restricted to Software Development — There are Industries and Functions that now use Formal Agile Methods for their Deliverables and Daily Tasks.
Popular Tools for Agile/Scrum
You will come across these Tools and Technologies that are used to Implement or Drive Agile/Scrum Methods and Practices in Organizations Worldwide. There may be many more Tools, Frameworks, Technologies — But I am only enumerating either the ones that I have come across or the Ones that are Popular. They may not be directly Agile Tools, but ones that either Accelerate Agile, Used for Agile Project Management, Agile Planning, Agile Task Management and Continuous Integration/Delivery.
- Rally Agile Platform
- Atlassian JIRA
- (Microsoft) GitHub
- Apache Jenkins
- Zoho Sprints
- Visual Paradigm
- Thoughtworks Slack
- Thoughtworks Mingle
- Microsoft Team Foundation Server
Agile Pitfalls (Reasons for Failure)
Since we are now familiar with the very basics of Agile and Scrum, It is time to move on and find out the Statistics in Real-Time. These statistics reveal that even though Agile is no silver bullet, but it does provide a very high project success rate. Usually, Companies mix Agile with Other Existing or Newer Development Processes to try and increase success rate, as per the Context.
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SKP's Agile and Scrum Basics: Part 01/02
I have about ~16y 04m of Software Development Experience (2021) and have been working on Agile Projects since about 2006. My First Formal Introduction to Agile was through a Training by Thoughtworkers (Thoughtworks is a Leading Agile Company). This was while I was a Senior Software Engineer at Huawei, Bangalore, India. I have worked on Agile/TDD/Pair Programming (Various Variants) in multiple companies including Huawei, Symantec, Yahoo, Finastra*, Oracle*, OpenText*. Recently and Once Again, I attended a Formal Classroom Training (Company Internal) on Agile. I jotted down the most important points and now am presenting them in this Blog. I hope it helps and becomes a Ready Reckoner for Understanding/Learning the Agile Basics (Needs, Motivations, Practice, and Story of Evolution).
* [Original Product Firms were Acquired by these Current Companies]
We will start with Dilbert!
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| [ IMAGE COPYRIGHT, IF ANY, WITH RESPECTIVE OWNER - OBTAINED FROM GOOGLE SEARCH ] |
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SKP's Product Dev Master Class #02: Creativity and Innovation
[Sumith Puri has 16y 04m of Experience and is at a Principal Software Level in the Software Industry. An Ex-Yahoo, Symantec, Huawei, Oracle*, OpenText*, Finastra* (*Original Product Firms Acquired by these Companies). His Deep Rooted Expertise in Product Development, Technology, Java/Java EE Architecture and Development, Programming, Software Engineering is Shared via this Series of Articles. Please Note that the Images, Videos, Artwork, and Quotes are the Sole Property of the Copyright Owner and Used Here for Non-Commercial Demonstration Purposes]
Innovation
There are various approaches to define Innovation. Innovation can have various or different meanings to various or different people. Since there are so many definitions for Innovation — As a student, I present the top 10 along with the sources or individuals who defined them. You may find individuals and sources from all walks of life providing their own perspective or a definition of Innovation itself. The remaining for you to find from the Internet as a TODO through your own efforts.
1. Innovation is “The creation of new products and/or services.” [Investor Words]
2. Innovation “Lowers the costs and/or increases the benefits of a task.” [Yost]
3. Innovation is “A patentable solution (external verified uniqueness) with a differentiated business model that changes the basis of business for that specific industry sector.” [Ray Meads]
4. Innovation is “To dare to challenge mainstream thinking and behavior pattern.” [Lars Christensen]
5. Innovation is “The practical translation of ideas into new or improved products, services, processes, systems or social interactions.” [The University of Melbourne]
6. Innovation Tournaments: “A new match between a need and a solution.” [Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich]
7. Innovation is then “Simply new technology, i.e. the systematic application of (new) knowledge to (new) resources to produce (new) goods or (new) services.” [Maciej Soltynski]
8. Innovation is “The successful exploitation of new ideas.” [Ber]
9. Innovation is “The creation of something that improves the way we live our lives.” [Barack Obama]
That one definition that is accepted by most: Innovation is a) something fresh (new, original, or improved) b) that creates value
It is important we also quote from Wikipedia:
Innovation is defined simply as a "new idea, device, or method."
However, innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, or business models that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. The term "Innovation" can be defined as something original and more effective and, as a consequence, new, that "breaks into" the market or society. It is related to, but not the same as, invention.
Creativity
“Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value, more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.” [Sir Ken Robinson]
Wikipedia provides the following definition:
Creativity is a Phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a literary work, or a painting).
Creativity and Innovation
It is very important that one is able to appreciate the difference between Creativity and Innovation before getting ahead with further topics.
Value + Creativity + Execution = Innovation
Something new is not enough for the definition of innovation. There are plenty of cases where something new has no new value ( a new color of a product or a new chemical produced that does nothing). Sometimes, the value creation results because the item is simply useful to us. We can create a lot of fresh or new things that are of no use and no value. It must create value to be innovative. Also note that the “something” could be a process, product, or service and can start as small as your ideas and thoughts in your brain. In that case, it might just be innovative thinking.
This piece from Business Inside Australia is apt in putting the right thought process across in an Organizational or Corporate Context, including Software Product Companies.
[The main difference between creativity and innovation is the focus. Creativity is about unleashing the potential of the mind to conceive new ideas. Those concepts could manifest themselves in any number of ways, but most often, they become something we can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. However, creative ideas can also be thought experiments within one person’s mind. Creativity is subjective, making it hard to measure, as our creative friends assert. Innovation, on the other hand, is completely measurable. Innovation is about introducing change into relatively stable systems. It’s also concerned with the work required to make an idea viable. By identifying an unrecognized and unmet need, an organisation can use innovation to apply its creative resources to design an appropriate solution and reap a return on its investment. Organisations often chase Creativity, but what they really need to pursue is Innovation. Theodore Levitt puts it best: “What is often lacking is not creativity in the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e. putting ideas to work.”]
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SKP's Product Dev Master Class #01: Innovative Thinking
[Sumith Puri has 16y 04m of Experience and is at a Principal Software Level in the Software Industry. An Ex-Yahoo, Symantec, Huawei, Oracle*, OpenText*, Finastra* (*Original Product Firms Acquired by these Companies). His Deep Rooted Expertise in Product Development, Technology, Java/Java EE Architecture and Development, Programming, Software Engineering is Shared via this Series of Articles. Please Note that the Images, Videos, Artwork, and Quotes are the Sole Property of the Copyright Owner and Used Here for Non-Commercial Demonstration Purposes]
QUOTE A: INTERESTING AND RELATED QUOTE
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SKP's Java/Java EE Gotchas: Clash of the Titans, C++ vs. Java!
As a Software Engineer, the mind is trained to seek optimizations in every aspect of development and ooze out every bit of available CPU Resource to deliver a performing application. This begins not only in designing the algorithm or coming out with efficient and robust architecture but right onto the choice of programming language. Most of us, as we spend years in our jobs — tend to be proficient in at least one of these.
Recently, I spent some time checking on the Performance (not a very detailed study) of the various programming languages. One, by researching on the Internet; Two, by developing small programs and benchmarking. The legacy languages — be it ASM or C still rule in terms of performance. But these are definitely ruled out for enterprise applications due to the complexity in development, maintainability, need for object orientation, and interoperability. They still will win for mission-critical or real-time systems, which need performance over these parameters. There were languages I briefly read about, including other performance comparisons on the internet. These include Python, PHP, Perl, and Ruby. Considering all aspects and needs of current enterprise development, it is C++ and Java which outscore the other in terms of speed. According to other comparisons [Google for 'Performance of Programming Languages'] spread over the net, they clearly outshine others in all speed benchmarks. So much for my blog title :-) So when these titans are pit against each other in real-time, considering all aspects of memory and execution time — Java is floored. Though I have spent the last ~17 years (In 2021) of my life coding and perfecting my Java and J2EE skill — I suddenly feel... Ahem, Slow! One of the problem statements to verify this is given below (along with the associated code) and the associated execution parameters.
[Disclaimer: Problem Statement given below is the property of www.codechef.com]
In Byteland they have a very strange monetary system. Each Bytelandian gold coin has an integer number written on it. A coin n can be exchanged in a bank into three coins: n/2, n/3, and n/4. But these numbers are all rounded down (the banks have to make a profit). You can also sell Bytelandian coins for American dollars. The exchange rate is 1:1. But you can not buy Bytelandian coins. You have one gold coin. What is the maximum amount of American dollars you can get for it? Input The input will contain several test cases (not more than 10). Each test case is a single line with a number n, 0 <= n <= 1 000 000 000. It is the number written on your coin.
JAVA SOLUTION (Will Be Uploaded Later)
C++ SOLUTION (Will Be Uploaded Later)
RESULTS
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TIME |
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SKP's Java/Java EE Gotchas: Java Native Interface (JNI): Unsatisfied Link Error
I Spent Almost Two Whole Days Trying To Solve This Issue. I Did Everything Possible From Altering My C++ Code (Changing The Return Types) To Compiling From Command Line Rather Than The IDE. Also, I Tried A Number Of Other Steps Like Changing The Classpath, Refactoring Package Names To Changing Names Of The Generated Header Files. Finally, I Found The Following Resolution.
Whenever the C++ Compiler (GCC) Generates a DLL, It is Exported in the Following Form:
Java_SomePackage_SomeClass_SomeNativeMethod@8Where The Integer Suffix Suggests The Byte Space Required By The Arguments. This Sort Of Function Call Makes No Sense To The JVM (While Invoking Some Native Method) And Hence It Leads To java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError. The Resolution Is To Add The Following Flags While Linking To Generate Unmangled Names:
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SKP's AI-ML-DM Series #01: Tic-Tac-Toe Using the Minimax Algorithm
I created a Version of the Classical Game using the Minimax Algorithm (T3oW, Tic-Tac-Toe on the Web). Enjoy the Game and Let Me/Us Know in the Comments, If you were able to beat the 'T3oW AI Engine' (Well, Simply the Server/Computer!)
https://rebrand.ly/skp-ai-t3ow
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How investors are valuing the pandemic
Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here.
Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors.
Kicking off with a tiny bit of housekeeping: Equity is now doing more stuff. And TechCrunch has its Justice and Early-Stage events coming up. I am interviewing the CRO of Zoom for the latter. And The Exchange itself has some long-overdue stuff coming next week, including $50M and $100M ARR updates (Druva, etc.), a peek at consumption based pricing vs. traditional SaaS models (featuring Fastly, Appian, BigCommerce CEOs, etc.), and more. Woo!
This week both DoorDash and Airbnb reported earnings for the first time as public companies, marking their real graduation into the ranks of the exited unicorns. We’re keeping our usual eye on the earnings cycle, quietly, but today we have some learnings for the startup world.
Some basics will help us get started. DoorDash beat growth expectations in Q4, reporting revenue of $970 million versus an expected $938 million. The gap between the two likely comes partially from how new the DoorDash stock is, and the pandemic making it difficult to forecast. Despite the outsized growth, DoorDash shares initially fell sharply after the report, though they largely recovered on Friday.
Why the initial dip? I reckon the company’s net loss was larger than investors hoped — though a large GAAP deficit is standard for first quarters post-debut. That concern might have been tempered by the company’s earnings call, which included a note from the company’s CFO that it is “seeing acceleration in January relative to our order growth in December as well as in Q4.” That’s encouraging. On the flip side, the company’s CFO did say “starting from Q2 onwards, we’re going to see a reversion toward pre-COVID behavior within the customer base.”
Takeaway: Big companies are anticipating a return to pre-COVID behavior, just not quite yet. Firms that benefited from COVID-19 are being heavily scrutinized. And they expect tailwinds to fade as the year progresses.
And then there’s Airbnb, which is up around 16% today. Why? It beat revenue expectations, while also losing lots of money. Airbnb’s net loss in Q4 2020 was more than 10x DoorDash’s own. So why did Airbnb get a bump while DoorDash got dinged? Its large revenue beat ($859 million, instead of an expected $748 million), and potential for future growth; investors are expecting that Airbnb’s current besting of expectations will lead to even more growth down the road.
Takeaway: Provided that you have a good story to tell regarding future growth, investors are still willing to accept sharp losses; the growth trade is alive, then, even as companies that may have already received a boost endure increased scrutiny.
For startups, valuation pressure or lift could come down to which side of the pandemic they are on; are they on the tail end of their tailwind (remote-work focused SaaS, perhaps?), or on the ascent (restaurant tech, maybe?). Something to chew on before you raise.
Market Notes
It was one blistering week for funding rounds. Crunchbase News, my former journalistic home, has a great piece out on just how many massive rounds we’re seeing so far this year. But even one or two steps down in scale, funding activity was super busy.
A few rounds that I could not get to this week that caught my eye included a $90 million round for Terminus (ABM-focused GTM juicer, I suppose), Anchorage’s $80 million Series C (cryptostorage for big money), and Foxtrot Market’s $42 million Series B (rapid delivery of yuppie and zoomer essentials).
Sitting here now, finally writing a tidbit about each, I am reminded at the sheer breadth of the tech market. Termius helps other companies sell, Anchorage wants to keep your ETH safe, while Foxtrot wants to help you replenish your breakfast rosé stock before you have to endure a dry morning. What a mix. And each must be generating venture-acceptable growth, as they have not merely raised more capital but raised rather large rounds for their purported maturity (measured by their listed Series stage, though the moniker can be more canard than guide.)
I jokingly call this little section of the newsletter Market Notes, a jest as how can you possibly note the whole market that we care about? These companies and their recent capital infusions underscore the point.
Various and Sundry
Finally, two notes from earnings calls. The first from Root, which is a head scratcher, and the second from Booking Holdings’ results.
I chatted with Alex Timm, Root Insurance’s CEO this week moments after it dropped numbers. As such I didn’t have much context in the way of investor response to its results. My read was that Root was super capitalized, and has pretty big expansion plans. Timm was upbeat about his company’s improving economics (on a loss ratio and loss-adjusted expenses basis, for the insurtech fans out there), and growth during the pandemic.
But then today its shares are off 16%. Parsing the analyst call, there’s movement in Root’s economic profile (regarding premium-ceding variance over the coming quarters) that make it hard to fully grok its full-year growth from where I sit. But it appears that Root’s business is still molting to a degree that is almost refreshing; the company could have gone public in 2022 with some of its current evolution behind it, but instead it raised a zillion dollars last year and is public now.
Sticking our neck out a bit, despite fellow neo-insurnace player Lemonade’s continued, and impressive valuation run, MetroMile’s stock is also softening, while Root’s has lost more than half its value from its IPO date. If the current repricing of some neo-insurance players continues, we could see some private investment into the space slow. (Fewer things like this?) It’s a possible trend we’ll have eyes on this year.
Next, Booking Holdings, the company that owns Priceline and other travel properties. Given that Booking might have notes regarding the future of business travel — which we care about for clues regarding what could come for remote work and office culture, things that impact everything from startup hub locations to software sales — The Exchange snagged a call slot and dialed the company up.
Booking Holdings’ CEO Glenn Fogel didn’t have a comment as to how his company is trading at all-time highs despite suffering from sharp year-over-year revenue declines. He did note that the pandemic has shaken up expectations for conversations, which could limit short-term business travel in the future for meetings that may now be conducted on video calls. He was bullish on future conference travel (good news for TechCrunch, I suppose), and future travel more generally.
So concerning the jetting perspective, we don’t know anything yet. Booking Holdings is not saying much, perhaps because it just doesn’t know when things will turn around. Fair enough. Perhaps after another three months of vaccine rollout will give us a better window into what a partial return to an old normal could look like.
And to cap off, you can read Apex Holdings’ SPAC presentation here, and Markforged’s here. Also I wrote about the buy-now-pay-later space here, riffed on the Digital Ocean IPO with Ron Miller here, and doodled on Toast’s valuation and the Olo debut here.
Hugs, and have a lovely weekend!
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How capital-as-a-service can help you get your first check in 2021
“A lot of founders mix up raising money with making money.”
This quote, which Career Karma founder Ruben Harris mentioned off-hand on a phone call with me, has been on my mind for months. In fact, raising money can cost you money, in the form of that sweet, sweet ownership and equity.
That’s why Clearbanc, a startup I have covered for years, has always had a compelling pitch.
The company, co-founded by Michele Romanow and Andrew D’Souza, positions itself as an alternative equity-free capital solution for early-stage founders. Flexing its “20-minute term sheet” the startup uses an algorithm to shift through a startup’s data, and if it has positive ad spend and positive unit economics, they make an investment worth anything from $10,000 to over $10 million. It makes money through a revenue-share agreement versus an equity stake.
“While we’ve invested in over 4,000 businesses using this model, we’ve also turned away over 50,000 who weren’t at this scale or level of repeatability,” D’Souza tells TechCrunch. So, the startup told me this week that they have raised $10 million to create a new product: ClearAngel.
The startup is trying to back anyone with an online business that has early revenue, but pre-broad traction. Clearbanc wants to replace friends and family money, a concept that D’Souza says is “quite elitist,” with its own version of an angel check, while also offering founder services such as supply chain analysis, introductions to networks and competitive landscape analysis.
The startup just needs to make around $1,000 in monthly revenue to qualify for cash. In return for an investment between $10,000 to $50,000, founders have to pay up to 2% of their revenue over four years.
Clearbanc’s repayment works for some startups, but for others, a traditional bank loan could work better. Its biggest hurdle, I’d argue, is that if a startup has great revenue already, you might not want to take a revenue-share agreement loan.
As for if a startup takes ClearAngel capital and doesn’t make the minimum revenue?
“Then the ClearAngel product isn’t working,” he said. “There are bound to be some companies who still can’t make it, that’s the risk we take.”
Alternative capital has pros and cons, just like venture capital has pros and cons. If the end goal is to become a billion-dollar business, what’s the best route to do that? Is taking a revenue-share agreement going to hurt your chances as a pre-seed startup trying to raise capital? Does YC care at all?
Those are some of my biggest questions, and we’ll explore all (and more!) in my alternative financing panel next week for TC Sessions: Justice. It costs $5 to attend the entire conference, and speakers include Backstage Capital’s Arlan Hamilton and Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Remember that you can get Startups Weekly in your inbox before anyone else, if you subscribe. It’s free! As always, you can find me @nmasc_ on Twitter or e-mail me at natasha.m@techcrunch.com. That is free too!
Coinbase files to go public
After being valued at $100 billion in the secondary markets, Coinbase has finally filed to go public. The S-1, as Winnie founder Sara Mauskopf tweeted, is #goals. The crypto unicorn, as my colleague Alex Wilhelm notes, grew just over 139% in 2020, a massive improvement on its 2019 results.
Here’s what to know:
- The startup is pursuing a direct listing (not a SPAC, which feels important to note these days).
- Five takeaways from Coinbase’s S-1, from how stable its revenue is to what it views as its biggest competition.
Other notes:
- USV, one of the biggest stakeholders in the company, has been aggressively selling off shares ahead of the IPO.
- If Coinbase is worth this much, what is a fair valuation for Stripe?
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SEPTEMBER 07: Coinbase Co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong speaks onstage during Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center on September 7, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch)
Mobility-as-a-service
I caught up with Eric Eldon, managing editor at TechCrunch and former Startups Weekly writer, about the recent work he’s been doing with Kirsten Korosec, our transportation editor.
Here’s what he had to say: Startup employees may not be going into the office as often again — or ever. But everyone will still need to go places, or at least want to! How will they do it? What will we do? How will our altered set of needs and wants reshape cities, right as new technologies are fundamentally altering transportation, too? We’re going to be covering this topic in-depth this year, as we all figure out how to go back to work.
Other reading:
- 10 investors predict MaaS, on-demand delivery and EVs will dominate mobility’s post-pandemic future
- Can solid state batteries power up for the next generation of EVs?
- And next week, they are putting together a piece on the changes on the real estate and proptech side
Crazy ride on the night by car. Image Credits: franckreporter/Getty Images.
Spain wants startups to succeed on its soil
The Spanish government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has announced plans to turn itself into an entrepreneurial nation. The Startup Act is the first piece of dedicated legislation meant to help create tech innovation within Spain. The goals are to promote innovation, new capital through domestic and foreign investments, and to seed the future of Spain as a hub for new companies.
Here’s what to know: Driving innovation can start with relaxing on regulatory concerns.
Among a package of some 50 support measures, the entrepreneurial strategy makes a reference to “smart regulation” and floats the idea of sandboxing for testing products publicly (i.e. without needing to worry about regulatory compliance first).
Other news this week:
- Lisbon’s startup scene rises as Portugal gears up to be a European tech tiger
- Dear Sophie: Which immigration options are the fastest?
Image Credits: MHJ (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Some personal news
As loyal Equity listeners may have already noticed, we’ve been quietly experimenting with the concept of adding on a third show to our weekly production. This week, we told the world! Along with our current shows, which help listeners start and end the week with tech news, we’re going to bring on a Wednesday deep dive into a topic, subject area or person. Our first mid-week episode went live this week, and it was all about space (so yes, expect a lot of puns and Elon jokes).
The show is about to celebrate its four-year anniversary, and I’m about to celebrate my one-year anniversary as a co-host. We’re all so thankful for your support, and can’t wait to bring you more laughs and learnings.
Our latest episodes:
- Why are we still dating LinkedIn in 2021?
- SpaceX is really just SPAC and an ex
- Everyone is going public so what’s wrong with your startup?
Across the week
Seen on TechCrunch
The startup bootcamp you’ve always needed is finally here
Scoop: VCs are chasing Hopin upwards of $5-6B valuation
Lisbon’s startup scene rises as Portugal gears up to be a European tech tiger
Contra wants to be a community for independent workers
Seen on Extra Crunch
Ironclad’s Jason Boehmig: The objective of pricing is to become less wrong over time
As BNPL startups raise, a look at Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay earnings
4 essential truths about venture investing
And that’s the jam-packed week! As an insider tip to those that subscribe, I’m starting to cover health tech (along with edtech) for the TC team. So throw me the smartest person you know on the topic, and extra points if that’s you.
N
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Friday, February 26, 2021
What really is a “Product Vision?” A tale with 2½ examples, from Microsoft to Apple
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Digital Transformation Challenges You Need to Address in 2021 [Podcast]
Editor’s note: This interview with Amancio Bouza was recorded for Coding Over Cocktails — a podcast by TORO Cloud.
Digital transformation allows organizations to adjust to new technologies and take advantage of their benefits in order to build business value. However, the road to digital transformation requires not only a technological change but a cultural one as well.
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PySimpleGUI: How to Draw Shapes on an Image With a GUI
Drawing shapes on images is neat. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could draw the shapes interactively? That is the point of this tutorial. You will create a user interface using PySimpleGUI to allow you to draw shapes on images!
The purpose of this user interface is to show you how you can make a GUI that wraps some of the shapes that Pillow supports. The GUI won’t support all of them though. In fact, this GUI only supports the following:
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An Overview: How-to Implement Google's Structured Data
As a result of working in web products (both personal and professional), I have become quite au fait with SEO from a technical point of view, and the purely technical things you can do to put you in good standing - all of which really, are just web best practices to be a good web citizen - things that we should be doing to make the web better (proper use of HTTP headers, mobile friendly designs, good performance for people on slower connections, etc.).
One thing that is a bit above and beyond that is the use of Google's Structured Data. I will talk about what it is and what it does below, but if you are dynamically loading webpages (e.g. your website isn't just HTML on a web server, but either served from a server-side application, or is an API driven JS application), then you are most likely well placed to easily and immediately start implementing it.
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Learn Test Automation by Taking Short Practical Steps
I was asked a question from someone learning how to automate. I’ve rewritten and paraphrased the question below.
I do a lot of manual testing and exploratory testing. I’m finding it hard to learn to automate because there are too many technologies and too much to learn. And every new job wants commercial automation experience. What can I do?
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What the NFT? VC David Pakman dumbs down the digital collectibles frenzy and why it’s taking off now
Non-fungible tokens have been around for two years, but these NFTs, one-of-one digital items on the Ethereum and other blockchains, are suddenly becoming a more popular way to collect visual art, primarily, whether it’s an animated cat or an NBA clip or virtual furniture.
“Suddenly” is hardly an overstatement. According to the outlet Cointelegraph, during the second half of last year, $9 million worth of NFT goods sold to buyers; during one 24-hour window earlier this week, $60 million worth of digital goods were sold.
What’s going on? A thorough New York Times piece on the trend earlier this week likely fueled new interest, along with a separate piece in Esquire about the artist Beeple, a Wisconsin dad whose digital drawings, which he has created every single day for the last 13 years, began selling like hotcakes in December. If you need evidence of a tipping point (and it is ample right now), consider that the work of Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was just made available through Christie’s. It’s the venerable auction house’s first sale of exclusively digital work.
To better understand the market and why it’s blowing up in real time, we talked this week with David Pakman, a former internet entrepreneur who joined the venture firm Venrock a dozen years ago and began tracking Bitcoin soon after, even mining the cryptocurrency at his Bay Area home beginning in 2015. (“People would come over and see racks of computers, and it was like, ‘It’s sort of hard to explain.'”)
Perhaps it’s no surprise that he also became convinced early on of the promise of NFTs, persuading Venrock to lead the $15 million Series A round for a young startup, Dapper Labs, when its primary offering was CryptoKitties, limited-edition digital cats that can be bought and bred with cryptocurrency.
While the concept baffled some at the time, Pakman has long seen the day when Dapper’s offerings will be far more extensive, and indeed, a recent Dapper deal with the NBA to sell collectible highlight clips has already attracted so much interest in Dapper that it is reportedly right now raising $250 million in new funding at a post-money valuation of $2 billion. While Pakman declined to confirm or correct that figure, but he did answer our other questions in a chat that’s been edited here for length and clarity.
TC: David, dumb things down for us. Why is the world so gung-ho about NFTs right now?
DP: One of the biggest problems with crypto — the reason it scares so many people — is it uses all these really esoteric terms to explain very basic concepts, so let’s just keep it really simple. About 40% of humans collect things — baseball cards, shoes, artwork, wine. And there’s a whole bunch of psychological reasons why. Some people have a need to complete a set. Some people do it for investment reasons. Some people want an heirloom to pass down. But we could only collect things in the real world because digital collectibles were too easy to copy.
Then the blockchain came around and [it allowed us to] make digital collectibles immutable, with a record of who owns what that you can’t really copy. You can screenshot it, but you don’t really own the digital collectible, and you won’t be able to do anything with that screenshot. You won’t be able to to sell it or trade it. The proof is in the blockchain. So I was a believer that crypto-based collectibles could be really big and actually could be the thing that takes crypto mainstream and gets the normals into participating in crypto — and that’s exactly what’s happening now.
TC: You mentioned a lot of reasons that people collect items, but one you didn’t mention is status. Assuming that’s your motivation, how do you show off what you’ve amassed online?
DP: You’re right that one of the other reasons why we collect is to show it off status, but I would actually argue it’s much easier to show off our collections in the digital world. If I’m a car collector, the only way you’re going to see my cars is to come over to the garage. Only a certain number of people can do that. But online, we can display our digital collections. NBA Top Shop, for example, makes it very easy for you to show off your moments. Everyone has a page and there’s an app that’s coming and you can just show it off to anyone in your app, and you can post it to your social networks. And it’s actually really easy to show off how big or exciting your collection is.
TC: It was back in October that Dapper rolled out these video moments, which you buy almost like a Pokemon set in that you’re buying a pack and know you’ll get something “good” but don’t know what. But while almost half it sales have come in through the last week. Why?
DP: There’s only about maybe 30,000 or 40,000 people playing right now. It’s growing 50% or 100% a day. But the growth has been completely organic. The game is actually still in beta, so we haven’t been doing any marketing other than posting some stuff on Twitter. There hasn’t been attempt to market this and get a lot of players [talking about it] because we’re still working the bugs out, and there are a lot of bugs still to be worked out.
But a couple NBA players have seen this and gotten excited about their own moments [on social media]. And there’s maybe a little bit of machismo going on where, ‘Hey, I want my moment to trade for a higher price.’ But I also think it’s the normals who are playing this. All you need to play is a credit card, and something like 65% of the people playing have never owned or traded in crypto before. So I think the thesis that crypto collectibles could be the thing that brings mainstream users into crypto is playing out before our eyes.
TC: How does Dapper get paid?
DP: We get 5% of secondary sales and 100% minus the cost of the transaction on primary sales. Of course, we have a relationship with the NBA, which collects some of that, too. But that’s the basic economics of how the system works.
TC: Does the NBA have a minimum that it has to be paid every year, and then above and beyond that it receives a cut of the action?
DP: I don’t think the company has gone public with the exact economic terms of their relationships with the NBA and the Players Association. But obviously the NBA is the IP owner, and the teams and the players have economic participation in this, which is good, because they’re the ones that are creating the intellectual property here.
But a lot of the appreciation of these moments — if you get one in a pack and you sell it for a higher price — 95% of that appreciation goes to the owner. So it’s very similar to baseball cards, but now IP owners can participate through the life of the product in the downstream economic activity of their intellectual property, which I think is super appealing whether you’re the NBA or someone like Disney, who’s been in the IP licensing business for decades.
And it’s not just major IP where this NFT space is happening. It’s individual creators, musicians, digital artists who could create a piece of digital art, make only five copies of it, and auction it off. They too can collect a little bit each time their works sell in the future.
TC: Regarding NBA Top Shot specifically, prices range massively in terms of what people are paying for the same limited-edition clip. Why?
DP: There are two reasons. One is that like scarce items, lower numbers are worth more than higher numbers, so if there’s a very particular LeBron moment, and they made 500 [copies] of them, and I own number one, and you own number 399, the marketplace is ascribing a higher value to the lower numbers, which is very typical of limited-edition collector pieces. It’s sort of a funny concept. But it is a very human concept.
The other thing is that over time there has been more and more demand to get into this game, so people are willing to pay higher and higher prices. That’s why there’s been a lot of price appreciation for these moments over time.
TC: You mentioned that some of the esoteric language around crypto scares people, but so does the fact that 20% of the world’s bitcoin is permanently inaccessible to its owners, including because of forgotten passwords. Is that a risk with these digital items, which you are essentially storing in a digital locker or wallet?
DP: It’s a complex topic, but I will say that Dapper has tried to build this in a way where that won’t happen, where there’s effectively some type of password recovery process for people who are storing their moments in Dapper’s wallet.
You will be able to take your moments away from Dapper’s account and put it into other accounts, where you may be on your own in terms of password recovery.
TC: Why is it a complex topic?
DP: There are people who believe that even though centralized account storage is convenient for users, it’s somehow can be distrustful — that the company could de-platform you or turn your account off. And in the crypto world, there’s almost a religious ferocity about making sure that no one can de-platform you, that the things that you buy — your cryptocurrencies or your NFTs. Long term, Dapper supports that. You’ll be able to take your moments anywhere you want. But today, our customers don’t have to worry about that I-lost-my-password-and-I’ll-never-get-my-moments-again problem.
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