Zebeth Media Solutions

Author : zebethcontrol

Combined HBO Max/Discovery+ service gets an earlier launch date, price hike is to be expected • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Discovery, HBO Max, Media & Entertainment, streaming service, Warner Bros DiscoveryNo Comments on Combined HBO Max/Discovery+ service gets an earlier launch date, price hike is to be expected • ZebethMedia

After Warner Bros. Discovery reported its third-quarter earnings results yesterday, the company told investors and analysts in a call that the forthcoming combined HBO Max/Discovery+ streaming service will now launch in the U.S. earlier than previously announced. CEO David Zaslav said the yet-to-be-named service is now getting a spring 2023 launch instead of in the summer. Following its debut in the United States, the service will roll out in Latin America and then in Europe in 2024. While the company has yet to announce how much the service will cost or what it’ll be called, it will get an ad-free and ad-lite plan. Also, HBO Max’s ad-free plan might get a price hike next year, the company noted during yesterday’s call. “By 2023, HBO Max will not have raised prices since its launch. So, it will have been three years since pricing has moved. Which we think is an opportunity, particularly in this environment,” JB Perrette, President and CEO of Global Streaming and Games, said. The $14.99/month price of HBO Max’s ad-free plan has not budged since its launch in 2020. As more streaming services increase its prices for subscribers, HBO Max will likely join in on the trend. And while many subscribers won’t be happy with a price hike, it also makes sense for the streamer. Once HBO Max merges with Discovery+, the higher cost seems justifiable because subscribers will get double the amount of content. Another reason for the potential price hike is that not enough subscribers are choosing HBO Max’s $9.99/month ad-supported tier, which launched last year. “We were frankly a little surprised in the HBO Max ad-lite offering that more people have not moved to that offering… We believe there’s actually some pricing advantage for us on the ad-free service, and we can probably move north of where the prices are today,” Perrette added. Separately, Zaslav mentioned that the company is still “aggressively attacking the AVOD market with our own FAST offering in 2023.” WBD stated last quarter that it was exploring a free ad-supported streaming TV service (FAST). “As a company with the largest film and TV library in the industry, we have a unique opportunity to increase our addressable market and drive real value, and we plan to move quickly,” he said yesterday. WBD’s future FAST offering will join other media company-owned FAST services like NBCUniversal’s Peacock, Paramount’s Pluto TV, Fox’s Tubi and Comcast’s Xumo. The company reported a net add of 2.8 million global subscribers across HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+ in the third quarter, bringing the total to 94.9 million. Only 500,000 domestic subs were added.

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VCs decipher the recent fintech layoffs — and why they’re happening now • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Chime, EC Fintech, EC venture capital, Fintech, Layoffs, startup valuations, Startups, stripe, tech layoffsNo Comments on VCs decipher the recent fintech layoffs — and why they’re happening now • ZebethMedia

Many big companies in the fintech world cut jobs in the past month. And yet Stripe’s announcement it would lay off 14% of its workforce still made a splash, proving that unicorns and decacorns are not immune to the challenging economic and fundraising conditions. The Stripe news closely follows Chime confirming this week that 12% of its employees would be laid off and Brex revealing last month that it was cutting 11% of its workforce. So what the heck is going on here? Well, according to Spiros Margaris, a fintech venture capitalist and founder of Margaris Ventures, the current layoffs by some of these larger fintech companies were “caused by the challenging geopolitical market environment and inflationary pressures. It affects the whole fintech startup industry — and globally all industries — since the prominent players have a strategic ripple effect on the smaller players.” “Laying off good employees endangers their strategy to succeed in the grand vision they initially sold to the VC.” Spiros Margaris, founder of Margaris Ventures Cameron Peake, a partner at Restive Ventures who recently invested in AiPrise, concurred, noting via email that much of what we are seeing today “were the dynamics we saw play out last year,” including all of the “large funding rounds, sunny market projections and a belief that companies needed more people to fuel their growth.” What resulted was “a lack of discipline around company fundamentals,” she added. While the frenzy was dissipating, it was then that companies “realized they were not only ahead of their skis but that they needed to cut back in order to focus more on profitability,” she said.

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Emerge Career’s pre-release job training lands $3.2M seed and new state contracts • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in emerge career, Government & Policy, Startups, Y CombinatorNo Comments on Emerge Career’s pre-release job training lands $3.2M seed and new state contracts • ZebethMedia

Education options during and after incarceration have never been particularly extensive, despite the best intentions of educators. Emerge Career is working on changing that and its early success in putting formerly incarcerated folks to work is attracting investment from both VCs and government programs. It was only August when Emerge first appeared as it came out of Y Combinator’s latest batch, and I covered its initial ambitions and approach then. The team previously worked on Ameelio, which upended years of bad and exploitative video calling services in prisons, but also made the problem of education clear to them. Security and limited budgets at vocational and community colleges limit the amount of help they can actually offer people in the system, and courses from GEDs to trades often take a very “study by mail” approach during incarceration, or traditional brick and mortar one on release. Emerge changes that with modern video lectures and regular video call office hours with educators who specialize in the subject matter. At first the subject was strictly getting a commercial driver’s license, and that has helped numerous former inmates to find jobs soon after release in a sector hurting for labor. Now Emerge is also planning to offer nursing assistant and welding courses — two other areas where a shortage of workers means employers may not think twice about hiring someone recently out of prison. “Besides the clear labor shortage and high compensations, these are two professions that the justice-involved people we met in prisons and reentry centers across the country showed a lot of interest in,” said Emerge’s Gabe Saruhashi. “Trucking has been an exciting starting point, but we know many people cannot be away from home for prolonged periods of time, be it for personal reasons or reentry obligations. Ultimately, we want to offer training programs for individuals from all walks of life.” Co-founder Uzoma Orchingwa said the feedback from their first students has been very positive, highlighting the self-paced training (since it can be accessed piece by piece whenever is convenient), its speed (the aim is to go from zero to job in about two months), and the hands-on support they get from Emerge’s career coaches. Emerge reports that graduates from its program, who once averaged $13 an hour if they had a stable job, are pulling in an average of $78K now. It’s hoped the new programs will broaden the appeal and let the company support more students and locations. The company’s pitch pulled in local officials, a good step if you’re hoping to get into state-funded institutions, and now Emerge has landed a two-year, $845K contract (using American Rescue Plan funds) with the Connecticut Department of Labor. They also have several letters of intent, perhaps waiting on outcomes from the other programs. This early success has also brought in investment: a $3.2 million seed round led by Alexis Ohanian’s 776, with participation from the Softbank Opportunity Fund, Y Combinator, Lenny Rachitsky, and Michael Seibel. The money will be used to hire engineers and start up the new welding and nursing programs, as well as expand to three more states. Saruhashi said their ambition is to make Emerge Career the first choice for anyone in the country who has a disadvantaged background to get a second chance in the modern workforce.

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TAM tough love, ‘building in public,’ 6 key SaaS metrics • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Commerce, e-commerce, EC roundup, immigration law, proptech, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, VentureNo Comments on TAM tough love, ‘building in public,’ 6 key SaaS metrics • ZebethMedia

Are you ready to launch a bajillion-dollar startup? Before you start: Are you planning to build a centaur, a unicorn or perhaps a decacorn? Startup pitching has become an existential drama, in part because so many founders exaggerate the size of the total addressable market (TAM) in which they hope to compete. At ZebethMedia Disrupt, I spoke to three investors about how they use TAM to guide their decision-making. Everyone agreed that the number itself is far less important than the process that produced it. “The way it’s calculated and the way the founder is thinking about it tells us not necessarily about the business or its future, but about how the founder thinks about company creation,” said Deena Shakir, a partner at Lux Capital. Full ZebethMedia+ articles are only available to members.Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription. “It is almost guaranteed you’re going to be wrong,” said Aydin Senkut, the founder and managing partner of Felicis Ventures. “It’s either going to be too large or too small.” Kara Nortman, a managing partner at Upfront Ventures, said the TAM numbers given in a pitch do not control whether she’s likely to invest. “I would say [it is] more important to be able to articulate how big something can become and to show that you have a thought process around TAM, if it’s early,” she said. Choosing a mythical TAM won’t put dollar signs in investors’ eyes, as unrealistic numbers reflect unrealistic expectations, a red flag for any VC. As Senkut said, “the plan doesn’t have to be accurate — the plan has to be directionally correct.” Thanks very much for reading TC+ this week! Walter ThompsonEditorial Manager, ZebethMedia+@yourprotagonist 3 investors explain how finance-focused proptech startups can survive the downturn Image Credits: Kuzma (opens in a new window) / Getty Images How are finance-oriented property tech investors reacting to the ongoing downturn in public markets? Senior reporter Mary Ann Azevedo interviewed three VCs to learn more about how they’re counseling the companies in their portfolios, which types of startups are best positioned to weather the downturn and how they’re managing risk: Pete Flint, general partner, NFX Zach Aarons, co-founder and general partner, MetaProp Nima Wedlake, principal, Thomvest Ventures How Metafy founder Josh Fabian caught the attention of 776 by building in public Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan / Getty Images At ZebethMedia Disrupt, Josh Fabian, CEO of video game coaching platform Metafy, explained why he’s committed to “building in public,” or sharing aspects of his founder’s journey with an audience. “Consumers don’t trust corporations; I don’t trust corporations,” he said. “I don’t think any of you do, even if you’re running your own.” Katelin Holloway, a founding partner at 776 (an investor in Metafy), said Fabian’s approach was a breath of fresh air. “We were able to just engage and talk like humans, and Josh told us his story in a very different way,” she said. “Not only was it incredibly compelling from a business perspective, it was incredibly compelling from a human perspective,” she said. Is the modern data stack just old wine in a new bottle? Image Credits: Mikhail Dmitriev (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Before Ashish Kakran became a principal at Thomvest Ventures, he was a data engineer who transformed disparate consumer data points into optimized offers for consumer telecoms. “Part of my job involved unpacking encrypted data feeds, removing rows or columns that had missing data and mapping the fields to our internal data models,” he writes in a TC+ guest post. “Our statistics team then used the clean, updated data to model the best offer for each household.” Because today’s datasets contain exponentially more information, “the rules are being rewritten on how data will be used for competitive advantage, and it won’t be long before the winners emerge,” he asserts. In a deep dive, he compares modern and legacy data stacks to identify key trends for enterprises and opportunities for founders and investors. “Practitioners are spoilt for choices when building enterprise data pipelines,” says Kakran. Investor’s advice during a downturn: Don’t panic Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan / Getty Images Fewer investors are writing checks these days, but what kind of advice have they been giving their portfolio companies in recent months? Mary Ann Azevedo spoke to three executives at ZebethMedia Disrupt to learn more about the strategies they’re promoting to preserve runway and their peace of mind. Eric Glyman, CEO, Ramp Thejo Kote, CEO, Airbase Ruth Foxe Blader, partner, Anthemis “It behooves everybody to be really lucid about the macro environment that we’re entering,” said Blader. “It’s likely to be long-lived, and it’s very important to be judicious but not lose sight of your goals and the reason you founded the business in the first place.” 6 key metrics that can help SaaS startups outlast this downturn Image Credits: Andy Ryan (opens in a new window) / Getty Images The most successful companies I’ve worked at fostered parasocial relationships with customers in much the same way many of us invest emotional energy while following the lives of celebrities. During a downturn, “the goal is to pick up on warning signs early and course-correct as you go, and those signs are often hidden in the breadcrumbs,” writes Sudheesh Nair, CEO of ThoughtSpot. “Not all industries are affected equally, so don’t assume your customers will cut spending this year just because the headlines are bleak.” Tips for e-commerce brands that want to win more market share this holiday season Image Credits: Justin Sullivan (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Santa Claus makes a list and checks it twice before each holiday season. Can your e-commerce startup make the same claim? “Consumers are now living with inflation and an unofficial recession, and we can expect more selective and price-conscious shopping behavior,” writes Guru Hariharan, CEO and founder of CommerceIQ. Now that people “are feeling the squeeze on their everyday essential purchases” and the holiday shopping season is

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Space in Los Angeles • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in SpaceNo Comments on Space in Los Angeles • ZebethMedia

ZebethMedia Sessions: Space is back! Happening December 6 — our third dedicated space event. This is a live, in-person event featuring the most influential people in the space industry, across public, private and defense. 2022 was a year that saw the commercial space industry undergo a lot of change, including significant consolidation, as well as new entrants in the orbital private launch category and a renewed focus on public-private partnerships in the realm of national defense. It was a year of expansion in some cases, including for Rocket Lab, which opened its first launch site on U.S. soil — and of contraction in others, including in the realm of venture spending on the sector. We also saw dramatic changes to international relations, threatening even our longstanding cooperation with Russia on orbital science. As macroeconomic conditions look poised to worsen in the immediate and near future, and international tensions show no signs of necessarily easing, the question of how these large-scale challenges will impact innovation and investment in the private space sector are top of mind. We plan to examine how startups are coping, what opportunities they’re seeing in the market and where the defense industry needs them to step up and supplement the security and safety of Earth as well as space. We’re thrilled to be hosting Rocket Lab CEO and founder Peter Beck; Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisitions; Amela Wilson, CEO of Nanoracks and many more. In addition to the firesides and panel discussions on the main stage, the event will also include networking, startup exhibits and the chance to connect with attendees from around the world. It’s a packed day already, but we’ve got some extra surprises in store, so keep an eye on the website over the coming weeks for more great speakers and sessions we’re adding.

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What investors really think about the TAM slide in your pitch deck • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in EC How To, EC TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, startup fundraising, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, Total Addressable Market, VentureNo Comments on What investors really think about the TAM slide in your pitch deck • ZebethMedia

We’re encouraged to think of pitch meetings as a trial by fire: If an entrepreneur can negotiate deadly traps and slay the doubt monsters that bedevil tech investors, they’ll be rewarded with a golden SAFE note at the end of their quest. Particularly for first-timers, the pitch has become an existential drama, which can lead to poor decisions like overlong slide decks, failing to prepare investors before a meeting, and fatally, exaggerating the size of the total addressable market (TAM) in which they hope to compete. “With TAM, it is almost guaranteed you’re going to be wrong,” Aydin Senkut, the founder and managing partner of Felicis Ventures, said at ZebethMedia Disrupt. “It’s either going to be too large or too small.” Kara Nortman, a managing partner at Upfront Ventures, said the TAM numbers given in a pitch do not control whether she’s likely to invest. “I would say [it is] more important to be able to articulate how big something can become and to show that you have a thought process around TAM, if it’s early.” According to Deena Shakir, a partner at Lux Capital, TAM, along with the associated metrics serviceable addressable market (SAM) and serviceable obtainable market (SOM), aren’t meant to be carved in stone. They’re simple planning tools that help founders show investors their company’s upside potential, while SOM and SAM help them offset risk. “If we’re taking the meeting, we all sensibly think there’s something there that’s interesting enough to be potentially venture-bankable,” she said. “The way it’s calculated and the way the founder is thinking about it tells us not necessarily about the business or its future, but about how the founder thinks about company creation. And that’s much more important at the earliest stage.” All three panelists said TAM, SAM and SOM numbers offer a window into a founder’s mindset, but they’re not determinative factors, since they already have a general understanding of the sectors in which founders hope to compete.

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Musk blames ‘activist groups’ for major advertisers pausing spending on Twitter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in advertising, content moderation, Government & Policy, report, Social, social media, TwitterNo Comments on Musk blames ‘activist groups’ for major advertisers pausing spending on Twitter • ZebethMedia

As mass layoffs begin at Twitter, major advertisers are pausing their campaigns on the social network — a move that’s gotten the attention of newly-minted CEO Elon Musk. In a tweet this morning, Musk blamed a “massive drop” in Twitter revenue on “activist groups pressuring advertisers,” likely referring to an open letter sent Tuesday by civil society organizations urging Twitter advertisers to suspend their ads if Musk didn’t commit to enforcing safety standards and community guidelines. Musk bemoaned the activist efforts, claiming that “nothing has changed with content moderation” on Twitter. But recent developments tell a different story. Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022 Sarah Personette, Twitter’s chief customer officer, who managed the company’s relationships with advertisers, resigned from the company late last Friday. According to Bloomberg, Twitter shut off employee access to certain content moderation and policy enforcement tools, prompting workers to cite concerns about misinformation ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. (Musk later agreed to restore access to the tools.) And as a part of the layoffs today, Twitter eliminated its curation team, which was responsible for providing factual context — and corrections, if necessary — to trending terms and conversations on the platform. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that General Mills, Audi and Pfizer have joined the growing list of companies temporarily pausing their Twitter ads. (Automaker GM last week became the first major brand to announce a pause.) Oreo maker Mondelez and Volkswagen are also reevaluating their ad spend with the network, reportedly spooked by the departure of top executives over the past week including chief marketing officer Leslie Berland and VP of global client solutions Jean-Philippe Maheu. Mondelez, whose brands also include Ritz, Chips Ahoy!, Trident and Tate’s Bake Shop, is among the top largest 20 advertisers on Twitter in terms of ad spend. Given that ad sales accounted for more than 90% of Twitter’s revenue in Q2 2022, its pullback alone is likely to have a substantial impact on the platform’s bottom line. On Tuesday, a New York Times report revealed that that IPG — one of the world’s largest advertising companies, with customers such as Coca-Cola, American Express, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel and Spotify — issued a recommendation for clients to temporarily pause their spending on Twitter because of moderation concerns. According to the piece, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a coalition of platforms, advertisers and industry groups fighting harmful content on social media, also said it was monitoring how Twitter planned to uphold previous commitments to deal with content moderation. Musk has made increasing efforts to reassure advertisers that Twitter remains “brand safe,” publishing an open letter to advertisers saying that Twitter wouldn’t become a “free-for-all hellscape” and announcing plans to form a council to advise on content moderation. In recent days, Musk has also participated in video calls with ad companies including WPP PLC, according to the Wall Street Journal, during which he’s promised to rid Twitter of bots, add community management tools and introduce new ways to give advertisers the ability to choose which content to be near. Musk has little choice but to make good with Twitter’s sponsors. His deal to buy the company included making Twitter take on $13 billion in debt from banks, which means the social network will owe about $1 billion a year in interest payments.

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Why ButcherBox built two dry ice factories during the pandemic • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in ButcherBox, risk management, Startups, supply chainNo Comments on Why ButcherBox built two dry ice factories during the pandemic • ZebethMedia

As a startup, when you’re trying to stay as lean as possible, outsourcing is the name of the game; if you can get someone else to do the work for you (and manage the team, deal with hiring and HR, etc.), that’s a win. The major exception is anything that creates core intellectual property and technology, and things that are absolutely mission-critical to the business. It turns out for ButcherBox, a company that’s shipping hundreds of thousands of boxes of meat, dry ice is one of those things. “During COVID, we ended up opening a dry ice factory, and we’ve now opened a second,” said Mike Salguero, CEO at ButcherBox, during a talk at the Baukunst Creative Technologist conference in Boston last week. There were a few macro-economic reasons for why that suddenly started making sense. The first was that in 2020, the administration passed a law that made it advantageous to finance certain types of equipment. “We bought these machines for $2 million each, on a five-year note, with 0% interest, and we were able to deduct it all in year one,” Salguero said, shaking his head. The tax and financial benefits were huge in a world where ButcherBox was making a lot of profit (the company did in excess of $440 million worth of revenue in 2021), directly related to COVID. “It was basically free. It’s like Trump paid us to buy these machines.” Mike Salguero at ButcherBox’s dry ice factory. Image Credits: ButcherBox The purchase made sense financially, but it also de-risked a hugely important part of the business. “What we do is frozen meat in the mail, which means we need dry ice. If we don’t have dry ice, we can’t ship,” Salguero said, suggesting that dry ice was the only thing that was truly mission-critical in his supply chain. “If we ran out of boxes, we could get different boxes. If we ran out of chicken breasts, we could like substitute for whatever, chicken thighs or turkey. If we run out of dry ice, we can’t ship, and we’re dead.” Especially in 2020 as the pandemic was gathering steam, this looked like a bigger and bigger risk. There was a vaccine on the way that would need a lot of dry ice to get shipped around the country, and a lot of other businesses were starting to ship as well. “We thought that that was going to get worse, and these machines were like really cheap for the amount of dry ice they could produce. Now we own our destiny as it relates to dry ice. The plant is only just coming online, but we will actually be sellers of dry ice,” says Salguero. “The real dream is that we can run these plants and make our own dry ice free because we are selling so much of it.” The first factory in Oklahoma City, opened in the summer of 2021, can make an average of 111,000 pounds of dry ice every day. A second plant in Muscatine, Iowa is spooling up as we speak.

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Hulu set to raise the cost of the Hulu Live TV bundle in December • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Hulu, hulu live tv, Media & Entertainment, streaming serviceNo Comments on Hulu set to raise the cost of the Hulu Live TV bundle in December • ZebethMedia

A month after Hulu raised the subscription prices of its on-demand streaming service, it is now targeting the subscribers of its live TV streaming bundle. Parent company Disney announced in August that it would increase the cost of the Hulu Live TV bundle later in the year. Starting on December 8, Hulu Live TV subscribers will have to pay $74.99 per month for the bundle with Hulu Live TV (Ads), ESPN+ (Ads) and Disney+ (No Ads)– which was previously the basic $69.99/month plan. Since Disney+’s ad-supported plan is launching on December 8, subscribers can opt for a basic Hulu Live TV plan for $69.99 per month. The updated basic plan will include the new Disney+ tier with ads, “Disney+ Basic,” as well as Hulu Live TV (Ads) and ESPN+ (Ads). The premium plan with Hulu Live TV (No Ads), ESPN+ (Ads) and Disney+ (No Ads) will increase to $82.99 per month, up from $75.99/month. Those who only want live TV content and not Hulu streaming content or Disney+ and ESPN+ content can pay $68.99 per month. It’s, unfortunately, very standard for streaming services to hike up their prices, especially Hulu Live TV, which has increased its plan every year since 2019. In 2021, the company increased the Hulu Live TV bundle from $64.99/month to $69.99/month, up from $54.99/month in 2019. At launch, Hulu Live TV was only $39.99/month before it offered the Disney+/ESPN+ bundle. Disney+, ESPN+, among other streaming services like YouTube Premium’s family plan, Apple TV+ and Sling TV, have announced price hikes this year. Netflix also raised its prices in January 2022, ten months before launching its cheaper ad-supported tier.

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