Author : zebethcontrol

Hong Kong to explore legalizing retail crypto trades in reversal of previous proposal • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Crypto, Dubai, Fintech, hong kong, SingaporeNo Comments

Hong Kong has proposed allowing retail investors to trade in cryptocurrencies and crypto exchange-traded funds and plans to conduct pilots in NFT issuance and CBDC as it looks to regain its status as a global financial hub. The city had earlier proposed limiting crypto trade to professional investors, a move that saw many crypto entrepreneurs shift base to Dubai and Singapore. Hong Kong will review property rights for tokenized assets and explore legalizing smart contracts “to provide a solid legal foundation for their development,” it said. It is also planning to put in place “appropriate regulations” on aspects such as “governance, stabilization and redemption mechanism” of stablecoin. The proposal comes at a time when China has ramped up its efforts to crackdown on crypto transactions and Singapore is exploring a series of stringent guidelines surrounding virtual digital assets. “We want to make our policy stance clear to the global market, to demonstrate our determination to explore fintech with the global virtual asset community,” said Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan. In the initial stage, Hong Kong expects the underlying assets to be “confined to bitcoin futures and ether futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange,” he added. Hong Kong also detailing the approach it wishes to undertake in a policy statement. It said the Securities and Futures Commission will conduct a public consultation on how retail investors may be given a “suitable degree” to access to virtual asset under the new licensing regime. “We recognise VA [virtual asset] is here to stay, given how it has attracted attention of global investors and is increasingly viewed as a conduit for financial innovations, not to mention the future opportunities that will be opened up as VA moves into the areas of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse,” the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau said in a statement. “The Government, in conjunction with the financial regulators, are working towards providing a facilitating environment for promoting sustainable and responsible development of the VA sector in Hong Kong.” Sam Bankman-Fried, the chief executive of crypto exchange FTX and a high-profile backer in the industry, called Hong Kong’s steps today “really promising,” but added that if only the region had taken this stand last year, referring to aggressive exodus that Hong Kong’s previous proposal caused. “I deeply appreciate when policymakers engage constructively and optimistically with the people who matter the most for an industry’s direction: the customers,” he said in a tweet. In its statement Monday, Hong Kong said it will pilot projects to test the technological benefits of virtual assets and their applications in the financial markets. These pilot projects include issuance of NFTs, tokenization of green bonds, and “possible launch of retail Central Bank Digital Currency, the eHKD.” Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai have attracted crypto entrepreneurs, investors and tech employees from around the globe in the past half decade with their friendly views on cryptocurrency. But in recent quarters, they have wrestled with just how open do they want to remain. Last week, Singapore proposed new guidelines that may soon require retail investors to take a test and not use credit card payments and other forms of borrowing for trading cryptocurrencies. The Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a set of consultation papers that it’s worried that many retail customers may “not have sufficient knowledge of the risks of trading” digital payment tokens, which may lead them “to take on higher risks than they would otherwise have been willing, or are able, to bear.”

Elon Musk is revamping Twitter’s verification system — and it might involve a monthly fee • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, Twitter, verificationNo Comments

Twitter’s verification program has always been a complicated and controversial affair. The company has paused and resumed the application process many times to make it more streamlined. In the Elon Musk ownership era, the social media company could be looking to flip the script around verification: pay $20 per month and you will get a verified badge. According to a report from The Verge, the company is looking to introduce a new and more expensive version of Twitter Blue — the platform’s paid plan — that will cost $19.99 per month and give its users a verified badge. Currently, Twitter Blue costs $4.99 per month in the U.S and is available in other geographies like New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. The report noted that Twitter is rushing to launch this new subscription plan by November 7. What’s more shocking is that the social network is planning to remove verification badges from current holders if they don’t pay for Twitter Blue within 90 days. Given that verified users are present all across the world, it’s hard to enforce this rule unless the subscription program becomes available globally. In May, the New York Times reported that Musk presented a pitch deck to Twitter investors with goals ranging from increased subscriber revenue to achieving 69 million Twitter Blue users by 2025. These early changes to Twitter’s paid plan might be a step to get to that mark. Twitter’s “Chief Twit” Musk didn’t really give out the details of the new program but he replied to a conversation between spaceflight photographer John Kraus and a16z partner, Sriram Krishnan, that the verification process is being revamped. The whole verification process is being revamped right now — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2022 $20 sounds like a lot of money just to get a verified badge and many folks like Kara Swisher are not ready to pay that amount. A poll by investor Jason Calacanis — to which Musk replied “interesting” — also has a majority of the people saying no to paying any amount for verification. The central point of the verification program was to identify genuine profiles of political leaders, celebrities, researchers, and journalists so users don’t fall for the information posted by fake accounts. If the new verification process goes through, it might be a free-for-all where any paid user can pretend to be a person of prominence for a while and spread misinformation. But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. Seven days is a long time in Elonverse and he might come up with a different verification tactic altogether.

Nigerian proptech SmallSmall raises $3M to provide flexible living solutions for customers • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in rentsmallsmall, StartupsNo Comments

Inefficiencies have marred Nigeria’s rental system for years, thus affecting how landlords and renters transact. Most landlords collect rent one to two years upfront, while renters struggle to find apartments as they deal with uncharitable agents. Several proptech startups are addressing such problems by providing better options to both stakeholders. One such platform is Lagos-based SmallSmall which gives renters access to monthly rent payments and offers landlords a way to vet tenants, increase their income and manage properties. The platform is announcing that it has raised $3 million ($2 million equity and $1 million debt) in seed funding, money it plans to use for expansion into other main cities in Nigeria, including Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Jos, before the end of Q1 2023. Tunde Balogun co-founded the startup, formerly RentSmallSmall, with Naomi Olaghere and Pidah Tnadah in 2018 after returning to Nigeria from the U.K. and finding it tough to get an apartment where he could pay monthly. CEO Balogun told ZebethMedia in an interview that this experience pushed him to research how to create solutions for the market and upon conversations with landlords, he soon discovered that doing so was a two-way street. “We started by understanding the pain points of landlords. Even though they collected rent one year upfront, the default rate of the yearly system is very high because when people’s finances take a hit, they might not be able to pay subsequent rent,” he said. “The legal process of evicting tenants where they’ll have to wait six to 12 months is also not supportive of the landlords.” The chief executive argues that with Smallsmall’s monthly model, landlords can speed up that process pending when they give notice. But that’s only part of the package to them. SmallSmall also lets landlords access quality tenants and curb defaults by receiving monthly payments where they receive extra margins of about 10-15%, Balogun added. For tenants, it’s the comfort of managing their finances better by paying monthly rent and the respite that comes with not transacting with housing agents that SmallSmall provides. Balogun also mentioned that when customers pay their rent on time, they build their credit profiles on the platform, allowing them to access financing should they sometimes default. Some of SmallSmall’s competitors include Spleet, Kwaba and Muster. “Our market is for young professionals with an average age of around 28 years. It’s a huge market,” said the CEO on the potential of monthly rentals in Nigeria. “We surveyed almost 3,000 people last year in Lagos, which showed that 80% of them wanted to pay their rent monthly. So that tells you how much adoption the monthly space would have if the markets eventually opened up.” Demand and supply rarely converge in Nigeria’s real estate proptech market in that there’s a housing deficit where demand dramatically outstrips supply; it also doesn’t help that house prices and inflation keep rising simultaneously. SmallSmall, for instance, has had over 476,000 people register on its platform since 2018. While 80,000 of that number are on its waiting list, the company has only served almost 1,500 people. “That shows how huge demand is, relative to the supply, which is very slim,” Balogun added. SmallSmall founders (L-R: Pidah Tnadah, Tunde Balogun and Naomi Olaghere). To increase the supply pool and create options for customers, Smallsmall rebranded from RentSmallSmall in July. The latter is now one of three product lines, including BuySmallSmall and StaySmallSmall. RentSmallSmall allows users to rent housing and pay monthly. BuySmallSmall identifies newly built properties by reputable developers that meet the company’s market demand: studio apartments, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments — and packages them as investment opportunities for young professionals looking to invest in real estate. When purchased, these owners turn to landlords and list their properties on RentSmallSmall so they can earn passive income when other users pay rent. StaySmallSmall, on the other hand, lets users book furnished bed spaces starting at $4 per night. “Supply was our bottleneck in a way, and we needed to be able to control quality because many properties were in bad shape. We also wanted to provide a channel where customers can invest in real estate and work toward owning homes,” said the chief executive about the BuySmallSmall product, which is based on the platform’s proprietary data. “We’re encouraging young people to own homes and invest in properties by paying as little as 20% down payment while we help them finance the remaining. That’s one of the reasons we raise debt financing.” SmallSmall participated in the Techstars Toronto Accelerator Program in 2021 and was the first African proptech startup to get into the program, receiving $120,000 as part of its pre-seed round. Sunil Sharma, the managing director of Techstars, speaking on the investment, said, “Techstars Toronto was proud to be an early investor in SmallSmall as we saw enormous inefficiencies in the experience that renters face when getting accommodation in Africa. With the early traction and multi-aspect business model, Techstars decided to make a follow-on investment and join the latest funding round.” The seed round welcomed participation from other investors like Oyster VC, Asymmetry Ventures, Vivaz, and Niche Capital. Meanwhile, individual angels such as Sean Fannan of Chartboost, Adam Meghji of Universe, Jimmy Ku of Flutterwave, Samir Goel and Wemimo Abbey of Esusu, Jason Njoku of Iroko and Tunde Kara of Vendease participated. SmallSmall has processed over 25,000 monthly stays across Lagos and Abuja, meaning a typical SmallSmall user stays an average of 17 months on the platform. The proptech claims to have had less than a 7% rent default rate, saving property owners over $1.5 million in damages and tenants over $1.2 million in broker fees. Having generated over $5 million in its first three years and turning a profit last year, SmallSmall wants to use this new investment to support its vision of “providing flexible, quality housing solutions and financing to intending home buyers.” In addition, the startup will continue building its technology and partnerships with landlords, developers, property and asset managers, and other

How to effectively manage a remote team during wartime • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Column, EC Column, EC Europe, remote work, russia-ukraine war, Startups, Ukraine startupsNo Comments

Alex Fedorov is CEO and founder at OBRIO, an IT company with Ukrainian roots that develops products in mobile applications, web products and SaaS. Business owners always say that each company has to live through a real crisis before it becomes a real business. All big companies we know have experienced a few big crises during their lifetimes, and they are still in the game. There are a lot of studies about crisis management on the web, but none of them tell us how to manage a company during times of war. Our company had never seen a real crisis before February 2022. However, even before we did, I always told my team: “Every company has its time in the sun and a time of crisis.” When the Russo-Ukrainian War began on February 24, all Ukrainian businesses faced a crisis. I’ll use our example to explain how we dealt with it. Here are six tips for effectively managing a team during a war. Establish an emergency communication channel In such times of upheaval, people will require a lot of up-to-date information about what is happening. When people don’t know what’s happening, there arises a vacuum that can be filled with rumors or distorted news. To avoid this, you must establish a special communication channel that’s active around the clock. Slack notifications, for example, can be automatically turned off outside of working hours, so make sure you utilize a channel that your team uses most often so they are less likely to miss important notifications. This might seem like an easy and pretty obvious step, but it is the most efficient way to help your team when they’re feeling lost or disoriented, which is only natural when there’s a war raging around them. Communicate with your team twice as often Training to manage stress, anxiety and personal finance will help your employees build the needed knowledge and respond to tough situations. Great leaders communicate with their people, and we must all remember that “overcommunication is good communication.” For us, this saying has never been more correct. Communicate as frequently as there are updates on the issue but not less than twice a day. Additionally, follow your usual rules for team communication: Be honest, empathetic and humane. Finally, when there’s a serious crisis, most people’s critical thinking faculties can be hindered. In such situations, you may have to over-explain things to your team more than usual. Do not shirk this responsibility. If your team needs its hand held, be there to hold it. It’ll pay off in the long term and help you stay in control from the early days of the crisis until things calm down. Stop investing in R&D and get people back to work ASAP As a leader, you must save your business, as it is something people rely on in times of uncertainty. The first thing to do here is to save as much cash as you can in order to stay in business as long as you can. That often means cutting back on non-essential spending. This can be a tough decision, but it is a sacrifice you may have to make. After our team was in safe locations, the best way forward was to get them back to work and help them calm down. It sounds strange, but this is the best way to direct the anxieties and nervous energy of war. At work, where everything is known, prescribed and straightforward, people find calmness and a continued sense of purpose. In my experience, the first wave of crisis is the most difficult because of the high levels of uncertainty. However, once you get over that phase, there will be fewer variables, which is when you return to investing activities if they are still feasible. Use your standard remote-work policy When the war broke out, it was very difficult to manage the team and reestablish our business processes. So we waited to do it after our team was evacuated and relocated safely. Proven remote policies were a lifesaver when our employees were not in their usual environments. Nobody discounts the value of team spirit, so invest in it more since people will need each other’s support at a much greater degree during times of great strife. Among online team building activities, AR activities proved to be an amazing mood enhancer. Conduct special training to support your team Crises, thankfully, are rare, but that also means people often do not have enough knowledge to handle the loads of unusual information they’re bombarded with in such situations. In such situations, you should: Educate people by conducting special training with the help of experts. Training to manage stress, anxiety and personal finance will help your employees build the needed knowledge and respond to tough situations. The Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications has created a guide titled “Psychological support during the war,” explaining how to spot and assist with mental health problems. Invite successful and respected people to share positive thoughts on the situation and perhaps explain how they’ve faced especially tough times. Authority bias is real and it works as a morale booster when a team needs direction and a sense that things will turn out to be fine. Share relevant positive news to cheer up your team and create a vision of a better future. Tie business goals to social initiatives When war broke out, people wanted to help. This was good, but we realized it can affect focus on work and could eventually lead the business to an even more profound crisis. In such times, put your over-explanation tool from Step 1 to work and educate people on how your company’s success benefits society. As a result of what your team accomplishes at work, your company can invest more resources in charity initiatives when growth or profitability is maintained or improved. As a consequence, your team can do more and have more resources to do something significant for society. This should have no effect on your existing

Money Fellows, an Egyptian fintech digitizing money circles, raises $31M funding • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Egypt, Fintech, Money FellowsNo Comments

Egyptian fintech Money Fellows has raised $31 million in what it describes as the first close of its Series B investment. The round, which the startup expects to top up in the coming months, was led by CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) and Arzan Venture Capital. Other participating investors include Partech, Sawari Ventures, Invenfin, National Investment Company (NIC), 4DX Ventures and P1Ventures. Money Fellows has raised $37 million in total funding since its inception. Money Fellows’ premise is the digitization of money circles or what’s commonly known as the Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCAs), a system where a group of people agree to contribute money for a specific period, thereby saving and borrowing together. ROSCAs, which Money Fellows CEO Ahmed Wadi says is a $700 billion opportunity globally, are quite popular in over 90 emerging and developing markets with several names: Esusu or ajo in Nigeria, Kameti or chit fund in India and Gameya in Egypt. But it wasn’t in either of these countries that Wadi first tested Money Fellows, it was in Germany, where he lived at the time. There, Wadi found it difficult to access financial services because he lacked a credit history. He thought by replicating the gameya system in the European nation, he could provide an alternative financing system for people like him. However, adoption wasn’t significant there nor in the U.K. which was his next stop. “Germany didn’t have this culture and at some point, it felt like it made sense to go to the U.K. where they have Asians, Africans, and Arab communities that traditionally use this model,” said Wadi. “But we found out people didn’t need it because they had an advanced financial system.” On the other hand, Egypt has a functioning ROSCA system, and Wadi, being from the country, chose it as his third try in 2017. He launched the platform a year later. Here’s how ROSCAs work. Let’s say 10 people come together and agree to pay $1,000 monthly for ten months. At the end of each month, a member gets $10,000 and it keeps rotating until everyone receives their payout. This system works best with a tight-knit of friends or family because it can be risky when strangers are involved. However, this limits offline ROSCAs in that participants may find it difficult to access more capital. But with Money Fellows, people have a broader pool of participants — each passing through a credit assessment process — around Egypt so that they can form and join ROSCA groups through its app. Similar players globally include Pakistani fintech Oraan and U.K.-based StepLadder. Money Fellows classifies its users as borrowers, savers, or planners depending on where their position is in a ROSCA cycle and when they receive a payout. It charges a one-time service fee of about 6% to users who choose its early spots; the percentage decreases down the line and turns to incentivized interest paid to users at the end of the cycle. “People looking to borrow can find slots on our platform. People are looking to save too. So if you are a slot number one, you’re a pure borrower, so we charge a fee. If you’re a slot number two, we charge you slightly less. It decreases the more you’re willing to wait until the end of that ROSCA, where we incentivize the users with one of the most attractive saving incentives in the country.” Any fintech business that involves lending in one form or another has to deal with defaults. Money Fellows doesn’t have it differently. Its conscious design also factors in such cases and has made provisioning and reserve requirements to ensure that customers keep getting paid even when other participants miss their targets. According to the chief executive, Money Fellows sets aside reserves for every new ROSCA launched and, complying with a provisioning schedule, covers any defaults from those funds. “The good thing with ROSCAs versus consumer finance is that not everyone has equal credit exposure. So if your slot number five, for instance, when you get $10,000, you only need to repay $5000 because you historically paid $500 in the past five months,” he said. “That’s why we’re more conservative. We don’t limit people to only amounts. We also restrict them to specific slots because we know which slots carry more or less risk. That’s another beauty and how we control defaults using Rosco as the financial Engine versus the typical consumer and microfinance model.” Image Credits: Money Fellows The fintech also includes a B2B play where it partners with various merchants in Egypt to sell their products within the app so its customers can get discounts. The fintech generates a commission from markup on these products in addition to charging fees in its ROSCAs. It plans to offer more financial services such as buy now pay later, pension, and cards, where the four-year-old fintech plan to make interchange fees. Money Fellows has over 4.5. million registered users on its platform; however, only 7% are monthly active users. The average payout ticket per user is around 23,000 EGPU ($1,100). The company, which regards itself as “one of the favorite financial apps for Egyptians,” claims to have experienced an 8x year-over-year growth. Wadi said Money Fellows’ plan with the funding is to accelerate growth by diversifying its portfolio of services and expanding its product offerings across the B2C & B2B segments, as well as its geographical expansion across Africa and Asia. “To be honest, this model has yet to be cracked globally. It took so much time to develop our product and technology to ensure ROSCAs were fully completed while onboarding the right mix of borrowers, savers and planners, the CEO stated. “This was our key focus over the past couple of years, so now it’s the time to grow, and so a big chunk of what we’re raising is to aggressively grow or scale a lot faster than what we have done and then hopefully try to replicate this in other markets.” Hangwi

Zebra Labs raises $5M to help Chinese celebrities enter the metaverse • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in China, Media & Entertainment, metaverse, MusicNo Comments

In June, Chinese pop-punk singer Wowkie Zhang released a music video where he encounters a virtual character in a hyper-colored, animated world that is reminiscent of Pixar films. The avatar, sporting Gen-Z-styled silver hair, a yellow and black oversize sweat, and baggy pants, makes hip-hop moves to Zhang’s catchy, light-hearted tune. The virtual character isn’t a one-off creation; instead, Zebra Labs, which produced the video, is turning him into a piece of reusable intellectual property that can be bought as NFTs on marketplaces and appear in other virtual occasions like video games. The startup is waiting for the bull market to return to launch the NFT project, Scarlett Li, founder and CEO of Zebra Labs, tells ZebethMedia. The aim of Zebra Labs is to “create intellectual property that’s deeply integrated with content” and “run virtual idols like celebrities,” says Li. Some of the avatars it creates are based on real-life stars, while others are original characters. To generate revenues, Zebra Labs cultivates an audience for its idols through short films, images, and social posts and in turn monetizes the fan base. It also licenses its virtual idols to partners for a fee. NFT, which is already being widely used in authenticating IP rights, can be used to better engage fans, reckons Li, who previously helped organize some of China’s largest music festivals. “When you reach 30 years old, you lose interest to explore music, so a virtual environment can jumpstart visualization [of music] again.” NFTs also give emerging musicians a more direct avenue for income. In China, music distribution is in the grip of music streaming giants owned by Tencent and NetEase. These platforms tend to allocate user traffic to musicians already with a lot of fans, “so to live well as a musician, you need to have a million followers,” says Li. “NFTs can change that.” As a veteran of music festivals, Li is excited about the prospect of online concerts. She’s benchmarking against Ariana Grande’s Fornite concert, in which the singer descends into a colorful island in her virtual manifestation with a shimmering silver dress and a glowing white ponytail. Zebra Labs is in talks with several gaming firms to launch virtual concerts for Chinese artists inside a Minecraft-like game and a metaverse platform by 2023, Li says. Zebra Labs recently raised $5 million to advance its metaverse vision. The funding came from the Chinese gaming firm NetDragon and the Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo. Onboarding a Japanese investor, according to Li, can help the startup learn from the country’s long history of IP management, which is exemplified by the success of virtual idols like Hatsune Miku. The company is also backed by SOSV, the VC firm known for its network of accelerators. Following its collaboration with Wowkie Zhang’s music video, which has garnered some 40 million clicks across an array of online channels, Zebra Labs has five other artists in the pipeline. It’s also planning to release a digital twin of Zhang by the first quarter of 2023.

Elon Musk refutes Twitter layoff timing to affect year-end compensation • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 30, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, elon musk buys twitter, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk, Chief Twit, has refuted claims from a New York Times report this weekend that states he plans to lay off employees before Tuesday, November 1, thus cutting staff off from receiving stock grants as part of their compensation. In response to a tweet from Eric Umansky, deputy managing editor of ProPublica, that said Musk was “making sure to fire people at Twitter before part of their year-end compensation kicks in on Tuesday,” Musk said: “This is false.” He didn’t provide any clarification about what, specifically, was false. Umansky’s tweet included a screenshot of a highlighted portion of the NYT story that also noted stock grants make up a significant portion of an employee’s pay, and by laying off workers before that date, Musk may avoid paying the grants. Musk did not respond to ZebethMedia’s request for clarification on whether the layoffs will affect stock compensation. He may very well have been refuting the entire NYT article, which stated Musk is said to have ordered job cuts across the company, citing “four people with knowledge of the matter.” But that seems unlikely, given the layoffs that are already underway. Previous reports said Musk would layoff 75% of Twitter’s staff, but last week when the executive visited Twitter headquarters, he said those numbers weren’t correct. Still, reports have been surfacing about various layoffs at the social media company, including of top Twitter executives like CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde. Musk’s $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter went through late on Thursday last week. The New York Stock Exchange stopped trading Twitter’s stock on Friday morning, where it had been listed since 2013. Twitter will officially be delisted from the stock exchange on November 8. Current shareholders will be paid $54.20, Musks’s buying price, per share. It’s not clear how Twitter’s now-private status will affect current employees with stock grants.

Remote work is here to stay. Here’s how to manage your staff from afar • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 30, 2022Posted in EC Future of Work, EC TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, Enterprise, mural, remote work, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, workboardNo Comments

Over the last two and a half years, remote and hybrid working has become the norm — a majority of employed Americans have the option of working from home for all or part of the week, and 87% of workers who were offered remote work embraced the opportunity heartily. While some companies are pushing for a return to the office, today’s strapped labor market is giving employees more power to push back for remote, or at least flexible, jobs. This isn’t just a pandemic response anymore — it’s a way of life, and it has the potential to make some businesses better. People who work from home have been reporting an uptick in their productivity levels without the distractions that come with an office — Oh, it’s Beth’s birthday. Cupcakes in the kitchen! But both employers and employees have reported some downsides to remote work. Isolation can make people feel lonely and disconnected, leading to mental health issues. Learning and collaboration have taken a hit without the human element of being in the same room. And it can be difficult to create and maintain a company culture remotely. Luckily, some seriously smart people have thought hard about how to address these challenges and make it work. We put a few of them onstage last week at ZebethMedia Disrupt, and while you can watch the whole video, here are some of their best insights. Be hyper-intentional when coming together IRL Two and a half years into the pandemic, people are “actually clamoring to spend more time together,” said Adriana Roche, chief people officer at Mural, during a panel discussion at Disrupt. Ironically, one of the main solutions to the woes of remote work is finding ways to bring staff together IRL. That might mean a couple of times per week in the office if everyone lives in the same city, but if the team is fully remote, companies have to be more intentional with how they plan monthly or quarterly off-sites.

3 founders discuss how to navigate the nuances of early-stage fundraising • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 30, 2022Posted in Alloy Automation, EC TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, EC venture capital, fiveable, fundraising, Parthean, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Fundraising isn’t a monolithic event but rather a series of meetings and pleasantries, each with their own vibe and nuance. Yet many pieces of fundraising advice to founders paint the process with a broad brush. We heard from three founders at ZebethMedia Disrupt last week: Amanda DoAmaral, co-founder and CEO of Fiveable; Arman Hezarkhani, founder of Parthean; and Sarah Du, co-founder of Alloy Automation, each of whom has raised in the extreme highs and lows of last 18 months. They spoke about navigating the process, what worked (and what didn’t) and how to customize your pitch to navigate the many subtleties of fundraising. For DoAmaral, it was important to spend time researching which investors may actually back her company. She said she’s had investors take meetings with her due to a warm intro despite having no actual intention to invest. “My co-founder and I got in a car and drove down to Tennessee thinking we’re gonna get this check. And this guy didn’t even trust me to like, be an attendee at this event. They’re not writing the check,” DoAmaral recalled. “People are not going to take me seriously if they’re not going to see me as someone that is their equal at all.” Du added that performing due diligence on potential backers beforehand is helpful, not only to find out whether they might actually invest in the company, but also if they will be good to work with. This is especially true for founders raising at the early stages who are looking at a long relationship ahead.

Elon Musk completes Twitter purchase, Meta’s in trouble and it’s time to admit self-driving cars ain’t gonna happen • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in Apple, Argo AI, Elon Musk, meta, Startups, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, folks, welcome back to another edition of ZebethMedia Week in Review, the place where we point you to the hottest stories of the past sevenish days. I’m stepping in front of the laptop for Greg Kumparak this week, but don’t fret, he will be back soon. If you want this goodness in your inbox every Saturday, head on over here to sign up. Now, let’s get to it. most read (Elon edition, somewhat) Elon did it: He bought Twitter. The $44 billion acquisition closed this week and on day 1, the platform’s new owner “cleaned house,” Taylor and Amanda write, firing CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde. The purchase capped off months of ups and downs, and this week was no different. Darrell rounded up some highlights. Elon’s layoff about-face: While Elon Musk immediately fired some folks at the top, earlier this week in a reversal from his layoff declaration last week, he said he won’t actually lay off 75% of Twitter’s staff — or 5,600 people — writes Rebecca, citing a Bloomberg report. Apple’s Elon problem: Darrell’s headline says it all, really: “Twitter’s Elon problem could soon become Apple’s Elon problem, too.” At issue is that Apple updated its developer guidelines this week, one of which “seeks rent on revenue made by social networks around promoted posts.” Argo AI shutdown: Autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI, flush at launch in 2017 with $1 billion, has shut down. Its parts, writes Kirsten Korosec, are “being absorbed into its two main backers: Ford and VW.” Speaking of autonomous vehicles: After the Argo AI news hit, Darrell took to the site to explore the fact that, no, autonomous vehicles just aren’t going to happen. MrBeast’s worth: Amanda asks if MrBeast, or 24-year-old YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, is worth the $1.5 billion he’s valuing his business at. Meta is in trouble: That’s the headline. Meta reported its third-quarter results this week and they weren’t great. As Taylor writes: “With the Instagram portion of the business not looking so hot lately, Meta has quintupled down on the metaverse without examining if it even knows what users want at all these days. And after changing the name of the company while ruining a perfectly fine word in the process, there are no easy take-backs.” Meta really was a perfectly fine word. Google Pixel 7’s “dumb” flaw: Haje took a picture through an airplane window and noticed a reflection caused by the reflective chrome surrounding the phone’s camera lens. “It’s a pretty common use case for most photography applications, which makes it all the harder to grok why Google went out of its way to make that experience worse.” audio roundup On Equity this week, we share with you one of Natasha Mascarenhas’s Disrupt panels. She talked to Chief co-founders Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers about the future of their private membership club for women in leadership positions. This week on Found, Darrell and Jordan sat down with Shanthi Rajan from construction management software company Linarc to discuss breaking into a slow-changing industry, building a team with talent across the globe and working with customers to build the most useful product possible. And on Chain Reaction, Anita and Jacquelyn chat about Apple’s new App Store guidelines, Reddit’s foray into the NFT space and whether the U.K.’s new prime minister will live up to the hype he’s received from the crypto community. techcrunch+ 5 tips for launching in a crowded web3 gaming market. Contributor Corey Wilton explains the steps that will set you apart when looking for capital. Pitch Deck Teardown: Palau Project. Haje usually passes on tearing down pre-seed rounds, but he went for it this week with the Palau Project, which was founded by professional kite-surfer Jerome Cloetens, who is taking on climate change.