When the downturn began, many VCs urged founders to slash their marketing spending. On its face, that’s an effective way to extend runway while cutting costs. Several months later, we’ve since learned that cutting marketing budgets doesn’t make early-stage startups healthier, but it is a great way for VCs to reduce burn rates across their […]
Are you planning to play League of Legends during your next investor pitch? (If so, reading this probably isn’t a good use of your time.) For founders who are interested in building on their own, maintaining control and staying off the fundraising treadmill for as long as possible, investor/entrepreneur Marjorie Radlo-Zandi sets out five basic […]
According to layoffs.fyi, more than 23,000 tech workers have been laid off so far this month. For comparison, the site tracked 12,463 layoffs in October. Facebook’s parent company Meta announced the first major job cuts in its history this week, eliminating 11,000 jobs. Like Twitter, Stripe, Brex, Lyft, Netflix and other tech firms based in […]
Dear Sophie, I was laid off and I’m on an H-1B. I have enough savings to survive for a while. What should I do if I have been let go from my job? I am on an H-1B, have an approved I-140 and an I-797 that expires in March 2024. If I have to leave […]
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, […]
As director of Techstars’ startup pipeline, Saba Karim spends much of his time touting the ways entrepreneurs can benefit by joining an accelerator. But is it the right choice for every founder? After he posted a thread on Twitter offering several rationales explaining why some should definitely avoid them, I invited him to adapt it […]
In a previous era, aspiring journalists relocated to New York, would-be actors made pilgrimages to Hollywood, and plucky tech founders moved to the Bay Area so they could attract capital and talent. But San Francisco is no longer the center of the startup universe, and it hasn’t been for a while. Cities like Boulder, Detroit […]
In films, screenwriters always include a moment known as the Promise of the Premise. It’s the part of the story where the audience settles in to the new world they’ve entered. One of my favorite examples is in the first Harry Potter movie, when Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, the magical shopping district that […]
After staging our first ZebethMedia Disrupt in San Francisco in three years, Slack is much quieter than usual this morning. My colleagues are flying home to cities as far flung as Taipei, Paris and London; I just took a streetcar home, which should keep my expense report simple. Moscone Center did not look like we’re […]
For cash-strapped SaaS startups trying to reach scale, the math doesn’t look great. A slump in the public markets has dragged the entire sector down, but customer acquisition isn’t getting any cheaper. In the meantime, runways are shrinking like a wool sweater in an electric dryer, and teams that hope to fundraise better have some […]
