Welcome to Spooky Startup Season
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh, human take on this week's startup news and trends. To get this delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
A multi-billion dollar acquisition, IPO projections and good old venture capitalist billionaire drama?
It would be unfair to say that this week in tech and startups felt like the boom cycle of 2021; especially when you look at the layoffs coming from Truepill, its fourth this year, and Meta announcing that it will freeze hiring. At the same time, it feels like there's a new feeling in the air. Heck, NFT markets are still raising funds.
The market isn't boring, but it isn't noisy; and the vibe among my sources is definitely more spooky than wild. Besides the fact that, yes, I grew up writing poetry about fall foliage before deciding I wanted to be a journalist, I'm saying all of this to validate the nuance of this moment.
The ideas I look for throughout the end of the year are:
What happened to the black swan memos? Early in the economic downturn, investors looked to portfolio companies to warn of an increasingly volatile environment. That conversation hasn't gone away, but it's certainly become quieter, with many investors now telling me that there's a super surge in funding going on. So what are the new guidelines that are being sent to portfolio companies? What is the human side of the dismissal story? My colleagues Mary Ann and Christine taught us all an important lesson this week, that downsizing stories shouldn't revolve around the employer. The duo wrote about the human cost of Better.com's wave of layoffs — full story here — and I'm not going to subtly steal that idea. I want to talk to those affected by the wave of tech layoffs in 2022 and find out what the next steps look like. I've heard it's a lot more complicated than "you should have known your business was overrated to begin with". Finally, what are startups actually preparing to do differently? I'm guilty of this, but we often talk about startups and technology with generalizations, lightly covered up by explaining that it's useful for directional purposes. I want to know what startups have learned this year and are doing tactically differently. Spending with more discipline or focusing on the product doesn't count; give me details, and better yet, tell me what you disagree with your investors about.Let me know what yours are by tweeting me or replying to this post. If you missed last week's newsletter, read it here: "Tiger Global, finicky controls and the difficulty of acceleration". We've also recorded a companion podcast, here: "Building startups in public has an end date."
In today's newsletter, we'll talk about the beauty of pivots, a creative way to prove your startup is hiring entrepreneurs, and the latest from 500 global.
If you like this newsletter, do me a favor? Forward it to a friend, share it on Twitter, and tag me to thank you for reading!
A reminder that pivots workTC's Rebecca Szkutak wrote about how a pivot helped HopSkipDrive win some tough ground with parents: trust your kids with our ridesharing services.
Here's why it's important: As we explained in our last fairness podcast, sometimes we're all
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh, human take on this week's startup news and trends. To get this delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
A multi-billion dollar acquisition, IPO projections and good old venture capitalist billionaire drama?
It would be unfair to say that this week in tech and startups felt like the boom cycle of 2021; especially when you look at the layoffs coming from Truepill, its fourth this year, and Meta announcing that it will freeze hiring. At the same time, it feels like there's a new feeling in the air. Heck, NFT markets are still raising funds.
The market isn't boring, but it isn't noisy; and the vibe among my sources is definitely more spooky than wild. Besides the fact that, yes, I grew up writing poetry about fall foliage before deciding I wanted to be a journalist, I'm saying all of this to validate the nuance of this moment.
The ideas I look for throughout the end of the year are:
What happened to the black swan memos? Early in the economic downturn, investors looked to portfolio companies to warn of an increasingly volatile environment. That conversation hasn't gone away, but it's certainly become quieter, with many investors now telling me that there's a super surge in funding going on. So what are the new guidelines that are being sent to portfolio companies? What is the human side of the dismissal story? My colleagues Mary Ann and Christine taught us all an important lesson this week, that downsizing stories shouldn't revolve around the employer. The duo wrote about the human cost of Better.com's wave of layoffs — full story here — and I'm not going to subtly steal that idea. I want to talk to those affected by the wave of tech layoffs in 2022 and find out what the next steps look like. I've heard it's a lot more complicated than "you should have known your business was overrated to begin with". Finally, what are startups actually preparing to do differently? I'm guilty of this, but we often talk about startups and technology with generalizations, lightly covered up by explaining that it's useful for directional purposes. I want to know what startups have learned this year and are doing tactically differently. Spending with more discipline or focusing on the product doesn't count; give me details, and better yet, tell me what you disagree with your investors about.Let me know what yours are by tweeting me or replying to this post. If you missed last week's newsletter, read it here: "Tiger Global, finicky controls and the difficulty of acceleration". We've also recorded a companion podcast, here: "Building startups in public has an end date."
In today's newsletter, we'll talk about the beauty of pivots, a creative way to prove your startup is hiring entrepreneurs, and the latest from 500 global.
If you like this newsletter, do me a favor? Forward it to a friend, share it on Twitter, and tag me to thank you for reading!
A reminder that pivots workTC's Rebecca Szkutak wrote about how a pivot helped HopSkipDrive win some tough ground with parents: trust your kids with our ridesharing services.
Here's why it's important: As we explained in our last fairness podcast, sometimes we're all
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