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The COVID-19 story is unfolding so quickly, it’s impossible for anyone — journalists included — to stay ahead of the story.
We’re all adapting to what I’ve heard some describe as “the new normal,” but I reject that term — there’s so much new information coming at us, we haven’t had time to establish any sense of normalcy.
For the first time, Y Combinator’s Demo Day was remote-only; since the TechCrunch team couldn’t cover it in person, they did a Zoom call to discuss their top picks, which you can listen to here.
Also this week, Danny Crichton and Alex Wilhelm hosted a conference call with General Catalyst managing director Niko Bonatsos. We’ll be doing more of these calls in the weeks ahead, and Extra Crunch subscribers will be at the front of the line to ask questions.
Plus, our latest VC survey reached out to several investors to find out where they’re seeing opportunities around startups that enable remote events, a sector that’s experienced a surge of recent interest.
Scroll down, and you’ll see that we ran a much higher-than-usual number of Extra Crunch stories this week as we attempt to make sense of how the novel coronavirus is reshaping the tech world. If this is the new normal, I’m going to need more coffee.
Stay safe and have a great weekend; thanks for reading.
Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist
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Image Credits: Diy13 / Getty Images
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“My God, there is so much news.”
TechCrunch Managing Editor Danny Crichton wrote an overview of the state of VC investing on March 9, but given how quickly events are moving, he revisited his predictions and observations again on Tuesday. If you’re seeking clarity amidst this week’s ambiguity, start here.
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Image Credits: TechCrunch
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Alex Wilhelm spoke to Chris Sugden, a managing editor at Edison Partners, to get his predictions on SaaS startups, talk fundraising and find out “if there’s any good news to be found in today’s market.”
Here’s what Sugden said after his firm’s portfolio review meeting on Monday:
“…if you are planning to raise money this year, just know your best case is probably Q4, and we probably don’t think you should be thinking about raising money from outside [investors] because frankly, we’re just not able to tell how long this is going to be people holed up in their bunkers.
The reality is gonna be a bunch of people guarding their own portfolio companies and taking care of their children they already know versus knowing new ones.”
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Image Credits: Tony Studio / Getty Images
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Dear Sophie:
I sent my startup team home to work remotely for several weeks. We have several folks on visas and work permits — am I supposed to do anything special for them? Can I proactively get visas for future employees to primarily work from home?
— Burrowing in Burlingame
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Image Credits: Colin Anderson Productions pty ltd / Getty Images
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We spoke to five investors who have expertise with startups that service remote events to find out where they’re seeing opportunities:
- Sarah Cannon, Index Ventures
- Connie Chan, Andreessen Horowitz
- Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel
- Ryan Kuder, Techstars Anywhere
- Paul Murphy, Northzone
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Image Credits: PM Images / Getty Images (Image has been modified)
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After posting a “That’s All Folks!” GIF on Medium, former Fidzup co-founder and CEO Olivier Magnan-Saurin announced last month that his company was out of business.
Magnan-Saurin says French data privacy regulators decided to make an example out of his company — instead of working with them to bring the firm into compliance.
“At the first point we got a warning — right — but why do you want to make it public? In a context where the guidelines are not clear for the company.”
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Image Credits: All Raise
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Natasha Mascarenhas spoke to All Raise CEO Pam Kostka about the doubt and uncertainty spreading through the economy.
Despite the outbreak, Kostka advised founders to keep moving forward: “This is a great time to go heads-down and focus on building out your product to ensure you are well-positioned to take advantage of the upturn when it happens.”
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Reedsy, a marketplace for publishing professionals, has a 30-person, remote-only team distributed across several time zones. Romain Dillet spoke to co-founder and CEO Emmanuel Nataf to learn more about how his company manages its far-flung contributors.
“The first 20 people in your company define the culture of your company,” said Nataf. “I know that a company that isn’t remote already will have a hard time changing its culture overnight.”
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Image Credits: Phillip Faraone / Stringer / Getty Images
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To say that this is not an opportune moment for a startup to make its public debut is an understatement.
Last fall, Airbnb signaled its intentions to begin trading publicly in 2020, but the spread of COVID-19, a stock market meltdown and global travel restrictions have put the company “in a tricky spot,” writes Alex Wilhelm.
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Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch
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Alex Wilhelm examined the performance of four stocks (Lyft, Uber, Slack and Crowdstrike) that debuted in the last year to see how far they’ve fallen from their 52-week highs.
Setting aside the damage these public companies are taking, what does this mean for high-flying unicorns that may have been hoping for IPOs in 2020?
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Image Credits: Erik Von Weber / Getty Images
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As new cloud infrastructure vendors (ISVs) spring up to help companies migrate on-prem workloads, Ron Miller spoke to several experts about the opportunities ahead for startups that “help break that big data logjam.”
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In purely journalistic terms, “it’s been a bonkers week in the world.”
As we disrupt our lives to stem the spread of COVID-19, however, the show must go on. In this case, the show was Y Combinator’s Demo Day for its Winter batch.
Before you find out which startups TC staff liked the most, listen to the Zoom call where they shared their observations.
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The iPad Pro Apple debuted on Wednesday includes a camera with a lidar time-of-flight sensor, technology that makes that enhances realism in augmented reality.
The hardware bump is a direct benefit to AR developers, who “have scored few resounding victories,” writes Lucas Matney. “Augmented reality still has Apple’s enthusiasm behind it, but can that keep the whole industry afloat?”
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Instead of gathering founders, VCs and journalists in a giant room for two days, Y Combinator’s Demo Day went remote-only for the first time.
There were almost 200 startups in the Winter 2020 batch; click through to find out which 20 were ranked top of their class by TechCrunch staff.
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Image Credits: Yagi Studio / Getty Images
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This week’s wrap-up of growth hacks covers three useful practices: accelerated retargeting, using behavioral psychology to drive referrals and a lesson on how to write a great onboarding email.
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Image Credits: Memo Vasquez / Getty Images
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Anyone can become a thought leader.
To do so, you’ll need to build and maintain your reputation as a domain expert, seek out/create opportunities to share what you know and find places to offer your expertise with the right audience.
It’s hard work that takes a long while, but those who are willing to put in the effort can gain “an unfair advantage of trust.”
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Image Credits: Mark J. Terrill / AP
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I was curious about whether our new mandatory stay-at-home lifestyle was having any early impacts on esports, and Alex Wilhelm generously agreed to look into the matter and get back to me.
Although he said it was too early to make draw definitive conclusions, available data suggests that a reduced volume of venture investment may be “sufficient in size to indicate that an esports VC slowdown could be afoot.”
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With most of our readers shifting to working from home, we’re doing Zoom calls with notable people where Extra Crunch readers can ask questions in real time.
We kicked off the series this week with General Catalyst Managing Director Niko Bonatsos, who discussed the general investing landscape, his thoughts on YC Demo Day and a number of other topics.
“I’ve had portfolio companies that, as of last week, we thought we would have successful financings, and unfortunately some of the term sheets were pulled or they got recut,” said Bonatsos. “So that’s part of the new reality. And some of the companies obviously that I’m part of on behalf of GC, and we’re part of on behalf of GC, it’s pretty tricky times.”
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Image Credits: ozgurdonmaz / Getty Images
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All gaming companies are in the same boat when it comes to cancelled trade shows, but smaller developers will take a larger hit — these conferences are where deals are done, major patches are announced and companies can get real-time feedback from customers.
To soften the blow, we’ve rounded up five tips for developers who are seeking remote-only growth strategies.
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Image Credits: Malte Mueller / Getty Images
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Last fall, petcare company Wag! slashed 76% of its workforce and consolidated its operations within 90 days instead of accepting additional investment to grow the company.
“The frothy period of excitement over the previous class of tech startups has ended,” writes CEO Garrett Smallwood. “We believe that the increased focus on our technology and service while reducing our cost structure creates the foundation for a healthier business.”
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Image Credits: Himanshu Bhatt / NurPhoto / Getty Images
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Shares in Lyft and Uber rose earlier this year before declining steeply during the stock market’s selloff, but yesterday, Uber shot up 38% and Lyft rose by 29%.
To unpack a madcap week, Alex Wilhelm pored over the transcript of an analyst call Uber held yesterday and looks at both firms’ new revenue multiples with regard to “what they mean for on-demand startups looking for capital or an IPO.”
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