CB Insights - stock option insurance

Hi there,

Alright, after the tremendous response to startup ideas in past newsletters, here’s the 4th installment of startups that should exist.

#1 SaaS pricing tracker: A service that extracts data from public SaaS pricing pages and benchmarks pricing against peers, tracks changes, tracks pricing levers/features, etc.

This is probably easier for prosumer, SMB-level SaaS, but might be harder for enterprise-level SaaS.

For the enterprise level, startups could adopt a give-to-get model where customers upload contracts and the key pricing and deal terms are extracted.

There is a clear value proposition for pricing strategy, competitive intel, market research, SaaS financing platforms, etc.

#2 Career services-as-a-service (CSaaS): The reality is that most university career services are a joke and students suffer.  

CSaaS is a white-labeled service customized to each university to help students with resume preparation, interviewing skills, job search, etc.

The university pays for each student accessing the service.  

What does the university get?

• A valuable service for students

• Reduced costs by getting rid of its existing subpar career services 

• Better career/job prospects for students 

This last point is important because it will help recruit more students in the future since the university becomes more marketable. These students also eventually become potential donors to the university.  

I am making an assumption that universities truly care about their students getting jobs after graduation.

#3 Stock option insurance: Or perhaps it’s covered calls on stock options.

Basically, as an employee, you can buy insurance on the stock options you receive. If the company tanks, you still get some $$ per the amount of coverage you purchased (assuming you vested).

And if the startup has a great exit, the insurer takes a part of that.

Alright, that last one might highlight my lack of understanding of insurance or covered call options, but you get the idea.

As always, these are just ideas that I think could be interesting. We’re not looking to build, invest, or partner on these. But if you know of a company doing 1 of these, I'd love to learn about it. And if you’re a hustler who can bring 1 to life, that’d be amazing. Keep us posted.

Replacing the credit card

Amid decreasing credit card spending, “buy now, pay later” companies are the hot new thing in payments. 

Millennials and Gen Zers represent a disproportionate percentage of BNPL shoppers. The average customer for Afterpay, Klarna, and Australia-based Zip is in their early 30s, and nearly 70% of Afterpay's user base falls into the 18-34 range.

Using BNPL =/= fiscal irresponsibility. 

For BNPL shoppers paying with a debit card, roughly 80% had enough money in the bank to cover at least 1x the purchase price, and over half of users could cover 5x+ the purchase price.

But competition is quickly mounting. We look into the BNPL boom, how incumbents are responding, and whether BNPL is really a better alternative for consumers in this report. 

David vs. Goliath?

American International Group (AIG) is a global giant in the property & casualty (P&C) industry, with personal and commercial insurance revenues of $34B in 2020. 

New entrants are increasingly chipping away at the traditional insurer’s market. Here’s how they’re unbundling the insurance giant’s business — for individual consumers buying personal insurance policies, for businesses purchasing business coverages, and for claims servicing. 

The classifieds

Some of our friends are hiring. Check out the posts below:

• Strategic Innovation Leader, Head of External Innovation, The Cincinnati Insurance Companies — Fairfield, OH  
• Associate Strategy Partner, Highmark Health — Pittsburgh, PA

Insurers all the way down

Insurtechs are relying heavily on transferring their premiums to reinsurance incumbents to reduce regulatory scrutiny and capital requirements. 

We take a look at the complex partnerships in the reinsurance space in this client-only brief.

Business Insider. Blake Dodge (@dodgeblake) uses CB Insights research to dig into value-based care investment trends. 

Financial Times. Miles Kruppa (@MilesKruppa) discusses the growing market for shares in startups and cites CB Insights unicorn data. 

CIO Dive. Roberto Torres (@TorresLuzardo) reports on cybersecurity challenges in healthcare and references CB Insights research.
 

P.S. We’re hiring a senior copywriter. Check out the job here. 

The Blurb

My name is. In an attempt to break down office hierarchies, some tech companies in China like Alibaba have employees pick nicknames for internal communications. 

Protocol

Home offices. Remote workers spend about 7% more of their income on rent a month than non-remote employees, according to a new study. 

Bloomberg 

Sign me up. A new platform offers a “careers page for influencers” to make it easier for brands to find partners.

NYT

All aboard. More big US-based companies are disclosing their workforce demographic data following prodding from regulators, investors, and the public. 

WSJ

Blast from the past. A service that uses deep learning to animate faces in old photos has gone viral online. 

The Guardian