Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and co-host of Equity Natasha Mascarenhas. To receive this in your inbox, subscribe here.
After the massive exodus of talent from technology, we are starting to see laid off talent start companies that are ambitious and aspirational in their goal. I mean the legal analyst who got fired from Better.com and started a new legal tech company, or the Twitter security chief who started a security-centric rival to Twitter. It’s refreshing, and it’s palpable.
Is it something in the water? Is it a breeding ground for a specific subset of companies? Is it easier to start a company these days? Unfortunately, it’s hard to pin down what exactly the risk of recasting in 2023 is. It may be that 2022 is over, or it may be that the great tech reset has reminded some that it’s time to jump, as you can’t. take nothing for granted. .
It’s worth noting that there’s only a subset of people who can afford to take this risk, especially after randomly losing a safety net from an employer contract. In a previous article, I looked at how some tech workers are responding to risk by doing more due diligence with potential employers, taking two jobs, aka overemployment, or rethinking their personal finance mindset.
Those who can afford to jump into construction may be a smaller cohort, but they have stories to tell. Read my latest article that delves into this TC+ spin-off trend: Tech layoffs are creating a new era of scrappy (and humble) founders.
If you still want to read more about how the job market is doing, I have two plugins! Read this latest from Ron Miller, which gives us some much-needed hope as to why the tech job market might not be as shaky as we think. You can also find a full list of all the 2023 layoffs on this list, put together by our SEO champion Alyssa Stringer.
In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk about a new podcast about one of the biggest tech start-up competitions, a push for honesty in fundraising, and some surprising facts about fading trends. As always, you can follow me on Twitter either instagram to continue the conversation. I’m also writing on my personal blog, if you’d like to follow along with the other 1,821 people who come hang out and be too wordy.
Inside the starting battlefield
Ready for a newsletter to your ears, anyone? TechCrunch Podcast Network has a new podcast, and it’s taking you inside one of the most anticipated startup competitions in the world: Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt.
Here’s why it’s important: The four-part series tackles the entire process behind the competition, from application to winner, and I’m already looking forward to the next episode (even though I was literally front row when all this happened). It’s a must-read for hopeful applicants, curious venture capitalists, and anyone who cares about the narrative behind early-stage startups.
Listen to the first episode here or wherever you find podcasts.
Image Credits: TechCrunch
“You can be fundraising forever”
I spoke with Meena Harris, the creator of Phenomenal Media and niece of VP Kamala Harris, and Helen Min, former chief marketing officer for AngelList, Plaid, and other major tech companies. They have come together to launch Phenomenal Ventures, which just closed a $6 million seed fund with blue chip investors to support enterprise SaaS, fintech, and the future of commercial enterprises.
Here’s why it’s important: We’re getting some candor that VCs are populating my direct messages. The fundraising process for the Phenomenal Ventures fund, per minute, took about a year. “I am very transparent about this and I wish more people were; we set out to raise a bigger fund,” she said, adding that they closed the first half of the fund in the first three weeks of fundraising.
Eventually, due to the market slowdown and LP freezes, Harris and Min decided they would stop fundraising after their first shutdown. “There is a real trade-off between the time we spend on fundraising and the time we can actually spend on deal flow and meeting founders and helping our portfolio companies, so we decided to call it that,” Min added.
Image Credits: maria del rio (Opens in a new window)
monitoring
In his last piece, TC’s Sara Perez asks: “Was there an exodus from Twitter or just a hiatus from Twitter?” Check out how the array of Twitter alternatives are faring since Elon Musk took over Twitter, ushering in a vocal exodus and clone surge.
Here’s why it’s important: In his words, “The data indicates that many applications continue to grow to a lesser degree, while other applications have seen their growth slow. But it also shows that Twitter itself was never significantly affected, at least in terms of new app installs.” But there is more; it also explores how the use of Twitter has been affected by a deluge of critical but vocal press, and how Reddit and Discord fit into the conversation.
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch
Etcetera etcetera.
Spotted on TechCrunch
As ChatGPT hype reaches fever pitch, Neeva launches its AI generative search engine internationally
China’s gaming industry shrinks for the first time in years
How a Brazilian startup’s turn to corporate cards has paid off
Security violation? Don’t blame your employees
Spotted on TechCrunch+
The on-demand delivery trilemma
When raising funds, anchor your business with ‘why now?’ slide
A decade of fintech failures: 4 innovations that fell short of expectations
Silicon Valley goes to war
5 Buyer Red Flags to Look For During the M&A Process
Chat next week,
