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Showing posts from April, 2022

Elon Musk buys Twitter, new phones from OnePlus, Realme; Xiaomi’s first tablet and most expensive phone

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Elon’s big week

Hi! I’m Greg Kumparak. I’ll be heading up Week in Review for the foreseeable future, with your former host Lucas Matney diving into cryptoland with the launch of a newsletter and podcast called Chain Reaction . He’s not going too far, and I’m sure he’ll stop back in from time to time. If my name seems familiar, it might be because I took over Week in Review a few times while Lucas was AFK/touching grass/not staring at a screen. Or it could be because you’ve been reading TechCrunch for a long time. I’ve been around this place for over a decade; I’ve worn a lot of hats in that time. (Metaphorical hats. I’ve got a big ol’ head, most actual hats don’t fit right.) That’s all I’ll say about me, for now, because this isn’t the Greg in Review newsletter. But come say hi on Twitter . Tell me what you like most about Week in Review as it has existed so far. I don’t intend to change much about the format, but I’m always down to do more of what people like. the big thing Lucas always starte

Felicis Ventures partners share the four pillars of scaling a SaaS startup

For investors, one factor will almost always stand head and shoulders above the rest: Your TAM (total addressable market) needs to break at least $1 billion. But alongside a massive addressable market, investors are also looking to see that you have existing customers, even they’re few in number, who truly love your product. However, communicating the steps between your existing users (wedge) and your long-term potential as a company (TAM) can be incredibly tricky. At TechCrunch Early Stage this month, we sat down with Felicis Ventures partners Viviana Faga and Niki Pezeshki to talk about scaling, product-market fit, and why it’s crucial to be “10x better” than the incumbents. Product-market fit Startups must be able to demonstrate that they have users that love their product. But what does “love” really mean? Faga and Pezeshki believe that startups need a framework to measure their initial push into a niche audience. They suggest running a survey with your first cohort of users

These Android features will help protect your digital privacy

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Android and privacy haven’t always been natural companions. Google still makes the bulk of its profits from its data-fueled advertising business that relies heavily on user information, much of it derived directly from Android users. Nowadays, Google gives its users more authority over how and when the search giant taps into Android-associated data by baking a number of security features and privacy protections into the software. Many of the basics you already know. Setting a strong PIN — or better yet, an alphanumeric passcode — to lock down your device is a great start, and making sure you keep your device up-to-date with the latest security patches . Plus, protecting your Google account with two-factor authentication can save you from even the most well-resourced hackers. What’s more, a number of Android’s built-in security features are switched on by default, such as verified boot, a feature that ensures that the device’s firmware hasn’t been tampered with by malware, and Goog

Slice and dice it all you want, that’s a seed round

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Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. There’s a clash happening in the early-stage market. In one world, late-stage investors are reacting to tech stonk corrections by clamoring toward the early-stage investment world, forcing seed investors to go even earlier to defend ownership and potential returns. This trend was underscored by firms like Andreessen Horowitz launching a pre-seed program months after launching a $400 million seed fund . Even more, Techstars, an accelerator literally launched to help startups get off the ground, debuted a fund to back companies that are too early for its traditional programming. While all that is going on, early-stage investors are enduring a valuation correction and portfolio markdowns. Some are admitting that they’re telling portfolio companies to refocus on cash conservation, profitability and discipline, not just growth. Let’s pretend these tw

This Week in Apps: Elon buys Twitter, Snap Summit recap and an App Store cleanup

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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports . Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion. Today’s consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours pe

On putting toothpaste back into the tube

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the  daily TechCrunch+ column  where it gets its name.  Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up  here .  Good news! We’re  not talking about crypto, Elon Musk or SaaS multiples today. We’re also not talking IPOs, global venture capital trends or the like. Instead, we’re going to talk about putting toothpaste back in the tube. Sound fun? Let’s go. China’s technology industry Since the Ant IPO was pulled and the Chinese Communist Party executed off a flat-wild period of regulatory action in 2021, you have probably heard less about China’s technology. That’s because the companies that tended to make the biggest splash in foreign media were concerns like Alibaba, ByteDance and the like — tech companies that touched lots of individuals, including folks outside the country’s national borders. China’s government decided that such companies had too much influence, and thus needed to be cu

Samsung 'Fab Grab Fest offers mega deals and cashbacks on smartphones, tablets, laptops, TVs and appliances; starts May 1

Samsung has announced its biggest summer fest of the year – Fab Grab Fest. The Fab Grab Fest sale has mega offers and cashbacks on a wide range of Samsung Digital Appliances as well as Galaxy smartphones, tablets, laptops, accessories and wearables. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/0BRIpGD

Elon Musk sells Tesla shares worth $4 billion, says no more sales planned

Tesla Inc chief executive officer Elon Musk sold 4.4 million shares of the electric vehicle maker worth $3.99 billion, US securities filings showed on Thursday, in sales likely to help finance his planned purchase of Twitter. Musk said in a tweet that there are "no further TSLA sales planned after today." from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/vQSh1UF

Xiaomi 12 Pro vs OnePlus 10 Pro vs Realme GT 2 Pro: How the ‘Pro’ flagship smartphones compare

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USV quietly announces $625M in fresh funding for ‘both Web2 and Web3’ teams

Union Square Ventures (USV), the 19-year-old, New York-based venture firm, has raised $ 275 million  for its eighth early-stage fund and $350 million for its fourth opportunity fund, the firm announced in a  blog post  yesterday. In sharing news of the two new vehicles, firm partners Andy Weissman and the firm’s general counsel, Samson Mesele, wrote that USV plans to “invest our new funds around the same thesis as our previous funds: we are looking for opportunities in the market that align with our Thesis 3.0 .”(USV has written previously that this updated thesis centers on “trusted brands that broaden access to knowledge, capital, and well-being by leveraging networks, platforms, and protocols.) Relatedly, USV will continue to invest in “both Web2 and Web3 companies and projects,” reads the post, without elaborating further. Early last year, when Weissman announced in a similar blog post that USV had raised $250 million for its seventh core fund , he wrote explicitly that as in U

Daily Crunch: Musk’s Twitter purchase plan calls for new CEO, monetization strategies, job cuts

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . Friday, more like Fri-yay! It’s April 29, 2022, we’re here with the latest headlines, but honestly our brains are mostly focused on all the hardcore fun we’re going to have this weekend. Like doing laundry, napping, playing with our pets, reading a book for a while and sleeping in. I know, we’re old and boring, deal with it. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Selling Tesla, getting a pretty tweet deal: Everyone’s favorite social media-acquiring billionaire is selling $4 billion worth of Tesla stock  and supposedly has a new Twitter CEO lined up. He also shared that he has the beginnings of a plan for how to monetize tweets. Wait, companies have to make money?  Robinhood’s stock price is going off a cliff  as competition gets stiff and its business model is more and more skew-whiff. Home is where the benefits are: Airbnb employees receive

Jack Dorsey says he’s against permanent Twitter bans, with an asterisk

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On Friday afternoon, former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey turned to the platform that he co-created to speak about its future, days after the company was bought for $44 billion by Elon Musk. In the vague thread , Dorsey said he doesn’t believe in permanent bans, with the exception of illegal activity. “As I’ve said before, I don’t believe any permanent ban (with the exception of illegal activity) is right, or should be possible. This is why we need a protocol that’s resilient to the layers above,” said Dorsey, who stepped down from his role at Twitter in November 2021 and currently works as the Block Head of Block. I have tried taking a break from Twitter recently, but I must say: the company has always tried to do its best given the information it had. Every decision we made was ultimately my responsibility*. In the cases we were wrong or went too far, we admitted it and worked to correct. — jack (@jack) April 29, 2022 While Dorsey’s thread didn’t name names, there’