Podcasts about extra crunch

Get ready, adventurers—this week on the RPGbot.podcast, we're cracking open the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide (aka “D&D 5.5: Now with Extra Crunch!”) and going deep! From traps to revamped monster mechanics, and maybe a bit too much love for Lesser Restoration, we're tackling it all. Is Greyhawk back? Are magic item prices going up? Will combat ever stop feeling like wizarding math homework? Join us for a wild ride through dungeons, dragons, and dungeon dragons. Listen in, laugh along, and maybe—just maybe—take that leap into a whole new RPG system! Summary In this raucous rollercoaster of an episode, the RPGbot crew dives headfirst into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, or as they affectionately dub it, "D&D 5.5: Now with Extra Crunch!" With laughter and some mildly controlled frustration, they tackle everything from trap hazards to reworked monster mechanics, sprinkling in a fair share of "why, Wizards, why?" moments. From marveling at the rebalanced Tomb of Horrors (a little less horror, a lot more trap insurance) to dissecting the Greyhawk revival as a "setting comeback nobody asked for," the hosts leave no stone unturned. There's something for everyone in this episode—whether you're curious about new magic item pricing (hint: dragons might actually start haggling) or just hoping to understand why balancing a combat encounter suddenly feels like filing taxes. Plus, with epic riffs on spells like Lesser Restoration and a side quest into safety tools, they manage to skewer and celebrate D&D's evolution all at once. Will they convince you to stick with the game, or inspire a brave leap into the weird and wonderful world of other RPGs? Tune in for laughs, hot takes, and a dungeon's worth of insights! Links 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide (affiliate link) RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes 2024 PLAYER'S HANDBOOK: The RPGBOT.Review Takeaways The new DMG focuses on accessibility, especially for newcomers. With low initial expectations, the 2024 DMG brought some pleasant surprises. Chapter 1 offers a beginner-friendly foundation for new Dungeon Masters. Safety tools are included but cleverly rebranded to sidestep backlash. The hosts are skeptical about the new edition's marketing approach. They explore player dynamics and how different player types impact game flow. Dungeon design has evolved to meet changing player expectations. Tomb of Horrors is called out for being a bit... unforgiving in design. Fun remains the top priority in gameplay, according to the hosts. Community reactions to safety tools reveal a split in player opinions. For better or worse, "a bag of rats" won't be helping in combat anymore. The DM's toolbox is met with mixed reviews from the crew. Hazards feel softened—danger with a little less bite. Traps aren't the deadly trials they once were. Player feedback has clearly shaped some rule updates. Monster creation options are more limited now. New mob-handling rules make things simpler for DMs. Settlements now come with additional mechanics and tools. Creating adventures and campaigns received some welcome enhancements. Options for both DMs and players are heavily emphasized. Encounters now include more than just combat—social and exploration play are on equal footing. Greyhawk is used as an example setting, though not the new default. Combat encounter balancing is streamlined. Magic item pricing updates feel half-baked. Crafting magic items now needs proficiency in Arcana and tools. New crafting rules are solid but don't quite rival Pathfinder 2. Lore updates in the DMG are minimal, with no major revelations. The hosts feel disappointed with the limited magic item pricing details. Low-level characters can create legendary items if they have enough gold—a fun twist! Diseases and magical contagions are introduced but feel underwhelming. Lesser Restoration raises questions on the relevance of disease mechanics. The 2024 DMG has its highs and lows, with various improvements and setbacks. Simplified mechanics divide the community's reception. A general apathy toward D&D's current state seems prevalent. The hosts encourage exploring other RPG systems for a fresh experience. Players are urged to try new games to discover what truly excites them. Corporate influence in game development worries some players. The hosts hope for more meaningful and engaging game mechanics. Engaging with new systems could bring a renewed love for tabletop gaming. The broader D&D community seems to share in the hosts' mixed feelings. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. It's a quick, free way to support the podcast, and helps us reach new listeners. If you love the show, consider joining us on Patreon, where backers at the $5 and above tiers get ad free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT.Podcast, can chat directly to members of the RPGBOT team and community on the RPGBOT.Discord, and can join us for live-streamed recordings. Support us on Amazon.com when you purchase products recommended in the show at the following link: https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra Twitter: @RPGBOTDOTNET Facebook: rpgbotbotdotnet Bluesky:rpgbot.bsky.social Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games Twitter: @GravenAshes YouTube@ashravenmedia Randall James @JackAmateur Amateurjack.com Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati

Get ready, adventurers—this week on the RPGbot.podcast, we're cracking open the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide (aka “D&D 5.5: Now with Extra Crunch!”) and going deep! From traps to revamped monster mechanics, and maybe a bit too much love for Lesser Restoration, we're tackling it all. Is Greyhawk back? Are magic item prices going up? Will combat ever stop feeling like wizarding math homework? Join us for a wild ride through dungeons, dragons, and dungeon dragons. Listen in, laugh along, and maybe—just maybe—take that leap into a whole new RPG system! Summary In this raucous rollercoaster of an episode, the RPGbot crew dives headfirst into the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, or as they affectionately dub it, "D&D 5.5: Now with Extra Crunch!" With laughter and some mildly controlled frustration, they tackle everything from trap hazards to reworked monster mechanics, sprinkling in a fair share of "why, Wizards, why?" moments. From marveling at the rebalanced Tomb of Horrors (a little less horror, a lot more trap insurance) to dissecting the Greyhawk revival as a "setting comeback nobody asked for," the hosts leave no stone unturned. There's something for everyone in this episode—whether you're curious about new magic item pricing (hint: dragons might actually start haggling) or just hoping to understand why balancing a combat encounter suddenly feels like filing taxes. Plus, with epic riffs on spells like Lesser Restoration and a side quest into safety tools, they manage to skewer and celebrate D&D's evolution all at once. Will they convince you to stick with the game, or inspire a brave leap into the weird and wonderful world of other RPGs? Tune in for laughs, hot takes, and a dungeon's worth of insights! Links 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide (affiliate link) RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes 2024 PLAYER'S HANDBOOK: The RPGBOT.Review Takeaways The new DMG focuses on accessibility, especially for newcomers. With low initial expectations, the 2024 DMG brought some pleasant surprises. Chapter 1 offers a beginner-friendly foundation for new Dungeon Masters. Safety tools are included but cleverly rebranded to sidestep backlash. The hosts are skeptical about the new edition's marketing approach. They explore player dynamics and how different player types impact game flow. Dungeon design has evolved to meet changing player expectations. Tomb of Horrors is called out for being a bit... unforgiving in design. Fun remains the top priority in gameplay, according to the hosts. Community reactions to safety tools reveal a split in player opinions. For better or worse, "a bag of rats" won't be helping in combat anymore. The DM's toolbox is met with mixed reviews from the crew. Hazards feel softened—danger with a little less bite. Traps aren't the deadly trials they once were. Player feedback has clearly shaped some rule updates. Monster creation options are more limited now. New mob-handling rules make things simpler for DMs. Settlements now come with additional mechanics and tools. Creating adventures and campaigns received some welcome enhancements. Options for both DMs and players are heavily emphasized. Encounters now include more than just combat—social and exploration play are on equal footing. Greyhawk is used as an example setting, though not the new default. Combat encounter balancing is streamlined. Magic item pricing updates feel half-baked. Crafting magic items now needs proficiency in Arcana and tools. New crafting rules are solid but don't quite rival Pathfinder 2. Lore updates in the DMG are minimal, with no major revelations. The hosts feel disappointed with the limited magic item pricing details. Low-level characters can create legendary items if they have enough gold—a fun twist! Diseases and magical contagions are introduced but feel underwhelming. Lesser Restoration raises questions on the relevance of disease mechanics. The 2024 DMG has its highs and lows, with various improvements and setbacks. Simplified mechanics divide the community's reception. A general apathy toward D&D's current state seems prevalent. The hosts encourage exploring other RPG systems for a fresh experience. Players are urged to try new games to discover what truly excites them. Corporate influence in game development worries some players. The hosts hope for more meaningful and engaging game mechanics. Engaging with new systems could bring a renewed love for tabletop gaming. The broader D&D community seems to share in the hosts' mixed feelings. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. It's a quick, free way to support the podcast, and helps us reach new listeners. If you love the show, consider joining us on Patreon, where backers at the $5 and above tiers get ad free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT.Podcast, can chat directly to members of the RPGBOT team and community on the RPGBOT.Discord, and can join us for live-streamed recordings. Support us on Amazon.com when you purchase products recommended in the show at the following link: https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra Twitter: @RPGBOTDOTNET Facebook: rpgbotbotdotnet Bluesky:rpgbot.bsky.social Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games Twitter: @GravenAshes YouTube@ashravenmedia Randall James @JackAmateur Amateurjack.com Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati

The day after our extended conversation in the gorge, featured in the main episode, we headed out to where the donkeys do their work. As mentioned in that main episode, it's crunch time in many ways for this great story of regeneration. And by extension, for all of us, as a shoot order hangs over the donkeys' heads. So we head out to take a closer look for ourselves at how the Henggelers are managing these wild donkeys for regeneration. It's a fascinating deep dive into how this works, with some moving exchanges on the sentience of these creatures, and the possibilities available to us if we can find a way to work differently with them. And with each other. Let's jump in the beat up old ute, and head over to the upper ranges for a walk. Dedicated to Ava, Chris and Jacqueline's third grandchild who was born on the morning of this conversation. You can hear more of Chris and I in conversation, from the days prior to this journey to the donkeys, in the main episode: ‘Wanted Land Doctors: Re-hydrating landscapes, reversing desertification & rebuilding wealth'. You'll find a series of links in the show notes there too. And an extensive selection of photos (I've added a few more today too, from where we were talking in this Extra) - https://www.regennarration.com/episodes/100-wanted-land-doctors Title slide pic: Chris Henggeler and Anthony James on an upper range where the donkeys do their work (pic: Olivia Cheng). Thanks as always to the generous supporters of this podcast, for making it possible. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by becoming a patron or donor to the podcast, by heading to the website at https://www.regennarration.com/support. Thanks for helping to keep the show going! And thanks for listening.

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff to catch up on weekend news and prep for the days ahead. We're here on Tuesday this week since us folks in the United States had off for labor day. You can follow the show on Twitter here, and while you're at it, throw me a follow too.Jobs report: Over the weekend, the US government posted the Jobs Report. It wasn't ideal, with a sharp drop in percentage of women rejoining the workforce. I give you the startup angle, and talk about a somewhat poetic unicorn.Instacart, meet Instagram: WSJ reports that new Instacart CEO Fidji Simo is expanding the grocery delivery store's consumer-product advertising business, with a goal of hitting $1 billion in revenue next year. I riff on why this makes sense and what challenges the business make come up against.Behemoths, beware: The largest Series A within Africa just closed, and it's not even close. Wave is taking on telecom-led mobile money, now with four-big name backers. It's not the only startup trying to take on a behemoth. I also gave a shout out to Glass, which wants to take on Instagram as a new go-to destination for photographers to share their content.And that's a wrap. I have a fun edtech piece coming out on Extra Crunch this week, so keep your eyes out for it.

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff to catch up on weekend news and prep for the days ahead. We're here on Tuesday this week since us folks in the United States had off for labor day. You can follow the show on Twitter here, and while you're at it, throw me a follow too.Jobs report: Over the weekend, the US government posted the Jobs Report. It wasn't ideal, with a sharp drop in percentage of women rejoining the workforce. I give you the startup angle, and talk about a somewhat poetic unicorn.Instacart, meet Instagram: WSJ reports that new Instacart CEO Fidji Simo is expanding the grocery delivery store's consumer-product advertising business, with a goal of hitting $1 billion in revenue next year. I riff on why this makes sense and what challenges the business make come up against.Behemoths, beware: The largest Series A within Africa just closed, and it's not even close. Wave is taking on telecom-led mobile money, now with four-big name backers. It's not the only startup trying to take on a behemoth. I also gave a shout out to Glass, which wants to take on Instagram as a new go-to destination for photographers to share their content.And that's a wrap. I have a fun edtech piece coming out on Extra Crunch this week, so keep your eyes out for it.

Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris were joined by none other than TechCrunch's own Mary Ann Azevedo, in her first-ever appearance on the show. She's pretty much the best person and we're stoked to have her on the pod.And it was good that Mary Ann was on the show this week as she wrote about half the dang site. Which meant that we got to include all sorts of her work in the rundown. Here's the agenda:Funding rounds from: Ramp, which raised $300 million at a $3.9 billion valuation; NoRedInk which put together an impressive $50 million Series B; and Playbook, which is building a sort of Dropbox for designers. Each company gave us something different to noodle on, be it the diverging strategies at Ramp and Brex, how NoRedInk is different from Grammarly, and why Dropbox is not the Dropbox for designers.Then we spun the globe to narrow our focus to Latin America, a booming startup scene that Mary Ann recently profiled for Extra Crunch. In a nutshell, venture capital is helping drive an enormous wave of startup activity in the region -- or perhaps a wave of startup activity is driving a boom in venture investment? -- leading to huge companies, and perhaps some tech-powered inclusion of more folks into the modern banking, and digital economy. (For more, here are notes on the Brazilian market's rising exit tally! And Flink raised, which was worth chewing on as well.)We quickly pivoted to the hot button issue of the moment for every startup (and business): hiring. Natasha noted how startups used to focus on runway, and now they are looking to fill empty seats amid the great resignation. Finally, we nattered about huge venture results from Boston, big numbers from Austin, and what increasingly feels like an everything bubble. Chicago is doing well, too. Pick a city, it's putting up big numbers.And that's a wrap, for, well, at least the next 5 seconds.

Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris were joined by none other than TechCrunch's own Mary Ann Azevedo, in her first-ever appearance on the show. She's pretty much the best person and we're stoked to have her on the pod.And it was good that Mary Ann was on the show this week as she wrote about half the dang site. Which meant that we got to include all sorts of her work in the rundown. Here's the agenda:Funding rounds from: Ramp, which raised $300 million at a $3.9 billion valuation; NoRedInk which put together an impressive $50 million Series B; and Playbook, which is building a sort of Dropbox for designers. Each company gave us something different to noodle on, be it the diverging strategies at Ramp and Brex, how NoRedInk is different from Grammarly, and why Dropbox is not the Dropbox for designers.Then we spun the globe to narrow our focus to Latin America, a booming startup scene that Mary Ann recently profiled for Extra Crunch. In a nutshell, venture capital is helping drive an enormous wave of startup activity in the region -- or perhaps a wave of startup activity is driving a boom in venture investment? -- leading to huge companies, and perhaps some tech-powered inclusion of more folks into the modern banking, and digital economy. (For more, here are notes on the Brazilian market's rising exit tally! And Flink raised, which was worth chewing on as well.)We quickly pivoted to the hot button issue of the moment for every startup (and business): hiring. Natasha noted how startups used to focus on runway, and now they are looking to fill empty seats amid the great resignation. Finally, we nattered about huge venture results from Boston, big numbers from Austin, and what increasingly feels like an everything bubble. Chicago is doing well, too. Pick a city, it's putting up big numbers.And that's a wrap, for, well, at least the next 5 seconds.

For this week's deep dive, Alex, Natasha, and Chris dug into the world of hormonal health, a sub-sector within the massive (and booming) world of digital health.The show was inspired by Natasha's latest Extra Crunch piece: "Hormonal Health is a massive opportunity: Where are the unicorns?". To round out the show, we asked one of the featured founders, Dr. Elizabeth Ruzzo, to hop on the mic and help us understand if hormonal health is at its infancy, or at an inflection point, in tech.The tl;dr before we hop into the show is that hormones -- while constantly evolving and changing -- are center node for a ton of health conditions that disproportionately impact women. These can include mental health issues, infertility, diabetes, and more. If you're someone interested in the world of digital health and always read about the Ro's and Hinge Health's of the ecosystem, this episode will teach you what else there is that deserves equal - if not more - attention.Here's what we got into:We started with landscaping! We defined the term "hormonal health" and got a sense of market size, as to show the opportunity there is to innovate here right now.Ruzzo walked us through the opportunity in pro-active medicine, as well as how investors reacted to her pitch when she was first raising her seed round.We ping-ponged around different reasons as to why hormonal health is an underserved category, starting with stigma and ending with stigma.This post from a set of venture capital investors discussing the market opportunity that women's health may have for founders and VCs alike.Then we got into Modern Fertility's acquisition by Ro, and why Ruzzo and many in the digital health community were surprised at the outcome. That said, it's still one of the rare exits, and as far as unicorns go, there are virtually no companies valued at over $1 billion that focus explicitly on women's hormonal health.Shifting gears, the trio turned to startups working on PCOS, one of the most common hormonal conditions out there that impacts one in ten women. Former Ro director Rachel Blank announced today that she is starting a company in this world, Allara.To round out the conversation we touched on the recent Veera venture capital round, and closed with a short discussion concerning the the term "femtech" and why it's not so good.Don't forget to take the Equity survey, and we'll chat you on Friday morning!

For this week's deep dive, Alex, Natasha, and Chris dug into the world of hormonal health, a sub-sector within the massive (and booming) world of digital health.The show was inspired by Natasha's latest Extra Crunch piece: "Hormonal Health is a massive opportunity: Where are the unicorns?". To round out the show, we asked one of the featured founders, Dr. Elizabeth Ruzzo, to hop on the mic and help us understand if hormonal health is at its infancy, or at an inflection point, in tech.The tl;dr before we hop into the show is that hormones -- while constantly evolving and changing -- are center node for a ton of health conditions that disproportionately impact women. These can include mental health issues, infertility, diabetes, and more. If you're someone interested in the world of digital health and always read about the Ro's and Hinge Health's of the ecosystem, this episode will teach you what else there is that deserves equal - if not more - attention.Here's what we got into:We started with landscaping! We defined the term "hormonal health" and got a sense of market size, as to show the opportunity there is to innovate here right now.Ruzzo walked us through the opportunity in pro-active medicine, as well as how investors reacted to her pitch when she was first raising her seed round.We ping-ponged around different reasons as to why hormonal health is an underserved category, starting with stigma and ending with stigma.This post from a set of venture capital investors discussing the market opportunity that women's health may have for founders and VCs alike.Then we got into Modern Fertility's acquisition by Ro, and why Ruzzo and many in the digital health community were surprised at the outcome. That said, it's still one of the rare exits, and as far as unicorns go, there are virtually no companies valued at over $1 billion that focus explicitly on women's hormonal health.Shifting gears, the trio turned to startups working on PCOS, one of the most common hormonal conditions out there that impacts one in ten women. Former Ro director Rachel Blank announced today that she is starting a company in this world, Allara.To round out the conversation we touched on the recent Veera venture capital round, and closed with a short discussion concerning the the term "femtech" and why it's not so good.Don't forget to take the Equity survey, and we'll chat you on Friday morning!

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week had the whole crew aboard to record: Grace and Chris making us sound good, Danny to provide levity, Natasha to actually recall facts, and Alex to divert us from staying on topic. It's teamwork, people - and our transitions are proof of it.And it's good that we had everyone around the virtual table as there was quite a lot to get through:Team felt all kinds of ways about the Amazon-MGM deal. Some of us are more positive about than the rest, but what gists out from the transaction is that for Amazon, the purchase price is modest and the company is famously playing a supposedly long-game. Let's see how James Bond fits into it. Alex receives four points for not bringing up F1 thanks to the Bond-Aston Martin connection.Turning to the SPAC game, we chatted through the recent Lordstown Motors earnings results, and what we can parse from them regarding blank-check companies, promises, and reality.After launching last June with just $2 million, Collab Capital has closed its debut fund at its target goal: $50 million. The Black-led firm invests exclusively in Black-led startups, and got checks from Apple, PayPal, and Mailchimp to name a few. We talk about this feat, and note a few other Black-led venture capital firms making waves in the industry lately.We Resolved our transition puns and eventually spoke about the Affirm spin-out, which raised $60 million in a funding round for BNPL for businesses. There's bigger questions there around the accessibility and point of BNPL, and if its really re-inventing the wheel or just repackaging it with simpler UX.Next up, we got into a can of worms about the future of meetings thanks to Rewatch, which raised a $20 million Series A this week led by Andreessen Horowitz. The startup helps other startups create internal, private Youtubes to archive their meetings and any video-based comms. We could only spend a second on this, so if you want our longer thoughts in the form of text, check out our 3 views on the topic on Extra Crunch! (Discount Code: Equity)From there we had Interactio and Fireflies.ai, two more startups that are tackling the complexities of meetings in the COVID-19 era, and whatever comes next. Both recently raised new funding, and Alex brought up Kudo to add one more upstart to the mix.Noom, a weight loss platform, bulked up with $540 million in funding after nearly doubling its revenue from 2019 to 2020. The pandemic has made many people gain weight, but we chew into why Noom's moment might be right now after a decade in the works.Thanks for hanging out this week, Equity is back on Tuesday with our usual weekly kickoff, thanks to the American holiday on Monday. Chat then, unless you want to follow us on Twitter and get a first-look at all of Chris' meme work. 

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week had the whole crew aboard to record: Grace and Chris making us sound good, Danny to provide levity, Natasha to actually recall facts, and Alex to divert us from staying on topic. It's teamwork, people - and our transitions are proof of it.And it's good that we had everyone around the virtual table as there was quite a lot to get through:Team felt all kinds of ways about the Amazon-MGM deal. Some of us are more positive about than the rest, but what gists out from the transaction is that for Amazon, the purchase price is modest and the company is famously playing a supposedly long-game. Let's see how James Bond fits into it. Alex receives four points for not bringing up F1 thanks to the Bond-Aston Martin connection.Turning to the SPAC game, we chatted through the recent Lordstown Motors earnings results, and what we can parse from them regarding blank-check companies, promises, and reality.After launching last June with just $2 million, Collab Capital has closed its debut fund at its target goal: $50 million. The Black-led firm invests exclusively in Black-led startups, and got checks from Apple, PayPal, and Mailchimp to name a few. We talk about this feat, and note a few other Black-led venture capital firms making waves in the industry lately.We Resolved our transition puns and eventually spoke about the Affirm spin-out, which raised $60 million in a funding round for BNPL for businesses. There's bigger questions there around the accessibility and point of BNPL, and if its really re-inventing the wheel or just repackaging it with simpler UX.Next up, we got into a can of worms about the future of meetings thanks to Rewatch, which raised a $20 million Series A this week led by Andreessen Horowitz. The startup helps other startups create internal, private Youtubes to archive their meetings and any video-based comms. We could only spend a second on this, so if you want our longer thoughts in the form of text, check out our 3 views on the topic on Extra Crunch! (Discount Code: Equity)From there we had Interactio and Fireflies.ai, two more startups that are tackling the complexities of meetings in the COVID-19 era, and whatever comes next. Both recently raised new funding, and Alex brought up Kudo to add one more upstart to the mix.Noom, a weight loss platform, bulked up with $540 million in funding after nearly doubling its revenue from 2019 to 2020. The pandemic has made many people gain weight, but we chew into why Noom's moment might be right now after a decade in the works.Thanks for hanging out this week, Equity is back on Tuesday with our usual weekly kickoff, thanks to the American holiday on Monday. Chat then, unless you want to follow us on Twitter and get a first-look at all of Chris' meme work. 

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. Like every week, we had to leave a lot of great stuff on the cutting-room floor. But, we did get to touch on a bunch of news that we feel really matters.Also we do wind up talking about a few Extra Crunch pieces, which is where our deeper analysis on news items lives. If the paywall is a bother, you can get access while saving 50% with the code "EQUITY."Here's what we got into: Crypto-art and the NFT boom continue. Check out what Beeple just did. Danny has an opinion on the matter. The Roblox direct-listing does very little actually solve the IPO pricing issue. That said, well done Bloxburg. We talked about the Coursera S-1, which gave us the first financial peek into an education company revitalized by the pandemic. The numbers needed context, so our follow up coverage gives readers 5 takeaways from the Coursera IPO. Language learning has a market, and it's big. We talked about Preply's $35 million raise and why tutoring marketplaces make sense. Dropbox is buying DocSend, which makes pretty good sense. Even if the exit price won't matter much for bigger funds. We're still witnessing Dropbox and Box add more features to their product via acquisitions. Let's see how it impacts their revenue growth. Zapier buys Makerpad. We struggled to pronounce Zapier, but did have some notes on the deal and what it might mean for the no-code space. Sticking the acquisition theme, PayPal bought Curv. If you were looking for more evidence that big companies are taking crypto seriously, well, here it is. And to close we nerded out about Neeva. Can a Google-competitor take on Google if it was founded by ex-Googlers?The show is back Monday morning. Stay cool!

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. Like every week, we had to leave a lot of great stuff on the cutting-room floor. But, we did get to touch on a bunch of news that we feel really matters.Also we do wind up talking about a few Extra Crunch pieces, which is where our deeper analysis on news items lives. If the paywall is a bother, you can get access while saving 50% with the code "EQUITY."Here's what we got into: Crypto-art and the NFT boom continue. Check out what Beeple just did. Danny has an opinion on the matter. The Roblox direct-listing does very little actually solve the IPO pricing issue. That said, well done Bloxburg. We talked about the Coursera S-1, which gave us the first financial peek into an education company revitalized by the pandemic. The numbers needed context, so our follow up coverage gives readers 5 takeaways from the Coursera IPO. Language learning has a market, and it's big. We talked about Preply's $35 million raise and why tutoring marketplaces make sense. Dropbox is buying DocSend, which makes pretty good sense. Even if the exit price won't matter much for bigger funds. We're still witnessing Dropbox and Box add more features to their product via acquisitions. Let's see how it impacts their revenue growth. Zapier buys Makerpad. We struggled to pronounce Zapier, but did have some notes on the deal and what it might mean for the no-code space. Sticking the acquisition theme, PayPal bought Curv. If you were looking for more evidence that big companies are taking crypto seriously, well, here it is. And to close we nerded out about Neeva. Can a Google-competitor take on Google if it was founded by ex-Googlers?The show is back Monday morning. Stay cool!

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out last Thursday's epic run of early-stage rounds.It was busy this morning. So, in blocs, here's what the show got to:This COVID news made me smile, even if the markets are set to open lower this morning after a big end to last week. So much for bad labor data mattering, I suppose.Airbnb's IPO range is set to rise, boosting the company's valuation to as much as $36 billion, and $41.8 billion on a fully-diluted basis.Bloomberg got its hands on some Sequoia returns data. Shockingly the data is good. Who could have imagined.Sourcegraph raised even more capital, raising both our eyebrows and its valuation.Luko added $60 million to its coffers, showing that the insurtech boom is not merely a United States-phenomenon.And in short-form: Highland Europe has a new fund, and Wonder raised.Here's the Extra Crunch piece that I helped write with Danny and Natasha.And that was our show. Hugs from here, and chat Thursday at the latest.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out last Thursday's epic run of early-stage rounds.It was busy this morning. So, in blocs, here's what the show got to:This COVID news made me smile, even if the markets are set to open lower this morning after a big end to last week. So much for bad labor data mattering, I suppose.Airbnb's IPO range is set to rise, boosting the company's valuation to as much as $36 billion, and $41.8 billion on a fully-diluted basis.Bloomberg got its hands on some Sequoia returns data. Shockingly the data is good. Who could have imagined.Sourcegraph raised even more capital, raising both our eyebrows and its valuation.Luko added $60 million to its coffers, showing that the insurtech boom is not merely a United States-phenomenon.And in short-form: Highland Europe has a new fund, and Wonder raised.Here's the Extra Crunch piece that I helped write with Danny and Natasha.And that was our show. Hugs from here, and chat Thursday at the latest.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here, and myself here, and don’t forget to check out last Friday’s episode.What was on the docket this morning? All sorts of good stuff, though the Sumo Logic S-1 did drop just after we wrapped. Here's today's rundown:YC Demo day is this week, so make sure to stick around TechCrunch and Extra Crunch for all our coverage.SPACs continue, with more automotive companies looking at alt-routes to the public markets. This time it's Luminar. And, here's the Bill Gurley post that we promised to link to.E-commerce and on-demand are booming in China after we saw similar results via Uber and domestic e-commerce players.The Fortnite-Apple brouhaha continues with more filings and even Microsoft weighing in. At the same time TikTok v. The United States appears set to go to court. (Zuck is behind some anti-TikTok Washington sentiment, it appears.)The Palantir S-1 has gone missing. Where is it? Give it to us!Dataiku has raised $100 million for its enterprise AI platform. Forbes has more.Datasembly has raised $10.3 million in new capital for its IRL store data service. TechCrunch has more.The Anti-Antitrust Club is live and you can read it here. We're trying to find out who is taking on the biggest names in tech on purpose. Who would be so garishly bold? The Anti-Antitrust club!Whew, with YC and Palantir this week and a chat with Twilio's CEO it's going to be an active few days. Ready?

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here, and myself here, and don’t forget to check out last Friday’s episode.What was on the docket this morning? All sorts of good stuff, though the Sumo Logic S-1 did drop just after we wrapped. Here's today's rundown:YC Demo day is this week, so make sure to stick around TechCrunch and Extra Crunch for all our coverage.SPACs continue, with more automotive companies looking at alt-routes to the public markets. This time it's Luminar. And, here's the Bill Gurley post that we promised to link to.E-commerce and on-demand are booming in China after we saw similar results via Uber and domestic e-commerce players.The Fortnite-Apple brouhaha continues with more filings and even Microsoft weighing in. At the same time TikTok v. The United States appears set to go to court. (Zuck is behind some anti-TikTok Washington sentiment, it appears.)The Palantir S-1 has gone missing. Where is it? Give it to us!Dataiku has raised $100 million for its enterprise AI platform. Forbes has more.Datasembly has raised $10.3 million in new capital for its IRL store data service. TechCrunch has more.The Anti-Antitrust Club is live and you can read it here. We're trying to find out who is taking on the biggest names in tech on purpose. Who would be so garishly bold? The Anti-Antitrust club!Whew, with YC and Palantir this week and a chat with Twilio's CEO it's going to be an active few days. Ready?

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.We wound up having more to talk about than we had time for but we packed as much as we could into 34 minutes. So, climb aboard with Danny, Natasha, and myself for another episode of Equity.Before we get into topics, a reminder that if you are signing up for Extra Crunch and want to save some money, the code "equity" is your friend. Alright, let's get into it: Robinhood is back in the news this week after a New York Times piece dug into its history, product decisions, and more. Tidbits galore are to be had, but the Equity crew wanted to debate the morality of providing exotic financial tooling to less-experienced users. We followed that debate with a dive into immigration, the latest news from the government, and our takes on the matter. TechCrunch has covered the recent news, and provided some context on the broader concept. Our takeaway is that doing self-defeating things for no reason isn't brilliant for the country as a whole. Postmates has a home! After winding up somewhere in the middle of the pack of the on-demand cohort a few years back, the rise of DoorDash put Postmates in a pickle. Happily, Uber was on hand to de-brine the unicorn for $2.65 billion in stock. That's a bit more money than Postmates' last valuation. What we want to know next is how the sale price impacted common stockholders. Email us if you know. Palantir has filed to go public, but privately, so that's really all there is to say about that. Unless you need a history lesson. Finally, funding rounds. We had three this week: MonkeyLearn raising $2.2 million for no-code AI, Quaestor raising $5.8 million for startup financial tooling, and $4.5 million for Mmhmm which is both timely and neat.Whew! Past all that we had some fun, and, hopefully, were of some use. Hugs and chat Monday!

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.We wound up having more to talk about than we had time for but we packed as much as we could into 34 minutes. So, climb aboard with Danny, Natasha, and myself for another episode of Equity.Before we get into topics, a reminder that if you are signing up for Extra Crunch and want to save some money, the code "equity" is your friend. Alright, let's get into it: Robinhood is back in the news this week after a New York Times piece dug into its history, product decisions, and more. Tidbits galore are to be had, but the Equity crew wanted to debate the morality of providing exotic financial tooling to less-experienced users. We followed that debate with a dive into immigration, the latest news from the government, and our takes on the matter. TechCrunch has covered the recent news, and provided some context on the broader concept. Our takeaway is that doing self-defeating things for no reason isn't brilliant for the country as a whole. Postmates has a home! After winding up somewhere in the middle of the pack of the on-demand cohort a few years back, the rise of DoorDash put Postmates in a pickle. Happily, Uber was on hand to de-brine the unicorn for $2.65 billion in stock. That's a bit more money than Postmates' last valuation. What we want to know next is how the sale price impacted common stockholders. Email us if you know. Palantir has filed to go public, but privately, so that's really all there is to say about that. Unless you need a history lesson. Finally, funding rounds. We had three this week: MonkeyLearn raising $2.2 million for no-code AI, Quaestor raising $5.8 million for startup financial tooling, and $4.5 million for Mmhmm which is both timely and neat.Whew! Past all that we had some fun, and, hopefully, were of some use. Hugs and chat Monday!

Welcome to TechCrunch daily news, a round up of the top tech news of the day. -- Apple's Phil Schiller discusses the recent Hey controversy -- Facebook removes Trump ads -- and we launch a major new project at Extra Crunch. Here's your Daily Crunch for June 19, 2020. First up: In an interview with TechCrunch, Apple's Phil Schiller says their position on the Hey app is unchanged, and no rules changes are imminent.

When Christiane Lemieux was looking to sell her first company, she knew she wanted to find a buyer that understood that the future revolved around Ecommerce. She found that buyer in Wayfair and for the next few years, she worked with the company to cultivate as much knowledge about the eComm space as possible before venturing out on her own once more. Today. Christiane is the founder of The Inside and the author of numerous books, including her newest called Frictionless. The idea of her new company and the book revolves around the concept that in order to have success in the world of Ecommerce, you need to give your customers an experience that is so easy and efficient, that they never have a reason not to buy. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Christiane explains why that frictionless experience is so important, and how to make it a reality. Key Takeaways: Thanks to innovators like Bezos and Jobs, the world shops in a different need-it-now way. As a result, the biggest challenge Ecommerce platforms face is creating a frictionless experience By leveraging the design community to be consultants, The Inside is targeting customers who can buy with more frequency and create predictable, repeatable conversions Getting online quickly and the businesses who have a digital-first strategy are successful For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript:   Stephanie: Christiane, welcome to the show. How's it going? Christiane: Hey. It's going really well, Stephanie. How are you doing? Stephanie: Doing great. So, for all of our listeners, I want you to pronounce your own name since I did not do it this time. Christiane: My name is Christiane Lemieux. It's very French and a huge mouthful, so I completely give you a pass on that. Stephanie: Thank you for doing that, so I did not have to. So, you are the founder and CEO of The Inside, a direct-to-consumer home furnishing brand. I love to hear a little bit about that and how you started it? Christiane: Well, this is my second foray into the world of home furnishings. I started my first company, it was called DwellStudio, out of college. I went to university at Parsons School of Design here in New York. And I started a home furnishings brand from my New York apartment. 13 years later, I sold it to Wayfair. And speaking of what's up next in commerce and the digital landscape, part of the reason that I did that was that... Oh, you know what, I should cut my nail Hold on. Sorry. Let me just cut this so it doesn't ding on you. Stephanie: Okay. Christiane: Sorry, I'll go back to Wayfair. So, I sold my first company to Wayfair, and part of the reason that I did that was that I got to be entrepreneurial fork in the road where I had never really raised money before. And I realized that if I was going to continue down, the growth trajectory that I was on, it would involve me opening more than the one store I had in New York. It would involve me raising money for the first time, substantial amounts of money for the first time, to roll out stores. Christiane: And at the end of the day, I sat and thought for a very long time about the business model that I was on, that was growing, that I had started, and I realized that it didn't feel right to me. I really believed that all businesses were going to, at some point, in the near term or distant future, transition to eCommerce. And what I wanted to figure out was, who could I either partner with or sell to that would understand that idea and philosophy? Christiane: And so, I hired an investment bank in New York and they actually had me meet with a whole bunch of home furnishings companies, most of them, you would probably know. But when I walked into Wayfair's office in Boston with 1,800 people and 800 engineers, I realized that we were really aligned from a conceptual point of view in terms of what the future of DTC look like, direct-to-consumer look like. And so, it wasn't the best offer financially but, to me, it was the best offer intellectually and philosophically. So, I sold my business to Wayfair in 2013. Christiane: And then, I went on their executive committee. I mean to say that it was a learning would be doing a disservice. It was like a full immersion into eCommerce with one of the best teams in the country, and by far, the best team in my particular category. And so, I learned so much from them. Christiane: And as I was sitting there, I was like, "What would make me start another business? What in the world after building one from the ground up and selling it, what would I do?" And so, I realized that if I could take my first business, which is really design-first and brand-first, and then merge that into what I had learned at Wayfair from a digital commerce-first perspective, that I might be crazy enough to do it again. And that's what I did. Stephanie: Yeah, that's amazing. So, what were the key learnings that you took away from Wayfair, and maybe the pitfalls that you saw where you're like, "Oh, I should avoid that."? Because when I was looking into Wayfair, I think they're still very unprofitable. And so, did you see things like that and you're like, "Oh, if you just adjusted this part of the model or this part of logistics, I wouldn't have to worry about that."? Or what kind of things do you take away from that experience? Christiane: So, I would say there's almost nothing wrong with Wayfair. And I'm saying that, I mean that honestly. First of all, Niraj, their CEO is one of the smartest digital executives in the country, if not the world. I think that he's very much following the taking market share approach pioneered by Bezos, of course. And so, I think we're just very much on the same path. He will own the furniture category online and he will very quickly, if not even now. I mean, the last quarter was insane for them because now we're all sheltering at home and [inaudible] in a very different way than we did maybe nine weeks ago. But he'll take market share and he will be very profitable, and he'll own furnishings online. Christiane: There are other companies that have pursued that line of growth that weren't necessarily as equipped as he is. And he's equipped to do that. So, as relevant as that is in the post-WeWork discussion, I think in his particular case, he's already got the groundwork done to be able to do that and do it fairly flawlessly. I think for me- Stephanie: I mean, definitely still... The first company that comes to mind when I do think about buying furniture or looking for anything, even above Amazon and Walmart... I mean, they're the first ones I would go to so I agree. Christiane: Also, because they've got the best selection and they've also got the back-end figured out. And so, they taught me things like overpack centers. I was like, "What is an overpack center?" And so, they take- Christiane: They have overpack centers where they take in the goods from the manufacturers and they overpack them, so they don't break. And by diminishing the chance of something being damaged, not only do they make the customer experience better, which is really necessary in this day and age, but they also ensure that their margins don't get completely depleted by goods that arrive damaged. And so, it's not a crazy thing to do, but at the end of the day, it's totally crucial. Christiane: So, I mean, they taught me so much about, first of all, UX, customer experience, and then the logistics and the profound necessity to really think about delivery in a way that is beyond just parcel delivery or white glove delivery. They really think about it from a 360 perspective all the way from margin protection to a really flawless customer experience. Some of the things that you don't necessarily learn when you're building a design brand, I learned at Wayfair, so I'm forever thankful. Christiane: The difference is that they're like Amazon, they're a marketplace. And so largely, they don't design and produce their own SKUs or their own products. And they don't need to because their value prop is that in COVID-19 when every single person in the country, all of a sudden, needed some kind of a home office and/or home school. I mean, you went right to Wayfair and you ordered a desk and they came to you perfectly, right? Christiane: I wanted to take the ideas of brand and design but apply the Wayfair rigor of digital thought around how I executed this next brand, some of the things like having no inventory, having exclusive product, having a 3D studio to do the photography, dropship, largely dropship the product. So, instead of sending it through a more expensive white glove delivery, have it lightly assembled so that UPS or FedEx could do the delivery. And so, all of these things add up to really beautiful customer service, exclusive custom product to the customer, and then margin improvements around delivery, around no inventory, around a decreased cost in photo assets. Christiane: So, what I wanted to do is I challenged myself to think of all of the substantial problems with a home furnishings business, solve them first, and then start the business. And so, that's how I did it this time. Stephanie: That's super smart. So, how long has The Inside been operating and how's it doing today with everything going on? Christiane: So, I left Wayfair in 2016 and I called up my favorite supplier. She went into business with me on a B2B beta way. And so, we did that for close to two years. And then, I met the extraordinary, Kirsten Green of Forerunner, and she said to me, "This is really interesting, Christiane. Why don't I write you a pre-seat check and you go figure it out." Christiane: And so, we came out of beta in July of 18th. We're a year and a half in, and it's going very well. It's going very well. In this pandemic, I did not have the category breath that Wayfair has which made this a very interesting business time for them, but enough of a product breath that I think that we're helping people improve their homes on a daily basis right now, which is what we set out to do. Christiane: And listen, I feel extraordinarily lucky that it's a digital-first company. I don't have stores, I have a very lean staff. We were working from a work kosher, which we closed down at the end of April. So, we are going to be dispersed until, at least, the beginning of 2021, so we won't have an office. We can do all of this virtually. We hold no inventory, so we have no warehouses. Essentially, we had to let go two people just to preserve the business. But we've come through this, I think, as well as you can. My whole MO right now is making sure that nobody loses a job, really, because that's the scariest part of all of this is the unemployment numbers. I mean, that just keeps me up at night. Stephanie: I know. Yeah, seeing how high they're trending is definitely that's scary. Was there any big digital pivots you had to make or that you made quickly when COVID-19 started, or right now? Christiane: Well, I think that what we did... Apparently, from my digital marketing, either cohort or people that we work with, there are three DTC areas that have done very well in this particular pandemic, I mean, the Starling pandemic, so this pandemic, but it's athleisure, home, and alcohol. So, those three things had extraordinary growth. We happen to be in one of those categories. Christiane: I think one of the things that we did, which I think, anybody in a growth category in this particular time, we stayed the course with marketing. So, a lot of people caught their marketing. And what we're seeing is customer acquisition costs have come down, the cost for all of these paid marketing initiatives across all the platforms have come down. And so, we really leaned into that. Christiane: The other interesting thing that's sort of trend that's come out of this is not the digital marketing, I don't know if you've noticed this, but a lot of people are doing direct mail. Direct mail a huge resurgence obviously, depending on the category you're in, but people are home, and they're reading their direct mail. Stephanie: You shifted into that space of it? Christiane: We're looking into it now. Stephanie: Cool. Yeah, that's great. When you were first building The Inside, were there certain key technologies that you leaned on to build up the website, or are there any favorites that you utilize? I mean, I saw you have quizzes on the website, which seemed amazing. Is there anything specific where you're like, "This is my favorite piece of tech we use or a plug-in how we build our website." Any details around that? Christiane: Well, it's funny, this is our third iteration of our website. Christiane: So, we actually had to build our site from the ground up, which has its challenges. Christiane: One of the things that happened to us is we were on a really new version of Java, and Google couldn't index our site in the beginning so we had to do all kinds of back-end hacks to fix that. But for like three weeks, we're like, "Why is our traffic so bad?" And then, we realized that we weren't showing up at all. Stephanie: That's not great. Christiane: No, it's so horrible. So, just all these learnings along the way have been really interesting. So, because of the customizable aspect of our business, we had to build our own site from the bottom up, and that's given us the ability to keep growing our SKU count and keep allowing people to customize each and every one of the pieces. Christiane: I think that there's plug-ins. Everybody loves the Affirm or any kind of extended payment plan. There are things that are so unbelievable like Apple Pay and Amazon Wallet and all these things. If you don't have them, I mean, you're putting yourself at a huge disadvantage. I mean, they're not necessarily plug-ins, they're more payment tools. Christiane: I think the name of the game now is, it goes right to the core of my book, is making the experience frictionless. I mean, this is philosophical, but I think if frictionless extends even beyond that digital aspect of our lives, people are used to getting what they want, when they want, at the price they want, with the look they want, because of... Christiane: And I would say that Bezos might be the grandfather or the father of the frictionless experience. I mean, he changed the way we consume, and buying, shopping, whatever, fundamentally, in the same way that Steve Jobs changed the way we think about media. I mean, Bezos changed the way we shop, and he made it frictionless for us, and he keeps going beyond. Because if you think about Amazon Prime, he made everything accessible to us in two days. I mean, not necessarily right now, but generally speaking, and that just removes the friction from everything. Christiane: And philosophically, it's given us time back in our lives, right? Especially, let's think about others, me as a mom, I never have to take two hours of my day to go to the toy store to get the Lego for my son, William's friend, Gray's birthday party ever. It gets delivered to my house and it takes me no time. And that time that I get back, I mean, pre-COVID, I think the digital generation looks at time in a completely different way and the generation that preceded that, right? Stephanie: I absolutely agree. Christiane: Yeah, because there is all of this found time, and I think the digital generation also understands that it is the only non-renewable resource, right? If you have money, you can throw it on almost anything, right? I mean, you can have a jab for a trainer or whatever, or if you're clever and you have to be resourceful like me, you can find, I don't know, a meal delivery service or the stretch class on Mindbody, or whatever it is you're looking for. There's ways to hack almost anything. The only thing we can't hack is time. Christiane: And so, the more frictionless your experiences are across every single thing you need to do every day from like your healthcare all the way down to your grocery shopping, the more of this found time essentially you get back or digital time. Christiane: Pre-COVID, the people were applying that to travel, experience, I don't know, wellness, self-care, working out, all these things. Because it's the first generation that doesn't have to wait in line to get their license renewed at the DMV. Stephanie: Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a very different generation now who knows nonsense and they're not going to put up with the old way of doing things. How did you think about designing your website and your customer journey to create that frictionless experience? I mean, like I said earlier, I love seeing the quiz. I actually took it to see what kind of bedframe I should buy. How did you think about designing things to make it easy for people to buy? Especially furniture, that's kind of tricky. People are usually used to testing it out. Christiane: They're used to testing it out. So, my caveat is the following, that is definitely a work in progress. We look at this every day in every way, I don't think we've made it frictionless yet but we're trying to. And I think that for home furnishings, in some ways, we have to act as your decorating friend, as well as your place to buy the product. And so, to the extent, we can make your choices easier, so the quiz or you can text us or email us or set up an appointment for a design consultation with us. If we can help you be your trusted friend and design advisor, that I think is one of the tools to a frictionless experience. Christiane: Like every other eCommerce site, there's table stakes things like, "If you don't like it, you can return it," and you have 30 days to return it. Because you know what, that's just the name of the game today. And also, we have to ship it to you for free because that's also the name of the game today. Christiane: So, there are things that have been institutionalized, I'd say, by Amazon first and then adopted by everybody else that are just table stakes. And so, we started out with those and that was, I think, like 1.0 of frictionlessness online. And then the companies that are really forward thinking are the ones that could build on that on a near constant basis. So, yeah, that's very much where we are philosophically and trying to make the UX better every day. Stephanie: Got it. What kind of metrics are you focusing on when you're making all these iterations and trying to make the experience even better? Are there certain things you pay attention to or that you sync up with your team every week and go over? Christiane: A lot of it is Google Analytics and then we look at the Facebook metrics for the paid marketing, all of these things. But some of the things we look at are, obviously, like the really basic ones like bounce rate. One of the things that people are looking at now is, they call it dwell time, how long people spend on each page and how in-depth they go. So, we look at that. Christiane: We look at who designs a piece of furniture, and then transacts, and then who abandons the cart and why. And so, we're trying to finesse the experience all the time so that people feel they're not stuck with paralysis of choice. Because I think the thing about customizing is that, especially if there's 16,000 different iterations you can possibly make, you might get paralyzed by choice. Christiane: So, the quiz is very helpful there because you may have learned that you like coastal mid-century, your favorite color is blue, here are three patterns that you like that are foolproof for you. And then, you can go from there. You can iterate from there. So, you can choose a brass leg or wood leg or whatever that works for the rest of your interior. But at least you've narrowed down to the extent you can, algorithmically what you like. And so I think that, I mean, all of those things are super important. Stephanie: And I think less choices is definitely key. Especially I've seen a model where they're populating an entire room for you of like, "Here's the whole entire bundle, so you don't even have to think about it. You can swap things in." And like you said, having someone that you can text is so super important, where you feel like you have a friend where you're like, "How would this look? What do you think about this? Show me something that's similar." I think all of those are really strategic. Stephanie: But when it comes to some of those metrics, how do you... For dwell time, for instance, I think any of these might lead you down the wrong path based on what's happening right now with the current environment where I heard that, well, times are up, but then conversions aren't maybe up at the same rate. Is there any metrics where you're like, "Oh, they might be reading into that the wrong way, and we shouldn't maybe take a quick action based on that right now." Christiane: I think that's right. I think people are... Because we have so much time, and content looks different from one person to the other, the content they like. So, if you're in the middle of decorating your house, you might be on all these sites, and because you have, all of a sudden, more disposable time at your fingertips than you have in the past. So, I think dwell time is important, but add-to-cart is really the thing you want to see, and then the final conversion. Christiane: So, we look at where people are hanging out from a GA perspective and then look at the add-to-cart and then look at the conversion on that add-to-cart. Of course, for us, the metrics that we want to focus on are getting from add-to-carts to conversion to the extent we can, and so trying to make the PDP and the the checkout page as flawless as and as inviting as possible to really get people to transact. Christiane: I mean, in front of that is as much inspiration as we can possibly allow people to consume, whether it's through Instagram or through Facebook Ads or through whatever means to get them inspired. But really, our job, especially on a site level, is to make it so easy that why wouldn't you buy it? And to the extent we can quell your paralysis of choice. That's really where we're focused right now, is really helping you design the space of your dreams digitally. Stephanie: Very cool. So, you just mentioned Instagram. I saw that you launched an Instagram Live series called Go Inside. Can you speak a bit about how you're utilizing that to potentially drive sales and the strategy behind that, and ROI that you've seen on that content or how you measure that? Christiane: Well, I think, for us, part of this... The interesting thing about the home furnishings business is that there are two distinct consumers, there is the DTCs, so the consumer you think about who wants to buy an upholstered headboard and goes on and chooses their fabric, and executes on that, but there's also the trade. Christiane: And so, our particular category has interior designers, and many of them who, at the end of the day, are a very big part of this business, and a very, very important customer to anybody in the home furnishings business because they are buying on behalf of multiple people. And if you make the whole experience frictionless for them, it's not just one bed every five years, it could be five beds every month. Christiane: And so, I think part of our Instagram strategy is really letting the rest of our community meet the interior designers that really work with our product, not only so that they can see what this community does, but also, at the end of the day, we would love our interior designers to get business and to really think about this, not only as a home furnishing company, but as a community that we're growing for people who love design and who want to, as we call it, live beyond the beige. And for us, that's really people who want to personalize their spaces, and think about their spaces as something that is theirs and that is customizable, in a way that's frictionless. And so, by going live with our interior designers, we're introducing the world to this great community of people who can service that. Christiane: A little early for ROI right now, but if we circle back in a little bit of time, I can let you know, because data has to have like a decent subset, right? So, we just launched a home design 30-minute consultation, and that's really helpful in terms of conversion. Because if people get you on the on the line and walking through their spaces and really helping them, chances are it's the kind of help that they're looking for. So, we find that useful. Stephanie: Well, how do you think about scalability when it comes to having those one-on-one interactions with the customer and consulting them on the products and whatnot? Christiane: Well, that's where these two things dovetail together, right? And so, if we build a really beautiful, robust design community that is local... Because every different area has a different design philosophy. In California, you can live indoor or outdoor, in New York, a lot less. And so, if I can introduce you to a design in your area via Instagram Live, and he or she is showing off some of the projects they've done, there's a good chance that you will then reach out to them and let them know that you were introduced to their work on The Inside. Christiane: And the rest, I think, is just great for everybody involved. I mean, that's my business philosophy. I love a win-win-win, so the customer wins there, the designer wins there, and we win there not just because of a sale, but because we've made somebody's home and life better. Stephanie: Yeah, that's a really good strategy. And this thought that you are partnering with the designers and having them do the consultation, that's super smart, where you don't really have to worry too much about hiring a bunch of people and customer support to do it who don't really have good design principles probably. Christiane: Yup. That's how we'll scale. So, we're just at the inception of this, but you get it, right? So, they can meet Maureen Stevens on Thursday night or tomorrow night, and if she's in New Orleans and if they love her design, they can call her up. And when she finds out that they were sent to her via The Inside, then she'll most likely, I mean, hopefully, use one of our upholstered beds in her next project. But even if she doesn't, if somebody gets a better interior because of something we did along the way, then I feel pretty good about that. Stephanie: These micro-influencers and designers who are helping with these consultations, are they starting to request metrics and wanting to see data and things that your team will have to start supporting eventually? Christiane: I hope so, but not yet. I hope that... Listen, that's part of that frictionless post-COVID change. I think everybody is going to need data, digitally-driven data, so that they understand exactly what the reach is beyond this traditional business models that they've had prior to all this. Stephanie: Yup. I think that because of COVID, a lot of people are definitely putting on their entrepreneurial hats and they're going to want to see those metrics. And I think it'd be really interesting to have some type of leaderboard that would show which designer is doing the best and who's helping customers, and just gamify it a bit. Christiane: That'd be so much fun. It's almost like you're at, whatever it is, flywheel and who's biking the fastest. Stephanie: Yeah, I know. Just implement that tomorrow. Easy. So, are you- Christiane: Stephanie, I'm going to take a note right here and actually do that. That's pretty interesting. Stephanie: Yeah. I think that's where a lot of the world is going when it comes to gamifying certain purchases and making it more fun. Well, when it comes to gamifying, are there any pieces of tech that you're thinking about? I was just playing around with IKEA's app where they have AR that you can put the product in your room, which was really fun to play with. I was just putting full-on dressers on top of the bed and just being silly with it. But have you thought about doing that since your products are so unique, it seems like it would be really good to get them in the room where people are trying to design it? Christiane: Absolutely, yes. And in fact, we were talking to a company in Palo Alto, who was on the forefront of this, probably right around the corner from you. Stephanie: Oh, we're neighbors. Christiane: Yeah. And they are pioneering this incredible drag and drop. So essentially, you can take a picture of your room, and then you can drag and drop furniture into it. It's so well done. It's so well done that they can tell where your window is and they can have a shadow underneath the furniture so that it looks perfectly real. Interestingly, a lot of the technology that people use for gaming is really applicable here. So, it can create a really unique and kind of true-to-life experience. Christiane: So, yes, we're looking to this all the time. I think that as a brand spanking new startup, we're trying to make sure the fundamentals are frictionless before we add all kinds of layers of complexity to the customer experience. So, we want to make sure that it's really easy for you right now to go in and say like, "I love the modern platform bed and I like it in polka dot. I'm going to transact," versus... Because I think that we got to make sure the customers where we are in terms of technology, too. So, I think we're taking baby steps there, but the answer is absolutely yes. And all of that technology is fascinating to me. Stephanie: Yeah, completely agree. I'm definitely watching that market closely and it seems like people are leaning heavily in, but agree that until you understand how you want the customer journey to work and the product to work and everything, I think... Stephanie: We were just talking with someone from Lenovo who's saying that after years of being in business, you have to just start killing a bunch of things because too many things build up and it starts worsening the customer experience. So, it's probably good to figure everything out first before pulling in a bunch of new trendy tools. Christiane: Yeah. We need to have a really beautiful conversion rate indicating to us that the customer journey is frictionless before we can start throwing pretty complex essentially gaming ideas at them. Stephanie: Yup. And it would seem like you would need a pretty large catalog as well if you're going to develop an entire AR app for your company. I mean, people probably slip through placing furniture. I mean, at least that's what I was doing. I was like, bang, bang, bang, bang. I was putting in front of everywhere. It seems like I would need a pretty large catalog for that, too. Christiane: I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. And so, somebody like IKEA touches every part of your house. I mean, we're too young to have that kind of SKU count. It has to be in every single category, right? You can't just have the dining room chairs, you have to have the dining room table too. So, we'll get there. We're not there today. And so, I think that you're right. That's a very good point. And so, IKEA is a layup for them. It's a layup for Wayfair as well. Stephanie: Yeah. Are there any specific follow ups you do with your customers to keep them coming back, or ways that you're acquiring new customers that is maybe unique? Christiane: What's great about our category is that design is a process, right? I mean, even if you hire an interior designer, it usually takes quite a while. And also, people are thinking about their homes in a different way than they used to. It's all these things where it's done, you live in it, and that's it. I think people are constantly upgrading or adding in seasonal elements. And so, once we know you, Stephanie, are coastal mid-century from your quiz, we can keep sending you design ideas that- Stephanie: Did you just see my quiz? Christiane: No. Is that- Stephanie: That's what I was. I'm like, "Did you see me?" Christiane: But I have a feeling. Well, first of all, I can see your personal file from our Zoom earlier today, so I- Stephanie: You mean, hoodie and sweatshirt? Just kidding. Christiane: I also know where you are. I know how old you are. I know where you went to school. But this is all I do all day long, so I can pretty much- Stephanie: You're good. Christiane: ... figure it out. So, since you are coastal mid-century, I would know what to send you as a follow-up. I don't know if you have outdoor space or not, but I might send you some really cool outdoor furniture that would work with the bed you had. I will try and assist you in decorating your space, getting the home of your dreams pretty subtly until one day, you pick up the phone and say, "Hey, Christiane, will you just call me back because I want to do my entire living room?" And I will say, "Of course," and I will call you back and you'll FaceTime me through your living room and we'll decorate it. Christiane: But until then, I'm going to show you all the beautiful things you can have at very reasonable prices to make your space exactly the mid-century coastal dream you want it to be. Stephanie: That's great. It's a good process. So, to pivot a little bit, you've written a couple books and I'd love to dive into them because they're all around everything eCommerce, it seems. And so, if you want to maybe start with your most recent one or your first one, whatever one you want, I would love to hear about them. Christiane: Well, so I've written three books and I'm working on two other ones right now. But the first book I wrote was called Undecorate and it was really, for me, that watershed moment in design when I realized that the way people approach their interiors was no longer going to be like, "I design it. I live in it for 25 years. My kids take a few things when I die and that's the end of it." I realized that people were approaching their interiors the way they were approaching fashion. And that was largely because for the first time ever, things like Pinterest, that was right after Instagram launched... But all these things, all of a sudden, we were surrounded by content and media in a completely different way. So, you didn't have to buy a magazine to look at a beautiful interior, you got to see it all day long on your phone. Christiane: And so, what that did was, I believe, it raised the design IQ, not only of our audience in the United States, but globally. And so, all of a sudden, people are interested in interiors, they're interested in design history. They're interested in all these things that they weren't before and they think about their spaces in a less static way. So, I wrote that book. Christiane: And then, I followed it up with a book called The Finer Things, which was my first Instagram-generation encyclopedia of the decorative arts on the same day, and I'm writing right now the Instagram-generation encyclopedia of important furniture. This one's take me a long time, I think, four years to write. It's a big project. [inaudible] is the one I'm writing about furniture right now. Will probably take me between two and a half and three. Christiane: And then, I wrote Frictionless, which is really my first business book. Because I realized that I had started a business out of college in 2000. I grew it organically for 13 years. And if I hadn't written a book at the end of that journey, it would have been useless. It would have been fire-starting kindling at this point, because everything had changed, every single thing. Stephanie: It makes you wonder if you can rely on books these days anymore because, I mean, especially around eCommerce, everything's new and so quick. It's like what sources should I even look at to stay up to date with things? It's definitely probably not a book. Christiane: Yeah. I mean, I sat and thought what is the underlying differentiator? What makes something win or something lose here, right, if I look at all the incumbents in my industry. But just generally, what is it? What's the winner or loser? And what I realized was that it was the frictionless experience that allowed somebody to get into a, it could be a crowded category. Christiane: But if you can do in the least invasive way, you will win because all people want is as few clicks as possible to get exactly what they want with the commerce table stakes and have it delivered to their home and they don't want somebody calling them up with a delivery time. They don't want 37 phone calls. They don't want a helpline where nobody helps them. When you get into those scenarios, you're like, "I'm not doing this. I'm never coming back." Stephanie: Whenever someone wants to call me, I'm like, "Oh, can we not? And don't leave me a voicemail. Can you just text me, please?" Christiane: Yeah, just text me. Or my favorite thing is Slack. Just Slack me. Christiane: Slack is frictionless. I mean, it's beautiful. Christiane: And so, experiences like that, I don't know, equal parts art and science, I think is the big differentiator. We, as human people, now that we've experienced it, that's what we want. We want the Slack experience in every single facet of our life. And if it's not- Stephanie: No one's going back after that. Christiane: No, no. And if it's not that, then you're like, "Why does this suck so badly?" And then, you find the experience in that, I don't know, that milieu that you need, and you can find it. I mean, if you can't find it today, you'll be able to find it soon. And that's what every business should go after. Christiane: Because all the rest of it is table stakes, right, like fast and free delivery, great design. You can do those things, but to do it in a frictionless way is what's going to change your business or give you the competitive advantage you need to take market share. I mean, that's what Wayfair taught me. And when I sold to them and I understood how far ahead of the commerce game they were, it was amazing to me. Stephanie: Yeah, that's such a good experience. When you were doing your research for Frictionless, was there any surprises that you found or companies that you're following that were doing something surprising that you hadn't thought of? Or just a good process that you were like, "Oh, that's really neat. I can see why it works for them."? Christiane: There's so many nuggets in this book. I mean, I find just talking to the founder of Ixcela, she does a gut biome. You send in your... I'm obsessed with that. You send in your blood sample through the mail. I mean, the idea that we can have MIT science level help digitally is amazing to me. I mean, all of these... That is going to be the outcome of this particular pandemic because what we're realizing is that all of the things we thought we needed to do like endless in-person meetings, we just don't need to. I mean, I will never take 60 subways in a day in New York again to go to in-person meetings unless they're absolutely necessary. Christiane: So, I'm thinking about my life through the lens of frictionless experience. Those things, that's a lot of friction, like running around, being late, being stressed, when we don't need to do it. I mean, Zoom has also changed our lives, all of these platforms. Christiane: And the interesting thing is that I believe the entire world, regardless of what generation you are, just got schooled in technology, right? We all just got fully immersed in what it means to be a digital citizen. Christiane: Even my 75-year-old mom in Ottawa, Canada knows how to use Zoom now and thinks it's the greatest thing ever, and I'm like, "Mom, I told you so." But sometimes it takes being forced into something to realize how extraordinary it is. And now she realizes she can have all of her grandkids all over the world on one Zoom call and everybody can talk to each other. How amazing is that? Stephanie: That sounds very similar to my parents as well. They were teaching me how to put backgrounds on Zoom. I'm like, "Mom, I got it. But thank you." Actually, she did send me a pretty funny article that showed how to loop a video on Zoom so it looked like you were moving around and paying attention in a meeting, which I guess her... She's a teacher, so I think some of her students were doing that. They were looping themselves just moving around a few times, and it looked like they were really on board with the whole lesson. Christiane: Oh, my God. That is hilarious. Stephanie: I'm like, "That's good. Thank you for sharing that wisdom." Christiane: One of the partners that we're working with at The Inside, it's a very big home furnishings company and they are pretty sophisticated digitally, and all of them have a constant Zoom competition of who has the coolest background. Apparently, somebody had something like a 1980s workout video. That was fantastic last week. These guys are thinking about this on a near constant basis like your Zoom background now is a reflection of who you are and how creative you are, how digitally savvy you are. I think it's hilarious. Stephanie: So to zoom out a little bit, what do you think the future of online commerce looks like after the pandemic's over? Do you think things are going to shift back a bit to how they were? What kind of disruptions do you see coming down the pipe? Christiane: People would think "we're going back to normal," I think normal has changed. And I firmly believe that the companies that weren't thinking digitally are thinking digitally very seriously now. Christiane: Because as I told you, here I am in SoHo, New York and it turns out when there's a pandemic, nobody lives here. At 7:00 at night is when we all cheer. I mean, there's now six of us on my block who I see every night, and everyone else is gone. And there is one coffee shop that's open, and that coffee shop very early on had a contactless app. So, you could order your coffee in advance and then go and pick it up. Nobody touched anybody with gloves and a face mask on. I've gone there every single morning for the last nine weeks because I want to get out of my apartment and I want to see some of the world, and they have really good coffee. Christiane: And across the street from them is the fanciest coffee place in New York that people are die hard lovers of, and you know what, the doors are closed and they never came up with a contactless app and they never figured out how to digitally bring themselves into this particular pandemic and keep their business going. And I think that that's only like a neighborhood version of what the rest of commerce is going to look like, and not only commerce, just like service as well. I think that people are going to have to think about how to pivot their particular businesses digitally as quickly as possible. Stephanie: I don't think this will be the first event where businesses have to come online quickly and figure it out. And we'll definitely see the people who did do that this time and the ones who didn't. Christiane: Yeah, especially some of the ones that didn't and who are waiting for things to go back to normal might not make it through this. And that breaks my heart because there are fairly... You could probably scrappily do something fairly quickly, but you have to want to. And I think that people that didn't have their head in the sand... Is that what the ostrich does? Stick their head in the ground? Stephanie: I think so. Christiane: If your head wasn't in the sand, and you were iterating, or at least pivoting during this, it's going to serve you really well on the other side. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it seems like it'll be, well, it is an environment right now where people have to learn quickly, but they'll probably look back and be like, "Glad I did that." We learned and we moved at the pace that normally would have taken us maybe on a five-year roadmap, we were able to get it done in a week or two weeks. We got pushed into that, but I'm sure they'll look back and be happy they did. Christiane: But also, look at the very fast category options. I look at the home furnishings category where, I don't know, it'd be those between 20% and 25% of consumers were willing to buy the category online. I think, in the last ten weeks, it went up to 60% or 70%. I mean, that is massive, world class adoption in a very short period of time. And I would imagine that that is universal across some of these categories. So, it'll be really interesting to see what happens post the pandemic. Christiane: But the people that are listening to the CDC won't be rushing out and shopping and going to the beach as quickly as... Some people will and some people want. So, I think that digital adoption is going to be extended, at least for 18 to 24 months, if not, forever. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree. So, before we move into the lightning round, which I'll explain, is there any other thoughts or ideas you have that you want to share? Christiane: No, I think we've covered up everything. I mean, I could go off... You and I are philosophically aligned that this is the way of the future. I mean, I could talk about this for days, but we need a whole Round 2. Stephanie: Yeah. It'll be really interesting to see what the landscape looks like in 8 to 10 months, if not, and then again in 24. Because I think you're right, I think that the people that are thinking on their feet and iterating constantly and really pivoting their businesses to be digital-first in whatever, incumbent-second are the people that are going to win here. It'll be a really fun way to look back. Stephanie: All right, then the lightning round, which is brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud, who sponsored this podcast, of course. Christiane: Excellent. Stephanie: This is where I... Yes, they are great. They're amazing. Christiane: They are. Stephanie: This is where I ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Does that sound good? Christiane: Sure. Stephanie: All right, what's up next on your reading list? Christiane: What's up next on my reading list? Oh, I have a really good friend in New York City who just wrote a book, Lauren Sandler, and I'm going to read her book next and it is called Christiane: Her new book is called This Is All I Got, and it's A New Mother's Search for Home. She is an investigative journalist. She writes for The New Yorker and New York Times. And she actually followed a single mother through the shelter system in New York. But I've just started it, it's pretty amazing. Stephanie: I'm going to check that out. Christiane: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I'm trying to think what else? What am I reading that's like business-related? What is it? Harder Things? I just started it. Stephanie: The Hard Thing About Hard Things? Christiane: The Hard Thing About Hard Things is the business book that I'm reading right now. My editor at Harper who did Frictionless, also was the editor on Ben Horowitz' book. Stephanie: Oh, cool. I got to read that. Christiane: Yeah. I highly recommend that one. Stephanie: Highly recommend? Christiane: Yeah. I think that there are probably universal truths. And also, we're going through hard things right now. And I think it's people that are accepting and fluid in the hard things that end up being okay. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree. What's up next on your podcast list? Christiane: On my podcast list? Oh, my God, there's so many on my podcast list, but I'm stuck on the daily right now, if I'm honest, because, first of all, the news is so completely crazy and riveting. And also, I'm obsessed with all the COVID data. You know, I just had the test because my son was exhibiting some symptoms, and all three of us are negative. Stephanie: That's good. Christiane: Yeah, it's really good. But as a parent, the whole Kawasaki manifestation of this is very scary. Because the first bill of goods we got sold was that, "Oh, if your kids are under 20, you're fine." I was like, "Great." I don't care if I get it, I'll figure it out. But if my kids get it, I don't know what I'm going to do. And now, that's not the truth at all. So, that's generally where you'll find me. It's hard to take your ears away from the news right now. Stephanie: I know. Yeah. I have to, every once in a while, take a break because I have three kids under two and a half. Christiane: Wow. You're like me. My kids are 21 months apart. Stephanie: So, who do you follow in the industry or any newsletters or sources that you go to to stay up-to-date on all things eCommerce? Christiane: Wow. I mean, everything, like Crunchbase and TechCrunch. Oh, and I've been watching some of the podcasts, some of the live stuff on Extra Crunch. I'm trying to think eCommerce. I mean, there's just so much of it. I don't know, where else do I follow? Stephanie: Or if nothing comes to mind, we can also skip this one. Christiane: Okay. I mean, all of the above. And also, all the inbound newsletters and things like that. But just generally, the newspaper. Stephanie: Oh, newspaper. Okay. The last harder question is what's up next for eCommerce professionals? Christiane: What's up next for eCommerce professionals? Wow. Stephanie: Big shift. Christiane: Well, I think that everyone is going to have to become somewhat of an eCommerce professional first of all. I don't think digital and analog are going to be two separate things anymore after this particular pandemic, and I think that everybody out there is understanding that in a pretty profound way. I think that digital immersion is not only necessary, I mean, I think it's the only way to actually stay relevant and push your career forward. Christiane: Part of the reason that I wrote the book was also to try and understand being the parent of two children, what the future would look like for my kids and what does that mean for college and all these things? Because I wanted to understand 72% of people want to be entrepreneurs, and what does that mean? And so, I think that if they think about that from a digital perspective, it's actually a pretty great place to be, right? It means you're immersing yourself in the digital aspect of things. I think that it's not just eCommerce professionals, it's going to be every single professional. Christiane: I do think when I look at the landscape, that the content part of this is really important, right? Because even when I was at Wayfair, I mean, we did content but it wasn't merged the same way. So, your AR question I think is really important. I think that we're going to shift online for a lot of the things that we did in analog ways before this. Christiane: So, if I'm an interior designer, I'm not thinking about what my career looks like when I come into your house, I'm thinking about what can I learn online so that I can do it for you from a distance, right? And I would apply that to every single aspect of every single job out there. If I have an analog job, how can I digitize that? And I think everybody's going to have to think about that. Christiane: I mean, look at doctors are doing it through telemedicine and designers are doing it through FaceTime. You can go down every single career. I mean, pharmacists are doing it through telemedicine as well. One of the people that I profiled in the book is Eric Kinariwala from Capsule in New York. And I mean, that's a genius business because he's delivering everything from the drugstore, all of your pharmaceutical needs, anything that your doctor has prescribed, you can get delivered to your home. I'm talking to him next week, but I think he probably crushed it in this particular scenario. Christiane: So, I think there's no... You're not on one side of the fence or the other, like this silo in the company does eCommerce and this one does regular commerce. I mean, I think that the two now are going to be forever conjoined. Stephanie: Yeah, that's such a good point. Completely agree. Well, this has been such a fun interview. We definitely need to be back for Round 2. Where can people find out more about you and The Inside and your upcoming book? Christiane: Well, my upcoming book is at frictionless.pub, and you can get a copy of it there. It links to Amazon and Barnes and Noble and every other great book place to buy books. The Inside is theinside.com. And the rest, there's an endless breadth of information on Google. Stephanie: Yup. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on the show. It's been such a blast. Christiane: Thank you. Thanks, Stephanie.  

The full interview hereHunter Walk thinks your TAM slide is stupid.That's one viewpoint that the seed-stage investor shared with TechCrunch that made us laugh during our recent conversation. Walk joined us for an Extra Crunch Live chat late last week that was a mix of advice and insight about what the seed-stage Homebrew partner looks for in founders and companies to invest in.In the case of founders, "attitude matters as much as aptitude sometimes," Walk said, adding that "grit" and "resilience" are things he favors in entrepreneurs. Why do those qualities matter? Walk cited the Mike Tyson quip about everyone having a plan until they get punched in the face, saying that "building an early-stage startup, you get punched in the face almost daily."Form one line, folks considering building a new company.We also dug into fintech, where Walk and his Homebrew partner Satya Patel have made a number of investments that have turned out well, including Plaid, Finix, Chime and so on. According to Walk, his firm has made investments into the startup category across funds because it felt that two things were going to happen. First, that "a lot of data that had been siloed and unavailable was going to become available," citing Plaid as an example of the trend.Second, that the top-down model of building tooling that made chiefs happier than front-line workers was going to flip in the financial world. New software was going to look quite different and focus on the individuals' needs. Chime, the American neobank, was his example of this trend bearing out in the market.

The full interview hereHunter Walk thinks your TAM slide is stupid.That's one viewpoint that the seed-stage investor shared with TechCrunch that made us laugh during our recent conversation. Walk joined us for an Extra Crunch Live chat late last week that was a mix of advice and insight about what the seed-stage Homebrew partner looks for in founders and companies to invest in.In the case of founders, "attitude matters as much as aptitude sometimes," Walk said, adding that "grit" and "resilience" are things he favors in entrepreneurs. Why do those qualities matter? Walk cited the Mike Tyson quip about everyone having a plan until they get punched in the face, saying that "building an early-stage startup, you get punched in the face almost daily."Form one line, folks considering building a new company.We also dug into fintech, where Walk and his Homebrew partner Satya Patel have made a number of investments that have turned out well, including Plaid, Finix, Chime and so on. According to Walk, his firm has made investments into the startup category across funds because it felt that two things were going to happen. First, that "a lot of data that had been siloed and unavailable was going to become available," citing Plaid as an example of the trend.Second, that the top-down model of building tooling that made chiefs happier than front-line workers was going to flip in the financial world. New software was going to look quite different and focus on the individuals' needs. Chime, the American neobank, was his example of this trend bearing out in the market.

Get the full interview https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/08/talking-venture-b2b-and-thesis-driven-investment-with-work-benchs-jon-lehr/Earlier this week, the Equity crew caught up with Work-Bench investor Jon Lehr to get his take on the current market, and how his firm goes about making investment decisions.The conversation was a treat, so we cut a piece of it off for everyone to listen to. The full audio and a loose transcript are also available after the jump.What did Danny and Alex learn while talking to Lehr? A few things, including what Seed II-level investments need these days to be attractive (Hint: It's not a raw ARR threshold), and what's going on in SaaS today (deals slowing, but not for select founders; relationships are key to doing deals today), and why being a VC is actually work.But what stood out the most was how Lehr thinks about finding investment opportunities. While some VCs like to cultivate images of being gut-investors, cutting checks based on first meetings and the like, Lehr told TechCrunch about how he researches the market to find pain-points, and then the startups that might solve those issues.You can listen to that bit of the chat in the clip below:Extra Crunch subscribers, the rest of the goodies are below. (A big thanks to Danny for cleaning up the written transcript.)

Get the full interview https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/08/talking-venture-b2b-and-thesis-driven-investment-with-work-benchs-jon-lehr/Earlier this week, the Equity crew caught up with Work-Bench investor Jon Lehr to get his take on the current market, and how his firm goes about making investment decisions.The conversation was a treat, so we cut a piece of it off for everyone to listen to. The full audio and a loose transcript are also available after the jump.What did Danny and Alex learn while talking to Lehr? A few things, including what Seed II-level investments need these days to be attractive (Hint: It's not a raw ARR threshold), and what's going on in SaaS today (deals slowing, but not for select founders; relationships are key to doing deals today), and why being a VC is actually work.But what stood out the most was how Lehr thinks about finding investment opportunities. While some VCs like to cultivate images of being gut-investors, cutting checks based on first meetings and the like, Lehr told TechCrunch about how he researches the market to find pain-points, and then the startups that might solve those issues.You can listen to that bit of the chat in the clip below:Extra Crunch subscribers, the rest of the goodies are below. (A big thanks to Danny for cleaning up the written transcript.)

Get the full interview here: https://tcrn.ch/2Qg56JxY Combinator’s Demo Day has historically drawn crowds of investors and journalists into a big warehouse to watch hundreds of startups come out to the public for the first time ever. Think two minute pitches, a big audience, and tons of networking opportunities after. This year, citing COVID-19 concerns, the accelerator canceled its in-person Demo Day and moved it to online-only, and a week earlier than expected. You need to be pre-approved to access the list of companies, and over 1,200 investors RSVP’d. So while there won’t be the usual flurry of live tweets and on the ground reporting, TechCrunch caught up with YC CEO Michael Seibel to get the behind-the-scenes on this year’s batch, nonetheless. It’s Seibel’s second equity appearance, so we skipped the housekeeping and got right into the good stuff.Seibel got into how YC’s scrappiness led them to Demo Day’s new format, and how investors weighed in on changes within the incubator. Other topics we got into include his advice for what companies are thinking about applying, and what in the world a YC post-mortem is.Seibel, recalling his early days in startupland in 2006, also hinted at a sector he thinks might be making a comeback soon: software.“Once people realize that getting software up and running and getting customers is faster and cheaper than almost any other startup idea, they're going to rush to that. And so it's going to be really exciting to see what people do on their nights and weekends and what products people start working on,” he said.

Get the full interview here: https://tcrn.ch/2Qg56JxY Combinator’s Demo Day has historically drawn crowds of investors and journalists into a big warehouse to watch hundreds of startups come out to the public for the first time ever. Think two minute pitches, a big audience, and tons of networking opportunities after. This year, citing COVID-19 concerns, the accelerator canceled its in-person Demo Day and moved it to online-only, and a week earlier than expected. You need to be pre-approved to access the list of companies, and over 1,200 investors RSVP’d. So while there won’t be the usual flurry of live tweets and on the ground reporting, TechCrunch caught up with YC CEO Michael Seibel to get the behind-the-scenes on this year’s batch, nonetheless. It’s Seibel’s second equity appearance, so we skipped the housekeeping and got right into the good stuff.Seibel got into how YC’s scrappiness led them to Demo Day’s new format, and how investors weighed in on changes within the incubator. Other topics we got into include his advice for what companies are thinking about applying, and what in the world a YC post-mortem is.Seibel, recalling his early days in startupland in 2006, also hinted at a sector he thinks might be making a comeback soon: software.“Once people realize that getting software up and running and getting customers is faster and cheaper than almost any other startup idea, they're going to rush to that. And so it's going to be really exciting to see what people do on their nights and weekends and what products people start working on,” he said.

Click here to listen to the full interview with SasStr's Jason Lemkin https://tcrn.ch/2TPZ7vKWith the markets in turmoil and fear running rampant through the global economy, you might not think that it’s a great time to start a company. According to at least one well-known venture capitalist, however, it’s a great time to start up.TechCrunch recently caught up with former founder and active venture capitalist Jason Lemkin to chat about the world of software-as-service companies, better known by their acronym moniker “SaaS.” Lemkin swung by TC HQ in San Francisco to spend some time with the Equity crew to discuss all things SaaS, markets, and startups.Long-time Equity listeners will recall that this is not the first or even second time that we’ve had Lemkin on. He was, after all, our first guest, and a repeat for Episode 100. But as it’s Equity’s third birthday, and his SaaStr conference was just around the corner (now postponed), we had Lemkin back to dig deep into one of our favorite startup categories.So let’s get nerdy about SaaS.Is now a good time?After the jump you can listen to the full audio from our interview (it’s a little over 45 minutes, so feel free to download it and take it with you; there’s an excerpt in the main Equity feed as well). But I wanted to share my favorite portion of the chat with everyone, even if you’re not part of Extra Crunch.When we spoke to Lemkin the stock market had taken lumps, albeit nothing quite like we’ve seen in the last week. Still, when we asked about the potential for a cloud slowdown, Lemkin was not convinced that a secular cloud slowdown (as SaaS’s penetration into enterprise IT spend, it’s growth rate will slow) would be bad for startups operating as part of the modern, subscription software movement.Why? There’s so much spend left to build for that there’s lots to build. And, perhaps more importantly, incumbents SaaS firms are so large now that they can afford to let smaller companies get pretty damn big before they pay attention. “All the SaaS leaders,” according to Lemkin, “are at a billion, two billion, [...] in ARR. The Zendesks, the Shopifys, the Hubspots. And they don’t have time” to bother with small companies. Before, in his telling, a $5 million ARR SaaS company would have raised competitive eyebrows from market leaders. Today that bar has been raised to as high as $100 million.That’s good news for your local startup scene. Hit the clip if you’ve had a long, hard week and want some optimism:As you can see, I initially missed his point about market size, and what the growing cloud pie means for startups. But by the end I’d come around: Because the big SaaS companies need to add $100 million, $200 million, or even $300 million in revenue each year, small software startups just don’t scan. Think of it as temporary invisibility for all SaaS startups until you’re probably too big to stop.In the full interview we also went over Jason’s current venture fund, investing cadence, discussed vertical SaaS, his advice for the middle class of SaaS, how to think about venture debt, SaaS consolidation, software in India, and the Slack versus Microsoft scrap. It’s a lot of fun, so let’s get into it.

Click here to listen to the full interview with SasStr's Jason Lemkin https://tcrn.ch/2TPZ7vKWith the markets in turmoil and fear running rampant through the global economy, you might not think that it’s a great time to start a company. According to at least one well-known venture capitalist, however, it’s a great time to start up.TechCrunch recently caught up with former founder and active venture capitalist Jason Lemkin to chat about the world of software-as-service companies, better known by their acronym moniker “SaaS.” Lemkin swung by TC HQ in San Francisco to spend some time with the Equity crew to discuss all things SaaS, markets, and startups.Long-time Equity listeners will recall that this is not the first or even second time that we’ve had Lemkin on. He was, after all, our first guest, and a repeat for Episode 100. But as it’s Equity’s third birthday, and his SaaStr conference was just around the corner (now postponed), we had Lemkin back to dig deep into one of our favorite startup categories.So let’s get nerdy about SaaS.Is now a good time?After the jump you can listen to the full audio from our interview (it’s a little over 45 minutes, so feel free to download it and take it with you; there’s an excerpt in the main Equity feed as well). But I wanted to share my favorite portion of the chat with everyone, even if you’re not part of Extra Crunch.When we spoke to Lemkin the stock market had taken lumps, albeit nothing quite like we’ve seen in the last week. Still, when we asked about the potential for a cloud slowdown, Lemkin was not convinced that a secular cloud slowdown (as SaaS’s penetration into enterprise IT spend, it’s growth rate will slow) would be bad for startups operating as part of the modern, subscription software movement.Why? There’s so much spend left to build for that there’s lots to build. And, perhaps more importantly, incumbents SaaS firms are so large now that they can afford to let smaller companies get pretty damn big before they pay attention. “All the SaaS leaders,” according to Lemkin, “are at a billion, two billion, [...] in ARR. The Zendesks, the Shopifys, the Hubspots. And they don’t have time” to bother with small companies. Before, in his telling, a $5 million ARR SaaS company would have raised competitive eyebrows from market leaders. Today that bar has been raised to as high as $100 million.That’s good news for your local startup scene. Hit the clip if you’ve had a long, hard week and want some optimism:As you can see, I initially missed his point about market size, and what the growing cloud pie means for startups. But by the end I’d come around: Because the big SaaS companies need to add $100 million, $200 million, or even $300 million in revenue each year, small software startups just don’t scan. Think of it as temporary invisibility for all SaaS startups until you’re probably too big to stop.In the full interview we also went over Jason’s current venture fund, investing cadence, discussed vertical SaaS, his advice for the middle class of SaaS, how to think about venture debt, SaaS consolidation, software in India, and the Slack versus Microsoft scrap. It’s a lot of fun, so let’s get into it.

Welcome to TechCrunch daily news, a round up of the top tech news of the day. -- Samsung announces the Galaxy Z Flip -- WhatsApp hits 2 billion users -- and Extra Crunch celebrates its first birthday. Here's your Daily Crunch for February 12, 2020. First up: When the Samsung Galaxy Fold was finally released to the public after numerous delays, the device came swaddled in warnings.

Welcome to TechCrunch daily news, a round up of the top tech news of the day. -- Samsung announces the Galaxy Z Flip -- WhatsApp hits 2 billion users -- and Extra Crunch celebrates its first birthday. Here’s your Daily Crunch for February 12, 2020. First up: When the Samsung Galaxy Fold was finally released to the public after numerous delays, the device came swaddled in warnings.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week Danny and Alex are back with more than ever to get through. 2020 has come out of the gate fast when it comes to news, so much so that we had to leave out of the show way more than we wanted. Things like the newest members of the $100 million ARR club, One Medical's proposed IPO pricing, the Clubhouse funding round and Placer.ai's latest investment.But we did manage to chat through a host of news, including:Why Front's latest investment (a $59 million Series C) is a pretty big deal. Not because of how much money it has raised -- the firm has raised more in a single, preceding round -- but because of who put the capital to work.On the venture capital front, Danny and Alex also chewed over signaling risk in venture, and why bigger funds are writing earlier and earlier checks.Also on the docket was the latest from Lambda School, which our former co-host and friend Kate Clark wrote. The gist is that regardless of how you feel about the company, your views are probably a bit too negative, or a bit too positive. (More on the company's ilk from Extra Crunch here, and here.)And three media deals, including The Athletic's latest investment ($50 million), who might buy the company behind the hit podcast "Serial" and why Spotify might buy The Ringer. Which is about sports, it turns out.All that and we had fun. One more thing: Don't fret, we're going to bring guests back in just a few weeks. So if you've missed hearing from Folks Who Actively Invest, fear not, the VCs will be back. 

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week Danny and Alex are back with more than ever to get through. 2020 has come out of the gate fast when it comes to news, so much so that we had to leave out of the show way more than we wanted. Things like the newest members of the $100 million ARR club, One Medical's proposed IPO pricing, the Clubhouse funding round and Placer.ai's latest investment.But we did manage to chat through a host of news, including:Why Front's latest investment (a $59 million Series C) is a pretty big deal. Not because of how much money it has raised -- the firm has raised more in a single, preceding round -- but because of who put the capital to work.On the venture capital front, Danny and Alex also chewed over signaling risk in venture, and why bigger funds are writing earlier and earlier checks.Also on the docket was the latest from Lambda School, which our former co-host and friend Kate Clark wrote. The gist is that regardless of how you feel about the company, your views are probably a bit too negative, or a bit too positive. (More on the company's ilk from Extra Crunch here, and here.)And three media deals, including The Athletic's latest investment ($50 million), who might buy the company behind the hit podcast "Serial" and why Spotify might buy The Ringer. Which is about sports, it turns out.All that and we had fun. One more thing: Don't fret, we're going to bring guests back in just a few weeks. So if you've missed hearing from Folks Who Actively Invest, fear not, the VCs will be back. 

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week was a bit different than usual. First, we managed to come close to our old time target (20 minutes) instead of our regular length (30 minutes). And, second, Alex is coming back to TechCrunch starting next week!Expect more Equity and, from Alex, writing for Extra Crunch. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. If you aren’t an Extra Crunch subscriber yet you can use the code “EQUITY” and save a bundle. (Woo!)That done, let’s dig into the news that Kate and Alex discussed, starting with Harlem Capital’s $40.3 million new fund. The New York-based outfit has a focus on investing in minority entrepreneurs, who receive significantly less than their white male counterparts. This is one of the largest funds with a diversity mandate to date, and that's something to be stoked about.Next we turned to Mike Cagney’s canny fundraising ability. The former SoFi CEO, ousted for bad behavior, is putting together another huge funding round for his startup, Figure Technologies. The expected $103 million round comes after the company raised $120 million before.With over $50 million raised of the more than $100 million it expects, covering Figure is partially a financial story. However, due to Cagney’s part in the project, it’s also a story of how fast money forgives.Pivoting to Europe, Kate and Alex chewed into the latest report on European venture capital, pulling from Atomico and Forbes. The headlines are pretty simple: There are more EU-based unicorns than ever, more money invested in the region, and the money is mostly finding male hands.Disappointing diversity metrics aside, it’s an encouraging set of metrics for a region that has long found itself left to the side when major startup markets are discussed.And finally, Alex wanted to talk about two impending US-listed technology IPOs. Coming in the wake of the WeWork fiasco and sporting similar share prices but divergent growth profiles, the debuts of Bill.com and Sprout Social are events.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week was a bit different than usual. First, we managed to come close to our old time target (20 minutes) instead of our regular length (30 minutes). And, second, Alex is coming back to TechCrunch starting next week!Expect more Equity and, from Alex, writing for Extra Crunch. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. If you aren’t an Extra Crunch subscriber yet you can use the code “EQUITY” and save a bundle. (Woo!)That done, let’s dig into the news that Kate and Alex discussed, starting with Harlem Capital’s $40.3 million new fund. The New York-based outfit has a focus on investing in minority entrepreneurs, who receive significantly less than their white male counterparts. This is one of the largest funds with a diversity mandate to date, and that's something to be stoked about.Next we turned to Mike Cagney’s canny fundraising ability. The former SoFi CEO, ousted for bad behavior, is putting together another huge funding round for his startup, Figure Technologies. The expected $103 million round comes after the company raised $120 million before.With over $50 million raised of the more than $100 million it expects, covering Figure is partially a financial story. However, due to Cagney’s part in the project, it’s also a story of how fast money forgives.Pivoting to Europe, Kate and Alex chewed into the latest report on European venture capital, pulling from Atomico and Forbes. The headlines are pretty simple: There are more EU-based unicorns than ever, more money invested in the region, and the money is mostly finding male hands.Disappointing diversity metrics aside, it’s an encouraging set of metrics for a region that has long found itself left to the side when major startup markets are discussed.And finally, Alex wanted to talk about two impending US-listed technology IPOs. Coming in the wake of the WeWork fiasco and sporting similar share prices but divergent growth profiles, the debuts of Bill.com and Sprout Social are events.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week, we recorded on location at TechCrunch Sessions: Enterprise in San Francisco, a show that saw talks from Box's Aaron Levie, Atlassian CEO Scott Farquhar and venture capitalists Maha Ibrahim, Rebecca Lynn and Jason Green. The latter, the founder of Emergence Capital, joined us before his panel for a special episode of Equity focused almost entirely on enterprise tech. Danny Crichton, the esteemed leader of TechCrunch's Extra Crunch, was on hand to co-lead the episode with Kate. Before we jumped too deep into the enterprise pool, we had to review some news from one of the most-talked about companies. The co-working giant, legally known as The We Company, is said to have halved its IPO exceptions to a minuscule $20 billion! Ok that's not really that small but compared to its most recent valuation of $47 billion, we're a bit shocked. Next, we ran through the IPO pipeline. Cloudflare is expected to go public next Friday. Datadog will come after that. WeWork is reportedly kicking off its roadshow next week, but given this week's reports, that could be delayed. After that, Green gave us his take on Box, the file sharing business in which he was an early investor in. If you haven't heard, activist investor Starboard Value took a 7.5% stake in the business this week. Green explains what that means and what he think is next for the company. Levie, of course, spoke on stage at the enterprise event. In short, the executive said his goal is to continue building a sustainable business. Finally, we dove into the latest trends in startups. Enterprise still isn't sexy but it's much sexier than it's been in the past. Why? Because all the enterprise startups want to build consumer friendly tools. Tune in to hear what Green thinks of the consumerization of the enterprise and all the startup madness.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week was a bit of a turn-about. Kate was off this week and Alex was back, so we brought back a few favorites to tide us over until our regular leader returns. For this IPO-themed episode, we had TechCrunch and Extra Crunch's Danny Crichton in the studio along with Deloitte's Barrett Daniels, a prior guest on the show and one of our favorite humans. It being roughly the middle of the year, we decided to do a bit of run through the first two-quarters' worth of tech IPOs. There was, as you can expect, a lot to get chat about. We started with notes on how the Chinese venture capital market is changing, most notably in terms of its share of the world's largest venture rounds. After leading the world for what felt like years, venture investment into China-based companies is slipping. And the declines are picking up attention (here, here). But not all the news was gloomy on the show this week. Indeed, while some global data relating to the global IPO market wasn't exactly sparkling, the US-listed tech IPO market is doing really well. After we went over a number of the companies that went out and did well post-IPO (nearly every company aside from the ride-hailing players), we conceded that things are pretty damn warm for companies going public. At the same time, we couldn't agree on how long the IPO market would remain so welcoming. If it stays open, more unicorns will make it out. If the IPO window closes soon, we'll see hundreds of unicorns trapped on the wrong side of the glass. And we wrapped with notes on everyone's favorite space-faring SPAC. We'll see you all really soon.

Hosted by Carol Massar and Jason Kelly. Featuring an in-depth conversation with Jim Rowley, the CEO of Crunch Fitness Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Hosted by Carol Massar and Jason Kelly. Featuring an in-depth conversation with Jim Rowley, the CEO of Crunch Fitness

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week was a bit of a reunion with Kate and Alex on as usual, with the addition of Extra Crunch denizen extraordinaire Danny Crichton. Danny, you may recall, has been a semi-regular Equity co-host over the past year.As Kate explains up front, Equity is out a day early this week due to the Big TechCrunch Robotics Affair in Berkeley today. We'll be back on Friday with IPO news regarding Zoom and Pinterest and we can't wait.Ok, all that sorted, what did we talk about? Alex wanted to talk about some market signals that he reads as bullish. Whatever went wrong at the end of 2018 has healed over he thinks because there have been a whole lot of supergiant venture capital rounds and some other stuff.Next, we gave an example of one of those supergiant rounds in the works. The reported Pax round, which could put $400 million into the cannabis vaping company, intrigues us, especially because Pax is the corporate sibling of JUUL, the now-famous e-cigarette company what sold just over a third of itself for nearly $13 billion last year. A truly staggering deal.Then we turned to Brex, the fintech startup that was back in the news this week. Why? Because it raised a $100 million debt round as startups of that sort do. Brex provides a credit card made specifically for startups that require no personal-guarantee. Yeah, risky, we know. We talked about that risk and Brex's plan to target Fortune 500 business in the future.Rounds for Ro, Kindbody and Carrot Fertility made it a busy week for healthtech, too. Ro is raising at a $500 million valuation to support its three digital health brands: Roman, Rory and Zero. Meanwhile, a pair of fertility startups, Kindbody and Carrot, brought in $15 million and $11 million, respectively.With Danny back on the show, we extended our reach and discussed the latest in the chip and sensor world. NXP, fresh off a failed, multi-billion dollar exit to Qualcomm put money into Hawkeye Technology, a China-based company working in the car sensor space. Equity's regular hosts mostly nodded as Danny dropped a lot of knowledge.All that and we had some fun. We'll be back before you know it.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week was a bit of a reunion with Kate and Alex on as usual, with the addition of Extra Crunch denizen extraordinaire Danny Crichton. Danny, you may recall, has been a semi-regular Equity co-host over the past year.As Kate explains up front, Equity is out a day early this week due to the Big TechCrunch Robotics Affair in Berkeley today. We'll be back on Friday with IPO news regarding Zoom and Pinterest and we can't wait.Ok, all that sorted, what did we talk about? Alex wanted to talk about some market signals that he reads as bullish. Whatever went wrong at the end of 2018 has healed over he thinks because there have been a whole lot of supergiant venture capital rounds and some other stuff.Next, we gave an example of one of those supergiant rounds in the works. The reported Pax round, which could put $400 million into the cannabis vaping company, intrigues us, especially because Pax is the corporate sibling of JUUL, the now-famous e-cigarette company what sold just over a third of itself for nearly $13 billion last year. A truly staggering deal.Then we turned to Brex, the fintech startup that was back in the news this week. Why? Because it raised a $100 million debt round as startups of that sort do. Brex provides a credit card made specifically for startups that require no personal-guarantee. Yeah, risky, we know. We talked about that risk and Brex's plan to target Fortune 500 business in the future.Rounds for Ro, Kindbody and Carrot Fertility made it a busy week for healthtech, too. Ro is raising at a $500 million valuation to support its three digital health brands: Roman, Rory and Zero. Meanwhile, a pair of fertility startups, Kindbody and Carrot, brought in $15 million and $11 million, respectively.With Danny back on the show, we extended our reach and discussed the latest in the chip and sensor world. NXP, fresh off a failed, multi-billion dollar exit to Qualcomm put money into Hawkeye Technology, a China-based company working in the car sensor space. Equity's regular hosts mostly nodded as Danny dropped a lot of knowledge.All that and we had some fun. We'll be back before you know it.

We want to introduce you to a new special Equity show called Equity Dive. Each month, as part of TechCrunch’s membership offering Extra Crunch, we will talk to the writer of Extra Crunch’s EC-1, a deep dive look into a single company. Their origin story, growth and future prospects. Enjoy this first one with Eric Peckham who spent hours with the powers that be at Patreon, a platform that lets creators develop relationships with their fans and generate revenue from their work. If you don’t want to miss out on the Patreon deep dive and all of the other great content Extra Crunch produces, go to TechCrunch.com/subscribe and become a member. Use promo code EQUITY to get 20% off for your first year. Enjoy this first episode of Equity Dive.

We want to introduce you to a new special Equity show called Equity Dive. Each month, as part of TechCrunch’s membership offering Extra Crunch, we will talk to the writer of Extra Crunch’s EC-1, a deep dive look into a single company. Their origin story, growth and future prospects. Enjoy this first one with Eric Peckham who spent hours with the powers that be at Patreon, a platform that lets creators develop relationships with their fans and generate revenue from their work. If you don’t want to miss out on the Patreon deep dive and all of the other great content Extra Crunch produces, go to TechCrunch.com/subscribe and become a member. Use promo code EQUITY to get 20% off for your first year. Enjoy this first episode of Equity Dive.

Episode 46: We spoke with Travis Bernard, Senior Director of Subscriptions and Audience Insights at TechCrunch. We discuss what audience development looks like at TechCrunch, what analytics TechCrunch utilizes (as well as who gets access to them), and the recent launch of Extra Crunch (including a sneak peek of what's to come). Travis has helped TechCrunch nearly double its monthly active users since he started and is responsible for running paid and organic media campaigns to help promote TechCrunch's event business, resulting in millions of dollars in new revenue. He was also engaged in business development and partnership operations, including TechCrunch's work with Facebook Live, Messenger chat bot, and event integration with audio startup Otter.ai. He's currently running audience development for TechCrunch as well as leading the business operations and marketing effort behind Extra Crunch. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/besttechie/support

Greetings from Chittorgarh, one of my stops on a two-week excursion through Goa and Rajasthan, India. I've been a little too busy exploring, photographing cows and monkeys and eating a lot of delicious food to keep up with *all* the tech news, but I've still got the highlights. For starters, if you haven't heard yet, TechCrunch launched Extra Crunch, a paid premium subscription offering full of amazing content.