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Hello, and welcome to the middle of the week. CES starts tomorrow, so bookmark businessroundups.org’s dedicated CES page to stay up to date with all the happenings. Now, on to the news! — Christine
Table of Contents
The businessroundups.org Top 3
- Another round of layoffs: Paul has the latest on what’s happening at Salesforce. The company said it had to cut its workforce by 10% – about 7,000 people – and will close offices in several markets. He reviewed Salesforce’s SEC filing regarding the matter and reported that CEO Marc Benioff stated that the layoffs were a result of hiring “too many people leading to this economic downturn we’re going through right now.”
- Not so happy new year: More privacy fines and corrective actions greeted Meta as the calendar moved into a new year. The company faced more than $410 million in new fines from the European Union over the number of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) complaints over its legal basis [Meta] progress [it has] to run behavioral advertising, Natasha L writes.
- Get food, ship your packages: Now you can have your food and your packages too. DoorDash is launching a new service that picks up and delivers prepaid packages to a UPS, FedEx or USPS location, Aisha reports.
Startups and VC
It’s Autodesk’s turn for a competitor, and Snaptrude wants it to be. The startup took on some new venture capital to take on the design giant in the building design space, Jagmeet writes. Snaptrude aims to provide better interoperability and cloud-based collaboration where others, such as Autodesk, have lagged behind.
And we have four more for you:
- App absolutely too slow: If your mobile app can’t keep up, customers can stay away. Product Science, which develops mobile app performance monitoring tools, has secured $18 million to find execution flaws to minimize app freezes and errors, Kyle writes.
- It’s all so surreal: Also by KyleSurrealDB joins a crowded managed database service industry and raises $6 million for its database-as-a-service approach.
- ip oh no: The market uncertainty that has plagued online grocery delivery has caught up with South Korean grocery startup Kurly, delisting its IPO. Kate reports.
- “Plastics have a great future”: Singapore-based AlterPacks has secured $1 million in pre-seed funding to convert food waste into food containers, Catherine writes.
5 failure points between $5 million and $100 million in ARR
Image Credits: Javier Zayas Photography (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images
Prior to co-founding and CEO of TigerEye, Tracy Young held identical roles at construction productivity software startup PlanGrid.
Even though she led the company to $100 million in ARR before the Autodesk acquisition, “I’ve had years to dissect the mistakes I made with my first startup,” she writes in TC+.
Young looks back at “five key failure points” that are common pitfalls in every founder’s path and shares tactical advice for dealing with internal conflicts, losing product-market fit, and other stumbling blocks.
“If these reflections help even one founder make one less mistake, I would consider this effort worthwhile.”
Two more from the TC+ team:
businessroundups.org+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams lead the way. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
Roku is expanding its product line with a range of 11 smart televisions that the company says it has designed and built with its own services in mind. Sarah writes. And you won’t have to wait long to get them – they will be available from spring.
Meanwhile, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the businessroundups.org team has submitted 16 stories since last night. You can find them all here, but I want to mention a few that I’ve enjoyed reading so far:
And we have five more for you:
- Something is going Down Under: In Twitter news, Manic reports that many users in Australia are experiencing service issues. Meanwhile, the social network would roll back a ban on political ads to boost its revenue, Ivan reports.
- Up and away: Stellantis plans to mass-produce Archer’s electric plane in a comprehensive deal that gives the company access to up to $150 million over the next two years, Kirsten reports.
- Time works in your favor: Music tastes change, so to document it, Spotify’s new time capsule feature lets you revisit your music taste in a year, Aisha writes.
- And yet again fired: The new year wasn’t good for Vimeo either, where another round of layoffs reportedly affected 11% of employees, Lauren writes.
- Settlement reached: New York financial regulators settled with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for a $100 million fine after finding it violated anti-money laundering laws by failing to conduct adequate background checks, Amanda reports.
