Saturday, 31 July 2021

5 lessons from Duolingo’s bellwether edtech IPO of the year

Duolingo landed onto the public markets this week, rallying excitement and attention for the edtech sector and its founder cohort. The language learning business’ stock price soared when it began to trade, even after the unicorn raised its IPO price range, and priced above the raised interval.

Duolingo’s IPO proves that public market investors can see the long-term value in a mission-driven, technology-powered education concern; the company’s IPO carries extra weight considering the historically few edtech companies that have listed.

Duolingo’s IPO proves that public market investors can see the long-term value in a mission-driven, technology-powered education concern; the company’s IPO carries extra weight considering the historically few edtech companies that have listed.

For those that want the entire story of Duolingo, from origin to messy monetization to historical IPO, check out our EC-1. It has dozens of interviews from executives, investors, linguists and competitors.

For today, though, we have fresh additions. We sat down with Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn earlier in the week to discuss not only his company’s IPO, but also what impact the listing may have on startups. Duolingo’s IPO can be looked at as a case study into consumer startups, mission-driven companies that monetize a small base of users, or education companies that recently hit scale. Paraphrasing from von Ahn, Duolingo doesn’t see itself as just an edtech company with fresh branding. Instead, it believes its growth comes from being an engineering-first startup.

Selling motivation, it seems, versus selling the fluency in a language is a proposition that international consumers are willing to pay for, and an idea that investors think can continue to scale to software-like margins.

1. The IPO event will bring “more sophistication” to Duolingo’s core service

Duolingo has gone through three distinct phases: Growth, in which it prioritized getting as many users as it could to its app; monetization, in which it introduced a subscription tier for survival; and now, education, in which it is focusing on tacking on more sophisticated, smarter technology to its service.



Take the Right Steps to Get Your Business Up and Running

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You have a great business idea, but do you know what steps to take to make your dream come true? Nellie Akalp, CEO of CorpNet.com will be holding a free webinar titled, Steps to Start Your Business, to teach you the steps necessary to legally start a business and get up and running on the right foot.

All you have to do is click the red button and register to attend the webinar on Oct 20, 2021, at 02:00 PM Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada).

 

Register Now



Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Win Corporate Clients: The Real Deal 2021Win Corporate Clients: The Real Deal 2021
October 4, 2021, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

What if you could rapidly scale your consulting, coaching, professional services, outsourcing, certified diverse company or other corporate supplier business with lucrative B2B clients…clients who buy from you month after month, year after year, with a well that never runs dry. That’s exactly what we’ll show you how to do when you join us!


WEBINAR: Steps to Start Your BusinessWEBINAR: Steps to Start Your Business
October 20, 2021, Online

Starting a business can be an exhilarating time, where everything seems full of potential and purpose. But navigating the logistics of launching a business can be daunting. In this webinar Nellie Akalp, CEO of CorpNet.com, will outline the steps necessary to legally start a business and get up and running on the right foot.


More Events

More Contests

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends.

You can see a full list of events, contest and award listings or post your own events by visiting the Small Business Events Calendar.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "Take the Right Steps to Get Your Business Up and Running" was first published on Small Business Trends



Go Beyond the Basics with These 10 Unique Online Marketing Tips

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Nearly every business today uses some form of online marketing. So if you want your company to stand out, you need to think a bit differently. New platforms like Clubhouse and TikTok may help. Or you could find new strategies within your tried and true methods like SEO and email marketing. These tips from members of the online small business community can help you go beyond the basics to improve your online marketing.

Use Conversational Insights to Take the Guesswork Out of Marketing

Lots of businesses use keywords for their online marketing. But if you want to take your efforts to the next level, it’s necessary to go beyond simple keywords. Learn how conversational insights can help you go deeper in this Search Engine Watch post by Jacqueline Dooley.

Focus on Video in Your Online Marketing

Video has been a popular promotional and communication method for years. But some business owners still resist the format. If you need more reasons to focus on video this year, read this SMB CEO post by Ivan Widjaya. Then head over to BizSugar to read members’ comments.

Make Use of Public Relations

Public relations isn’t a new concept. But it hasn’t gotten as much attention in recent years as high tech marketing tactics like SEO and social media. However, it can still make a major impact. Learn how in this Duct Tape Marketing post and podcast by John Jantsch.

Focus on Digital Reputation Management

Many of today’s businesses focus on digital marketing. But it may be more useful to think of it as reputation management. After all, your online presence makes up a huge piece of your overall reputation. Read more about digital reputation management in this UpCity post by David J. Brin.

Consider These Affiliate Marketing Programs for Your Business

Affiliate marketing involves connecting businesses with influencers, businesses, or individuals who share their products or services. They can then earn small commissions on sales sent to the business. If you’re interested in using this tactic in 2021, check out this GetResponse post by John P. Lobrutto first.

Consider Joining Clubhouse

Clubhouse is a relatively new social platform. Some brands have jumped on the bandwagon early, while others have hung back. So which route is right for your business? Some experts weigh in on the Content Marketing Institute blog. Read this post by Ann Gynn for the details.

Gain More Visibility Online During the Pandemic

The pandemic has made things tough for a lot of businesses. But some businesses have been able to actually improve their online marketing efforts during this time. To make the most of a bad situation, read the tips in this Bright Local post by Jonathan Birch.

Get to Know These TikTok Stats

If you still haven’t tried using TikTok for your business, this may be the time to jump in. This Sprout Social post by Chloe West includes some stats that may entice marketers and provide insights for using the platform.

Improve Email Replies to Create Positive Customer Experiences

Email marketing has long been an important business strategy. But personalized communication is also important. If you want to make the most of this powerful communication method, read this Marketing Land post by Ryan Phelan.

Avoid Podfade When Promoting Your Podcast

Podcasting provides an exciting business strategy and/or promotional method. But if you want to make an actual impact, you need to publish regularly. Unfortunately, many podcasters suffer from a condition called podfade. Learn what it is and how to avoid it in this GMR Transcription post by Beth Worthy. Then see what members of the BizSugar community are saying about the post here.

If you’d like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to: sbtips@gmail.com.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "Go Beyond the Basics with These 10 Unique Online Marketing Tips" was first published on Small Business Trends



Daddy-O of Stetsasonic: Even After Almost 40 Years I’m as Good a Rapper Now as I’ve Ever Been

daddy o stetsasonic

I may have mentioned before that I was a college DJ during the time when hip-hop music came of age.  And one of my favorite songs of the era was Sally, by the legendary hip-hop group Stetsasonic.  And years after my college DJ years (but I’m still a DJ…virtually at least) I had the opportunity to moderate a tech panel at Georgia Tech, and one of the panelists was Glenn Bolton, aka Daddy-O… co-founder of Stetsasonic.

It was great hearing Daddy-O talk about technology and his experiences in business and the impact modern tech has had on the creation process.  But at the time he hadn’t picked up the mic in a while.  But a few years ago I started seeing videos of Daddy-O rapping again.  And then I was on LinkedIn one morning and saw that he posted a sneak peek clip of Daddy-O and the whole Stetsasonic crew teasing a new song.  The fact that they hadn’t made an album/DVD is about 30 years but still sounding great really stopped me in my tracks.  And the fact that I saw this first on LinkedIn – and not YouTube – really stood out to me… that is after I came down from the excitement of seeing them all back together sounding and looking great after all these years!

In it was perfect timing as I had been catching up via DMs with Daddy-O and just had scheduled a time for a LinkedIn Live convo.  So below is an edited transcript of a portion of our conv where we talk about the early days of the band, why they got back in the studio together after all these years, and how he feels he’s better now than he was back in the heyday.   This was an extended conversation which you can here by clicking on the embedded SoundCloud player.

LinkedIn for Hip-Hop?

Brent Leary:  I just thought it was really cool that you dropped the little sneak peek on LinkedIn. 

Daddy-O:  I did put it out on Instagram as well. What happened with me in LinkedIn was I always used to use LinkedIn just for professional stuff. I got a little tech company on the side and we train doctors and stuff and technology and I was just doing that. But a lot of people who like what we do are sitting there on LinkedIn and I don’t have to feel bad about it. I don’t have to feel bad about my physical job resume being on LinkedIn. And my music is still me. So …

Better than Ever

Brent Leary:  I heard you say you’re a better rapper now than you’ve ever been.

Daddy-O:  I totally know I am. In 2016 I started making these records again, you know, physically making records again. And then when I did that, like I tell everybody,  the two people that I thought about was Miles Davis and and Jimmy Hendrix. And I just thought if Miles was here, would he tell somebody, man, just go, listen to Bitches Brew. You’ll hear what I’m about. Or would he do something new? And the proof is the last producer that made Miles Davis worked with was Easy Moe B; a hip hop guy who produced Tupac, Biggie, all of that. So, he already was pushing the envelope forward and I feel like Jimmy would be the same way if he had lived, he would just do something. He wouldn’t say, Hey, go listen to Purple Haze.  You know, he would do something new. 

So I thought about it long and hard between 2015 and 2016 and said, what am I doing? Not, not what am I doing? I think this is important. Not what am I doing to keep the lights on, but what am I doing with my talent? And I thought about it. I said, man, I don’t rap anymore. Right? If I just stopped rapping, all they gonna know me for is the old stuff. And that was way before some of the people that are big now were big. It’s going to evolve and I’m going to be stuck in a little bubble of like, I don’t know, ‘86 to like ‘91. And, and that’s not bad. Nothing is bad about that. It’s good to have classics. It’s great to, to be an artist and know that there’s at least one classic song that people love. That’s a great, great, great feeling. But as a rapper, I’m like, I’m going to get pushed to the back of the bus, you know, to be like the old man and the geriatric bus. And I didn’t want to be that. I just didn’t want to be that. I know I can’t do what Young Thug does. I know I can’t do what Rick Ross does, the younger guys they’re going to do what they do, but I thought there’s gotta be some line for me. There’s gotta be some opening for me. And so I took  my time and I just studied it and I trialed and errored. I figured it out. And I know that there’s a lane for classic hip hop.

Getting the group back together for the first time in 30 years

Daddy-O:  When I was ready, I presented it to Stetsasonic and was just like, look, man, this is a road that we could take, you know? And I’m glad I’m, I’m real proud of the guys. They picked up the mantle. They were like, “all right, we will see where you’re going with it. Show us what you want to do”. I showed them. And what they were writing right now is crazy, man. I heard The Light just kicked something to me the other day. He wants to do an interpretation of the Gamble and Huff – OJays Message in the Music. It was crazy. Like this is great. 

Brent Leary:  Let’s say you’re talking to one of the old school folks who do want to get back into it. What is the hardest part? Is it getting back into the production aspects of putting a song together? Is it going through what you might need to, to build an audience and using these social tools to promote the brand?

Daddy-O:  The first step I really feel solidly is acceptance because what I found with my peers sadly, but true, is they don’t really accept the art form today. There is some validity to that, right? One of my best friends always says they shouldn’t even call what they’re doing now, hip hop, they should call it something else. 

Brent Leary:  That’s kind of like the traditional “get off my lawn, It’s not as good as when I did it back in my yea”.  There is some validity.  There seems to be a certain particular sound that has taken over hip, right? And there’s not as much creativity today.

Daddy-O:  I think you can say there’s not as much creativity. You can say that. I mean, that’s proven due to laptop producing. That’s proven. Because it is evolution. Whether we want to believe Young Thug and everybody else that comes along with that group is evolution or not. It is evolution. It did evolve into that. Some people might say it’s all backwards; that’s another argument, right? But it is evolution. 

I think that the first step is acceptance. And what I mean by that is accepting that they are who they are and they can do what they do. Right. Then you figure out who you are. And that’s the hard part. Where is Daddy-O know pertinent to the conversation? Where does Stetsasonic fit in?

Defining success today

Brent Leary:  What does success look like to you now, compared to back in the day when you guys were very successful doing your own music and producing others, but how do you measure success now compared to back in the day?

Daddy-O: One of the things I will say, that’s kind of weird. It’s just a freaky turn of events most. I don’t call myself old-school because I, I came after Grandmaster Flash and them, who I was with the other day, too.  Most old-school cats make more on stage now than we ever did. So, weird turn of events. It’s like, we make more onstage now than we did in our heyday because of this uber demand for classic hip hop and, and nostalgia and all of that. 

I’ve been trying to convince my peers to make records, but now things are opening up again, pre COVID and now post COVID, a lot of them make more money now than they made in the past.  Maybe not on sales and particularly there’s still royalties there, but they go out on the road and they make a whole lot of money. So, so success kind of looks a little different to everybody because for them, success is just having a good tour and going out on a few days, some guys are going out only on the weekends, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Friday, Saturday, Sunday, making anywhere between four and 10 grand a night that ain’t nothing to shake a stick at. That’s sweet. And most of them are making $7,500 to $14,000 a night.

Success for me right now is exactly what happened to you this morning. I don’t care if it was two people, which is way more than two, but I don’t care if it’s two people when they either got up or they saw it late last night when I posted it, they looked at it and they said, man, that’s my guy. That’s my guy. And these are guys that haven’t made a record in over 30 years. 

Focus of today’s artist

Brent Leary:  Do you think that because of the ease of production that instead of focusing their efforts on the craft of creating music, they’re almost focused on the craft of branding and promotion?

Daddy-O:  That’s absolutely true. What you’re talking about is what I described as the making of a masterpiece, right? So, you know, you look at Dr. Dre’s Chronic, or you look at Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, or you look at Stetsasonic In Full Gear. This was all a making of a masterpiece, right? So it’s all trial-and-error, figuring out sounds getting in features, even if you get in features how you fit those features in; we’re recording on two inch tape. So that’s a whole other thing, right? Recording on two inch tape versus this digital recording that we do now in DAW is a totally different thing. So that being almost extinct, it does make people concentrate more on brand.

Best year in hip-hop

Brent Leary:  So I have to ask, why do you think 1988 was the best year in hip-hop?

Daddy-O:  I just think sonically, it culminated everything. I think ‘86 was great. That’s where we saw the introduction to Salt-N-Pepa and a few other people. And then ‘87 was almost the year, Eric B and Rakim. But by the time ‘88 came, we had all come to the conclusion of knowing how to make records. If you think about it, Public Enemy had a first album and Yo Bum Rush the Show, and I’ll just use us too. Stetsasonic had a first album On Fire, great records. And for some purists, those are the best records in the world. They still take those records over anything else we made, but by the time ‘88 came around, we understood more things about the studio. We had been on the road, at least for a trial run for us and Public Enemy was more than a trial run cause LL cool J took us out. 

So we went on the Def jam tour. We just learned and got our footing in the music business; what we were going to be as recording artists. So by the time we all came around, most of us had made those sophomore records. Those records were perfect because sonically, we knew where it was at. And I don’t know if any year could even compete with the Sonics of ‘88 because, let’s face it Puffy with Bad Boy makes good records. But for the most part they are loud, right? So they might not be as good as they are loud because by that time they figured out how to turn volume up in the mastering studio. But as good as those Biggie records sound, if you put it up against a Public Enemy track, it’s not going to fair off sonically. The Public Enemy track is still going to eat it because we got our groove then. 

Here’s the other part of by ’88; when something is – and software engineers can identify with this – when something is planned and experimental, that’s what makes us super dope.

This article, "Daddy-O of Stetsasonic: Even After Almost 40 Years I’m as Good a Rapper Now as I’ve Ever Been" was first published on Small Business Trends



Friday, 30 July 2021

For tech firms, the risk of not preparing for leadership changes is huge

Every week over the past three and a half years, an average of three CEOs have exited tech companies in the U.S. That tally is higher — in good times and bad — than in any of the other 26 for-profit sectors tracked by executive search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. You’d think tech companies should be the paradigm of how to prep for leadership transitions, since they operate in such a constant state of flux.

They’re far from it.

A change of command is one of the most delicate moments in the life cycle of any organization. If mishandled, the transition from one CEO to the next can result in a loss of market valuation, momentum and focus, as well as key personnel, customers and partners. It may even become that turning point when an organization begins to slide toward irrelevance.

With so much at stake, 84% of tech execs agree that succession planning is more important than ever because of today’s fast-changing business environment, according to our new survey of corporate America’s leaders. Seven out of 10 survey respondents agreed that tech companies face more scrutiny than other multinationals during a transition.

84% of tech execs agree that succession planning is more important than ever because of today’s fast-changing business environment.

Yet we found that tech execs appear just as unprepared for C-suite transitions as their peers in other sectors. Three out of five respondents said their companies don’t have a documented plan to handle a leadership change, even though, by that same ratio, they acknowledge that a documented plan is the biggest determinant in seamless transitions.

The findings may not be troubling if these respondents were millennial startup founders, years from leaving their companies. The executives we polled, however, hail from 160 companies that have been in business for a minimum of 15 years — 35 are tech companies, the largest industry cohort in the survey.

The smallest companies have at least 1,500 employees and $500 million in annual revenue, while the largest have head counts of over 500,000 and revenue upward of $100 billion. They have been around long enough to understand — and put into place — risk management and crisis planning, including what happens should their leaders fall victim to the proverbial milk truck.

Tech execs should be more rigorous about succession planning for one important reason: institutional memory. Tech firms generally are younger than other companies of a similar size, which partly explains why the median age of S&P 500 companies plunged to 33 years in 2018 from 85 years in 2000, according to McKinsey & Co.

These enterprises clearly have accomplished a lot in their short lives, but in their haste, most have not captured their history, unlike their longer-lived peers in other sectors. Less than half of these tech firms, in fact, have formally recorded their leader’s story for posterity. That puts them at a disadvantage when, inevitably, they will be required to onboard newcomers to their C-suites.

It’s best to record this history well before the intense swirl of a leadership transition begins. Crucially, it will help the incoming and future generations of leadership understand critical aspects of its track record, the lessons learned, culture and identity. It also explains why the organization has evolved as it has, what binds people together and what may trigger resistance based on previous experience. It’s as much about moving forward as looking back.

Most execs in our poll get it, with 85% saying a company’s history can be a playbook for new executives to learn and prepare for upcoming challenges and opportunities. “History is the mother of innovation for any type of company,” one respondent said. “History,” writes another, “includes the roadmap to failures as well as successes.”

But this documented history cannot be a hagiography of the departing CEO. Too often, outgoing execs spend their last years in office constructing their own trophy cases. Even as they conceded their own flat-footedness on transition planning, the majority of execs said they have already taken steps to create and reinforce their personal legacies — two-thirds said they have already completed their own formal legacy planning, many with the blessing of their boards.

It’s ironic, then, that three out of five also said that the legacy of a CEO or founder often overshadows the skill set and experience a successor brings. Two-thirds of tech execs believed that the longer a leader has been in office, the more it complicates a transition.

Tech leaders can do this right and have done so. Asked which five big-name CEO transitions was most successful, respondents’ No. 1 was Apple’s handoff from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook (38%), followed by Microsoft’s page-turn from Steve Ballmer to Satya Nadella (28%). The others, at General Electric, General Motors and Goldman Sachs, each netted no more than 13% of votes.

Apple’s apparent predominance in this survey might contradict the advice to play down the aggrandizement of an exiting CEO and highlight the compilation and transfer of an organization’s history to the next chief executive. Jobs, after all, painstakingly managed his legacy until the end. But even as he continued to take center-stage, he also made sure to pass along Apple’s institutional knowledge and ethos to Cook over the 13 years they shared space on Apple’s executive floor.

Sooner or later, everyone in the C-suite today — including startup founders — will depart. For the sake of everyone they’ll leave behind, they should begin prepping for that day now.



Extra Crunch roundup: Livestream e-commerce, growth marketing interviews, CEO for a day

This year, livestream viewers in China are projected to spend more than $60 billion on digital shopping experiences that let them interact with influencers in real time.

Promoting everything from cosmetics to food, social media stars use Taobao, TikTok and other platforms to livestream products and take questions from the audience.

On Taobao’s Single’s Day Global Shopping Festival in 2020, livestreams racked up $6 billion in sales, twice as much revenue as the year prior.

Sensing a trend, Western startups are getting in on the action, with companies like Whatnot and PopShop.Live raising rounds to build out their infrastructure. Looking forward, Alanna Gregory, senior global director at Afterpay, says she foresees four major trends:

  • Networks
  • SaaS streaming tools
  • Host discovery and outreach tools
  • Host marketplaces and agencies

“For brands, SaaS streaming tools will be the most impactful way to take advantage of livestream commerce trends,” Gregory writes in an Extra Crunch guest post. “All of this will be incredibly transformative.”


To help entrepreneurs take on the most fundamental challenge facing early-stage startups, our team is speaking to growth marketers to learn more about the advice they’re offering clients these days.

This week, Miranda Halpern and Anna Heim interviewed experts on growth marketing:

Growth is an existential issue, so these stories are free to read and share. If you’ve worked with an individual or an agency who helped your startup find and keep new users, please let us know.

Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch this week; have a great weekend.

Walter Thompson

Senior Editor, TechCrunch

@yourprotagonist

Why Latin American venture capital is breaking records this year

Alex Wilhelm and Anna Heim’s global exploration of Q2 venture capital data wrapped up this week with an in-depth look at Latin America.

One investor told them that today’s LatAm startup market “is a story about talent, not about capital.”

“The union of talent and money is what startup markets need to thrive,” they write. “But there are other reasons why Latin American startups are so frequently in the news today, including structural factors, such as strong digital penetration and quick e-commerce growth.”

Dear Sophie: Should we sponsor international hires for H-1B transfers and green cards?

lone figure at entrance to maze hedge that has an American flag at the center

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

Dear Sophie,

My startup is desperately recruiting, and we see a lot of engineering candidates on H-1Bs.

They’re looking for H-1B transfers and green cards. What should we do?

— Baffled in the Bay Area

Why I make everyone in my company be the CEO for a day

Vincit runs a CEO of the Day program once a month

Image Credits: Blake Little (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

In the reality TV series “Undercover Boss,” high-powered executives disguise themselves so they can work alongside everyday employees, ostensibly to learn from them.

Flipping that script, software company Vincit USA has a “CEO of the Day” program where staffers move into a metaphorical corner office for 24 hours and receive a very real unlimited budget. There’s just one requirement.

“The CEO must make one lasting decision that will help improve the working experience of Vincit employees,” said Ville Houttu, Vincit’s founder and CEO.

Since instituting the program, Vincit USA has received multiple awards for its workplace culture and sees reduced staff turnover.

“Though it may seem crazy, the initiative has paid off tenfold,” said Houttu.

What I’ve learned after 5 years of buying common stock in startups

Buying common stock can help align investor and founder incentives

Image Credits: Tim Robberts (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Instead of giving founders standard term sheets, Boston-based seed-stage venture capital firm Pillar VC offers to buy common stock.

“There are many terms and conditions in a preferred term sheet that can misalign investors and founders,” says founding partner Jamie Goldstein.

“As with any experiment, we have learned a few things that have surprised us and faced challenges we’ve had to overcome.”

China’s regulatory crackdown is good news for startups aligned with CCP goals

Alex Wilhelm takes stock of the wall of news out of China over the past week to see if there’s a silver lining for startups in the country as the Chinese Communist Party cracks down on everything from edtech companies to streaming platforms.

His take?

“The result may be concentrated effort and capital in sectors that Beijing favors and reduced capital and focus from entrepreneurs in sectors that have been deemed fit for strict control,” he writes. “Simply: Central planning is going to tilt business more toward centrally planned goals.”

Duolingo’s IPO pricing is great news for edtech startups

The Pittsburgh-based language-learning unicorn initially aimed for an $85 to $95 per share IPO price range, then bumped that up to $95 to $100 before it began to trade. It ultimately entered the public markets at $102 per share.

Alex Wilhelm notes that based on Duolingo’s expected Q2 revenues, the company has a run-rate multiple of nearly 16x. Compare that to the median multiple for public SaaS companies of 14x.

“Duolingo, a consumer edtech company, is now more valuable per revenue dollar than the median public enterprise SaaS business,” Alex writes.

Financial firms should leverage machine learning to make anomaly detection easier

Machine learning can make anolmaly detection easier

Image Credits: GOCMEN (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

“Anomaly detection is one of the more difficult and underserved operational areas in the asset-servicing sector of financial institutions,” EZOPS CEO Bikram Singh writes in a guest column.

But it’s critical to detect these anomalies amid a sea of data. That’s where unsupervised learning can offer a solution.

​​”With all eyes on data, it’s crucial that financial institutions find solutions to detect anomalies upfront, thereby preventing bad data from infecting downstream processes,” Singh writes.

“Machine learning can be applied to detect the data anomalies as well as identify the reasons for them, effectively reducing the time spent researching and rectifying executions.”

African startups join global funding boom as fintech shines

Alex Wilhelm and Anna Heim continued their global tour of Q2 2021 venture capital data, this week focusing on Africa.

“Early data indicates that Africa is set to trounce historical records in terms of venture capital raised in the year and that the first half of 2021 saw roughly twice the funds raised by African startups as was recorded in the first half of 2020,” they write.

“Startups across Africa have never had more access to capital than they do right now.”

True ‘shift left and extend right’ security requires empowered developers

Empowered developers will change the nature of true shift left and extend right security

Image Credits: kuritafsheen (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

The intention of DevSecOps is to wedge security and compliance into DevOps. But that’s easier said than done, says Apiiro founder and CEO Idan Plotnik.

“Shifting left and extending right doesn’t mean that a scanning tool or security architect should detect a security risk earlier in the process — it means that a developer should have all the context to prevent the vulnerability before it even happens,” he writes.

4 key areas SaaS startups must address to scale infrastructure for the enterprise

bonsai tree with miniature scaffolding

Image Credits: Stewart Sutton (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Asana’s head of engineering, Prashant Pandey, rounds up four tips for SaaS startups looking to build up their infrastructure to meet customers’ growing needs.

“Startups and SMBs are usually the first to adopt many SaaS products. But as these customers grow in size and complexity — and as you rope in larger organizations — scaling your infrastructure for the enterprise becomes critical for success,” he writes.

He offers four areas to focus on:

  • Address your customers’ security and reliability needs
  • Give IT admins control over product usage
  • Build data isolation into your architecture
  • Support customers by interconnecting their data across applications


Yat thinks emoji ‘identities’ can be a thing, and it has $20M in sales to back it up

I learned about Yat in April, when a friend sent our group chat a link to a story about how the key emoji sold as an “internet identity” for $425,000. “I hate the universe,” she texted.

Sure, the universe would be better if people with a spare $425,000 spent it on mutual aid or something, but minutes later, we were trying to figure out what this whole Yat thing was all about. And few more minutes later, I spent $5 (in U.S. dollars, not crypto) to buy ☕👉💩❗, an emoji string that I think tells a moving story about my caffeine dependency and sensitive stomach. I didn’t think I would be writing about this when I made that choice.

Kesha’s Yat URL on Twitter

On the surface, Yat is a platform that lets you buy a URL with emojis in it — even Kesha (y.at/🌈🚀👽), Lil Wayne (y.at/👽🎵), and Disclosure (y.at/😎🎵😎) are using them in their Twitter bios. Like any URL on the internet, Yats can redirect to another website, or they can function like a more eye-catching Linktree. While users could purchase their own domain name that supports emojis and use it instead of a Yat, many people don’t have the technical expertise or time to do so. Instead, they can make a one-time purchase from Yat, which owns the Y.at domain, and the company will provide you with your own y.at link for you.

This convenience, however, comes at a premium. Yat uses an algorithm to determine your Yat’s “rhythm score,” its metric for determining how to price your emoji combo based on its rarity. Yats with one or two emojis are so expensive that you have to contact the company directly to buy them, but you can easily find a four- or five-emoji identity that’ll only put you out $4.

Beyond that, CEO Naveen Jain — a Y Combinator alumnus, founder of digital marketing company Sparkart and angel investor — thinks that Yat is ultimately an internet privacy product. Jain wants people to be able to use their Yats in any way they’re able to use an online identity now, whether that’s to make payments, send messages, host a website or log in to a platform.

“Objectively, it’s a strange norm. You go on the internet, you register accounts with ad-supported platforms, and your username isn’t universal. You have many accounts, many usernames,” Jain said. “And you don’t control them. If an account wants to shut you down, they shut you down. How many stories are there of people trying to email some social network, and they don’t respond because they don’t have to?”

Yat doesn’t plan to fuel itself with ad money, since users pay for the product when they purchase their Yat, whether they get it for $4 or $400,000.

In the long run, Yat’s CEO says the company plans to use blockchain technology as a way to become self-sovereign. Yats would become assets issued on decentralized, distributed databases. Today, there are several projects working to create a decentralized alternative to the current domain name system (DNS), which is managed by internet regulatory authority ICANN.  DNS is how you find things on the internet, but uses a centralized, hierarchical system. A blockchain domain name system would have no central authority, and some believe this could be the foundation of a next-gen web, or “Web 3.0.”

Today, words like “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” don’t appear on the Yat website. Jain doesn’t think that’s compelling to average consumers — he believes in progressive decentralization, which explains why Yats are currently purchased with dollars, not ethereum.

“Something we think is really funny about the cryptocurrency world is that anyone who’s a part of it spends a lot of time talking about databases,” Jain said. “People don’t care about databases. When’s the last time you went to a website and it said ‘powered by MySQL’?”

Y.at, however, was registered at a traditional internet registrar, not on the blockchain.

“This is laying the foundation — there are certain elements of the vision that are certainly more of a social contract than actual implementation at this point in time,” says Jain. “But this is the vision that we’ve set forth, and we’re working continuously towards that goal.”

Still, until Yat becomes more decentralized, it can’t yet give users the complete control it aspires to. At present, the Terms & Conditions give Yat the authority to terminate or suspend users at its discretion, but the company claims it hasn’t yet booted anyone from the system.

As Yat becomes more decentralized, our terms and conditions won’t be important,” Jain said. “This is the nature of pursuing a progressive decentralization strategy.”

In its “generation zero” phase (an open beta), Yat claims to have sold almost $20 million worth of emoji identities. Now, as the waitlist to get a Yat ends, Yat is posting some rare emoji identities on OpenSea, the NFT marketplace that recently reached a valuation of $1.5 billion.

A still image of a Yat visualizer creation

“For the first time ever, we’re going to be auctioning some Yats on OpenSea, and we’re going to be launching minting of Yats on Ethereum,” Jain said. Before minting Yats as NFTs, users can create a digital art landscape for their Yats through a Visualizer. These features, as well as new emojis in the Yat emoji set, will launch this evening at a virtual event called Yat Horizon.

Yat Creators will now have more rights,” Jain said about the new ability to mint Yats as NFTs. “We are going to continue to pursue progressive decentralization until we achieve our ultimate goal: making Yat the best self-directed, self-sovereign identity system for all.”

Consumers have a demonstrated interest in retaining greater privacy on the internet — data shows that in iOS 14.5, 96% of users opted out of ad tracking. But the decentralization movement hasn’t yet been able to market its privacy advantages to the mainstream. Yat helps solve this problem because even if you don’t understand what blockchain means, you understand that having a personal string of emojis is pretty fun. But, before you spend $425,000 on a single-emoji username, keep in mind that Yat’s vision will only completely materialize with the advent of Web 3.0, and we don’t yet know when or if that will happen.



76% of Employees Think You’re Spying on Their Communications

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A large number of remote workers in the United States are worried that their communications are being secretly monitored by their employers.

A US-centered analysis of Google Search Trends revealed the top HR-related queries are related to privacy and surveillance when working from home. The research was conducted by Elements Global and discovered three quarters of remote workers fear that Big Brother is watching them.

Such a trend is a concern for small businesses which often have much more personal relationships between employers and employees. Distrust and resentment are bad for morale, and this is on top of the pandemic, which has already taken quite a toll on employees.

Employees Think You’re Spying on Them

The research began with a list of more than 300 common HR-related questions. They then narrowed the list down to the top 50 most commonly searched questions. These questions were then sorted into related categories, with privacy and surveillance being two of the categories featuring the most frequently asked questions.

Georgina Coleman at Elements Global explained: “Trust is a central dynamic in employer-employee relationships. Employees have a lot of questions about the limitations of their privacy and the extent to which they are monitored by employers. As our data will show below, employers have reasons to be concerned too.”

The trust issues were further emphasized by the data accompanying the above statement. It revealed that 49% of workers neglect to make reports to HR out of fear of retaliation. Two out of three workers also stated that they don’t report issues to HR because they don’t believe any action will be taken.

Employers Tracking Employees

Speaking directly about the privacy and surveillance concerns, Coleman added: “No matter where you work, there are countless ways an employer can track what you’re doing and how often you’re doing it.

“Of the workers we surveyed, 74% of those who work remotely are concerned about their employer monitoring when and how much they work, and 76% of workers who use a computer are concerned about their employer monitoring their communications.”

Additional findings in the research revealed that 53% of workers admitted to deleting Slacks and other messages so their employer couldn’t see them. A further 64% admitted to deleting their browsing history to hide their lack of productivity.

Privacy and Surveillance Survey Questions

The most frequently asked privacy questions included queries as to whether employers could share salary or FMLA information with other employees. The most frequently asked surveillance question by workers was whether or not an employer could monitor their personal computer. They also asked if their personal phones and laptop location could be tracked by their employer.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "76% of Employees Think You’re Spying on Their Communications" was first published on Small Business Trends