UPshow Helps Businesses Use TV Screens on Site to Build Their Brands

Are TVs inside your business crucial?

If you’re a sports bar, obviously you’ll say flat screens on the wall are 100% crucial to business. But at gyms, screens seem to exist so that members can zone out as they work out. And owners of medical and dental practices might think TVs in waiting rooms are best at keeping “impatient patients” calm.

While clearly different, the use cases mentioned above treat TV screens in a very basic way. You might even wonder if those TVs are “underutilized”, or not living up to their potential. Thinking outside the box (or flat screen, in this case) isn’t something every business owner is good at. And if you don’t know the right questions to ask, or the latest innovation trends to watch, chances are you’re going to stay very vanilla. Because you’re unaware of what’s possible and what other businesses are doing.

You can Miss Opportunities if you Play it Too Safe

Then what are forward-thinking businesses currently doing with smart TVs? What are they improving and how? What are they phasing out? Basketball Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski puts it this way. Don’t worry what you’ve just done or whatever choices you’ve made. Good or bad, they don’t match the important of what you’re doing right now. And what play comes next. Okay then, what trend comes next?

Small Business Trends posed that question to Adam Hirsen, the CEO and co-founder of UPshow. The company launched as a small brand in Chicago in late 2015. Hirsen let us see his TV-centric social engagement product while in New York City, at Buffalo Wild Wings. The business is an UPshow client.

UPshow Social Engagement Platform

UPshow transforms how brick and mortar businesses leverage their TVs and consumers’ smartphones to enhance engagement, drive sales, marketing and more. Powering more than 4,500 locations with 12,000+ active TV screens, their client list includes Crunch Fitness, UFC Gyms, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Sky Zone, and more. They recently secured $6 million in Series A funding led by TDF Ventures and Jump Capital, and rang the NASDAQ bell in New York as a winner in the Chicago Innovation Awards.

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Small Business Trends: What’s the purpose of UPshow?

Adam Hirsen: We’re an in-venue engagement platform that connects the big screen TVs inside of venues to the small screens in everyone’s pocket. We engage customers with modern entertainment and interactive media, and pair that with promotional marketing.

Small Business Trends: Oh, okay, you mean smartphones. I happen to love them. And I know brands love them for data. What’s your stance on old-school marketing methods and traditional CX?

Adam Hirsen: Everywhere you go today, whether it’s Buffalo Wild Wings or a fitness venue, you’re going to be struck with paper marketing which is static and ignored, and also broadcast television. The challenge there is, broadcast television doesn’t add all that much value to a brand, and sometimes it’ll even advertise a national competitor. UPshow helps our partners take control of the experience and market what’s important to build loyalty with their customers and also offer live, interactive and modern media of the venue’s choosing. If you’re a New York Yankees bar, you’ll serve Yankee-centric content, content that aligns with what you’re trying to grow. Each venue lets us know which parts of their marketing and analytics they wish to improve, and our success team teaches the client exactly how they can do that with UPshow, whether it’s getting more sign-ups to their loyalty initiatives or getting a deeper understanding of which specific social media users tweet at them. There’s so much that can be done with UPshow.

What the Business Offers

Small Business Trends: Is installation complicated? Standing here [inside Buffalo Wild Wings Times Square] and looking at all this, it’s very impressive and visually striking, but it makes me think the set-up might overwhelm someone who isn’t tech-savvy.

Adam Hirsen: It’s all simple, actually! Everything’s done through Google Chromebit, which is a slim HDMI stick, and wifi. Our success team makes sure that installation is plug-and-play and goes smoothly; and then once a client is up and running, we make sure they’re getting the most out of UPshow’s front-end and back-end capabilities to not only deliver great experiences for customers but to improve and track what’s important for the business end. Those business goals are defined by the client.

Markets the Company Serves

Small Business Trends: Which sectors do you currently focus on?

Adam Hirsen: Hospitality is big for us, as well as fitness, entertainment and healthcare venues.

Small Business Trends: Because the visual pieces are a huge part of what UPshow does, where can potential clients see it in-person?

Adam Hirsen: Trade shows are huge for us. We go to MUFSO, we go to National Restaurant, we have people at the Nightclub & Bar Show this week in Las Vegas, we go to the Digital Signage Expo, etc… Because it’s a visual product, [examples can be found here and here] it really helps to be able to stand with the customer and show them what it’s like.

Images: UPshow.TV

This article, "UPshow Helps Businesses Use TV Screens on Site to Build Their Brands" was first published on Small Business Trends

Republicans need more than tax cuts to woo small business

(This post originally appeared on The Guardian)

Reducing taxes can certainly help a small business. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that a tax reduction is no silver bullet for our challenges. That’s what Republicans are learning this year and it will be a recurring issue as the country heads towards the 2020 elections. It seems that different people view the impact of a tax reduction in different ways.

For example, a recent New York Times survey found that many people are generally unhappy with the amount of their tax refunds this year, regardless of the fact that withholdings were lowered and both individuals and small businesses are paying less in taxes overall. Why unhappy? It seems that many taxpayers actually prefer the idiotic strategy of overpaying their taxes during the year – in effect giving the government an interest-free loan – so that they receive a bigger refund when they file their returns the following year. Churchill wasn’t kidding when he once said that “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter”.

This type of ignorance isn’t helping Republicans make their case for the benefits of tax reform. But that’s not the end of the party’s problems. Consumers aren’t spending any more, as evidenced by last year’s depressing holiday sales, and businesses certainly aren’t making the investments that Republicans hoped for either. Don’t believe me? Here’s proof.

According to the first quarter’s MetLife & US Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index – a study of responses from more than 1,000 small businesses with fewer than 500 employees that are not sole proprietorships– the percentage of small business owners who planned to increase their investments in 2019 actually dropped from the last quarter to 27% from 29%. The numbers declined across most sectors. “Fewer small manufacturers report plans to increase investments than last quarter (28% v 34%), with more saying they plan to invest the same amount,” the report said. “Those in the service category are also slightly more likely to say they will invest the same, rather than increase investments, compared to last quarter.”

Unfortunately, there’s more bad news for next year’s Republican candidates. Planned hiring by small businesses as a result of tax reform this year isn’t turning out so rosy either. It could be because of the lack of skilled workers, immigration reforms and a low unemployment rate. Regardless, the same US Chamber index found that a “similar number” of small businesses said they planned to increase staff this year as reported last quarter.

As I wrote earlier, it’s still too early to tell if the Republicans’ tax plan is a bust. It’s only been one tax year and it will probably take a while for us to truly understand the impact of reduced taxes on investments and hiring. But one thing’s becoming apparent: it helps, but it’s not all about taxes. There are too many other factors weighing in on our growth and cash flow. What kind of factors?

Oh, you know. Tariffs. Tweets. Stock market volatility. Congressional investigations. Rising deficits. Inconsistent statements coming from the Fed. More local employment regulations on paid time off and minimum wage. Disagreements and stalling over much-needed infrastructure investments and immigration reform. All of these factors have had an impact on small business sentiment which, although still relatively strong, has been either treading water or trending down in recent reports from the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the USChamber of Commerce.

“This quarter’s decline in confidence is an important development that is worth monitoring closely,” Jessica Moser, senior vice-president and head of MetLife’s Group Benefits Small and Specialty Business Organization said in a press release. “It is not yet clear whether it is a blip or the start of a more alarming trend heading into 2019.”

The bottom line is that if the Republicans are hoping to win the hearts of small business in next year’s election, tax cuts alone aren’t going to cut it.

75% of IT Pros Lack Confidence Managing Future Tech Innovations for Businesses

Guess what. Your IT team may lack the confidence necessary to handle the next major innovation needed for your business to compete. And small businesses may find themselves most at risk of being unable to upgrade systems to stay competitive.

The new SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2019: Skills for Tech Pros of Tomorrow reveals the scary figures. Today’s tech professionals have reached a crisis point. A reported 75% of the tech pros in the survey said they lack confidence managing future innovations.

According to SolarWinds, businesses who hire these professionals run the risk of performance and competitive advantage losses. And small businesses run the greatest risk without the resources to overcome these losses.

So the report projects hiring qualified talent will become more expensive. Because fewer individuals possess the ability to implement and manage future innovations.

SolarWinds says the problem relates to tech pros lacking time for upskilling. “The urgency of day-to-day tasks often impedes their ability to participate in learning sessions they find most valuable, like full-day courses, self-guided trainings, or webinars,” the report explains.

The Survey

The data for this year’s North American report comes from a survey carried out in the US and Canada in December 2018. Respondents in the survey included 307 technology practitioners, managers, and directors. And these professionals represented public-and private-sector small, mid-size, and enterprise companies.

The report also studied other regions around the world including Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. A total of 966 respondents took part in the survey across all regions.

Confidence by Technology Professionals

The initial finding that 3 out of 4 tech pros aren’t “completely confident” in handling innovation over the next three to five years seems alarming enough.

But the report also indicates 99% of the tech pros have worked to develop a skill over the past 12 months. So, many lack confidence even after trying to improve their technical skills.

The data points pack to another study carried out by SolarWinds MSP and the 2112 Group. In that report, only about 1 in 4 partners felt they possessed expert level managed service skills. And a whopping 65% of the respondents claimed to possess only basic managed service skills.

The lack of confidence exists across the board in small, mid-sized and enterprise businesses. For example, 35% of small business tech pros reported completely unconfident in their ability to manage future changes. For mid-sized businesses the number dropped to 34%. And enterprise businesses fared better at just 31%.

What About the Technologies?

When it comes to the technologies the pros feel unequipped to manage their current skillset, they are the ones which are on the verge of breaking through for wider adoption.

More than half or 51% of the pros said artificial intelligence was first, followed by machine and/or deep learning at 45%, and blockchain at 34%.

As to the technologies which are essential for the day to day operations of their current situation, data sciences are in the forefront. In the past 12 months the skills the tech pros have prioritized are systems and infrastructure management (46%), cloud and/or hybrid IT (44%), and security management (39%).

Along this path, they also plan to develop skillsets which will be important in the transformation of their organization over the next three to five years. The top two skillsets are security management (49%) and hybrid IT deployment monitoring and management (48%).

Solutions: IT Upskilling and More

One of the problems tech pros have is their day-to-day IT tasks take time from career development. This was the case for 83% of the respondents, with 28% saying this always happens.

Considering tech pros are extremely proactive in upskilling, businesses should make a concerted effort to ensure they have the time need to make it happen.

SolarWinds also recommends for tech pros to collaborate more. Adding, it is now more important than ever to embrace collaboration and work with other teams.

It goes on to say, “This holds true when it comes to knowledge sharing, as well. A portion of tech pros around the world prefer to receive trainings primarily from colleagues, and so it’s important to remember that knowledge gained could and should be shared amongst peers for the greater good.”

At the end of the day this is a symbiotic relationship, when tech professionals have the necessary skills, it benefits the business and the pro.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, "75% of IT Pros Lack Confidence Managing Future Tech Innovations for Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends

Raising Awareness of Cybersecurity Offers a Great Small Business Niche, Study Shows

A new survey from LexingtonLaw has revealed a startling outcome about data breach. According to the report, 56% of Americans have never checked to see if they have been affected by a data breach.

Considering all the reports about data breaches in the news, this piece of data is quite a revelation. But as LexingtonLaw says in the report, “Many Americans are lost when it comes to data breaches.”

For small business owners, this is a great opportunity to inform customers about the importance of data security. Sharing the dangers they face in today’s digital ecosystem can be a value-added service with many benefits.

As the report points out, the biggest problem is not knowing what to do. The key findings of the survey have three major points which highlight the lack of knowledge currently taking place.

• A majority of Americans have never checked if they’ve been affected by a data breach
• 1 in 5 people have checked for a breach within the last month
• 66% don’t know what to check if a breach occurs

If you don’t check for any data breaches and don’t know what to check, it compounds the problem. For hackers, this kind of complacency is the ideal scenario for committing long-term credit frauds.

Survey Results

LexingtonLaw reports since 2013 there have been more than 13.4 billion data records lost or stolen. Whether it was the 500 million people who had the information exposed in the Marriot breach or the countless others, the problem and news is hard to avoid.

Yet, a large percentage of Americans across the board have never checked for a data breach. This includes 69% of tech-savvy 18 to 24-year-olds who have never checked.

The number gets slightly better for other groups, but it is still very high. It goes down to 59% for those between 25 to 34 years of age, and just one percent lower at 58% for 35-44-year olds.

Surprisingly, older Americans are 50% more likely to have checked for a data breach at some point compared to all other age groups.

Not Knowing What to Do

The biggest challenge for individuals, as well as small businesses, is not knowing what to do during a data breach. With so many data breaches taking place, checking each one can be a daunting task.

In the survey, 66% said they don’t know what to check if a data breach takes place. Again, 18 to 24-year-olds are least likely to know what to check.

Birth certificates, Social Security numbers, passport numbers, credit card numbers, and email addresses are some of the information criminals seek out. When vitally important personal information is compromised, the damage can be catastrophic and very difficult to overcome.

The impact, as LexingtonLaw says, can be huge on your life.

Fight Cybersecurity Complacency With These Basic Steps to Protect your Data

Protecting your personal data requires a proactive effort on your part. Being complacent makes you a perfect target for hackers who are scouring the Internet 24/7 for victims.

Start by signing up for a credit monitoring service. The three reporting agencies provide a service, but you can also choose third-party solutions. But don’t rely on them alone.

Check your credit at least twice per year, the more the better.

In addition to your credit history, secure all your computing devices at home and in your workplace. Make sure to have the latest update for all of your software, including anti-virus and malware protection.

As more of the things in your life become connected (TVs, cars, homes, etc.) make sure they don’t become a gateway for an attack too.

The best recommendation is to seek the advice of a professional to ensure you are fully protected. There is a clear and present danger, but there is also much you can do to protect yourself, loved ones and business.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, "Raising Awareness of Cybersecurity Offers a Great Small Business Niche, Study Shows" was first published on Small Business Trends

4 Tips to Protect Yourself from Fraud in Investment

Protecting your hard-earned money in investment takes effort and caution. Use these tips to ensure you don't prey to bad actors.

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Ride-hailing, bike and scooter companies probably raised less money than you thought

Jason Rowley Contributor

Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News.

More posts by this contributor

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After years of fierce competition as private companies, Uber and Lyft are going public on U.S. markets. Scooter service providers, the transportation trend du jour, raised hundreds of millions of dollars to scatter scooters on city sidewalks (to the chagrin of residents and regulators alike) throughout 2017 and 2018. On the other side of the Pacific, Grab and Go-Jek are raising gobs of cash as they continue to scale upward and outward.

Of all the seed, early and late-stage venture funding raised over the past couple of years, how much of the total went to companies in the ride-hailing, food delivery and last-mile transportation categories (which encompasses bikes and scooters)? Probably not as much as you’d think.

Taken together, companies in these sectors raised less than 10 percent of the total venture dollar volume reported for each of the past five full calendar years.

We’ve charted it out based on yearly totals. Take a peek:

To be sure, we’re still talking about a lot of money here. Companies in these three categories raised more than $22 billion in venture funding rounds (not including private equity) in 2017 and more than $18 billion in 2018.

Ventures in the transportation space loom large in the media, and how could they not? It’s a forbiddingly capital-intensive market to play in, requiring companies to raise massive sums, which make for good headlines.

In its early years, competition between on-demand, point-to-point transportation marketplace companies rewarded brashness and speed with early scale and the long-term structural advantages conferred to first the firms which grew the fastest.

But those advantages may not have been as stiff as first expected. Lyft beat Uber to the public markets, raised its valuation during its IPO roadshow, priced at the top of its extended range and then popped 21 percent when it started trading.

That success means that the red chunks of our above chart weren’t all fool’s bets. Instead, a good chunk of the equity represented is now liquid. Of course, there’s a lot more work to do for literally every other ride-hailing, ridesharing, scooter-renting and other wheels-providing unicorns in the world: They still have to go public.

This Event is for Women Entrepreneurs Only

Sorry guys, this is for women entrepreneurs only.

Beachpreneurs Beach Camp 5 is going to be held in Daytona Beach, Florida to teach women entrepreneurs how to optimize their business to create a lifestyle they’ll love.

As the event hosts said, “You CAN create an income that isn’t 100% dependent on your time.”

Beachpreneurs Co-Founders Nicole Dean and Kelly McCausey are the hosts of the event. And they have held 8 Beach House Retreats and 5 Beach Camp Hotel Events.

Women across a range of expertise will speak during the three-day event. They will discuss social media, customer acquisition, improving communication and productivity, passive income and much more.

In addition to the speakers adviser will also lead topic tables.

Don’t miss this event in sunny Daytona Beach from April 12-14, 2019. Click the red button and register now.

Register Now

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Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Elevate Your Digital Influence
April 13, 2019, Issaquah, Wash.

Are you ready to grow your business? Join us and learn how to put together a PR plan and leverage what you are doing on social to grow your level of influence. Are you ready to be a leader in your marketplace? #ElevateYourDigitalInfluence

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Listening to the Voice of the Customer Workshop
April 23, 2019, Boston, Mass.

Join Applied Marketing Science (AMS) for the next open-enrollment session of “Listening to the Voice of the Customer,” our acclaimed training workshop, on April 23-24, 2019 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel located in the heart of downtown Boston. Led by veteran product development and market research experts, Gerry Katz (AMS Vice Chairman), and John Burns (AMS Principal), this course will introduce Voice of the Customer market research and teach you to use it to accelerate innovation in business-to-business markets.
Discount Code
SMALLBIZ ($100 Discount)

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Beachpreneurs Beach Camp 5
April 26, 2019, Daytona Beach, Fla.

For starters, we’re for Women Entrepreneurs only. During Beach Camp, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to learn, apply and mastermind with warm successful women.
You’ll also have time to sleep in and you’ll get long breaks to relax and walk the beach or go for a swim. We didn’t create a conference at the beach just to lock you away in a conference room from dawn til dusk. Beach Camp is a lifestyle focused event so you’ll be spending as much time enjoying your life as you will be focusing on your business. Join us today!

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Listening to the Voice of the Customer
October 16, 2019, Chicago, Ill.

Led by veteran product development and market research experts, this course will introduce Voice of the Customer (VOC) market research and teach you to use it to accelerate innovation in business-to-business markets. The workshop uses a lively, interactive format with numerous hands-on activities and practice exercises to build skills and will also expose you to the latest applications of these techniques in areas such as machine learning and journey mapping.
Discount Code
SMALLBIZ ($100 Off)

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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: Shutterstock

This article, "This Event is for Women Entrepreneurs Only" was first published on Small Business Trends

An IT Guy Gets Fired And Promptly Torches 23 Amazon Web Servers

(This post originally appeared on Inc)

Thinking of terminating that under-performing or problematic employee? If you do, just make sure protect yourself…and your data.

That was a hard lesson learned by the management at Voova, a marketing and software company based in the UK.  Back in 2016, Voova terminated an IT staffer…and paid a big price.

The employee – 36-year-old Steffan Needhan – was let go due to “poor performance” after only four weeks on the job.  But the reasons why he was let go isn’t important. The aftermath is. That’s because the company left themselves – and their data exposed. Needhan – remember that he’s an IT guy  – was still able to access the company’s systems soon after being terminated because he stole a fellow employee’s login credentials. The fellow employee was nicknamed “Speedy” Gonzalez.  I only include that part because it’s kind of funny.

But nothing else about this story is. After gaining entry to Voova’s network, Needham wreaked havoc, “torching” the Amazon Web Services computers which hosted the company’s main business applications and data.

According to a report in Naked Security, Needham “got busy” by fiddling with account settings and then deleting each of the company’s AWS servers.  As a result, the company lost “big contracts with transport companies” to the tune of £500,000 (about $700,000 at the time). Unfortunately, the company was unable to recover the deleted data.

Needham was ultimately tracked down, arrested and finally found guilty of the crime this past month. He’s now serving two years in jail. I’m sure the company would rather have the data (and their customers) back.

Could Voova have avoided this crisis? Yes and the answer was simple: a 2FA (two-factor authentication) system. By implementing this system, when Needham logged into the system a text message would’ve been sent to “Speedy’s” smartphone also asking for permission to login and we’ll assume that Speedy would’ve alerted management of the intrusion.  That didn’t happen.

For business owners of all size, whether you’ve got your data in-house or using a third party to host it, the lesson is clear.

Have a plan for when employees leave, of course. But also make sure your systems are locked down with 2FA security now. Most application and hosting providers provide this option. To me, it’s not an option. That’s because doing so will not only protect your business for if an employee leaves, but it will also provide a very necessary additional layer of security for everyone else

10 Tips for Growing Your Business with Technology and Talent

Small business owners wear so many hats. So it’s essential to use tools and resources to help you streamline and increase efficiency. And you’ll need marketing platforms to productivity tools to help. Make growing your small business toolkit an ongoing process. Check out these thoughts and tips from members of the online small business community.

Grow Your Presence on Twitter

Twitter looms large on the digital landscape. But many businesses still struggle to really make effective use of it. You need to create a Twitter presence that actually gets results. Check out this post on the Promo blog by Jonathan Nunez for tips.

Try Affiliate Marketing for Small Business

Affiliate marketing becomes an incredibly useful tool for businesses. But few small brands take advantage of it to its full potential. Read this 3Bug Media post and watch the video. Gary Shouldis elaborates on the concept of affiliate marketing and goes over how small businesses can make the most of this concept.

Don’t Overlook These Important SEO Trends

If your SEO strategy only involves looking at Google’s latest update and integrating a few keyword tricks into your site, you’re probably not getting a ton of search traffic. There are some deeper concepts at play that can have a much bigger impact on your ranking, as Ronny Dsouja details in this Pixel Productions post. You can also see what BizSugar members are saying about the post here.

Influence Customer Decisions Without Ads

Advertising can certainly be an effective way to get customers’ attention. But it isn’t the only method you should consider. In this Process Street post, Ben Mulholland discusses the nudge theory to help businesses influence decisions even when you don’t want to spend money on advertising.

Consider Voice Search and Digital Assistants in Your Search Strategy

Voice search and digital assistants are everywhere in 2019. So if they’re not accounted for in your search strategy, you could really be missing out on traffic and visibility. Read this Search Engine Land post for a beginner’s guide to these two concepts.

Grow Your Business with These Helpful Resources

No entrepreneur can grow a business without a little help. Even if you’re a solopreneur, you need to have tools and resources that are able to support your efforts in some way. In this Smallbiztechnology.com post, Megan Totka lays out three areas where you should invest in your business to spur future growth.

Find the Right Software Development for Your Business

Software can be a major asset to any company. But if you’re having a custom program developed, you need to be very confident in the skills and vision of your team. Here are some things to look for throughout the software development, courtesy of Ivan Widjaya of Biz Epic.

Don’t Miss Out on Blogging for Your Creative Business

Much has been made about the death of blogging. However, there’s still an argument to be made that it is a must for small businesses — especially those in creative fields. Becca Ellison makes that argument in this DIY Marketers post.

Let Testimonials Do the Talking for You

You can tell potential customers about how great your business is all you want — not all of them are going to believe you. In fact, they’re much more likely to believe past customers who share their experiences. That’s why testimonials are so important, according to David Leonhardt in this Socialnomics post. The BizSugar members shared thoughts on the post here.

Win Big with Social Media Ads

One of the most appealing things about social media marketing is that it’s free to use. But investing a bit of money into those platforms has the potential to increase your reach significantly. If you want to use social media advertising to grow your business, Raluca Crasuleac offers some tips to help you win big in this Right Mix Marketing post.

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.com

This article, "10 Tips for Growing Your Business with Technology and Talent" was first published on Small Business Trends

Startups Weekly: Why Lyft’s $2.2B IPO wasn’t “crazy land” or “nuts”

Lyft completed its long-awaited IPO this week, trading 21 percent higher Friday than its initial offering price of $72 per share. It closed its first day of trading at about $78 per share, up roughly 9 percent.

I spoke to IPO guru Brian Hamilton, the CEO of banking software company Sageworks, about Lyft’s offering to get a sense of how Wall Street views the buzzworthy tech unicorn. As I wrote earlier this week, Wall Street doesn’t seem to care about profitability, prioritizing growth instead. Lyft is definitely growing, quickly, and working hard to shrink its losses. Hamilton said the price per share was reasonable, and, given Lyft’s positive cash flows, he seemed confident the company will fare well on the Nasdaq this year.

He was especially clear about one thing: Lyft’s offering is nothing like Snap’s. “The camera company,” if you remember, had posted only $404.5 million in revenue ahead of its IPO, which valued it at $23.8 billion: “It’s not crazy land; it’s not nuts; it’s not Twitter, it’s not Snap; it’s reasonable actually, I’m surprised,” Hamilton told TechCrunch. “I’ve seen some of these tech companies go for much higher valuations [and] those companies commanded much higher sales multiples.”

Ultimately, Lyft commanded an 11x revenue multiple, on par with what we expect from Uber next month. Lyft could have priced higher given demand, though my Equity co-host Alex Wilhelm argued against that prospect on this special episode, where we discuss Lyft’s first day of trading.

Hamilton, like Alex and I, also emphasized the benefit of beating Uber to the public markets and debuting on the stock exchange at peak bull market: “The markets are hot, people want to put their money somewhere,” he said. “Even the people that have been on the fence want [Lyft stock].”

Here’s what else happened this week.

Uber is buying…

…Careem, its Middle Eastern counterpart. Uber will pay a whopping $3.1 billion to acquire the seven-year-old company. The deal had been rumored for months and is expected to close in Q1 2020, pending applicable regulatory approvals.

Airbnb’s road to IPO

Airbnb announced this week that it has checked in half-a-billion guests to its 6 million global participating properties. Damn. It’s also closing in on some of the larger hospitality industry incumbents like Hilton and Marriott. This paints a nice picture for a company that is more than ready to IPO and is surely preparing its pitch to public market investors. No word yet on when Airbnb will file, but it’s looking like it’s still several months out.

Deal of the week

I promised myself I wouldn’t write Casper and unicorn in the same sentence, but it seems inevitable at this point. The mattress startup raised a $100 million Series D this week at a valuation of $1.1 billion and became the newest entry to the unicorn club. Target — which once tried to acquire Casper — NEA, IVP and Norwest Venture Partners participated in the round. Casper has previously raised $240 million in equity funding from celebrity investors Leonardo DiCaprio and 50 Cent, as well as institutional investors, including Lerer Hippeau.

Startup capital

Restaurant manager Toast raises $250M at $2.7B valuation
Airwallex raises $100M at a valuation north of $1B
Vlocity nabs $60M Series C on $1B valuation
Lola.com raises $37M to take on SAP 
Boundless gets $7.8M to help immigrants navigate the green card process

Venture $$$

Jon Sakoda, a former partner at the esteemed venture capital firm NEA, has taken the wraps off his new, Cisco-backed fund, called Decibel. Sakoda can’t disclose the precise size of the fund yet, but he told TechCrunch he’s working very collaboratively with Cisco, including its corporate venture arm, Cisco Investments. Plus, 500 Startups has raised $33 million for its Middle Eastern-focused fund, 500 Falcons.

Extra Crunch

This week’s recommended read for our Extra Crunch subscribers: What’s the cost of buying users from Facebook and 13 other ad networks? Subscribe to EC here.

Podcast M&A

Spotify is making good on its promise to spend millions on podcast M&A, following its purchases of Gimlet and Anchor for $340 million. This week, the music streaming giant announced that it had acquired a small podcasting studio called Parcast, known best for true-crime and other factual serials in genres like mystery, science fiction and history.

Meet Evan Spiegel’s sister, Caroline

She spoke to TechCrunch about her first big project. Called Quinn, Caroline plans to launch a website dedicated to sexy text and audio on April 13th. She describes Quinn as “a much less gross, more fun Pornhub for women.” Read TechCrunch’s Josh Constine’s full interview with Caroline here.

#Equitypod

If you enjoy this newsletter, be sure to check out TechCrunch’s venture-focused podcast, Equity. In this week’s episode, available here, TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos, Crunchbase News’ Alex Wilhelm and I chat about Wall Street’s appetite for unicorns, Casper’s big round and more. Then, in a special Equity Shot, we discuss Lyft’s first day trading on the Nasdaq.

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What is a Shared Kitchen and How is it Important to Food Entrepreneurs?

There’s a growing trend in the food industry that could be of major interest to new entrepreneurs and small businesses. Shared kitchens, sometimes also referred to as kitchen incubators or community kitchens, basically allow chefs, bakers, caterers or other food related professionals to split the cost of a professional kitchen space. This offers a ton of potential practical and cost benefits.

If you’re thinking about starting a food business or may be interested in utilizing this concept for your existing business, here’s what you need to know.

What Is a Shared Kitchen?

A shared kitchen is a commercial space that has been licensed, certified, and equipped for professional food production. The space is available for entrepreneurs to rent, usually through flexible plans. Basically, they’re like membership organizations for food businesses. You pay a monthly rate based on how much time you need to use the space. Some require you to sign up for a specific amount of time that stays fairly steady each month. Others allow you to be more flexible and just rent space by the hour as you need it. Regardless of the specific model you go with, you get access to the space and all of the equipment and regulatory compliance it provides. Some shared kitchens also provide complementary services for food businesses, like access to packaging resources or business training courses.

These spaces are really meant for food businesses that don’t need to deal with consumers directly at their food production location. Event caterers, wholesale bakers, packaged food sellers and even food truck vendors can all make use of this type of space. They’re not ideal for actual restaurants, since they mainly just provide the kitchen space and don’t offer extra space of accommodations for consumers to visit. However, many do offer food storage space so you don’t necessarily need to take everything with you when you leave after each visit.

Benefits of a Shared Kitchen

The most obvious benefit of this type of space is the cost savings it provides. Instead of paying high monthly rent for your own dedicated space, you get to share that cost with other food businesses. This aspect is especially beneficial for those who don’t need to use a kitchen space constantly. For example, if you’re a caterer that mainly just needs to prepare food on the weekends, it doesn’t make much sense to pay for a full month’s rent on a space you use less than half of the time.

In addition, these kitchens normally come fully stocked with equipment. So you don’t need to pay for new appliances or major kitchen tools. Of course, you’ll pay for the privilege of using these items in your monthly membership fee. But you can save yourself the trouble of buying these items.

They’re also usually built to fully comply with your area’s regulations for food vendors. All commercial kitchens need to meet specific standards for safety, cleanliness and a few other features. Learning about and meeting these standards can sometimes be complicated, especially for new entrepreneurs. So going with a shared kitchen allows you to really simplify this process.

In some states, food entrepreneurs are able to prepare foods for sale that they make at home. But those home kitchens must also meet regulatory standards. And some states like New Jersey do not allow home kitchens to operate commercially at all.

Where to Find a Shared Kitchen

Shared kitchens tend to be especially popular in busy metropolitan areas. Of course, there needs to be enough independent food businesses in the area to make running such a facility worthwhile. But it’s worth looking into even if you’re in a less populous community as well.

Most of these businesses operate regionally. So you’ll likely need to find an independent kitchen that’s located nearby. And the exact services and rates can vary widely. For example, 24-7 Shared Kitchen in Lawrenceville, Georgia offers monthly rates as low as $200. Some even offer straight hourly rates, like The City Kitch in Charlotte, North Carolina for $30 an hour. And Some offer shifts, like Hana Kitchens in New York, which has rates as low as $150 for the midnight shift.

There are also networks and services like The Food Corridor that can help you find a shared kitchen in your area that meets your needs. The NICK is the company’s network of kitchens. You can simply visit the site and enter your location to find options in your area. Then you can compare rates and features to find the option that works best for your specific business model.

The Food Corridor currently has more than 80 shared kitchens included in its network across the U.S. and Canada. And the concept appears to be growing by the year. If you’re interested in taking advantage of one of these kitchens for your business, you should be able to find something that’s at least relatively close to your area. If you can’t find something suitable online, try connecting with your local chamber of commerce or other local business organizations to see if there are opportunities that might work for you.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, "What is a Shared Kitchen and How is it Important to Food Entrepreneurs?" was first published on Small Business Trends

Toast, the restaurant management platform, has raised $250M at a $2.7B valuation

Restaurant sales hit $825 billion last year in the U.S., but with margins averaging at only three to five percent per business, they’re always looking for an edge on efficiency and just generally running things in a smarter way. A startup called Toast, which has built a popular platform for restaurant management, has closed a hefty round of funding to double down on that opportunity to do that.

The company has raised $250 million on a valuation of $2.7 billion, money that it will use to invest in building technology to help restaurants with marketing, recruitment and operational efficiency, as well as start to think about expanding to more territories outside the U.S.

The basics of the funding were flagged earlier today by Prime Unicorn Index and we reached out to the company to confirm. It is being led by TCV and Tiger Global Management, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price Associates funds and other existing investors.

This Series E is a big bump up for the company: in its previous round in July 2018, the company was valued at $1.4 billion — partly the result of strong growth at the company. While it’s not disclosing revenue numbers or whether it is yet profitable, Toast currently serves tens of thousands of businesses — covering a range of sizes from independent venues to smaller chains — and in the last year tallied up transactions in the tens of billions of dollars, seeing growth of some 148 percent in its revenues, according to CFO Tim Barash.

The restaurant business represents a big opportunity for e-commerce companies, but there have been some notable stumbles where ambitions have not been met with success. Groupon, which spent several years acquiring and organically building a point of sale and restaurant management business, first drastically cut down and then finally called it quits and sold off its efforts, called Breadcrumb, in 2016. Amazon also pulled out of point of sale services (aimed at more than restaurants) and has in certain regions also pulled back on other restaurant efforts like its order management and delivery platform.

Barash said in an interview that he thinks the key to why Toast has steadily grown its business through all that is because a large proportion of its own employees — some 70 percent — have worked in the food service industry themselves.

“I was first a busboy, and then I worked in pizza delivery for years,” he said. “Seventy percent of our employees have worked at restaurants, including those in our product leadership, and that helps us understand the problem.”

Restaurants, as Barash points out, are complicated. “They are essentially manufacturers and retailers at the same time, all in one small physical footprint,” and so the key to building products for them is to understand that and the challenges they face in building and running those businesses.

And that’s before you consider the many other factors that can make restaurants a dicey game, from changing cuisine tastes, to changing eating habits — many get food delivered today — to the precariousness of the commercial real estate market and so much more.

The aim of Toast is to build tools to apply data science and orderly IT processes to address whichever of those variables that can be controlled by the restaurant.

Today, Toast’s products include point of sale services as well as reporting and analytics; display systems for kitchens; online ordering and delivery interfaces; and loyalty programs. It also builds its own hardware, which includes handheld order pads, payment and ordering terminals, self-service kiosks and displays for guests. It also offers links through to a network of some 100 partners, such as Grubhub for takeout food, when a restaurant does not cover those services or functions directly, to help stitch together services to work on its platform.

Tomorrow, the plan is to use the funding to enhance all of those with more advanced features that speak to some of the bigger issues and concerns Barash said its customers are voicing today.

That will include better and more services aimed at guest engagement and retention; better ways to recruit and keep people in an industry that has a high turnover of employees; and of course more tools to address how efficiently a business is operating to make it more profitable. The company has committed some $1 billion in the next five years to R&D to build more hardware and software.

Having access to this kind of tech and platform is a big deal, especially for independently owned places that hope to compete against bigger chains without having to compromise on their core competency: making unique and delicious food.

In the meantime, Barash said that while Toast itself is no stranger to approaches from larger players itself — he declined to say who but said many who have ambitions to do more business with the restaurant industry had approached it over the years — the company’s long-term vision is to grow bigger and remain its own boss.

It’s an ambition that has hit the spot with investors that have an appetite for high-growth businesses.

“At TCV, we invest in companies that have the potential to reshape entire industries. By providing restaurants of all sizes with access to innovative technology, Toast is leveling the playing field and leading the industry’s transition to the cloud,” said David Yuan, general partner at TCV, in a statement, who is joining the board with this round. “Our investment will enable Toast to extend their platform beyond point-of-sale and guest-facing technology, and in doing so, create a powerful SaaS platform with a superlative business model. We’re excited to partner with Toast as they accelerate the growth of the community they serve.”

In the News: Tech Problems May be Stressing Out Your Employees

Stress and struggle. For small business owners, they can be too real sometimes.

This week, we learned in a new survey which U.S. cities are the most stressed out. You’re going to be somewhat surprised to see which cities topped the list this year.

Are you near any of these stressed out cities? Take a look at the survey results to find a frantic city near you.

But then there are those frustrations that know no geographic bounds. We also learned this week that technology issues really cramp a small business owner’s routine.

A new survey found that 94% of workplaces in the U.S. struggle to use the apps that are supposed to make work easier. Talk about the ultimate frustration!

The news isn’t all so vexing, however. Check out our news roundup below for more headlines that impact small business owners like you in our weekly news and information roundup:

Small Business Operations

66% of Businesses Spend Less Than $10K to Build Their Website

Consider the tremendous potential benefits of having a website. Still, a new report from Visual Objects says a significant number of businesses don’t have one. And when businesses decide to build a site, they avoid spending big. Two-thirds or 66% of businesses spend less than $10,000 to design, build, and launch a website.

Social Media

The Future of Facebook and Messenger: Why It’s Important for Your Business

Messaging is at the core of Facebook’s future, according to Mark Zuckerberg just last week. Facebook’s CEO announced a vision of “a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform” where people can communicate securely.

Smaller Instagram Profiles – Like the One for Your Business – Less Likely to Use Stories, Data Says

When Instagram first introduced Stories, the conversation was all about the comparison to Snapchat. Today it is a tool used by businesses, influencers and brands to reach and engage with their audience. But according to a new study from Fanpage Karma, small Instagram profiles are less likely to use Stories.

Marketing Tips

Weird Holidays in April: 13 Your Small Business Should Celebrate

April approaches. And this means warmer weather, buds of spring and Easter beckoning. So celebrate this joyful springtime month. And if you own a small business take note. You’ll learn a string of weird and wacky holidays are also on tap. And the savviest small businesses use these celebrations to their advantage when marketing.

Startup

The 25 Best Affiliate Marketing Companies in 2019

Small businesses need a simple way to recruit marketers to help sell products. And small online marketers need a simple way to gain commission from the traffic they drive. Affiliate marketing solves both problems. Affiliate marketing involves marketing someone else’s goods and services for a commission. Small businesses can use this model to market their products.

Why Would a Fox News Anchor Leave to Start His Own Small Business?

For most people, being on the number one cable news show in the world would be the highlight of their career. But on this week’s radio show, I talked with Clayton Morris, a former FOX News anchor and member of the Fox and Friends team.

Image: DepositPhotos.com

This article, "In the News: Tech Problems May be Stressing Out Your Employees" was first published on Small Business Trends

Equity Shot: Lyft is public — what does that mean for other IPO-ready unicorns?

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Sure, we just aired a new episode, but things keep happening, and after talking about this crop of IPOs for so long, we can’t help ourselves. (You can follow us on Twitter, here and here, by the way, if Equity isn’t enough for you.)

Lyft, as you know, started trading today, closing the loop on a long saga that brought the smaller of the two domestic ride-hailing unicorns to the public markets.

After so much speculation about which of the two would get out the door first, Lyft did, and now we get to see what sort of pricing shenanigans happen next. Does Uber drop rates and punish Lyft? Or does Uber work to cut its losses, lowering its expenses and providing a clearer path toward profitability before its April IPO roadshow kicks off? (Not a path to profitability, mind; Uber and Lyft need to show a path to the direction of profitability first.)

We hit all the bases, going over the company’s pricing path, its varying share figures, final raise metrics and more. If you want the hard stuff, we’ve got a shot for you.

Now that the Lyft IPO has wrapped, we’ll be shifting our focus to Pinterest, Zoom and, of course, Uber. Stay tuned.

OK, now we’re done. Until next Friday. Unless something else happens.

Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Downcast and all the casts.

Remote workers and nomads represent the next tech hub

Amid calls for a dozen different global cities to replace Silicon Valley — Austin, Beijing, London, New York — nobody has yet nominated “nowhere.” But it’s now a possibility.

There are two trends to unpack here. The first is startups that are fully, or almost fully, remote, with employees distributed around the world. There’s a growing list of significant companies in this category: Automattic, Buffer, GitLab, Invision, Toptal and Zapier all have from 100 to nearly 1,000 remote employees.

The second trend is nomadic founders with no fixed location. For a generation of founders, moving to Silicon Valley was de rigueur. Later, the emergence of accelerators and investors worldwide allowed a wider range of potential home bases. But now there’s a third wave: a culture of traveling with its own, growing support networks and best practices.

You don’t have to look far to find startup gurus and VCs who strongly advise against being remote, much less a nomad. The basic reasoning is simple: Not having a location doesn’t add anything, so why do it? Startups are fragile, so it’s best to avoid any work practice that could disrupt delicate growth cycles.