Author: azeeadmin

My colleagues and I published a couple of different views on the future of “work from home” and remote work last Friday — a story that, if analytics is any sign, really struck a nerve with many of you.

That shouldn’t be surprising particularly in the tech industry, where knowledge work fundamentally means we spend the vast majority of our time in an “office.” Everything from minor annoyances (they cut down the size of the Klondike bars in the mini-kitchen!) to massive complaints (I am trying to think through a complex ML algorithm as my open-office colleagues are having a Nerf war!) is magnified given the time we spend in these environments.

Understandably, the mandatory Work From Home situation that many of us find ourselves in is not ideal. Schools are closed, kids are home, internet is wonky since everyone else is home, the dog sitter isn’t coming and there are no cafés to find sojourn. It’s not surprising then that there is something of a popular revulsion and revolt to the whole WFH notion, even as large tech companies like Twitter say they will permanently offer Work From Home as an option.

That’s selling short what is really taking place though. “Work From Home” is terrible branding, precisely because it fails to communicate the fundamental freedom that comes with these new policies. It’s not about further imprisoning us in our homes — it’s about empowering us to think and work exactly where we are personally most productive.

Yes, I know that most of us are sequestered in our humble abodes due to COVID-19, but long-term, the whole point of the flexibility that “Work From Home” provides is precisely that you can work from anywhere. It may be your home — but it may as well be a café, the hospital where a sick family member is located, a beach, a friend’s house, a hotel. The point of flexibility here is to untether our schedules and the stress associated with them and allow our work to happen where we want it to.

Many of us will choose to work from home, and many of us will habitually return to the same working environment each day even if it isn’t our home. That’s fine. Flexibility doesn’t mean constantly changing everything up — it means we can change things when we want and need to.

One big question that has loomed over “Work From Home” policies is this: What if I like my office and the social life of meeting with colleagues? Again, we see the narrowness of the language. “Work From Anywhere” literally means anywhere, including the very office we would normally commute to.

Flexibility means adapting our schedules and our locations for the kinds of knowledge work we are trying to do. Some days are all meetings as we try to coordinate a number of projects. Some days we need to shut out the world and just dive down into writing our novels, or developing a new algorithm, or putting together that big presentation for the all-hands meeting next week. Some days we need a mix of both. Some days we need the comfort of home, while other days we need the comfort of colleagues.

In short, “Work From Anywhere” perfectly encapsulates that freedom and dynamism our schedules deserve.

For companies, the challenge is how to empower a true Work From Anywhere culture, which is way more than the binary of “in office” or “at home.” Many companies already have expense policies that allow employees to buy key equipment for their homes (a monitor, bringing a computer home, etc.) as well as subsidizing home internet access.

But in Work From Anywhere, should companies subsidize coffee purchases or Wi-Fi passes for employees at a nearby café? What about a day pass at a coworking facility? Should the company underwrite employee travel to different cities or places to freshen themselves up with new experiences? How should companies offer mechanisms for distant employees to connect in real life?

Sadly, much of the discussion among executives today is about cost (surprise!). Offices are expensive. Office space per employee has declined over the past five decades under cost pressure, which is one reason for the forced usage of open offices compared to offices with doors that close. There is more collaboration — and a nice savings to the bottom line. Work From Home itself got more popular as broadband internet expanded and companies were looking for new ways to minimize their expenses.

Work From Anywhere may not save a company any money whatsoever. What was once large office complexes may be a handful of smaller venues, with travel and food budgets that will more than make up for any real estate cost savings. This new workplace flexibility is not about saving money, nor long-term social distancing. In the end, it’s an investment in employee well-being, productivity, and ultimately, profitability.

Samsung’s in-house incubator C-Lab has produced some of the more fascinating hardware devices in recent memory. Previous graduates have run the gamut from smart belts to augmented reality. The Samsung staff’s pet projects are not always the most practical, but they’re never not interesting.

Per usual, the latest batch of graduates from the 9.5-year-old incubator is a wide ranging group. The two that jump out immediately are Hyler and SunnyFive. The first is a “smart highlighter” that digitizes the text you draw over. That information is transferred onto a connected mobile device and saved into the easily searchable Hyler app.

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SunnyFive is one of the more dystopian entries. The “window-shaped device” generates fake sunlight to provide vitamin D and all of the real benefits of the sun in basements and other windowless environments. Essentially a sun therapy lamp in the shape of a window, the  product promises a piece of the sun, without drawbacks like sunburns and skin damage.

Also on the list are Haxby, a study service that recommends help based on wrong workbook answers; UV exposure sensor RootSensor and 3D effects generator, Blockbuster. Samsung will help foster the startups with resources over a five-year (non-artificial) window.

We’ve aggregated many of the world’s best growth marketers into one community. Twice a month, we ask them to share their most effective growth tactics, and we compile them into this Growth Report.

This is how you stay up-to-date on growth marketing tactics — with advice that’s hard to find elsewhere.

Our community consists of startup founders and heads of growth. You can participate by joining Demand Curve’s marketing training program or its Slack group.

Without further ado, onto our community’s advice.

Use an omnichannel approach for more remote sales

Insights from Paige Harris of Smile.io.

High-margin consumer goods justify a personalized sales funnel. That’s why companies like offline cosmetics retailers employ a small army of sales reps to make calls and do home demos.

In today’s COVID-19 world, retailers are having to move this process from in-person to online. It’s easier said than done.

Here’s one process that some offline retailers (with high-margin products) are finding works:

1. Turn those sales calls into Zoom sessions: Sales reps adapt their home demos to Zoom demos.
   
   

Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a brief jumpstart for your week.

Electric, the platform that puts the IT department in the cloud, has today announced new funding following a continuation of its Series B earlier this year.

Dick Costolo and Adam Bain (01 Advisors) and the Slack Fund participated in the $7 million capital infusion.

01 Advisors put up the majority of the financing ($6 million) with the Slack Fund putting up a little under $1 million and other insiders covering the rest, according to Electric founder and CEO Ryan Denehy.

The funding situation with Electric is a bit unique. Electric raised a $25 million Series B round led by GGV in January of 2019. In March of this year, just before the lockdown, the company reopened the Series B at a higher valuation to make room for Dick Costolo and Adam Bain, raising an additional $14.5 million.

Then the coronavirus pandemic rocked the globe. On Monday March 9, the stock market felt it, triggering a temporary halt on trading. The following week was total financial chaos.

That’s when Adam Bain called up Denehy again. They ‘rapped out’ about the potential for Electric during this turbulent time.

“The increase in remote work is going to be dramatic,” said Denehy, relaying his conversation with Bain. “Larger companies are going to get smarter about budgeting and there is a lot of urgency for them to find ways to spend money around back office tasks like IT more efficiently. Electric becomes more appealing because, dollar for dollar, it’s a lot more efficient than building a big IT department.”

The first week of April, Bain called Denehy again, this time saying that 01 Advisors want to put in more money and be aggressive investing in Electric.

Electric is a platform designed to support the existing IT department of an organization, or in some cases, replace the outsourced IT department. Most of IT’s responsibilities focus on administration, distribution and maintenance of software programs. Electric allows IT to install its software on every corporate machine, giving the IT department a bird’s-eye view of the organization’s IT situation. It also gives IT departments more time to focus on real problem-solving and troubleshooting tasks.

From their own machine, lead IT professionals can grant and revoke permissions, assign roles and ensure all employees’ software is up to date.

Electric is also integrated with the APIs of top software programs, like Dropbox and G-suite, letting IT handle most of their day-to-day tasks through the Electric dashboard. Moreover, Electric is also integrated with Slack, letting folks within the organization flag an issue or ask a question from the platform where they spend the most time.

“The biggest challenge for Electric is keeping up with demand,” said Jason Spinell from the Slack Fund, who also mentioned that he passed on investing in Electric’s seed round and is “excited to sort of rectify [his] mistake.”

Electric also added a new self-service product that can live in the dock, letting employees look at all the software applications provided by the organization from their remote office.

“There are so many stretched IT departments now that have to do a lot more with a lot less,” said Denehy. “There are also companies who were working with an outsourced IT provider and relied on them showing up to the office a few times a week, and all of a sudden that doesn’t work anymore.”

With the current ecosystem, Electric is continuing to spend on marketing but with 180 percent increase in interest from potential clients in the pipeline, according to Denehy.

Argent is launching the first public version of its Ethereum wallet for iOS and Android. The company has been available as a limited beta for a few months with a few thousand users. But it has already raised a seed and a Series A round with notable investors, such as Paradigm, Index Ventures, Creandum and Firstminute Capital. Overall, the company has raised $16 million.

I managed to get an invitation to the beta a few months ago and have been playing around with it. It’s a well-designed Ethereum wallet with some innovative security features. It also integrates really well with DeFi projects.

Many people leave their crypto assets on a cryptocurrency exchange, such as Coinbase or Binance. But it’s a centralized model — you don’t own the keys, which means that an exchange could get hacked and you’d lose all your crypto assets. Similarly, if there’s a vulnerability in the exchange API or login system, somebody could transfer all your crypto assets to their own wallets.

At heart, Argent is a non-custodial Ethereum wallet, like Coinbase Wallet or Trust Wallet. You’re in control of the keys. Argent can’t initiate a transaction without your authorization for instance.

But that level of control brings a lot of complexities. Hardware wallets, such as Ledger wallets, ask you to write down a seed phrase so that you can recover your wallet if you lose your device. It requires some discipline and it’s hard to understand if you’re not familiar with the concept of seed phrases.

Even Coinbase Wallet tells you to back up your seed phrase when you first create a wallet. “We see them as advanced tools for developers,” Argent co-founder and CEO Itamar Lesuisse told me.

That’s why a new generation of wallets tries to hide the complexity from the end user, such as ZenGo and Argent. Creating a wallet on Argent is one of the best experiences in the cryptocurrency space. Your wallet is secured by something called ‘guardians’.

Trust your friends

A guardian can be someone you know and trust, a hardware wallet (or another phone) or a MetaMask account. Argent also provides a guardian service, which requires you to confirm your identity with a text message and an email. If you lose your phone and you want to recover your wallet on another phone, you need to speak to your guardians and get a majority of confirmations. If they can all confirm that, yes, indeed, your phone doesn’t work anymore and you want to recover your crypto assets, the recovery process starts.

Let’s take an example. Here’s your list of guardians:

• Argent’s own guardian service
• Two friends who are also using Argent
• A Ledger Nano S hardware wallet

In total, there are five different factors involved, you including. If you lose your phone, you can recover your wallet by downloading Argent on another phone (factor #1), asking Argent’s guardian service to send you a text and an email to confirm your identity (factor #2) and confirming your identity with the Ledger Nano S (factor #3).

You have reached a majority and the recovery process starts. You’ll get your funds in 36 hours so that you have enough time to cancel it it’s a hijacking attempt.

But you could also have downloaded the Argent app on another phone (factor #1) and pinged your two friends (factor #2 and #3) directly. If they can confirm the same sequence of characters (emojis in that case), the recovery process would start as well.

“I’m interested in social recovery, multi-key schemes,” Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin said in a TechCrunch interview in July 2018. It’s not a new concept as social media apps already use social recovery systems. On WeChat, if you lose your password, WeChat asks you to select people in your contact list within a big list of names.

In Argent’s case, social recovery adds an element of virality as well. The experience gets better as more people around you start using Argent.

In addition to wallet recovery, Argent uses guardians to put some limits. Just like you have some limits on your bank account, you can set a daily transaction limit to prevent attackers from grabbing all your crypto assets. You can ask your guardians to waive transactions above your daily limits.

Similarly, you can ask your guardians to lock your account for 5 days in case your phone gets stolen.

Betting on Ethereum

Argent is focused on the Ethereum blockchain and plans to support everything that Ethereum offers. Of course, you can send and receive ETH. And the startup wants to hide the complexity on this front as well as it covers transaction fees (gas) for you and gives you usernames. This way, you don’t have to set the transaction fees to make sure that it’ll go through.

The startup plans to integrate DeFi projects directly in the app. DeFi stands for decentralized finance. As the name suggests, DeFi aims to bridge the gap between decentralized blockchains and financial services. It looks like traditional financial services, but everything is coded in smart contracts.

There are dozens of DeFi projects. Some of them let you lend and borrow money — you can earn interest by locking some crypto assets in a lending pool for instance. Some of them let you exchange crypto assets in a decentralized way, with other users directly.

Argent lets you access TokenSets, Compound, Maker DSR, Aave, Uniswap V2 Liquidity, Kyber and Pool Together. And the company already has plans to roll out more DeFi features soon.

Overall, Argent is a polished app that manages to find the right balance between security and simplicity. Many cryptocurrency startups want to build the ‘Revolut of crypto’. And it feels like Argent has a real shot at doing just that with such a promising start.

Following the U.S. government’s announcement that would further thwart Huawei’s chip-making capability, the Chinese telecoms equipment giant condemned the new ruling for being “arbitrary and pernicious.”

“Huawei categorically opposes the amendments made by the U.S. Department of Commerce to its foreign direct product rule that target Huawei specifically,” said Huawei Monday at its annual analyst summit in Shenzhen.

The new curbs, which dropped on Friday, would ban Huawei from using U.S. software and hardware in certain strategic semiconductor processes. This will affect all foundries using U.S. technologies, including those located abroad, some of which are Huawei’s key suppliers.

Earlier on Monday, the Nikkei Asian Review reported citing sources that Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract semiconductor that powers many of Huawei’s high-end phones, has stopped taking new orders from Huawei, one of its largest clients. Huawei declined to comment while TSMC said the report was “purely market rumor”.

Decisions from TSMC point to its attempt to strengthen bonds with the U.S. though, as it’s planning a new $12 billion advanced chip factory in Arizona with support from the state and the U.S. federal government.

At the Monday conference, Huawei’s rotating chairman Guo Ping admitted that while the firm is able to design some semiconductor parts such as integrated circuits (IC), it remains “incapable of doing a lot of other things.”

“Survival is the keyword for us at present,” he said.

Huawei stated the latest U.S. ban would not only affect its own business in over 170 countries, where it has spent “hundreds of billions of dollars,” but also the wider ecosystem around the world.

“In the long run, [the U.S. ban] will damage the trust and collaboration within the global semiconductor industry which many industries depend on, increasing conflict and loss within these industries.”

Huawei has announced a raft of contingency measures ever since the Trump administration began slapping technology sanctions on it, including one that had cut it off certain Android services from Google.

Huawei said at the summit that it had doubled down on investment in overseas developers in an effort to lure them to its operating system. Some 1.4 million developers have signed up for Huawei Mobile Services or HMS, a 150% jump from 2019. In its search to identify alternatives to Google’s app suite in Europe, it has partnered up with navigation services TomTom and Here, search engine Qwant and news app News UK. 

Swiggy said on Monday it is cutting 1,100 jobs and scaling down some adjacent businesses as India’s top food delivery startup looks to reduce costs to survive the coronavirus pandemic that has made people cautious about ordering food online.

In an internal email, which the Bangalore-headquartered startup published on its blog, Swiggy co-founder and chief executive Sriharsha Majety said the startup’s core food business had been ‘severely impacted.’

Both the startups are currently processing fewer than a million orders on their platforms, down from nearly 3 million they were handling before the outbreak as people cut their exposure to the world.

To cut costs, Swiggy said it was eliminating 1,100 jobs “across grades and functions in the cities and head office over the next few days.” The company said it will provide those affected with three months of salary, with one additional month for each year they have spent at the startup.

It will also provide those being let go with medical and accident coverage until the end of the year, and counselling for mental, emotional, and financial stress throughout the same period.

“This is easily the hardest and longest deliberated decision the management team and I have been faced with over recent times. We have been fortunate to have some of the brightest missionary talent in the country join us over the last few years, and I would like to state unequivocally that this is not at all a reflection of anyone’s performance,” wrote Majety.

TechCrunch, as well as Indian newspaper Economic Times and outlet Entrackr, reported in late April that the startup was cutting about 1,000 jobs, mostly in the cloud kitchen category. Swiggy had confirmed the layoff at the time, but did not share a number. A Swiggy spokesperson did not immediately share whether today’s announcement represents the same job cuts. A person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch today that Monday’s 1,100 job cuts reveal primarily affect those in non-cloud kitchen parts of the business.

Monday’s announcement follows a similar direction taken by Zomato, the other top food delivery startup in India, which said last week it was reducing its global workforce by 13%, or about 520 people.

Swiggy’s Majety said the company was “choosing to scale down or shut down adjacent businesses that are either going to be highly volatile or will not be highly relevant for the next 18 months.” One of those businesses is cloud kitchens — an area Swiggy has focused on for more than two years, and seemingly doubled down just last quarter.

Late last year, Swiggy executives said they had established 1,000 cloud kitchens for its restaurant partners in the country — more than any of its local rivals. The startup said it had invested in more than a million square feet of real estate space across 14 cities in the country in the last two years.

“Since the onset of Covid, we have already begun the process of shutting down our kitchen facilities temporarily or permanently, depending on their outlook and profitability profile. We are already operating at significantly lower levels on our staffing and physical infra than our earlier footprint, and will continue to optimize before we get more clarity on order volumes for food delivery,” wrote Majety.

Several industries, especially travel and hospitality, have also been severely hit as people follow the New Delhi’s stay-at-home order. Oyo, a startup valued at $10 billion, said last month it was placing thousands of employees on leave and furloughs for up to three months in the U.S. and several other markets as its revenue dropped by more than 60% in recent months.

Ixigo, a 13-year-old travel and hotel booking service, said late April it was cutting the salary of its entire staff. MakeMyTrip, another travel and stay booking service, announced in the same month that it was also cutting the salary of its top management level across the company. This week, MakeMyTrip announced it was entering the food delivery business.

More to follow…

Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract semiconductor maker, has stopped taking new orders from Huawei Technologies, one of its largest customers, according to the Nikkei Asian Review. The report said the decision was made to comply with new United States export controls, announced last Friday, that are meant to make it more difficult for Huawei to obtain chips produced using U.S. technology, including manufacturing equipment.

Orders taken before the ban or already in production will not be affected, if they can ship before September 14. Huawei, the world’s largest telecom equipment maker, is TSMC’s second-biggest customer after Apple. TSMC makes many of the advanced chips used by Huawei, including in its smartphones.

The U.S. Commerce Department released its new orders on Friday, which specifically target Huawei by making it harder for the company to create chips using U.S. software and technology, even in foundries located abroad.

On the same day as the Commerce Department’s announcement, TSMC said that it is opening a new $12 billion advanced chip foundry in Arizona with support from the state and the U.S. federal government. Once opened, the plant will allow more of TSMC’s American clients to fabricate their chips domestically.

TSMC’s announcement came after the Wall Street Journal reported that White House officials were in discussions with TSMC and Intel to build foundries in the U.S. in order to reduce reliance on factories in Asia and the international supply chain.

In an email, a TSMC representative told TechCrunch that the company does not disclose customers’ order details. She added that TSMC complies with laws and applicable regulations, and is “following the U.S. export rule change closely” and “working closely with outside counsels to conduct legal analysis and ensure a comprehensive examination and interpretation of these rules.”

This is the latest restriction the U.S. government has leveled against Huawei citing national security concerns. Along with ZTE, Huawei was identified as a potential threat to security by the House Intelligence Committee in 2012.

The two companies have denied the charges, but under the Trump administration, the U.S government’s efforts to stop both from doing business with U.S. companies has intensified. According to the Nikkei Asian Review report, Huawei anticipated the Commerce Department’s new orders and has been building a year’s worth inventory of chips needed for its telecom equipment.

TechCrunch has contacted Huawei for comment.

SoftBank Group said today that Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba Group, will step down from its board after serving as a director for 13 years. Ma’s resignation will be effective on June 25, the date of SoftBank Group’s annual shareholder meeting.

The company did not give a reason for the resignation, but over the past year, Ma has been pulling back from business roles to focus on philanthropy. Last September, he resigned as Alibaba’s chairman, and is also expected to step down from its board at its annual general shareholder’s meeting this year.

Ma has a long business relationship with Softbank Group chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son. SoftBank was one of Alibaba’s first major backers, investing a reported $20 million in 2000, one year after the e-commerce company was founded. As of a February 2020 SEC filing, it owned about 25.1% of Alibaba shares. Its stake in Alibaba is currently worth more than $100 billion, making it SoftBank Group’s most valuable investment.

SoftBank Group’s announcements were made a few hours before it is scheduled to release a dour first quarter earnings report. The company said last month it expects its $100 billion Vision Fund to lose about $16.5 billion, due largely to the near collapse of WeWork, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on other portfolio companies, including Uber and Oyo. It is also expected to post an annual operating loss of $12.5 billion.

To lower debt and increase its cash reserves, SoftBank Group said in March that it is selling or monetizing $41 billion of its assets and buying back $4.7 billion of its shares.

Ma is the only person out of SoftBank Group’s current 11 directors who is leaving. The company also said it nominated three new board directors for election at the shareholders meeting: SoftBank Group chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto; Cadence Design Systems chief executive Lip-Bu Tan; and Waseda Business School professor Yuko Kawamoto.