Author: azeeadmin

There’s no shortage of commentary around the chief marketing officer title these days, and certainly no lack of opinions about the role’s responsibilities and meaning within a company. There’s a reason for that. CMO is the shortest tenured C-suite role — the average tenure of a CMO is the lowest of all C-suite titles at 3.5 years.

That’s because the chief marketing officer’s role is increasingly complex. Qualifications require broad, strategic thinking while also maintaining tactical acumen across several functions. There’s a big disparity in what companies expect from CMOs. Some want a strategist with an eye for go-to-market planning, while others want a focus on close alignment with sales in addition to brand awareness, content strategy and lead generation.

Still other companies want their CMO to emphasize product marketing and management. Ask 10 CMOs how they define their role and you’ll get 10 different answers.

So, I’m sharing my honest, straight from the mouth of a tenured CMO take on what the role actually means, plus the key attributes of today’s modern CMO.

We must be the Master Builder

Hat tip to “The Lego Movie” for this analogy. Today’s marketing executives must bring functions and teams together. From sales and marketing alignment to product and everything in between, chief marketers are the connective tissue between every function. Driving alignment between these functions is table stakes.

Same goes for people teams and culture — I’ve experienced an increase in CMOs serving as the linchpin of a company’s culture. My CEO lives by the famous phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” and driving culture alignment now sits squarely on marketing’s shoulders.

Consistently drives new opportunities

Ah, demand generation. Driving new opportunity creation will continue to be a top priority for CMOs, of course. I’m not sharing anything new here, but the stakes are higher. CMOs either produce the numbers or we find another job. Doesn’t get any more straightforward than that. But, simply generating leads to check a box doesn’t cut it in board rooms anymore.

On the heels of strong first quarter earnings, dating app giant Match announced its plan to introduce a new live event experience to its flagship app, Tinder. Dubbed “Vibes,” the new feature combines aspects from earlier Tinder events, Swipe Surge and Swipe Night, to create a new kind of in-app experience that’s both time sensitive and focused on finding new ways for users to break the ice.

Swipe Surge, for context, is longtime Tinder feature that lets users know when Tinder usage in the area is busier than usual. During a Surge, activity may be up to 15x higher, which increases users’ potential to get matched by 250%, the company has said. Users are alerted to “Surges” via push notifications or when they open the app.

Swipe Night, meanwhile, was an in-app interactive series which presented a narrative where users made choices, in a sort of “choose-your-own-adventure” format. Those choices were then displayed on user profiles for a time, which gave new matches something to talk about during those first and sometimes awkward conversations.

Vibes pulls in elements from both earlier events.

Image Credits: Tinder

Like Swipe Surge, users will be alerted to the Vibes events via push notifications when it’s time to engage, or they’ll see it when they open the app if notifications are turned off. And like Swipe Night, the larger goal of Vibes is to help users begin a conversation with something other than just “hey.”

The experience of Vibes itself is not some produced video series, however. Instead, Vibers presents users with a series of questions ranging from personality traits to pop culture. Again like Swipe Night, their responses will be displayed on their profile — in this case, for 72 hours. And when matches who participated in Vibes begin to chat, they’ll be able to see one another’s responses directly within the chat window, Tinder says.

Image Credits: Tinder

Vibes will also help to push users into Tinder’s video chat, which began testing last year. The company says that Vives users will have the option to continue their conversations on video.

Each Vibes event will only last 48 hours, which will compress the potential user engagement into a predetermined time frame. Assuming Tinder users take to Vibes, the feature could give Tinder a dial it could turn any time it needed to drive more engagement for its app.

The announcement follows another big quarter for Match, which surprisingly weathered the pandemic despite stay-at-home measures that dampened the potential for in-person dating. Instead, Tinder continued to grow, as users stuck at home feeling socially isolated looked for ways to connect online. However, that growth slowed at times as Covid cases spikes and more lockdowns went into effect.

Image Credits: Tinder

In Q1 2021, Match reported $668 million in revenue, up 23% year-over-year. Non-Tinder brands grew direct revenue 30% while Tinder grew 18%, up from 13% in Q4 2020. The company reported it’s now seeing a new normalization level as the rollout of vaccines continues.

Tinder engagement was also above pre-COVID levels in the past quarter, the company noted, with daily swipe activity up 15%, messages up 19%, and conversations that are 32% longer compared with the baseline period before COVID.

The company says Vibes will roll out later in May,

On the heels of strong first quarter earnings, dating app giant Match announced its plan to introduce a new live event experience to its flagship app, Tinder. Dubbed “Vibes,” the new feature combines aspects from earlier Tinder events, Swipe Surge and Swipe Night, to create a new kind of in-app experience that’s both time sensitive and focused on finding new ways for users to break the ice.

Swipe Surge, for context, is longtime Tinder feature that lets users know when Tinder usage in the area is busier than usual. During a Surge, activity may be up to 15x higher, which increases users’ potential to get matched by 250%, the company has said. Users are alerted to “Surges” via push notifications or when they open the app.

Swipe Night, meanwhile, was an in-app interactive series which presented a narrative where users made choices, in a sort of “choose-your-own-adventure” format. Those choices were then displayed on user profiles for a time, which gave new matches something to talk about during those first and sometimes awkward conversations.

Vibes pulls in elements from both earlier events.

Image Credits: Tinder

Like Swipe Surge, users will be alerted to the Vibes events via push notifications when it’s time to engage, or they’ll see it when they open the app if notifications are turned off. And like Swipe Night, the larger goal of Vibes is to help users begin a conversation with something other than just “hey.”

The experience of Vibes itself is not some produced video series, however. Instead, Vibers presents users with a series of questions ranging from personality traits to pop culture. Again like Swipe Night, their responses will be displayed on their profile — in this case, for 72 hours. And when matches who participated in Vibes begin to chat, they’ll be able to see one another’s responses directly within the chat window, Tinder says.

Image Credits: Tinder

Vibes will also help to push users into Tinder’s video chat, which began testing last year. The company says that Vives users will have the option to continue their conversations on video.

Each Vibes event will only last 48 hours, which will compress the potential user engagement into a predetermined time frame. Assuming Tinder users take to Vibes, the feature could give Tinder a dial it could turn any time it needed to drive more engagement for its app.

The announcement follows another big quarter for Match, which surprisingly weathered the pandemic despite stay-at-home measures that dampened the potential for in-person dating. Instead, Tinder continued to grow, as users stuck at home feeling socially isolated looked for ways to connect online. However, that growth slowed at times as Covid cases spikes and more lockdowns went into effect.

Image Credits: Tinder

In Q1 2021, Match reported $668 million in revenue, up 23% year-over-year. Non-Tinder brands grew direct revenue 30% while Tinder grew 18%, up from 13% in Q4 2020. The company reported it’s now seeing a new normalization level as the rollout of vaccines continues.

Tinder engagement was also above pre-COVID levels in the past quarter, the company noted, with daily swipe activity up 15%, messages up 19%, and conversations that are 32% longer compared with the baseline period before COVID.

The company says Vibes will roll out later in May,

We’re looking for motivated early-stage founders who want to take advantage of every possible opportunity to launch their startups to new levels of success. Historically, one of the most effective ways to do that is to exhibit in Startup Alley, at TechCrunch Disrupt.

This year at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 (September 21-23) we’re shaking up history and adding a new layer of opportunity exclusively for founders who apply for a Startup Alley Pass. It’s called Startup Alley+, and here’s what you need to know.

Every exhibiting founder is eligible for Startup Alley+ — an experience designed to set you up with additional education, exposure and success before Disrupt even starts.

However, the TechCrunch team will select only 50 founders to form the cohort, and they’ll kick things off by attending TechCrunch Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising in July — for free. That’s right. You won’t pay anything to participate in Startup Alley+ beyond the initial cost of your Startup Alley Pass.

Other perks include three months of free business development support. You’ll attend three masterclasses on topics that every early-stage founder needs to well, master.

• Key Principles of the Lean Startup Methodology with John Lynn, founder of CELA Innovation  
• How to Create Product/Market Fit with Dan Olsen, author of “The Lean Product Playbook”
• Outreach Strategies for Contacting VCs and Press with Annie Kadavy of Redpoint Ventures and TechCrunch editor, Danny Crichton

Who wouldn’t want to perfect their pitch long before diving into Disrupt to impress investors? Startup Alley+ participants will do just that by pitching at one of our mini pitch-offs during our weekly Extra Crunch Live events. Check your calendar now and get ready to bring the heat.

• Session 1- July 21
• Session 2 – August 4
• Session 3 – August 18
• Session 4 – September 1
• Session 5 – September 8

Keep your pitching arm warmed up and ready, because TechCrunch will introduce Startup Alley+ participants to top investors through our new VC match-making program. And don’t forget, there’s even more pitching in your future when you get to TC Disrupt. Every exhibitor in Startup Alley gets two minutes to pitch during a breakout feedback session.

We set a low hoop to jump through in order to be considered for Startup Alley+ — simply exhibit in Startup Alley. TechCrunch will choose the founders to participate in Startup Alley+ by the end of June.

Apply for your Startup Alley Pass now to make sure you have a shot. Even better — apply before the early-bird price expires next Friday, May 13 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT), and you’ll also save $50.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is offering up one seat on the inaugural flight of its sub-orbital rocket New Shepard, set to take place July 20 – but instead of a fixed price ticket sale, the seat will go to the highest bidder.

It’ll work like this: from May 5-19, bidders will be able to bid any amount on an auction website. From May 19, the bids will be made “unsealed,” or made visible, and bidders have continually exceed the highest bid to remain in the running for the seat. Bidding will conclude June 12 with a live online auction.

From Blue Origin’s website, it looks like the overall flight will be relatively quick, with the craft reaching apogee, or its highest point, four minutes after takeoff. The capsule containing the astronauts (and the lucky bidder) will land 10 minutes after takeoff near its launch site in West Texas.

Blue Origin said the winning bid will be donated to its charitable foundation, Club for the Future.

In recent weeks Blue Origin has conducted a dress rehearsal of astronaut loading and unloading. This is only the most recent move from the company, which has been testing and flight-certifying its spacecraft for the past few years. We will update the story as more information becomes available on the auction.

In just slightly more than a month, the mobility industry’s visionary movers, makers, shakers, innovators and investors from around the world will gather on June 9 for the virtual mind meld that is TC Sessions: Mobility 2021.

If you’re a mobility maven listen up: you have just two days — a mere 48 hours — left to score the early bird price and save $100. Buy your pass to Mobility 2021 before the sale ends on Thursday, May 6 at 11:59 pm (PT).

As always, TC Sessions: Mobility delivers in-depth interviews, interactive panel discussions and breakout sessions with the people forging the future of the way we move, ship and deliver, well, everything.

You’ll gain insight on crucial trends in autonomous vehicles, the EV revolution, regulatory concerns, ethics, equity and profitability, robotics, the future of flight and so much more. Check out the event agenda and start planning your day now.

NOMO FOMO: Schedule conflict with the live stream? Kick the fear of missing out to the curb. Your pass includes access to video on demand when the event ends — so you won’t miss a single session.

Networking has always been an essential part of TC Sessions: Mobility but now, with thousands of attendees around the world, your networking goes global. You can connect on-the-fly in our virtual platform’s chat feature or use CrunchMatch, our AI-powered platform, to help you connect and schedule 1:1 video meetings with people you want to meet based on mutual goals and business interests.

Pitch investors, demo products, interview potential employees — connect and collaborate to drive your business forward. The opportunities are virtually (pun intended) limitless.

Listen up to what other TC Session: Mobility attendees have told us about their experiences.

I didn’t think I’d network on a virtual platform but, it turns out, it’s a lot easier to network with more people. Folks just felt more comfortable reaching out. I had conversations with people I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise, and that was an unexpected benefit. — Rachael Wilcox, creative producer, Volvo Cars.

TC Sessions: Mobility isn’t just an educational opportunity, it’s a real networking opportunity. Everyone was passionate and open to creating pilot programs or other partnerships. That was the most exciting part. And now — thanks to a conference connection — we’re talking with Goodyear’s Innovation Lab.” — Karin Maake, senior director of communications at FlashParking

TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 takes place on June 9, but your chance to score serious savings disappears in two days. Want to save $100 on a day packed with business growth potential? Of course, you do. Don’t wait, buy your pass to Mobility 2021 before Thursday, May 6 at 11:59 pm (PT).

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Shares of home-exercise giant Peloton are falling today, off some 13.6% as of the time of writing. This comes after the company announced a recall of its treadmill product, and TechCrunch reported that the company failed to fix a security issue regarding user data.

The value of Peloton shares soared during the pandemic, as the company’s product found itself in secular updraft driven by a move to working, and working out, from home in the face of COVID-19’s spread. Worth around $30 per share at the start of 2020, Peloton’s stock price shot more than $150 per share by the end of the year.

Today, after losing more than $13 per share in value, Peloton equity is worth just $83.50 per unit.

The company’s decision to recall its “Tread+” and “Tread” treadmills comes with a warning that those who had bought the devices should “immediately stop using it and contact Peloton for a full refund or other qualified remedy.” The decision to stop selling the devices, and finance a recall of all units comes after a child died after an incident involving one of the treadmills. Other injuries have been reported.

The American Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, wrote that accepted the recall and sale-cessation decision, adding that the agreement came after “weeks of intense negotiation and effort.” The CPSC had warned consumers earlier this month about “the danger of popular Peloton Tread+ exercise machine after multiple incidents of small children and a pet being injured beneath the machines.”

Peloton fired back at the time saying that it was “troubled by the [CPSC’s] unilateral press release about the Peloton Tread+ because it is inaccurate and misleading.” The company added that there was “no reason to stop using the Tread+, as long as all warnings and safety instructions are followed.”

Whoops.

The company’s backtrack is not only incredibly embarrassing from a public perception perspective — Peloton got into a scrap with the CPSC about whether or not it was trying to impede its investigation, which was a very bad look — but perhaps even more destructive to its brand than making the same decision earlier would have proved.

But for Peloton, the day’s bad news was hardly monotopical. Instead, TechCrunch reported this morning that “Jan Masters, a security researcher at Pen Test Partners, found he could make unauthenticated requests to Peloton’s API for user account data without it checking to make sure the person was allowed to request it.” As we reported, given the known high-profile politicians who are Peloton users, this is more than a mere consumer data-breach matter.

Even worse, Master had told Peloton about the matter:

Masters reported the leaky API to Peloton on January 20 with a 90-day deadline to fix the bug, the standard window time that security researchers give to companies to fix bugs before details are made public.

But that deadline came and went, the bug wasn’t fixed, and Masters hadn’t heard back from the company, aside from an initial email acknowledging receipt of the bug report. Instead, Peloton only restricted access to its API to its members. But that just meant anyone could sign up with a monthly membership and get access to the API again.

Between the death of a child, a failed attempt to attack critics, a massive recall, the cessation of sales of a product line, and a self-induced privacy fiasco, it’s a bad day for Peloton. Not that I won’t ride my own Peloton later today, I’ll just do so while shaking my fist at the corporate overloads who pay the instructors that actually make their entire business function.

Emergence, the 18-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based venture firm focused on enterprise tech startups, has rounded up nearly a billion dollars in capital commitments across two funds. It closed its sixth early-stage fund with $575 million; the outfit also raised a so-called opportunity fund for the first time, closing it with $375 million in capital commitments.

It’s a significant shift away from standard operating procedure for Emergence, which has funded a string of highly successful companies at their earliest stages but has, until now, maintained a conservative approach when it comes to fundraising, closing its fifth fund in 2018 with $435 million and its fourth fund with $335 million in 2015.

Emergence was an early investor in Zoom, Veeva, Bill.com, SuccessFactors and Box, among many other outfits.

We talked with cofounder Jason Green late last year about the firm’s approach and he said then that it had picked up the pace during the pandemic.

As he said then, Emergence is now “very much a data-driven, thesis-driven outbound firm, where we’re reaching out to entrepreneurs soon after they’ve started their companies or gotten seed financing.” He’d also said at the time that as of late last year, the firm was poised to close more deal than “maybe [we] have ever done in the history of the firm, which is amazing to me [considering] COVID. I think we’ve really honed our ability to build this pipeline and have conviction.”

Its portfolio company, Zoom, obviously helped too. “Zoom is actually helping expand the landscape that we’re willing to invest in,” Green said at the time. “We’re probably seeing 50% to 100% more companies and trying to whittle them down over time and really focus on the 20 to 25 that we want to dig deep on as a team.”

We talked with Green, who is stepping back from the firm, about this new fund yesterday; we’ll have more from that new conversation tomorrow. In the meantime, the new funds will be managed by cofounder and general partner Gordon Ritter and general partners Kevin Spain, Santi Subotovsky, Joe Floyd, and Jake Saper, each of whom joined the firm as junior investment professionals. They are joined by principal Carlotta “Lotti” Siniscalco, who joined the firm in 2018.

Emergence, the 18-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based venture firm focused on enterprise tech startups, has rounded up nearly a billion dollars in capital commitments across two funds. It closed its sixth early-stage fund with $575 million; the outfit also raised a so-called opportunity fund for the first time, closing it with $375 million in capital commitments.

It’s a significant shift away from standard operating procedure for Emergence, which has funded a string of highly successful companies at their earliest stages but has, until now, maintained a conservative approach when it comes to fundraising, closing its fifth fund in 2018 with $435 million and its fourth fund with $335 million in 2015.

Emergence was an early investor in Zoom, Veeva, Bill.com, SuccessFactors and Box, among many other outfits.

We talked with cofounder Jason Green late last year about the firm’s approach and he said then that it had picked up the pace during the pandemic.

As he said then, Emergence is now “very much a data-driven, thesis-driven outbound firm, where we’re reaching out to entrepreneurs soon after they’ve started their companies or gotten seed financing.” He’d also said at the time that as of late last year, the firm was poised to close more deal than “maybe [we] have ever done in the history of the firm, which is amazing to me [considering] COVID. I think we’ve really honed our ability to build this pipeline and have conviction.”

Its portfolio company, Zoom, obviously helped too. “Zoom is actually helping expand the landscape that we’re willing to invest in,” Green said at the time. “We’re probably seeing 50% to 100% more companies and trying to whittle them down over time and really focus on the 20 to 25 that we want to dig deep on as a team.”

We talked with Green, who is stepping back from the firm, about this new fund yesterday; we’ll have more from that new conversation tomorrow. In the meantime, the new funds will be managed by cofounder and general partner Gordon Ritter and general partners Kevin Spain, Santi Subotovsky, Joe Floyd, and Jake Saper, each of whom joined the firm as junior investment professionals. They are joined by principal Carlotta “Lotti” Siniscalco, who joined the firm in 2018.

EngineEars today announced a $1 million raise. The company’s first round of funding features investments from Kendrick Lamar, DJ Mustard, Roddy Rich and Slauson and Co. “Quality of sound is still important in music,” Lamar said in a quote provided to TechCrunch. “Ali has always been a progressive thinker. Engineers will transcend the culture.”

The service was launched in 2018 by Grammy winner Derek “MixedByAli” Ali, who has worked on a slew of high-profile tracks from artists including Lamar, Jay Rock, SZA, Nipsey Hussle and Snoop Dogg.

The educational courses turned into a touring curriculum, with 15 workshops in four countries, where Ali says he was able to determine what the community most needed.

“During that time, we really learned what the problem is,” says Ali. “All of the problems entailed tracking payments, being credited, the antiquated business model of file transfers and essentially just helping an independent audio engineer sustain and create a business for themselves.”

Source:  Claima Stories 

EngineEars has since branched out into something more akin to a marketplace for audio engineers. Independent mixers can offer their services and connect with artists and labels, get credit for the tracks they’ve worked on and — perhaps most importantly in the world of freelancing — get paid.

The platform launched an alpha version in January and since has 120 engineers verified by an existing vetting process. The invite-only service has another 2,000 people on its waiting list, according to Ali.

The service is currently working on a feature roadmap based on the requests of existing users and looking toward potential additions like the ability to buy beats, going forward. Other suggested features include contract negotiations for work-for-hire, but much of this is still very much in early stages.