Techflier

For investors, one factor will almost always stand head and shoulders above the rest: Your TAM (total addressable market) needs to break at least $1 billion. But alongside a massive addressable market, investors are also looking to see that you have existing customers, even they’re few in number, who truly love your product. However, communicating the steps between your existing users (wedge) and your long-term potential as a company (TAM) can be incredibly tricky. At TechCrunch Early Stage this month, we sat down with Felicis Ventures partners Viviana Faga and Niki Pezeshki to talk about scaling, product-market fit, and why it’s crucial to be “10x better” than the incumbents. Product-market fit Startups must be able to demonstrate that they have users that love their product. But what does “love” really mean? Faga and Pezeshki believe that startups need a framework to measure their initial push into a niche audience. They suggest running a survey with your first cohort of us...

Included in Rares' collection are the 1985 Air Jordan 1 Chicagos. Courtesy of Rares Peter Moore designed the Air Jordan 1 and the Jordan brand's iconic Jumpman logo. He died Friday, according to industry sources and confirmed by Nike and Adidas. Moore is widely considered an industry pioneer. He served as Nike's first global creative director. Peter Moore, who designed the Air Jordan 1 and played an instrumental role in the birth of the modern sneaker business, has died, according to Insider sources and statements from Nike's Jordan brand and Adidas. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Peter Moore, an iconic designer, whose legacy will forever be connected to Jordan Brand, and the sneaker culture he helped to create," said Howard "H" White, Jordan brand vice president and longtime company veteran, in a statement. "We extend our deepest sympathies to the Moore family during this time." Moore, who helped drive the creation of th...

Android and privacy haven’t always been natural companions. Google still makes the bulk of its profits from its data-fueled advertising business that relies heavily on user information, much of it derived directly from Android users. Nowadays, Google gives its users more authority over how and when the search giant taps into Android-associated data by baking a number of security features and privacy protections into the software. Many of the basics you already know. Setting a strong PIN — or better yet, an alphanumeric passcode — to lock down your device is a great start, and making sure you keep your device up-to-date with the latest security patches . Plus, protecting your Google account with two-factor authentication can save you from even the most well-resourced hackers. What’s more, a number of Android’s built-in security features are switched on by default, such as verified boot, a feature that ensures that the device’s firmware hasn’t been tampered with by malware, and Goog...

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. There’s a clash happening in the early-stage market. In one world, late-stage investors are reacting to tech stonk corrections by clamoring toward the early-stage investment world, forcing seed investors to go even earlier to defend ownership and potential returns. This trend was underscored by firms like Andreessen Horowitz launching a pre-seed program months after launching a $400 million seed fund . Even more, Techstars, an accelerator literally launched to help startups get off the ground, debuted a fund to back companies that are too early for its traditional programming. While all that is going on, early-stage investors are enduring a valuation correction and portfolio markdowns. Some are admitting that they’re telling portfolio companies to refocus on cash conservation, profitability and discipline, not just growth. Let’s pretend these tw...

President Joe Biden. AP Photo/Susan Walsh President Joe Biden is considering a plan to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt, per Bloomberg. Biden wanted to pass a debt-relief bill through Congress, but is now mulling an executive order. Progressives have long clamored for the administration to develop a plan to address student loan. President Joe Biden is mulling over forgiving a minimum of $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower via execution action, according to individuals with knowledge of the matter who spoke to Bloomberg. A sweeping debt-forgiveness effort by Biden would represent a massive turnaround from the decidedly cautious approach he has taken on the issue since entering the White House last year. And it would also present a economic and ideological dilemma for the administration, as deficit hawks sense that broad cancellation may worsen inflation issues while many liberal allies might feel that the president's efforts don't go far enough. Per Bloombe...

Lotti Siniscalco is a partner at Emergence Capital , where she invests in early-stage enterprise software companies. During TechCrunch’s Early Stage event, she headlined a session dedicated to giving feedback on pitch decks. What follows is a small slice of Lotti’s input from the session. Constructing pitch decks is part art and part science. And they’re always a work in progress. Each week on TechCrunch Live , a founder and investor present an early pitch deck that won significant capital investment. The events are free to join, and after looking at the pitch deck, startup founders can practice their pitch with the investor and founder. TechCrunch is also kicking off a series of posts digging into real pitch decks that raised rounds that we’ve covered. The first entry diving into the Minut deck is here . Enjoy! On pitching the right investor: “The first thing is: Know your audience. Do a little bit of research, and try to tweak the email to make it personal,” Lotti said, adding t...

Fox News host Sean Hannity. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File Sean Hannity embraced election fraud claims in text messages to Mark Meadows, according to a CNN report. "There is no way Biden got these numbers. Just mathematically impossible," he texted Meadows. "Everyone knows it was stolen. Everyone," he wrote in another message. Weeks after Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Fox News host Sean Hannity had his team "digging into the numbers" as he claimed to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that the victory was "mathematically impossible." In text messages sent to Meadows on November 29, 2020, Hannity appeared to embrace false claims about the 2020 election that former President Donald Trump spread. By then, Fox News, along with every other major network, had already declared Biden as the election winner. "I've had my team digging into the numbers. There is no way Biden got these numbers. Just mathematically impossibl...

Earlier this month at TechCrunch Early Stage, I talked to Frederique Dame, an investing partner at GV, about product-market fit . A standing-room-only crowd packed the venue as Dame spoke about her experience leading product and engineering efforts at Uber, Yahoo and Smugmug, sharing some of what she learned about gathering customer data, iterating quickly to validate ideas, and the challenges that come with scaling teams from a few dozen people to several thousand employees. Great day at @TechCrunch Early Stage talking with @YourProtagonist about how founders can find product-market fit! pic.twitter.com/ybbqwGX6Hm — Frederique Dame (@fffabulous) April 14, 2022 We also discussed several specific tactics and strategies that can help move organizations towards PMF, including effective ways to capture and share user data, and developing customer personas that will help everyone understand the company’s mission and purpose. Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to memb...

Former President Donald Trump and Fox News Chief Political Anchor Bret Baier. Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images Fox News reportedly abandoned plans for a documentary on how Trump lost in 2020. The project was unknown before being mentioned in a forthcoming book obtained by Insider. A Fox News spokesperson denied the reporting from the authors, two New York Times reporters. Fox News scrapped plans for a Bret Baier-hosted documentary on how former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, according to a forthcoming book. The reporting comes from New York Times political reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns in "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future," a copy of which was obtained by Insider. As the network found itself under a siege of its own making from Trump following his loss and failed attempts to prove widespread election fraud, smaller but more extreme right-wing competitors Newsmax and One America News Netwo...

Former Republican Presidents Donald Trump and Richard Nixon in the Oval Office. Saul Loeb/AFP and Tom Middlemiss/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images Former President Donald Trump was "dead set against" resigning after the January 6 insurrection. "What fucking good did that do Nixon?" he asked his lawyers, a new book says. The lawyers knew Trump wanted to keep open the possibility of a 2024 presidential campaign, the book says. President Donald Trump was "dead set against" resigning when the topic came up with his lawyers on January 13, 2021 — the eve of his second impeachment vote in the House. "What fucking good did that do Nixon?" he asked, according to the new book " This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future. "  The book by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns describes the meeting between Trump, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and other attorneys just hours before t...

Prices are accurate at the time of publication. When you buy through our links, Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more. Grandmas love to demonstrate their love, and Mother's Day is an excellent time to pay it forward, whether you get flowers or sentimental keepsakes. Amazon; TAJA Grandmas are typically the ultimate matriarchs: They have so much love to give and are known for sharing that love unconditionally. And whether grandmothers serve as caregivers or not, they're deserving of a Mother's Day gift all of their own.  We rounded up a list of gifts that can make Grandma feel all of the love on this upcoming Mother's Day, from tasty treats to sentimental tokens of your love and appreciation. You can also find more great gifts for your grandma here . Here are the 18 best Mother's Day gifts for your grandma in 2022: A custom card and gift Greetabl Greetabl Gift Box, from $13 Best for:  The grandma who loves a surprise  Greetabl is a gre...