Tech, Business, Finance and Everything Else
Venture Capital by Numbers:
Venture Capital business is 100% a game of outliers
Spotify Acquires Locker Room and Announces Plans for a New Live Audio Experience
“Creators and fans have been asking for live formats on Spotify, and we’re excited that soon, we’ll make them available to hundreds of millions of listeners and millions of creators on our platform,” said Gustav Söderström, Chief Research & Development Officer at Spotify. “The world already turns to us for music, podcasts, and other unique audio experiences, and this new live audio experience is a powerful complement that will enhance and extend the on-demand experience we provide today.”
This makes perfect sense for Spotify and an area that I’m sure they are going to be strong in.
Clubhouse has performed well because everyone has been in lockdown, but I’m not sure it will perform as well on its own over the long term as people get back to their normal lives at the end of the summer.
It’s funny… when you start a company you think the larger it gets the easier it is going to be – as you’re able to start handing off jobs and deligate your team.
However, no one really explains to you the larger it gets the harder it actually gets.
Yes.. you can hand off those jobs to the other members in your team and they can take complete autonomy over the decision making, but there are all the little things that no one ever talks about – culture, strategy, team structure, heirarchy, wages, policies on pretty much everything from HR to Finance.
Sometimes a lifestyle business in which the owner can have an amazing lifestyle really is the best way to go!
I have been watching Dark play Fortnite since pretty much the beginning of Fortnite. He has been on a long break from the game, but he is back!
We hit those!
I have found myself Tweeting a lot more over the past couple of months and getting more engagements and interactions on the platform. There seems to be something in the water at Twitter at the moment – as they seem to be going through a big change in innovation and launching more and more product (Twitter Spaces is a great example of this).
I would love to see Twitter Space become its own standalone app (as currently it is quite hard to find who is talking, when and where). Twitter also recently acquire a Newsletter company, so it seems like they are now trying to make a conscious effort to push through monetization for creators in all shapes and forms.
Great moves overall… Im very bullish on Twitter over the next 10 years.
(at the time of writing this Twitter has a $48 billion market cap with $3.7 billion in revenues over the last 12 months). In 10 years I can easily see Twitter being a $300 billion market cap company.
Parenting is by far the hardest job in the world. It’s something you don’t realise when you don’t have kids, but the constant learning curve with parenting and the sheer relentlessness is unbelievable.
I can’t wait to be a grandparent as that has the best of both worlds. You get to play with your grand kids and then hand them back to their parents when it gets hard.
Justin Kan (Co-founder of Twitch and Justin.tv) has started to vlog on YouTube with handy business tips. Justin has had a lot of adventures with Twitch and beyond and its great to see him giving something back.
Plus, these videos are actually entertaining, short, and provide a recap at the end (which is great).
Keep up the good work Justin!
I have found myself watching a bit of the crown recently.
I have learnt a lot about historical events from watching the show and now at least I understand a little bit more about their backgrounds, family situations and potential upbringings.
The Crown is a great watch – but it must be extremely difficult to watch if you are a part of that family as they are depicting your family situations and personal challenges.
Great entertainment and sometimes an extremely hard watch (family tragedy, bulling and lies).
Synchedin is our licensing platform for creators of all shapes and sizes.
Synchedin Sound Effects is now live – https://synchedin.com/sound-effects – we have thousands of Sound Effects being added – in both CC0 and Subscription packages.
Costs:
Key Selling Points:
Affiliate Program:
The affiliate program allows any account to refer a friend. The Referrer will receive 10% of the subscription fees for the life of the subscription (percentage can change). Referree receives a 10% discount if they use a referral code (to insentivise using a referral code).
Sourcing SFX:
People can apply to Synchedin as a contributor. Once approved by the Synchedin team, they can add to the sound effects catalogue. The Synchedin team are also adding CC0 sound effects monthly i.e. NASA sounds, Presidential Speeches etc.
There is something about this track from FKJ and Masego that just makes me relax and enjoy myself (not matter what mood I am in).
These are artists at their creative best.
Non-Fungible Token. Never seen the word “fungible” before? Hint: it has nothing to do with mushrooms, and do not feel bad that that’s where your brain went first (totally not trying to make myself feel better).
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique entry on a blockchain which is not interchangeable with any other (not fungible).
Shazam doesn’t have a web based application at the moment.
However, Shazam used to have a native Windows 10 app for desktop until it was shut down a few years ago.
Since Shazam is now owned by Apple I doubt they will be making a desktop PC or web based version any time soon.
Great interview with Garry Tan about all things investing – including the recent move by Alexis Ohanian to leave Initialized.
Currently – No.
Webull is currently only available in the US, Brazil, Japan, and India and is yet to go live in the UK.
However, it is only a matter of time before it makes its way to the UK.
Breaking: Simon Hu is stepping down as the CEO of Ant Financial.
Ant Financial have been under huge scrutiny by the Chinese Government since they announced that they were going to try to IPO.
The Ant Financial IPO was going to be one of the biggest IPOs of all time.
Epic Games have announced that Chapter 2 Season 6 of Fortnite is beginning on the 16th March with an explosive event call – Zero Crisis Finale
Chapter 2 Season 6 launches on March 16th with the explosive conclusion of the events of season 5. When you first launch into the new season, you’ll play through the conclusion of Agent Jones’ mission in the Zero Crisis Finale. The aftermath of this event is sure to shape reality as we know it.
Don’t worry, the Zero Crisis Finale is a solo experience and you can play through it whenever you first log in during the season. Want to watch it online first? We’ll share details soon on how you can watch the global premiere with everyone, beginning with our most ambitious story cinematic yet!
There was a lot of talk that Fortnite would have Chapter 3 very soon, but it looks like Epic are going to stick to the 10 seasons inside every chapter.
I can’t wait to see what this event has to show!
Deliveroo is planning to go public at a valuation of around $7 billion USD. Here is a quick breakdown of some of their numbers that have just been released.
These number make for hard reading, but it seems like there is a real path towards profitability – but it feels like it is going to really require mass scale of nearly £10 billion per year in GTV to get there.
However, Deliveroo have the ability to start new product lines and delivering in other areas as well as corporate contracts, plus geographic expansion.
Technology stocks are currently dropping fast – so it will be interesting to see if there is an appetite on the London Stock Market for a heavy losing technology company with growing scale.
The flying taxis are coming!
Lilium is a German company who are developing electric air taxis – they are currently in talks to go public via a SPAC.
It seems like they are running out of great companies to SPAC and seems like people are focused on select around buzz words – like mobility and electric vehicles.
Another German company with very similar aims, Volocopter, opted to raise new capital on the private market, bringing in €200 million (about $238 million) for a Series D.
Remote work is the topic of the moment!
Matt Mullenweg has been leading the remote work movement for many years via his company – Automattic.
Here is a recent interview on This Week in Startups with Matt when they talk all things Automattic and remote work.
The short answer is = NO.
Amuse claim that they pay artists / musicians more money than their competitors – but this is a completely FALSE claim.
The major record labels and the lead music distributors all have the same revenue share with Spotify, Apple Music and other DSPs. There is NO way that a small distributor such as Amuse would have a higher revenue share than the major record labels!
It’s getting a little bit tired that there are a lot of companies out there making completely false claims knowing they can’t be challenged.