It is Tuesday, May 17, 2022, and we are currently in the midst of an existential crisis; Aren’t we all, if we’re honest with ourselves, a little spambot in our hearts?

Tomorrow TC Sessions: Mobility starts. Last chance saloon to buy tickets for our private event Wednesday and Thursday or the virtual event on Friday! — Haje and Christine

The blog line Top 3

Spambots block Twitter deal: Elon Musk doubled down on his previous tweets this morning, saying that if Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal can’t substantiate claims, the number of spam and fake accounts are around 5%, the company says, Musk’s deal to take over Twitter is off. It would be a shame, after we’ve put so much effort into following the story, that it doesn’t come through. The Twitter choice is yours: Which then begs the question, “Does Elon Musk want to buy Twitter?” Alex dives deep into this question, and when he resurfaces, he discovers that Musk may want to get out of the deal for several reasons, including that it wasn’t the company he thought it was. What are dem dollars at?: Enabling other companies to offer financial products remains a hot area for venture capital investors to invest their dollars. The latest is Unit, a unicorn after the close of a $100 million Series C round. What’s interesting about what Unit does is that anyone, even those in the freelance or creator economy, can do it too.

Startups and VC

Icarus ignores Daedalus’ instructions not to fly too close to the sun, causing his wax wings to melt. A similar situation is causing Bird to change course and drop vehicle sales in the pursuit of profitability, according to its first-quarter earnings call, Rebecca reports.

In a curious twist, Greenlight — which mostly focuses on kids’ bank accounts — just launched a new credit card to help parents save for college for their kids. The card’s purpose is reflected in how it is marketed, but in the end, it works the same way as any other credit card that offers cash back to users, Anita concludes.

All startups, always:

Own a doorknob and a window: Mary Ann gives regular investors a chance to invest in fractional home ownership. To use a “headless” CMS that decouples content from a site’s presentation layer, Ingrid reports. When everything collapses: Buoyed by a $46 million round of fresh capital, Instabug is looking to broaden its scope by offering more services than just fixing bugs that plague your software, Mary Ann reports. First, the company expanded its focus from bug and crash writing to developing application performance monitoring software “to capture everything around mobile performance.” At least, Kyle reports, investors seem to believe the sales pitch, with Imply raising $100 million at a $1 billion+ valuation. Print me sideways: Days after MakerBot and Ultimaker announced merger plans, one of the company’s most respected competitors is taking steps. Prague-based Prusa Research is acquiring Printed Solid, Brian writes. I want it al; II want it now: With the popularization of real-time database technologies, outdated data may soon be a thing of the past.

How to develop your DTC startup’s data strategy and identify critical metrics?

Most ecommerce startups use the same major platforms and analytics tools to collect data for the dashboards that measure the health of their business.

As a result, most direct-to-consumer companies are making the same mistakes when refining raw transaction data, said Michael Perez, director of growth and data at M13.

The calculation errors captured in platform data can lead teams to miscalculate key metrics, “drastically overestimate the value of their customer lifetime, and overspend on marketing campaigns,” says Perez.

He identifies two common data errors: creating metrics at the wrong level of granularity and using downstream metrics that commonly make data silos.

“We’re generally big fans of plug-and-play business intelligence tools, but they won’t grow with your business.”

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Big Tech Inc.

Do you want to track the ecological footprint of your company? Microsoft has an offer for that. The tech giant joins other tech giants such as Salesforce, Google (which itself announced some new security features), and IBM in offering sustainability tracking products. In Microsoft’s case, it will collect a ton of data that companies can use to reduce that footprint and meet sustainability goals ultimately.

Robinhood has its sights set on a new goal: more features. One involves allowing users to manage their crypto wallets instead of Robinhood doing it for them. A “private key” seems to be engaged with the custodian accounts, so make sure you don’t leave it anywhere.

Lots of Apple news today. We’re giving you the short-short version, including new rules that allow apps to automatically increase subscription prices (which aren’t abused, right?). The company is also kicking off its new Apple Music concert series with a live stream performance from Harry Styles. It is reportedly testing E Ink’s outer screen while designing a foldable device.

Some others for your afternoon jam session:

Author

I have been blogging since August 2011. I have had over 10,000 visitors to my blog! My goal is to help people, and I have the knowledge and the passion to do this. I love to travel, dance, and play volleyball. I also enjoy hanging out with my friends and family. I started writing my blogs when I lived in California. I would wake up in the middle of the night and write something while listening to music and looking at the ocean. When I moved to Texas, I found a new place to write. I would sit in my backyard while everyone else was at work, and I could write all day.