Techcrunch blog!: Discord layoffs: Chat app lets 40 workers go as company focuses on 'long-term growth'

Friday, August 04, 2023

Today's top story involves some discord at Discord, where 4% of the company's staff were laid off. Get the scoop.

Meanwhile, the internet, and the devices that use it, don't secure themselves. Meet the person who does — Window Snyder.

And remember a few days ago when India said it was going to impose restrictions on the import of certain electronics? Well, today that decision has been delayed. Find out why.

Image Credits: Discord

More top reads

Bye bye, Cortana: Microsoft kills Cortana in Windows as it focuses on next-gen AI.

Breaking 1 billion: Apple is celebrating after its services business now has over 1 billion subscribers.

Stepping down: Nikola's CEO Michael Lohscheller steps down and will be replaced by chairman. Meanwhile, the company finally gets enough shareholder support to issue more shares.

E=mcSalesforce: The Salesforce Einstein Studio lets you bring your own model, starting with Amazon SageMaker.

Coming soon to TikTok in Europe: A "For You" feed without the TikTok algorithm.

Still going . . . down: AWS revenue growth dropped to 12% in Q2, but the company remains optimistic about its cloud business.

Sort of off the hook: The SEC concluded its investigation into Better.com, but didn't recommend enforcement action at this time. That's not the end of the story.

Mastodon in the spotlight: Stomp brings a fully functional Mastodon app to your Apple Watch.

This one or that one: Spotify has a new product to help software development teams with A/B testing.

The Japanese equivalent of OpenAI: SoftBank launches SB Intuitions, which is building LLMs and generative AI in Japanese.

Like Crunchbase, but for web3: EdgeIn launches with what it hopes is a faster, community-driven database for builders in web3.

Still picking up the pieces: Another health data management company confirms that the personal data of 1.7 million Oregon residents was accessed by MOVEit hackers.

Concentrate and ask again: Six startup founders gaze into a future-of-work crystal ball. (TC+)

We have a lot to learn indeed: The U.S. could learn a lot from how the U.K. is crafting DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policy for venture capital. (TC+)

Four more for your Friday:

AI chip startup Tenstorrent lands $100M investment from Hyundai and Samsung

AI is going 4-dimensional

Amazon Music teams up with Bandsintown to let fans shop merch from popular artists

Unpacking the end of Luko's solo journey in insurtech (TC+)

Image Credits: ymgerman / Getty Images

Pitch Deck Teardown: SquadTrip's $1.5M pre-seed deck

For our 60th Pitch Deck Teardown, travel-planning startup SquadTrip shared the unredacted $1.5 million pre-seed deck that helped the company secure a $6 million valuation:

Cover slide
"Where it all started" slide
Problem impact slide
Problem details slide
Solution slide
Market size and target audience slide
Go-to-market slide
Traction slide
Business and pricing model slide
Competition slide
Team slide
Ask and use of funds slide
Summary slide
Appendix cover slide
Appendix I: Hiring roadmap slide
Appendix II: Product roadmap slide
Appendix III: Sales and marketing roadmap slide
Appendix IV: Revenue projections slide

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Pitch Deck Teardown: SquadTrip's $1.5M pre-seed deck image

Image Credits: SquadTrip

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