Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week\u2019s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, <\/em>subscribe here.<\/em><\/p>\n I first covered Launch House in Oct 2020, when the co-founders described a strong focus on inclusion when creating hacker homes. A co-founder said then, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say we\u2019re the next Y Combinator, but the next YC would look something like that.\u201d The company soon went onto raise venture funding for its vision of what a next-generation entrepreneurial ecosystem looks like, combining remote work\u2019s benefits with the rising mindshare around \u201ccommunity.\u201d It won over investment dollars from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightship, CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz, Electric Ant\u2019s Chris Ovitz, 6th Man Ventures\u2019 Mike Dudas and other angels.<\/p>\n Now, a Vox investigation this past week highlighted specific allegations around harassment, sexual assault and misuse of power at Launch House. The response has been complex. The irony with the \u201cbuild in public\u201d mindset is that, when allegations and scrutiny surface, privacy \u2014 or at least opacity \u2014 is back in vogue.<\/p>\n As reports, some existing investors in the startup and its venture fund have issued public statements supporting the alleged victims and denouncing the alleged behavior described by Vox in its article about Launch House. Launch House, meanwhile, confirmed to via a spokesperson that it is launching an independent, third-party investigation through a retained law firm.<\/p>\n Days after the investigation went live, Launch House held a town hall with some members of their community. Co-founder Michael Houck said that the startup \u201cdropped the ball on responding to this quickly enough [and] with enough compassion \u2026 that isn\u2019t reflective of the values that we\u2019ve built this community on from day one and that we care about.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPut more simply, we absolutely should have met with you all sooner than today,\u201d Houck added, \u201cWhat I can say now is that we\u2019re ready to speak and we have a plan.\u201d The conversation focused on three topics: what Launch House says it has done in the past, what it will do in the future and how it plans to build back trust with female founders in their cohorts.<\/p>\n The Vox investigation, Launch House\u2019s response both publicly and privately, as well as the community\u2019s either outrage or silence over surfaced allegations is a reminder that community isn\u2019t a buzzword. It\u2019s a challenge. Some people may look at LH as a caricature of the \u201ccommunity-based VC-backed startup\u201d trend, but this offers a real look at what happens when these \u201cbuzzy trends\u201d meet a bull market, in a remote world, with limited checks and balances.<\/p>\n For the full story of key details in the private town hall, read my story: \u201cLaunch House holds private town hall, says investigation is underway.\u201d For the investor and community reaction, read my story with Rebecca Szkutak, \u201cLaunch House\u2019s community reacts to misconduct and harassment allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n In the rest of this newsletter, we\u2019re talking about Y Combinator\u2019s paranoia, fund manager shifts and a follow-up on one of the pandemic startups admitting it\u2019s wrong. Make sure to read the whole thing as I\u2019ve snuck in a TC+ discount code, especially for Startups Weekly readers, in the post.<\/p>\n If you like this newsletter, do me a quick favor? Forward it to a friend, share it on Twitter, and tag me so I can thank you for reading myself!<\/a><\/p>\n Y Combinator\u2019s Michael Seibel, managing partner and head of the accelerator, is one of the most influential people in startups. He joined Equity to chat about the point of demo day, diversity challenges and competition.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s why it\u2019s important:<\/strong> Given the fact that YC doesn\u2019t do a ton of press anymore, the interview clarified some misconceptions. More on + tomorrow, but in the meantime, here\u2019s how he described the utility of demo days.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard for me to generalize on demo days. There\u2019s a lot of different demo days out in the world, and I don\u2019t really know how they work.<\/p>\n I would say YC\u2019s Demo Day has two functions. The first is the obvious one, which is: present the companies and drive leads. The second is as a forcing function to the founders, right? Just [as] YC doesn\u2019t necessarily need an application deadline. In fact, we read applications all year \u2018round. But as a forcing function to [say] \u201cHey, there\u2019s this date that we want to accomplish this thing by and it\u2019s important,\u201d [it] really, really helps the founders get up to top speed faster, as opposed to a more generalized system.<\/p>\n I would say [Demo Day] also helps the investors. If I\u2019m an investor, and I\u2019m talking to a company, and I know that they\u2019re going to be raising [at] Demo Day in a week, I might make my decision a little faster. So one of the things we tell founders who go through YC is [that] different companies will leverage Demo Day differently. And that\u2019s OK. It\u2019s a tool and your job is to use it as best you can for your company.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Bryce Durbin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Adobe snapped up Figma for $20 billion, reminding us that M&A can, indeed, happen in 2022. As TC\u2019s Ingrid Lunden reports:<\/p>\n The idea now will be to create a seamless connection between these and Figma, essentially building it out as the native platform to bring them all together. Adobe, of course, already had something like this, in the form of AdobeXD. It\u2019s not clear what will happen when this deal closes. Indeed, whether all this will raise the attention of antitrust authorities will be worth watching: Adobe is already dominant in so many of the tools that are used, and now it will be the dominant player as well in the platform to bring in and provision all of these tools.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Here\u2019s why it\u2019s important<\/strong>: Massive acquisitions have a way with ripple effects. In this case, Adobe just joined forces with one of its biggest rivals in digital design. Figma will soon no longer be a private company and thus not have to share its specific financials, and Figma employees, assumedly, are going to be a whole new generation of angel investors. There are also a lot of investors who won out due to this exit; a homogenous bunch, another notes.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Firn (opens in a new window)<\/span> \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m experimenting with a new section in Startups Weekly, where each week we follow up with an old story or trend to see what\u2019s changed since our first look. This week, we\u2019re returning to look at Maven, a creator economy meets edtech play that has raised $25 million over two years.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what\u2019s new: <\/strong>The live-learning platform announced a pivot this week. Instead of creating courses taught by creators, it is focusing on courses taught by experts. It\u2019s another example of, when it comes to executing on community \u2013 this time in a learning sense \u2013 it can be challenging to execute. I appreciated the transparency of what they did wrong, and what\u2019s new for the future.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had the hypothesis that a creator with a big audience will have a great course and be able to fill it and we were surprised that this hypothesis was wrong,\u201d Kao said in an interview with . \u201cJust because somebody is a creator doesn\u2019t mean that they will run a successful course. Instead, we were seeing tons of smaller instructors who were subject matter experts in their field and didn\u2019t necessarily have big audiences, who wanted to put in the hustle and put in the effort \u2026 doing really well on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Tim Robberts \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Wait for it. See it? Yep, I\u2019m excited too. And while we\u2019re on the topic of housekeeping, some more notes:<\/p>\n To thank you for being a Startups Weekly subscriber, here\u2019s a little TC+ discount for you: Enter \u201cSTARTUPS\u201d at check-out for 15% off of your subscription.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Seen on <\/em><\/p>\n Codi lands $16 million, led by a16z, to prove that we never really actually liked co-working<\/p>\n Why this consumer investor is switching VC firms after making partner last year<\/p>\n Most fintechs partner with banks. Varo became one, and says it\u2019s paying off<\/p>\n Twilio lays off 11% of its staff as it aims for profitability in 2023<\/p>\n Uber investigating cybersecurity incident after hacker breaches its internal network<\/p>\n Seen on +<\/em><\/p>\n Now that the Ethereum Merge is behind us, what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n Pitch Deck Teardown: Helu.io\u2019s $9.8M Series A deck<\/p>\n VC fundraising gets weird as autumn nears<\/p>\n Have you marked down your portfolio yet? You are running out of time to hide<\/p>\n And that\u2019s this week\u2019s startup diary.<\/p>\nY Combinator is still paranoid<\/h2>\n
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Figma exits<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nThe follow-up<\/h2>\n
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