Technology
Daily Crunch: Atlassian offers Jira Product Discovery in open beta release

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Bonjour, crunchy folks!
It was a bit of a tense morning at TechCrunch HQ this morning: The news broke that the company that owns TechCrunch, Yahoo, announced it is laying off 20% of its staff, as Amanda reported. It seems the layoffs are mostly on the advertising tech side of the business, so hopefully the TechCrunch team’s jobs are safe — but this is tech layoffs hitting really close to home, with 1,600 coworkers shuffling on to new pastures. May you all find new employment opportunities soon, colleagues!
Our featured Black History Month read today is bell hooks’ Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, a collection of her early cultural criticism pieces from the 1980s. It’s an amazing collection of essays about the oppressive structures of domination. It’s also really bloody depressing to realize how much of this is still relevant today, 30 to 40 years after the essays were first penned.
The TechCrunch Top 3
- Safe and sound: DoorDash unveiled some new safety features for its delivery drivers that include reduced notifications and a way to let customers know that the driver is in the middle of a trip. Ivan has more.
- Look what’s in open beta: Atlassian’s Jira Product Discovery, a tool for helping engineering and business teams prioritize and collaborate on new product ideas, is expected to be open to a general audience in the next three months, Frederic writes.
- Flying high: Haje explains the features of the new DJI Mini 2 SE ultraportable drone and why he’s confused about the naming of this particular product.
Startups and VC
Over 90% of cybercrime activities that lead to financial fraud or identity theft start with an email impersonation, commonly known as phishing and spoofing, Tage reports. Sendmarc just raised $7 million in Series A funding to offer individuals and businesses email protection from such attacks and general email impersonation.
Remember the piece we published about how a feature doesn’t make a business? Twitter said that the basic API tier will cost $100 per month, killing off hopes of hobbyist Twitter bots and a bunch of small business use cases, Ivan reports.
Today was a hell of a day of news on the site, so instead of our usual five, we’ve got seven stories for you, ranging from fintech to NFTs to mushroomy meat (or meaty mushrooms).
4 video content tips for your startup’s growth marketing

Image Credits: ronstik (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
If your marketing plan doesn’t include TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram Reels, well, can you really call it a marketing plan?
Video content is vital for driving early engagement, which is why growth expert Jonathan Martinez (formerly of Postmates, Uber and Chime) shares four tactics for getting started:
- Leverage creator marketplaces
- Produce short-form videos
- Build lasting creator relationships
- Cross-pollinate your videos
“If you’re entering 2023 without a video content plan for your startup, you will be missing out on a significant resource for creating brand awareness and reaching more consumers,” writes Martinez.
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
Well, as you read from our introduction, we are reeling from Yahoo’s announcement that it is laying off 20% of staff. Amanda has more on that. But that was not the only bad news hitting the tech scene today: Frederic reports that GitHub, owned by Microsoft, is laying off 10% of its workers through the end of its fiscal year and going fully remote. Meanwhile, Paul writes that developer operations giant GitLab is cutting its employee base by 7%.
And we have four more for you:
Technology
Just 7 days until the TC Early Stage early bird flies away


Budget-minded entrepreneurs and early-stage startup founders take heed — this is no time to procrastinate. We have only 7 days left of early-bird pricing to TechCrunch Early Stage 2023 in Boston on April 20.
Don’t wait…the early bird gets the…SAVINGS: Buy a $249 founder pass and save $200 before prices increase on April 1 — that’s no joke.
TC Early Stage is our only event where you get hands-on training with experts to help your business succeed. No need to reinvent the startup wheel — you’ll have access to leading experts across a range of specialties.
During this one-day startup bootcamp, you’ll learn about legal issues, fundraising, marketing, growth, product-market fit, pitching, recruiting and more. We’re talking more than 40 highly engaging presentations, workshops and roundtables with interactive Q&As and plenty of time for networking.
Here are just a few examples of the topics we have on tap. You’ll find plenty more listed in the event agenda.
How to Tell Your TAM: Dayna Grayson from Construct Capital invests in the rebuilding of the most foundational and broken industries of our economy. Industries such as manufacturing and logistics, among others, that formed in an analog world have been neglected by advanced technology. Dayna will talk about how, beyond the idea, founders can pitch investors on their TAM, including how they will wedge into the market and how they will eventually disrupt it.
How to Think About Accelerators and Incubators: Founders often hear they should get involved with an incubator or accelerator, but when is the “right” time for early-stage founders to apply to these types of startup support ecosystems, and how can they best engage if accepted? In this talk, Harvard Innovation Labs executive director Matt Segneri will cover everything from the types of incubators and accelerators available to early-stage founders, to what startups should consider before applying, and tips for getting the most out of these ecosystems.
How to Raise Outside of SV in a Down Market: Silicon Valley’s funding market tends to be more immune to macroeconomic conditions than elsewhere in the world. So how do you raise outside the Valley bubble? General Catalyst’s Mark Crane has ample experience on both the founder and VC side from all over Europe, as well as a firm understanding of the funding landscape in the northeastern U.S., so he’ll give practical advice on how to stay alive and thrive.
At TechCrunch Early Stage you’ll walk away with a deeper working understanding of topics and skills that are essential to startup success. Founders save $200 with an early-bird founder ticket — college students pay just $99!
Technology
Twitter will kill ‘legacy’ blue checks on April 1


Twitter has picked April Fool’s Day, otherwise known as April 1, to start removing legacy blue checkmarks from the platform.
Despite the significance of the day Twitter chose, the removal of legacy checkmarks has been anticipated for months now. Musk tweeted in December that the company would remove those checks “in a few months” because “the way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical.”
Since then, legacy blue checkmark holders have been seeing a pop-up when they click on their checkmark that reads, “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.”
Before Musk acquired the company, Twitter used checkmarks to verify individuals and entities as active, authentic and notable accounts of interest. Verified checkmarks were doled out for free.
Today, Twitter users can purchase a blue check through the Twitter Blue subscription model for $8 per month (iOS and Android signups will cost $11 per month, due to app store costs). There are also other checkmark colors and badges available for purchase to denote whether an account is a business or a government, for example.
Twitter says the purchase of a checkmark gives users access to subscriber-only features like fewer ads on their timeline, prioritized ranking in conversations, bookmark folders, and the ability to craft long tweets, edit tweets and undo tweets.
The news comes within hours of Twitter also announcing the availability of the Blue subscription globally.
Twitter did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for more information about how many users have already signed up for Twitter Blue.
Technology
Roofstock, valued at $1.9B last year, cuts 27% of staff in second round of layoffs


Proptech company Roofstock has laid off about 27% of its staff today, according to an email sent to employees viewed by TechCrunch. The cuts come just five months after the startup laid off 20% of its workforce.
The company’s website states that it has 400+ employees, or “Roofsters” as they’re dubbed, but it is not known if that figure is current.
Roofstock, an online marketplace for investing in leased single-family rental homes, one year ago raised $240 million at a $1.9 billion valuation. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led that financing, which included participation from existing and new backers including Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures and others. Roofstock has raised a total of over $365 million in funding since its 2015 inception, per Crunchbase.
According to the email seen by TechCrunch, co-founder and CEO Gary Beasley said today’s reduction in force (RIF) was “in response to the challenging macro environment” and the “negative impact” it is having on Roofstock’s business.
He added that the company was not expecting to have to cut more staff so soon but that it needed to “right size” in an effort “to reduce cash burn rate” and ensure it has “adequate capital runway until the market eventually turns.”
Beasley sent the email because apparently, the Zoom meeting where it was addressed “maxed out on attendees.”
Oakland, Calif.-based Roofstock lets people buy and sell rental homes in dozens of U.S. markets. The premise behind the company is that both institutional and retail investors can buy and sell homes without forcing renters to leave their homes. Meanwhile, buyers can also presumably generate income from day one.
At the time of its raise in March 2022, the company said that it had facilitated more than $5 billion in transaction volume, more than half of which had come from the last year alone.
Just days before its last round of layoffs last year, Roofstock made headlines for selling its first single-family home using NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
Rising mortgage rates and a slowdown in the housing market led to challenges for many real estate technology companies in 2022 that continue this year. Opendoor, Redfin, Compass, Better.com and Homeward were among the other startups that also laid off workers. IBuyer Reali also announced it was shutting down after raising $100 million the year prior.
TechCrunch has reached out to Roofstock but had not heard back at the time of writing but multiple sources confirmed that layoffs had taken place today.
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