Welcome to a very special host-only episode of Found. Dom and Becca are breaking down 2023 in startups by looking back on some of our favorite conversations and looking forward to predict some startup trends in 2024. They talked about innovative climate tech companies, AI ethics and fundraising, building good founder relationships, and what next year could look like for startups. Thanks to all our listeners for an amazing year, we’ll see you in 2024!
Welcome to a very special host-only episode of Found. Dom and Becca are breaking down 2023 in startups by looking back on some of our favorite conversations and looking forward to predict some startup trends in 2024. They talked about innovative climate tech companies, AI ethics and fundraising, building good founder relationships, and what next year could look like for startups. Thanks to all our listeners for an amazing year, we’ll see you in 2024!
Becca Szkutak 0:02
Hello and welcome to found TechCrunch podcasts that brings you the stories behind the startups from the folks that are building them. And I'm joined as always by my fabulous co host, Dominic Midori, Davis. Tom, how's it going?
Dom Davis 0:14
I'm doing good. How are you?
Becca Szkutak 0:15
Doing? Good. Getting ready to wrap up the year. We were just chatting about this before we started recording, but looking forward to the year ending, despite the fact that I'm not taking any time off. Same
Dom Davis 0:26
here. Yeah. I'm actually scared, though, of 2024. Because that doesn't sound like a real year. No,
Becca Szkutak 0:34
I keep thinking back on the year. And I'm like, oh, that happened a month ago. And it's like, Nope, that happened in February of 2023. Like this year has felt both very long and
Dom Davis 0:43
very short. I know rights are getting old.
Becca Szkutak 0:46
24 I mean, good vibes. Next year. I'm sure all
Dom Davis 0:50
good vibes only good vibes.
Becca Szkutak 0:55
Will going off of having only good vibes. It's a super fun episode we have for you today because it's our first host only episode Domina are going to be taking a look back at some of the themes for 2023 across the companies we spoke to. And we might even make a few predictions for 2024. But to start it off, looking back at the companies we spoke to this year, we spoke to a 45 startups this year in industries ranging from climate at Tech to commerce, and even one ear piercing company. The two industries we spoke with the most were climate and sustainability and health care, not a crypto company insight, not one crypto company insights,
not a web three company on the brain.
Dom Davis 1:34
What was your favorite company we spoke to?
Becca Szkutak 1:36
That's a good question. There were so many good ones. This year. I really liked we had one on really early in the year called gig finesse, which was like a tool venues and bars and everything under that kind of category could use to book live music, making it easier for both sides, both the bands as well as the venues to have consistent shows and consistent programming. But I also really liked I really liked the plant, Grant Hein from a plant who could talk to the trees. What about you? Okay,
Dom Davis 2:06
so I have to say eat plant. But I'm also really upset that I miss colossal, that mammoth company that you and Darrell spoke to Oh, yeah, about bringing back the mammoth. Like, I don't know why I'm thinking about if that was the company that was also trying to bring, they weren't trying to make food out of the madness where they
Becca Szkutak 2:26
know, this is so funny. I literally just met with a guy this morning. And he was I asked him about that company. And he was like, No, we're not trying to bring them back to eat. Like, we're not doing that. Yeah, that episode was fun, though, because I feel like Joe and I wouldn't pretty suspect like pretty suspicious. Like, yeah, okay, do you extinction? Sure. That sounds cool. And then in the outro, we were like, oh, like maybe maybe I've been convinced maybe I'm leaning
Dom Davis 2:53
in. And there are some animals, I just don't want to see again, there are some sea creatures, well, first of all the ocean, I'm gonna let you be. But then like some of the some of those dinosaurs can stay dead, I'm sorry. Do not come back to a repeat, do not come back to her. Oh, my God.
Becca Szkutak 3:13
But it's fun that we like thinking about both those companies because they both fit under like the biggest theme we had this year, which was climate and sustainability. Because we talked to so many different companies in the space, which I think it's fun, because sometimes getting PR pitches and getting funding round announcements, it would seem like every one in climate is building in like two areas, like they're building something related to EVs or batteries, or something related to carbon credits, which I'm begging one of you to explain to me how that would make any climate difference. But we talked to a whole range of people like jewel case recently with the diesel generators, and then of course, our bloody plant, chatting with trees, keeping them alive in a different way. Talk to some solar folks, it's kind of interesting to get the whole range. Yeah,
Dom Davis 3:55
you know, it's like fascinating is when we're in this tech world, and there's so much innovation happening in Climate Technology. And then you step out of the tech world. And you see that climate change is such kind of like a political hot topic right now. Like, is it real? Does it exist? Like, let's stop talking about ESG? And then you go deep into tech, and everyone's like, yeah, you know, we're building we're gonna fix this, we're gonna mitigate this. And so it's actually quite encouraging to see that a lot of people are taking it so seriously, and they're not listening to the outside politicization of climate as an issue. Definitely.
Becca Szkutak 4:29
And something else that I think is interesting is some of the companies we spoke to especially this year, like building things that people would kind of buy into without even the climate piece like I think about like people like exiger or jewel case, Swisher jewel case, oh, here's this different type of generator, it's gonna work the same for you and cost you less money over time. It's like, oh, well, of course, customers are gonna want that and then it's like, oh, and it's more sustainable and it's better for the environment. It's like I feel like that's a lot of these companies are like sneaking people. Behind the politicization because it's like, no, this is just a better product in general. And then it also has all these climate benefits too.
Dom Davis 5:06
Yeah, like spout, it's just clean water out of the air. Like, who doesn't want that? Yeah, who doesn't want that?
Becca Szkutak 5:13
Exactly, it's more sustainable. But they don't even have to talk about that angle, and people are gonna want to buy one of those. There's just so many use cases for it, which is good to see. Because that I think, is the stuff that's going to move the needle a lot more than, like the companies or like being tossed out as examples. And these, like, Congress hearings and stuff like that,
Dom Davis 5:31
ya know, oh, my gosh, how was the market this year for climate tech and sustainability? Do you know,
Becca Szkutak 5:36
I don't know, off the top of my head. But it definitely seems like things are interesting. Like, I've been talking to a lot of companies off the podcast, too, in the climate space that I feel like, are just building different things that I'm used to seeing in this category. Like I chatted with a company a couple of weeks ago, that are just working on upskilling people for green energy jobs, just like well, of course, you would need something like that. But it's like that had never occurred to me. I hadn't seen other companies doing that. And then discovered there's a few that are relatively new trying that are companies like looking to do like recycling stuff. And just seems like people are starting to branch out this year, which is a good thing. I can't read about another carbon credit startup. I
Dom Davis 6:14
just have, like a hates carbon credits.
Becca Szkutak 6:16
I just don't get them. We need solutions now. Not things for like 20 years down the road? I don't know.
Dom Davis 6:23
Yeah, I'm looking at some of the coverage from our colleague, Tim. And it seems like I mean, like every sector climate was hit pretty hard. But he said that, you know, funding is down, but it's not out yet. I bet that's because there's just so much innovation happening and so many like cool things that's going on. And it's definitely something I'm excited to continue following and seeing. I mean, just thinking of the ice cream, man, yes, we have to clean the air for the kids guys
Becca Szkutak 6:50
known it's nice to because we it's like the companies we had on have raised very different amounts of funding companies like sweater CO has raised a solid amount of venture funding spouts raised some venture funding. And then you got like jewel case had very successful equity, crowdfunding and stuff like that. It definitely seems like investors are interesting back in this category to right now, which is good, even if they're investing less, which I mean, they're investing less than everything except the guy.
Dom Davis 7:14
Oh, my goodness, AI was everywhere. It felt like this year, essentially, it popped up in a lot of the conversations that we had to definitely.
Becca Szkutak 7:22
And it is so funny to because it's like, on the one hand, I'm like, Okay, are we really talking about AI again, and like use case 999. But then at the same time, it's What's so weird about this AI momentum in general, because the majority of people who came on the show this year to talk about AI, we're just pointing out something their company's been doing forever, like the whole time. But it's just like, we've all just started talking about it over the last year.
Dom Davis 7:45
I know that's been the weirdest thing. It's like, of course, all the medical companies we spoke to had been using AI for a bit. And now it's kind of re framing the pitch, I guess some pickup traction and investors and like investor attention. But yeah, just seeing that AI has always been here. And now it's just chat GPT made it so popular that everyone's like, look at me, I'm I'm also AI. But I think like a lot of these companies, they didn't even need to talk kind of about the AI side of it, because all of it was still cool regardless. And then there were also companies, companies that were using AI in sectors where it was like, yeah, you definitely need a lot more AI a lot more help to fix that the medical sector in particular, I can't even imagine the paperwork, just the red tape, so much is going on in the medical industry. They need help.
Becca Szkutak 8:33
Oh, I know. And especially to is nice, because so much of the narrative in venture around AI this year has been companies are moving too fast, or like companies are building AI models off of things that may run on corporate issues and stuff down the line. But then I feel like the majority of the companies using AI we head on were companies that have been building for a couple of years had their own models and like really weren't going to run into the issues that a lot of like the newer AI startups probably will. So it's kind of like a refreshing going against the grain of like what we're hearing for like the overall space, which I thought was really interesting, because it's easy sometimes when you are following this trend to be like everybody's doing this and then we add companies on we're like, No, we've been building for five years, we've done it ethically, like we should not be lumped into that category. And it's like, Good,
Dom Davis 9:18
that's how it should be.
Becca Szkutak 9:19
Right? Yeah. Are you more or less excited about AI going into 2024? Are you more optimistic? Are you more pessimistic?
Dom Davis 9:29
I think it depends on who's in charge. I mean, the open AI scandal showed that none of those guys should be in charge of AI right now. And so my biggest thing is like who's straining the data? The AI bias, I think is really the biggest thing I'm worried about. Like I think AI is really really cool, but we need to be taking a lot more steps to retraining these algorithms properly. And I don't think that the people in charge of AI right now that's giving all this money to it. I don't think that that is their top priority.
Becca Szkutak 9:58
Yeah, no perfect example. Have someone we spoke to this year not doing that will be regard. It's stuck with me this whole time that he was like, Oh, if the model notice is something, it doesn't automatically learn from it, we have to tell it to learn from it, which I thought was like a fascinating way to kind of try to mitigate some of that, that I hadn't heard yet. Yeah, that
Dom Davis 10:16
was actually really interesting. And that's good, because there's a lot of medical bias, but it's also like, what if you are bias, but then that goes to this whole meta discussion I was I moderated a panel about ethical AI. And it was like this meta discussion of, well, who holds AI accountable? Even when you do teach AI? Like, what if it just starts being biased again? And it's a whole loop? I don't know if it'll ever end? I don't know who's gonna be in charge of any of it. No,
Becca Szkutak 10:41
definitely think we will still be talking about it a lot next year. Regardless of what happens, hopefully a lot of good but fulfilling, we'll be talking about a lot of bad AI too.
Dom Davis 10:53
We have to wrap up the open AI plot. I need to know what Sam did I need to know what happened in the board. Like I need the HBO documentary. And then I need a reaction of it on Netflix like this was not over. Oh, no. The conversation. We're just getting started. Actually,
Becca Szkutak 11:08
they can't do to us what they did to us about Scooter Braun, we still don't know what Scooter Braun did for all this clients to drop him. We don't know, we're not letting Sam Altman find the same thing.
Dom Davis 11:18
factly It's like no, no, we need to know just because we're nosy. Like, like, I just want to know, for personal reasons. Oh,
Becca Szkutak 11:26
yeah. Like, what I cover it? I don't know. I just want to know, I'm curious. I just want to know. And now we're gonna take a quick break. But we'll be right back in a second.
Dom Davis 11:40
You know, it was another interesting theme and talking about trends and following trends and who hasn't, who hasn't been is seeing investors, of course, throw money at all of these AI companies, but then also seeing what investors didn't throw money at? No.
Becca Szkutak 11:54
So true. Oh, is such an interesting piece of venture and something that I have really enjoyed diving into more on this podcast particular because this is where I feel like I find out about most of these instances. But I mean, some of the companies we on this year, it's just crazy to think of how hard it was for them to fundraise like companies like Spark fly, like, Okay, you have all these huge corporate clients, which is like, what you would assume is the exact thing venture investors are looking for. And the CEO and founder couldn't raise any venture money and then nothing against sets by any means. But they're brick and mortar innovating on a space that technically like they're bringing something differentiated, but they're not really bringing something that new and it's very capital intensive with the brick and mortar locations of VCs like rush to it. You want both companies to raise money, but like seeing those divides is like very interesting.
Dom Davis 12:42
I know especially cuz Spark, why didn't she have like Chipotle as a customer, something she had like a very, very big customer, she had a few and it was like still nothing. Babel also did not immediately pick up investor traction, which is interesting. Looking back, that seems like an industry ripe for disruption. And innovation. babbles is a good product. It's like why didn't investors they were in Berlin. But I don't know, maybe an American investor would have thrown like a bunch of cash at it. But it also seems like some founders did not want all of that. And I think jewel case was an example. Because I feel like there's still some control of your company that you can retain when you don't just take investor money, for sure.
Becca Szkutak 13:23
And I was definitely interesting to hear that perspective. I'm so glad we ended up having them on the show, because we talk about venture funding so much with a lot of the startups that come on. So it was very interesting to talk to someone who was like, Yeah, I raised it at my last startup. And the startup, of course, failed because of the financial crisis, which isn't, you know, like, there's nothing they can really do about that as a company, but then just being like, Nope, we're just not going to raise that this time. It doesn't make sense for us. We just rather do the crowdfunding route and how it's worked out really well is definitely like a positive fundraising story heading into next year, but it's given me a new perspective on how startups think about like VCs as well. Yeah, I mean,
Dom Davis 14:01
as to venture capital reporters, we can sit here and say, maybe not everyone, you know, should be looking for VC money. Definitely.
Becca Szkutak 14:09
And like thinking about it because I've been digging into the crowdfunding space a little bit since we talked to jewel case. You forget how many big companies didn't originally raise VC money and did originally do stuff like crowdfunding like Oculus and Peloton. Peloton did a Kickstarter like pre all these nice like ways you can raise online like we funder and stuff like that. So it is interesting, kind of like diving into how these people have approached it or even like exiger exiger they've raised quite a bit of venture money but so spaced out and that was purposeful, like they purposely only raised every like, it was like three to four years, which like thinking about that after 2020 2021 It's crazy.
Dom Davis 14:50
I know when everyone was going in for new rounds, trying to get those over inflated valuations seeing someone take their time. It's like an album rollout. I feel like we're gonna or when artists used to space out their albums, and now you just get like quick pop hits all the time. It's like, take your time, take your time build your products, you know, we're still going to be here, or will we still be here? I don't know. But it was good to hear what was also, my favorite thing to ask a lot of these founders is even though they're building slow, building fast, regardless of what they were doing, I love talking to them about their company culture, and seeing how they were running their companies. I started asking them a lot about how they were fostering positive working environment. And like no one had a good answer. So I think I just started asking a different question. Yeah,
Becca Szkutak 15:36
that was really interesting. I'm so glad you were asking that pretty much all year because some companies had like, really great answers, but they were in the minority. I
Dom Davis 15:46
know, right. And I even wrote a piece about this, because it kind of goes against the whole build fast and like, you know, what you're getting into, because startups just have like a really cutthroat environment, I'm really curious to see what the future of work looks like and what the future employee looks like. And I feel like startups can still maintain that fast pace, grind culture, but I do think that employees are going to want a little bit more empathy from their leaders going forward. And I think there's so
Becca Szkutak 16:14
many ways to where you can kind of find the best of both worlds, like, Okay, you want this fast paced culture and you like, want all of that kind of stuff. But you also can totally have, like flexibility for your employees who need to work from home or need to work remotely or need to do XYZ or maybe need extra space and time on certain things. Like, I feel like there's a great way where you can kind of like, strike the balance, which is interesting, because I feel like we definitely had a lot of people who are either like on one end of the camp or the other.
Dom Davis 16:43
It's interesting to get inside the mindset, I guess, of the founders running these places. Cuz I guess at what point in a company's life do you put in work policies and PTO and stuff? Yeah,
Becca Szkutak 16:53
because I know, there's like certain things, especially with like, fostering like, an inclusive workplace environment, talking, especially back in like, 2020, when a lot of like venture funds were just like, we'll just get more diverse and it's like, Um, okay, so what are you gonna, what does that mean? I remember, I was talking to this investor over at Equal Ventures, and he was saying he was like, Yeah, diversity is kind of one of those things that if you don't think about from the start, you're literally fucked. Yeah, he's like, You really can't go back and fix it like, sorry, it's kind of one of those things you have to think about from the beginning. And I feel like there's a lot of aspects of like company culture, you have to think about that, too, because I feel like the biggest uproar you see from employees is when like, a good policy gets reversed. Like I was just looking today, I think it's nationwide just got a new CEO, and reversed a couple of the policies from the old CEO that people really liked. And everyone was just like, well, what the hell? And she's like, well, I'm in charge. Now. Those don't work for us. And so it's like, I feel you have to think about these things from the beginning. Because reversing on stuff later is like quite easily, like the worst thing you could do.
Dom Davis 17:57
I know that sounds like a nightmare, because people get used to it too. Yeah, just saying like, it doesn't work for us. And it's like who's us like we've been here you're new? Yeah,
Becca Szkutak 18:05
I know, the founder of Spark phi as well as the founder from Babel looked better from Babel was saying he still talks every new person, which is crazy. And the woman from Spark fie had that whole thing where she was like, for awhile, meeting every single person like I think once a quarter just so interesting, like, especially babble that proves like you still can be that hands on and like that one on one supportive, even though babbles a couple 100 People now, I
Dom Davis 18:30
know the dedication to meeting every single person is actually I mean, that's good. I think more founders, CEOs should take that time to meet with the people who are working for them. You know, you know, a founder, who I really really liked talking to this year was Amy from authentics. I really liked how she broke down kind of talking to her family, before she just leapt into building this startup because it is such a disruption not only to your life, but also to everyone's life around you. And I feel like there's like there's a stereotype or at least I don't know, I just saw super pumped so I'm just I'm like there's a certain type of founder I feel that there's like a selfishness I feel often when you're building a company because you're thinking just about you and growth in the company, but it really impacts personal relationships and people around you. So I was I really, really liked hearing her talk about navigating that. No, that's
Becca Szkutak 19:26
a good point. That's definitely something that was a fun aspect of a lot of the conversations we have this year was I feel like I'm walking away from this year with a really a better feeling of how entrepreneurs actually feel. And a lot of them were like very candid about different experiences that they've had growing that company that I don't know, you just don't read about very often. Like with Emile I've never heard of a founder talking about having to like tell their family like yeah, we're not going to be able to do these things if I start this company, but of course that's the reality for so many of them. Yeah, they
Dom Davis 19:57
never want to talk about what they gave up. To make the dream happen, the hustle Nozick, the founder of
Becca Szkutak 20:03
Babel to just being like, Yeah, we had no money and didn't take a salary for two years, which we were privileged to do. But like, they're so lucky. Nothing happened during that time, huge, unexpected medical thing or something like their privilege to be able to do that. But of course, things could have gone wrong,
Dom Davis 20:19
the medical thing and they're in Europe with free health care.
Becca Szkutak 20:22
Oh my god, you're right. You're right. They're fine.
Dom Davis 20:26
They're fine. It's us. It's us.
Becca Szkutak 20:31
Alright, think about like David Frum. masterclass, being very candid that he wasn't sure if people were going to like his idea. Like, I feel like a lot more founders could say that, but they would never admit it, where he was just like, Yep, this is something new that we're trying like, I don't know if it will work. I'm scared of people will want it. I mean, that's real. No one talks about that.
Dom Davis 20:50
I know, they're always like, we're gonna have b2b SaaS platform, we're gonna disrupt and transform. It's never the whole like, I honestly, I'm just doing this. And I don't know if this is gonna work, but we're gonna see No, for sure. What is it called humility. Maybe that doesn't. Maybe investors don't really like that you're supposed to, like, change the world, you can't be afraid of that.
Becca Szkutak 21:09
I know, which is another fun divide of like how VCs talk first what they do, because when they talk, they're like, Well, yeah, I mean, we're just shooting trying to shoot for homeruns here with most of the portfolio isn't gonna do anything. And then the thought of like a startup founder being like, I hope people like it would be negative. It's like such $1 Divide. But thinking about next year now, and I know it's fun. It's like, we've already have some stuff scheduled through January, which every time I get a calendar invite for 2020 For a little piece of merchandise just a little bit, but that's okay. But thinking about next year, Don, what is your hottest take for 2024? Ah, the
Dom Davis 21:47
hottest take, I have no idea. I mean, a big trend that we're seeing is specifically funding to women has remained stagnant and funding to black founders has dipped, I imagine that there's going to be a massive wave of more backlash to dei stuff that has been going on inclusion, all of those things, there's probably going to be a little bit more of a dip in funding. You know, what was really interesting that we also kind of touched on in our episodes was how do you think that the face of what it means to be a founder has changed? Because it seems like a tech person is no longer like a Mark Zuckerberg looking person with the hoodies and just in their 20s, it seems like the face of an entrepreneur has changed so much like we have people in their 50s and 60s, and also in their 30s and 40s. And so I think we're probably going to see maybe an increase of that of changing the face of the stereotypical tech bro.
Becca Szkutak 22:45
Yeah, I definitely think that's something that's been happening over the last couple of years that I would agree, I think will continue into next year, especially with like watching what's happened with layoffs and things like that. And I know people are very eager to see kind of like, what some of that talent builds, if you're in your 20s navy, you'd be like, oh, shoot, I gotta get another job or whatever. But if you're in your 40s, or 50s, or you sort of experienced a pain point for a long time, and then got laid off, like, I do think we'll see a different class of founders. Yeah,
Dom Davis 23:12
that's gonna be exciting, new technology, new innovation, maybe, yeah.
Becca Szkutak 23:17
And also, it's fun to think about putting everything into like a broader context. If IPOs do come back next year, the way a lot of people are predicting, hoping, desperately begging, we will see a lot of new exits from top management, and of course, valuations are getting cut. So it won't be like the exits we saw in 2020 2021. For those like initial employees and founders themselves, but there's gonna be new people with money and the ability to write Angel checks and the ability to maybe want to go into investing if the IPO window does open back up. And of course, new people holding the purse strings means new companies get funded. And that of course, just like changes the dynamic to
Dom Davis 23:57
I know new people for us to cover. Oh, my goodness, I hope this IPO window opens back up. So these investors can stop crying. Just someone needs to go public let
Becca Szkutak 24:06
these founders move on with their lives. But
Dom Davis 24:10
I wonder what type of environment all these new companies are going to be started in because I mean, companies now are struggling. There have been you know, rumors in the stories of companies just running out of money. Like ghosts companies, I think zombie companies, I think is the term that was being used. Yeah.
Becca Szkutak 24:26
What's interesting about next year and chatting with a few people at that holiday party we were out last week dumb. There's a lot of people who are saying like q3 was actually really bad for startups and firms like and like we just don't really know the extent of it yet. And I know q4 We have seen a lot of layoffs recently which is very uncommon for like this time of year because people usually try to like hold out until the beginning of the year because of the holidays and stuff like that. But maybe that's the Omen though like maybe the December layoffs means 2024 will be really bad and that way if people are like not even waiting, you
Dom Davis 24:57
know, the signs are not looking Good, but we can be optimistic. That's what being a founder is all about. Exactly.
Becca Szkutak 25:05
That's what's funny. It's like the market. Well, funny. I can say that I'm not working in the market, but it's like, everything's so doom and gloom. And then it's like every other day, I'm like, Wow, this company is really cool are like, Oh, wow, this firm raise money, like their strategy is really interesting. So it's like, there's still a lot of good and still definitely a lot to be excited about for next year.
Dom Davis 25:27
I know, I'm so excited. I wonder what's going to happen a year from now, like who we're going to be talking about what companies are, are going to be invented basically,
Becca Szkutak 25:35
no, I'm very excited. And I'm interested to see kind of how things turn out. We'll see. But before we wrap up for the year, we just wanted to take a second to thank all of you listeners for hanging out with us all year. It's been really fun. I'm thrilled that Dom has joined the team and I feel like we've had a lot of fun. Yeah, we just thank you so much for coming along for the ride. Found is hosted by myself. TechCrunch Senior Reporter Becca Skuta. Alongside Senior Reporter Dominic Midori Davis founders produced by Maggie Stamets with editing by Cal our Illustrator is Bryce Durbin phones, audience development and social media is managed by Morgan Liddell Alyssa Stringer, and Nodle. The Kreisman TechCrunch is audio products are managed by Henry pic of it. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week.
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