Netflix buys rights to WWE programs, Docker allows development teams to offload image builds to the cloud

Top News

Netflix buys the exclusive rights to WWE programs like Raw, airing in 2025 in the US, Canada, Latin America, and more; filing: the 10-year deal is worth $5B+. - Link

Docker launches Docker Build Cloud, a fully managed service that allows development teams to offload their image builds to the cloud, speeding up build times by 39x. - Link

Boomers and Generation X consumers in the US shopped more frequently and spent more than Gen Z on Temu in 2023; Boomers shopped twice as much as Gen Z. - Link

Murena, a French startup that sells “de-Googled” smartphones, launches its own-brand mobile network as it throws its hat into the fast-growing mobile virtual network operator ring. - Link

Telegram rolls out upgrades as part of its January feature drop, including “view-once” video and audio messages, the ability to pause recording while sending a video or audio message, and new read-time controls. - Link

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Advice of the Day

Do Things That Don’t Scale

Paul Graham emphasizes the importance of doing unscalable things in the early stages of a startup to achieve success. He argues that founders must manually recruit users, provide exceptional customer service, and engage in other labor-intensive activities to kickstart growth, like Stripe's aggressive early user acquisition and Airbnb's door-to-door approach. Startups are fragile in their initial stages, and Paul advises against underestimating the power of compound growth. Strategies include focusing on a narrow market, consulting with users, and even assembling hardware manually. Successful startups require a combination of building a great product and performing unscalable tasks to create a solid foundation for growth. - Link

Startup Demo of the Day:

Bland.ai provides users with AI phone agents for cold calling, customer support, sales, surveys, and more. Users first provide the agent with a prompt and sample dialogue. The agent will execute the call in an automated fashion with the ability to perform batch calls and record a transcript. - Link

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This Week in Startups

E1884: Sunny and Jason discuss how AI is used at work, especially in remote settings. Sunny shows different AI tools like Hour One, Bland AI, Dinnerfly, and AI Comic Factory. They also talk about Apple's behavior with smartwatches and share a short film called "Borrowed Time" made entirely with AI. - Watch

E1883: David Weisburd and guests delve into various aspects of the venture capital landscape, discussing positive trends in startup valuations for 2024, current valuation methods, and key considerations for investors. The conversation also explores strategies for securing competitive deals, examines controversial practices like round-tripping, and highlights recent developments in the industry, such as Lexington's successful $22.7 million secondary investment raise and increased mergers and acquisitions activity. - Watch

E1882: Joshua Berkowitz from Berkocorp joins host Jason to discuss various facets of VC and fundraising. They cover why family offices are increasingly diversifying into VC, focusing on aspects such as higher returns and the entrepreneurial element. The conversation also explores how venture firms make decisions, weighing consensus against individual decision-making, and what it takes for a VC fund to succeed. - Watch

E1881: Flexport's CEO, Ryan Petersen, covers topics including the company's focus, pick-and-pack economics, global logistics challenges, the Red Sea Crisis impact, trends in sourcing, and the effects of the market collapse on CEO transition. The conversation also touches on leadership challenges, decisions on going public, and the state of the global workforce and remote work. - Watch

E1880: Sunny joins Jason to discuss CES, emphasizing AI's role. They review the Rabbit device and its impact, evaluate Rabbit R1 and purpose-built devices, and explore AI integration with Large Language Models. Sunny demos Elli Q for the elderly and showcases a kid-friendly smartphone. The GPT store launch is highlighted, focusing on its disruptive potential using All Trails as a case study. - Watch

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