Hi there, 
 

We did a little data mining to figure out Shopify’s strategy.  

But before that — it’s been a while since we did a Request for Startup ideas. Here are a couple:
 

#1 — SENaaS = Salary & equity negotiation-as-a-service for startup employees

Here's how it works:

1. You've got an offer from a startup and they're offering you 75 bps of equity.

2. The SENaaS company uses data/benchmarks and offers guidance to help the candidate negotiate better equity.

3. For incremental equity that the candidate gets as a result, the company takes a cut (let's say 10% of anything over 75bps) OR perhaps they just charge a fee. WDYT?

4. The company only gets paid if they help you negotiate better equity (or salary).

#2 — ESG ratings for private startups 

Given growth in ESG as an investment category, why not the private markets? Get LPs in funds asking GPs about the ESG scores of companies in their portfolio.

Perhaps these ratings can influence buyers of technology to buy from companies with high ESG scores?

TBH, I’m torn on this idea. I think most of the ESG ratings and scores I’ve seen seem like the new greenwashing, but since companies are jumping all over themselves to be ESG-conscious, perhaps there is something here if one rides this inflection.

Alright, that’s all. As usual, we’re not looking to invest or partner on these. Just some ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

BTW, if you missed the prior RFS ideas, you can find them here, here, here, here, and here. Not all of them but that’s some of them.

Bon appétit

Deals to food tech companies increased by over 10% in Q2’21 as early-stage players in particular garnered investor attention.

In our State Of Food Tech Q2’21 report, we cover the B2B ingredient companies transforming proteins, funding to vertical farming startups, alcohol tech, and more. 

Download it for free here.

Sit back and enjoy the ride

While fully autonomous vehicles haven’t hit the roads just yet, they’re on their way — and not just the auto industry will have to adapt. 

We look at how AVs will impact 33 industries, including hospitality, insurance, and fitness, in this report. 

Predicting Shopify’s strategy

We mined our data on Shopify’s business relationships (partnerships, licensing, and vendor relationships) and saw 3 key strategic priorities emerge.

We cross-checked these strategies with comments made by CEO Tobias Lutke, CFO Amy Shapero, and president Harley Finkelstein on earnings calls to see if executive talk matched their resource allocation walk.

The 3 key strategic priorities their business relationships revealed were:

• Streamlined delivery and logistics

• Embedded discovery 

• Reducing payments and capital access friction

We highlight the specific partners, vendors, and more that Shopify is using to drive these strategies forward. See the full research brief here.  

Here’s a bit more on how you can unlock competitive intel, supply chain, M&A, and industry intelligence using business relationships data.

Banking on blockchain

Blockdata interviewed the CEO of Gilded, a company which helps other companies go “bankless” by replacing their traditional payment systems with crypto payments.

Find out how here.

Get your tickets

Prices for Future of Fintech (Oct. 5-6, NYC + online) go up at the end of this week. 

Register now at the best rate under our risk-free ticketing policy (aka free refunds). Save $50 with code riskfree.

Checks on steroids

The B2B payments fintech market is heating up as businesses adopt payments tech to streamline operations, receive funds faster, and pay bills on time. 

From corporate cards to e-commerce, clients can check out 85+ companies reshaping the B2B payments tech landscape in this market map.

WWD. Arthur Zaczkiewicz (@arthurzaczkiew1) digs into key takeaways from the CB Insights State Of Retail Tech Q2’21 report. 

Financial Times. Miles Kruppa (@MilesKruppa) and Benjamin Parkin (@b_parkyn) look at Tiger Global’s strategy and cite CB Insights data.

Business Insider. Victor Chatenay uses the CB Insights State Of Fintech Q2’21 report to cover fintech funding trends.
 

P.S. Join us next week (August 3) for our AI In Numbers roundtable. Submit your questions ahead of time and register here.

To cap it off. A new group of Silicon Valley law firms and software vendors are aiming to make it easier for startups to manage their cap table. 

Protocol

Growing up. Social media manager roles have become increasingly professionalized in the 15 years since Twitter and Facebook opened up their platforms. 

WSJ 

Day by day. New survey data shows the changes in how Americans spent their time before and during the pandemic.

NYT 

There is no try. Lucasfilm has hired the YouTuber behind popular deepfakes of Star Wars and other movies.

The Verge 

Life is a highway. Indiana’s Department of Transport is testing magnetized cement that could charge electric vehicles as you drive. 

Engadget