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Tracy Chou’s resume is impressive. She interned at RocketFuel, Google and Facebook before becoming a software engineer at Quora and Pinterest. She is also a major advocate for diversity within the tech industry, launching Project Include in 2016.
Now, she’s the founder and CEO of Block Party, a platform aimed at making people feel safer on social media platforms.
Obviously, we’re absolutely thrilled to announce that we’ll be sitting down with Chou at TechCrunch Sessions: Justice in early March.
Block Party was born specifically out of Chou’s experience working at places like Quora — building a block button was one of the first things she built after being harassed on the platform. As an advocate for diversity, and a big name in the tech sphere in general, Chou has had her fair share of experience with online harassment.
Chou will join us as part of our Founders in Focus series, talking to us about the process of spinning up and launching Block party, as well as her strategies around growing the business. We’ll also talk through how Chou makes product decisions for a platform like Block Party, which tackles sensitive issues of safety and well-being.
Chou joins an outstanding cast of speakers at TC Sessions: Justice, including Arlan Hamilton, Brian Brackeen and a panel that includes the likes of Netflix’s Wade Davis and Uber’s Bo Young Lee.
The event goes down on March 3, and will explore diversity, equity and inclusion in tech, the gig worker experience, the justice system and more in a series of interviews with key figures in the technology community.
You don’t want to miss it. Get a ticket here.
The Perseverance Mars rover landed safely yesterday, but only after a series of complex maneuvers as it descended at high speed through the atmosphere, known by the team as the “seven minutes of terror.” NASA has just shared a hair-raising image of the rover as it dangled from its jetpack above the Martian landscape, making that terror a lot easier to understand.
Published with others to the rover’s Twitter account (as always, in the first person), the image is among the first sent back from the rover; black-and-white shots from its navigation cameras appeared almost instantly after landing, but this is the first time we’ve seen the rover — or anything, really — from this perspective.
The image was taken by cameras on the descent stage or “jetpack,” a rocket-powered descent module that took over once the craft had sufficiently slowed via both atmospheric friction and its parachute. Once the heat shield was jettisoned, Perseverance scanned the landscape for a safe landing location, and once that was found, the jetpack’s job was to fly it there.
The image at the top of the story was taken by the descent stage’s “down-look cameras.” Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
When it was about 70 feet above the landing spot, the jetpack would have deployed the “sky crane,” a set of cables that would lower the rover to the ground from a distance that safely allowed the jetpack to rocket itself off to a crash landing far away.
The image at top was taken just moments before landing — it’s a bit hard to tell whether those swirls in the Martian soil are hundreds, dozens or just a handful of feet below, but follow-up images made it clear that the rocks you can see are pebbles, not boulders.
Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The images are a reminder that the processes we see only third-hand as observers of an HQ tracking telemetry data sent millions of miles from Mars are in fact very physical, fast and occasionally brutal things. Seeing such an investment of time and passion dangling from cords above a distant planet after a descent that started at 5 kilometers per second, and required about a hundred different things to go right or else end up just another crater on Mars… it’s sobering and inspiring.
That said, that first person perspective may not even be the most impressive shot of the descent. Shortly after releasing that, NASA published an astonishing image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which managed to capture Perseverance mid-fall under its parachute:
Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Keep in mind that MRO was 700 km away, and traveling at over 3 km/second at the time this shot was taken. “The extreme distance and high speeds of the two spacecraft were challenging conditions that required precise timing and for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to both pitch upward and roll hard to the left so that Perseverance was viewable by HiRISE at just the right moment,” NASA wrote in the description of the photo.
Chances are we’re going to be treated to a fuller picture of the “seven minutes of terror” soon, once NASA collects enough imagery from Perseverance, but for now the images above serve as reminders of the ingenuity and skill of the team there, and perhaps a sense of wonder and awe at the capabilities of science and engineering.
Nearpod, the Miami-based edtech company, is being acquired by Renaissance Holding Corp., a group that develops education technology. While Nearpod isn’t announcing the news until later this month, the information leaked to Yahoo! Finance yesterday, and a source inside the company confirmed the sale with TechCrunch this morning. The acquisition price, and further details, have yet to be disclosed.
Nearpod offers an edtech platform that K-12 teachers use in the classroom to create interactive slides filled with videos, quizzes, questions and other activities. Students can use any device to participate in the lessons in real-time; there is also a student-paced learning mode. In response to the pandemic, Nearpod now also offers remote learning, too.
It’s been a busy year for Nearpod. The company, which was founded in 2012 by three Argentinian entrepreneurs, is now led by Pep Carrera who was brought on in early 2020 just as the pandemic gained traction. The company has raised more than $30 million in venture capital according to Crunchbase, and we last profiled the startup in 2017 when it raised its Series B.
In a previous interview, Carrera told me “My first day on the job, I’m driving to the office [near Dania Beach] and talking to the management team on the phone, and we decided that we needed to close the office due to the pandemic. This was in March.” Nearpod currently employees about 250 employees, most of which are at their Dania Beach HQ.
While the pandemic has posed many questions around remote work, under the leadership of Carrera, Nearpod has seen explosive growth in 2020. While Nearpod was primarily designed to be used in the classroom, the team was able to turn it into a remote-learning platform, too, making it a forerunner in K-12 distance education.
Nearpod is used in all 50 states, and in more than 1,800 school districts. In 2020 alone, the company grew by about 50% with more than 1 million teachers using the product, and 2-3 million students online per day. In a December 2020 interview, Carrera told me that all the money being generated right now is being put back into the company to propel its growth, which has been organic. Nearpod spends very little ad dollars on marketing. The real marketing, he said, is by word of mouth.
A teacher uses Nearpod to deliver digital curriculum to students’ mobile devices, during class. Photo via Nearpod.
Prior to joining Nearpod, Carrera was president of ProQuest Books, where he led a team focused on providing innovative software that made the acquisition, management, and delivery of books to academic learners, researchers, and librarians efficient and impactful. And even prior to ProQuest, as president and COO, Carrera grew VitalSource Technologies, the digital learning division of Ingram Conte Group, serving more than 20 million learners per year globally, by 10x over his six years there.
M&A activity in edtech has accelerated as VCs have splurged funding into the space. As my colleague Natasha Mascarenhas wrote recently, edtech M&A is leading to mass consolidation in the space. Nearpod joins a number of other edtech companies like Symbolab and Woot Math that have exited in recent months.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/19/miami-edtech-startup-nearpod-acquired-by-renaissance/
A lot of clients come to us saying they want to be more respected in their space. They know their competitors are trusted and they want the same recognition, if not more.
This feels even more important now after the absolute disaster that was 2020. Consumers and clients alike just want to be able to count on brands and not stress over whether they’re making the right decision.
Marketers seem to know this. When we teamed up with Semrush to explore keyword search data in 2020 related to marketing goals, brand awareness and authority showed steady upward trends.
Image Credits: Fractl (opens in a new window)
If you’re one of these marketers, I have some strategies you can use to improve your brand’s authority this year. It can’t happen overnight, but you can start implementing these strategies now to see results over time.
I have some strategies you can use to improve your brand’s authority this year.
Strategy #1: Get media coverage
Media coverage can build the authority of your brand in a few ways.
For one, it’s hard for people to trust you if they don’t know you exist. Of course, you can pay for ads or kill it on social to get your name out there, but media coverage has other benefits, as well.
When reputable publications and websites reference your brand and link to your site, they’re sending a signal that they trust what you have to say. It’s third-party confirmation that you know what you’re talking about and/or have something to offer.
For example, for our client Stoneside, we surveyed folks to see how many purchased and cared for houseplants in 2020.
The report got coverage on TreeHugger and Simplemost, but it also served as great context for other articles, like HelloGiggles and The Weather Network.
Image Credits: Fractl
Image Credits: Fractl
Image Credits: Fractl
Of course, getting media coverage isn’t easy. You need newsworthy content or an expert opinion to contribute, and you need to know how to pitch it to writers.
Small budget options
Are there industry blogs you can write a guest post for? Are there peers in your industry who are looking for quotes for their content? Start building connections with other industry experts. Cite their work in your content and build a rapport.
For example, I sometimes work with marketing tool brands like Semrush and BuzzSumo because those brands align well with Fractl, as we all work in the same industry.
You can also sign up for HARO, in which journalists post requests to speak to particular types of experts. However, it’s not often you’ll see relevant requests, and even then it’s a toss up whether they’ll reach out to you specifically.
Larger budget options
If you can afford it, a combination of content marketing and digital PR is the way to go. If you have resources internally — marketing folks who are savvy with data analysis and content creation — you can start by seeing if you have any internal data that would be interesting to a wider audience.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/19/how-to-elevate-brand-authority-in-2021/
We’re less than two weeks away from TC Sessions: Justice 2021, a day-long deep dive into the state of diversity, inclusion and equity in tech. March 3 is your opportunity to hear from and engage with the people who, through entrepreneurship, venture capital, labor organizing and advocacy, are both using and challenging tech to disrupt the status quo for the betterment of all.
This programming-packed day features presentations, breakout sessions and interactive Q&As with the leading movers, shakers and makers who are laser focused on, well, justice. Peruse the agenda and plan your day accordingly.
We’re stoked about showcasing the participating members of our TC Include Program. Do not miss meeting and connecting with these impressive early-stage founders, nominated by our partner founder organizations, Black Female Founders, Latinx Startup Alliance, Startout and the Female Founders Alliance.
TechCrunch, in collaboration with these organizations and VC firms like Kleiner Perkins, Salesforce Ventures and Initialized Capital, provide these young founders with educational resources and mentorship over the course of a year.
What’s more, the TC Include founders will take the virtual stage for a live pitch feedback session with a TechCrunch staffer during the conference. Tune in a get ready to take notes — the advice you hear could help you improve your pitch deck.
We already turned the spotlight on the startups nominated by Black Female Founders, and today we focus on these awesome, early-stage founders in the Female Founders Alliance cohort.
I-Ally: I-Ally is a community-driven app that saves millennial family caregivers time and enables informed decision-making by providing services that fulfill their unique needs. Founded by Lucinda Koza.
Proneer: Proneer is virtual try-on and size-recommendation software that helps reduce returns in apparel retail. Founded by Nicole Faraji.
Tribute: Tribute is the only mentorship platform that creates a continuous learning and development environment by connecting employees together for mentorship using the power of personal stories. Founded by Sarah Haggard.
Cirkled In: LinkedIn for Gen Z students, Cirkled is a 21st century online profile and portfolio platform connecting Gen Z with best-fit colleges, employers and endless win-win opportunities. Founded by Reetu Gupta.
Datacy: Datacy is a consumer to business insights data marketplace. We connect consumers and businesses to enable high-quality, ethical and transparent data exchange. Founded by Paroma Indilo.
We’ll be highlighting the cohorts from the Latinx Startup Alliance and Startout soon, so stay tuned!
TC Sessions: Justice 2021 takes place on March 3. Join this essential discussion, infuse justice into the DNA of your startup and make tech better for everyone. We can’t wait to get started.
