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XFormer Snapchat Employees Move to Genies Engineering Team
Samson Amore
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
Virtual avatar company Genies wants to be the go-to option for online personas and it's targeting the wealth of talent and seasoned executives from the area's biggest tech firm, Snap Inc., to help make that goal a reality.
Genies' latest hire from the Venice-based social camera company is George "YJ" Tu, a former senior engineer who worked on its Snapchat app and Spectacles camera glasses. Prior to working at Snap, Tu worked for three and a half years as a senior engineer at Facebook and specialized in developing the company's mobile infrastructure.
Tu joins Genies as its director of engineering. Genies CEO and founder Akash Nigam told dot.LA Tu's main mandate is hiring engineers to continue developing its avatar creation platform and digital marketplace, where users can buy and sell digital collectibles and wearable items for their virtual selves.
Tu is the first engineering executive the company's hired since its launch in 2017, but it plans to devote a big chunk of its recent $65 million Series B raise to attracting new talent.
"I think we've landed quite a few Snap employees for a few reasons," Nigam said. "Genies and Snap are probably the two biggest social companies on the Westside in LA, so I think that's an attraction for people that are already local."
The company already has some big celebrity names using its tech to make and share avatars -- including Justin Bieber, Rihanna and hip-hop tycoons Migos -- and the next step is to bring in more users.
George "YJ" Tu is Genies' new director of engineering.
Nigam said the company's hired close to 30 new employees in the last three months, with about 80% of those hires being engineers. He added that roughly 90 people work at Genies, and estimated that 10% of them are ex-Snap employees.
"I think from a product perspective, we share a lot of philosophies and we're very similar in the way that we scheme and we game plan. Snap always is kind of shooting a few years in advance specifically within the social category."
Matt Sibka, Genies' vice president of recruiting, spent three and a half years at Snap creating a team for its CEO Evan Spiegel and was hired to do the same at Genies earlier this year. Genies competes with Snap's Bitmoji avatars, which got a 3D upgrade this July.
"Eighty percent of new spend after our fundraise, and anything moving forward for the next two years, is all going to be on engineering to become an engineering powerhouse," Nigam said. Genies has raised $110 million to date and Nigam previously told dot.LA the company wants to make "Ninety nine point nine percent of its revenue from selling digital goods.
Nigam said that the synergy between Genies and Snap wasn't a conscious choice, but noted that both companies have a similar vision – to advance augmented reality and encourage people to adopt virtual avatars that they can increasingly use as an extension of how they express themselves online.
Nigam's plan is to integrate Genies avatars into as many applications as possible. Currently the company has a deal with Facebook's Giphy that will let users bring their avatar with them to platforms where Giphy is integrated, like Facebook, TikTok or Snapchat – but Nigam said it wants to bring its avatars to popular games like "Roblox" too.
"That's the first API partnership, but we want to have hundreds of those," Nigam said. "So all of a sudden if you get ported into 'Roblox,' you can get any avatar."
Genies' next big goal is getting Generation Z to buy into the NFT hype by creating unique items for their avatars and then trading them. Genies is working with Dapper Labs, which operates NBA Top Shot and CryptoKitties, two of the most popular NFT exchanges, to create its own blockchain-based system for creating, verifying and selling digital goods.
Genies plans to make the marketplace available by the end of this year. Right now it's only accessible to celebrities, but Nigam said it'll open a beta version to customers by year's end.
"It almost becomes like a login authentication button, where you can port your Genie and your digital goods associated with it from one environment to the next, and in that case, we're kind of creating a new digital identity layer," Nigam said.
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Samson Amore
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la
Image by Maylin Tu
Yahya Dabbagh isn’t your typical micromobility startup CEO.
For one, he takes a personal approach to customer service. When he feels a rider is trying to game the system by reporting a scooter broken, in order to earn a free unlock (valued at $1), Dabbagh sometimes will call them up.
“I’m like, ‘Listen, man — I’m the boss. Listen to me: Don’t report bad stuff — you’re confusing me. Email me, tell me, ‘I need [a] free unlock’ — I'll give it to you,” he said
For another, there’s his timing.
“I don't know that winter is the best time of year to launch a new scooter company,” said Harry Campbell, founder of influential industry blog, The Rideshare Guy. “When it's raining and [there’s] less rides and less tourists and things like that in the Southern California area.”
TukTuk, Dabbagh’s company, is the latest arrival to the Los Angeles e-scooter wars, hitting the streets just as Lyft and Spin bow out.
TukTuk received a permit to operate in the city of L.A. in the spring. It recently opened a new headquarters and warehouse space in an old skate shop in Palms, a neighborhood just north of Culver City, for the launch. Scooters cost $1 to unlock and $0.45 per minute to ride. The company also offers discounts to students and unlimited free 30 minute rides for those who qualify for its low-income program. Currently, TukTuk’s vehicles are only permitted to operate in the city of L.A.
It officially launched last month when it received its scooters from China. The company deploys the latest model of Segway Ninebot e-scooters, boasting features that include turn signals, front suspension and a removable battery. The company will also be deploying scooters from Freego, an e-scooter and e-bike manufacturer.
Founded in 2019, TukTuk initially did test runs in Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, Valencia and Istanbul. In Simi Valley, according to the Ventura County Star, TukTuk embraced a “launch first, ask questions later” strategy — as pioneered by Bird — and was promptly ordered off the streets.
Soon thereafter, the company was hit by a global pandemic, a development that decimated the transportation industry. L.A. is TukTuk’s first official North American market launch, but Dabbagh isn’t ruling out a return to Simi Valley.
“Give me Simi Valley — it’s better than Santa Monica,” he said (though he’s also planning to apply to operate in Santa Monica when they reopen permit applications).
A serial entrepreneur, Dabbagh’s background is in the transportation industry, running a limousine rental business with family for almost 25 years. TukTuk doesn’t have investors — yet — Dabbagh is paying all of the capital costs himself. For 2,000 e-scooters, he estimates the total runs around $3 million.
Photo by Maylin Tu
Building Brand Trust As a Competitive Advantage
TukTuk doesn’t have the same brand recognition as some of the bigger players like Bird, Lime and Superpedestrian. But smaller companies can still be successful, says Vince Cifani, CEO of Joyride, a micromobility platform for entrepreneurs looking to start their own e-scooter or bike business.
“Bird and Lime might tell you they're a technology business, right? Their core competency is technology. But really, this is an operations business,” he said.
Building brand trust without name recognition and venture capital backing might be as simple as providing a positive customer experience and speaking the “local voice” of the community.
“Who's providing better customer support? Is it the on-the-ground entrepreneur who lives and breathes in that city their entire life? Or is it going to be Bird or Lime who — at the whiff of not being profitable — might leave that city any moment.”
Although entrepreneurs can thrive in smaller markets and in partnerships with hotels and schools, it’s rare to see them in bigger cities such as L.A., particularly when there’s so much competition. L.A. is an open-permit market, which means it doesn’t restrict the number of companies that can operate in the city.
According to LADOT, there were an average of 13,000 vehicles per day on city streets during 2021 and 2022, although this number varies by weather, season and day of the week. Each operator is permitted to deploy up to 6,000 vehicles. With TukTuk, there are now a total of six operators.
The Rideshare Guy’s Campbell noted that as the quality of vehicles has improved, riders are no longer looking for a superior product, but are more likely to choose a ride based on other factors, such as convenience .
“Really, I think the hurdle is just getting them to download the app,” he said.
“There's tons of data that show the scooter that gets rented is the scooter that's closest to you,” added Joyride’s Cifani.
Humble Beginnings, Ambitious Plans
Born and raised in Syria, Dabbagh has lived in L.A. since 1992, making him the first homegrown Angeleno to launch an e-scooter company (Bird was founded in Santa Monica and Wheels in West Hollywood). As the company grows, he expects to hire locally.
“I am Los Angeles,” he said.
Dabbagh might have a home court advantage, but the launch hasn’t been without its hiccups. He said he was unaware that Culver City requires its own separate permitting process when he deployed vehicles there. The city soon asked him to remove his scooters.
Running a shared micromobility company isn’t easy, Dabbagh told dot.LA. Ordering the scooters is one thing, getting them shipped is another. Then there’s assembly, charging the batteries, troubleshooting the app, dealing with customers and staff and on and on.
But he has big plans for expanding his business in cities, counties and states like Las Vegas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Orange County, Ventura County and San Diego.
“I'm so proud of myself. I'm part of those multi-billion dollar company — I’m like them — I have the permit. They have it, but this is my money. Not anybody else's money.”
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Maylin Tu
Maylin Tu is a freelance writer who lives in L.A. She writes about scooters, bikes and micro-mobility. Find her hovering by the cheese at your next local tech mixer.
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
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