The novel coronavirus has rattled businesses and closed conferences globally, from Austin's much-anticipated SXSW event to the recently rescheduled Milken Institute Global Conference. All this at a time when businesses leaders are disoriented and looking for guidance on how to navigate the crisis.
In order to fill that void, L.A. marketing agency Hawke Media gathered together a motley assortment of speakers Tuesday for a self-described "no-contact networking and idea exchange." We listened into the discussions:
Which businesses are benefiting from the coronavirus?
Scott Taylor asked panelists on Hawke Media's Future of Marketing panel which industries are benefiting from the coronavirus, based on the data that they are seeing from inside their companies. Here's what they had to say.
Ashley Crowder, head of VNTANA, which provides software for creating 3D products, pointed to augmented reality, virtual reality, and digital content. "I met people in a virtual bar last week," she said. "It was very fun."
Jonathan Smalley, Chief Executive of Yagaura, an e-commerce data management firm, noted that he's seen sales numbers climb among verticals as disparate as bread-making, CBD and hemp, and home goods.
John Bree, of Supply Wisdom, touted his own firm's specialty, risk intelligence. "The whole world of crisis management is going to change," he observed. Bree also predicted that lawyers and doctors will do well as the coronavirus chaos levels off. "There'll be a lot more babies and a lot of divorces."
How is social distancing changing the ways we engage with music?
At the start of this year, the live music industry was poised for success. Projections envisioned a 4% year-on-year incremental growth of $37 billion. Then the coronavirus spread from Asia to Europe and finally to America. By the end of March, explained music marketing expert Joe Belliotti, the industry was kaput.
To fill the gap, fans have gone online. Views on TikTok and YouTube have skyrocketed. And live streaming of music has exploded. Although some in the live events business have been clobbered, new opportunities have emerged that leverage the authenticity, excitement and social nature of live-streamed music. Innovative partnerships have sprung up, like that between BandsInTown and Twitch; a proliferation of fundraising events have bloomed; and brands have increasingly recognized the importance of bringing comfort to their audiences and not just enabling transactions.
Such brands, Belliotti suggested, have three clear opportunities in this new era. They can leverage new experiences: a furniture company could, for instance, partner with a musician streaming from her bedroom; or a travel company could sponsor concerts from artists collaborating from across the world. Brands can also cross-market, by reimagining how music is released and promoted: think virtual album release parties, or peeling back the curtain on the recording process. And brands can enhance the everyday moments -- waking up, getting coffee, taking an afternoon break -- that have taken on a new meaning in the time of coronavirus; afternoon dance party, anyone?
Scaramucci says he's 'wildly bullish' about economy
Echoing the optimism of his former boss about the future of the economy, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said the U.S. economy will recover much fast than most people expect from the coronavirus pandemic.
"I'm wildly bullish," he said Tuesday. "All the gloom and doom that is out there I'm not a buyer of."
Scaramucci said that unlike the financial crisis, there is no underlying problem with the economy, which remains strong. And he says the overwhelming amount of government stimulus, which he pegs at $10.4 trillion, will more than make up for the financial hit of the virus, which he says is in the neighborhood of $3.7 trillion. He expects the government to launch an additional stimulus program aimed at "Main Street" that would be targeted at lower and middle income Americans.
"It will lower people's anxiety," he said.
Scaramucci, who is founder of the investment firm Skybridge, joined the webinar from his study and his kids could be heard playing in the other room. Scaramucci said he has been in quarantine for 25 days.
Using visualization and other techniques to cope with COVID-19's psychological toll
As we're cut off from family and friends, watching staggering layoffs unfold, considering an uncertain future and constantly hearing the pandemic's death toll, everyone is confronting new realities that are challenging us all. But founders and others in high-performing jobs can look for some coping mechanism to help them thrive in this new world said entrepreneur and former Navy Seal trainer Brandon Webb.
One of the most important is goal-setting and visualization. Those tools can help individuals reframe their situation and help them achieve higher levels of performance. Another key tool is remaking your self image.
"If you think of yourself a certain way, or you have self-doubt, you have to identify that. It's okay. It exists in everybody. And then you have to fix it," he said. Part of that is through changing how you talk about and think about yourself.
Webb, the founder of Crateclub.com said he also doesn't tolerate negativity in the office and suggests others avoid airing co-workers faults openly.
Todd Herman, author of "The Alter Ego Effect" has another strategy. The business coach suggested individuals facing new and difficult tasks look to take on the characteristics of other people they admire as a way to escape the mire of emotion that may overwhelm them. He points to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an intellectual giant who would use non-prescription glasses to write his empowering speeches.
This approach, he said, helps individuals unshackle themselves when they are having an emotional response that can lead to poor decision-making. "Most people don't think about creating a panel or trusted friend within the six inches of our own ears to help us navigate questions, to us think about something in a different way."
Hawke Media Ventures is an investor in dot.LA. You can see our other investors on our "About" page.
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At a time when the clinical health care workforce is suffering from burnout and attrition in the wake of the pandemic, Regard’s technology looks to alleviate some of the pressure on health care workers. The startup’s AI-enabled software is integrated directly into a provider’s system and uses an algorithm to analyze patients’ medical records, allowing physicians to more easily diagnose them.
Since launching its flagship product in 2020, Regard’s technology has been used on more than 30,000 patients, according to the company. The startup charges health care providers around $500 to $700 per month for access, co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Joseph told dot.LA, with its customers including Torrance Memorial Medical Center, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and roughly a dozen other hospitals across the U.S.
“We’re building something that’s a game-changer for doctors,” Ben-Joseph said. “It’s helping them catch medical conditions that they would have missed. So regardless of market conditions, we’re able to have value and I think investors saw that and got excited.”
Co-founders from left to right: CEO Eli Ben-Joseph, CTO Thomas Moulia, and COO Nate Wilson. Courtesy of Regard
Founded by pre-med students Ben-Joseph, Nate Wilson and Thomas Moulia in 2017, Regard got its start through Cedars Sinai’s Techstars-backed accelerator program. It was at the accelerator program that Ben-Joseph observed physicians’ workflows and saw the need for a product like Regard’s; he recalled noticing how doctors would constantly pop in and out of a patient’s room, shuttling between the patient and a computer where they could enter data and notes.
“I think that’s why so many doctors are burning out now, as they just don’t have software that really enables them,” Joseph said.
Ben-Joseph—who coupled a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from MIT with a master’s in computer science from Stanford—noted that Regard’s technology can automatically detect up to 50 of the most common medical conditions, including heart failure, diabetes, obesity, depression and anxiety.
“We have a 90% accuracy rate at the minimum,” he said. “Physicians will look at our software and accept it, but it’s not perfect. We tell physicians to treat it like the relationship [with a] medical student.”
This year’s focus will be different from the typical accelerator: Startups in this group will test their products directly with companies active in the ocean economy for four months, collecting data on what works, what doesn’t and further developing proof of concept. Braid Theory will help these startups come up with their business plan and pitches, and connect them to investors and potential partners in the field. In return, it takes an equity warrant that can be converted after three years.
The startups joining Braid Theory typically span industries like port logistics, aquaculture and energy, all of them aiming to test their technologies and untapped opportunities of the burgeoning industry. The accelerator’s goal is to bring those companies from pre-revenue into commercialization.
And all of them are looking to solve challenges within the blue economy ecosystem, many of which have also been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. With 31% of all goods floating across the ocean to and from the U.S. pass through the Port of L.A. and the Port of Long Beach, COVID-19 strangled supply chains and increased the volume of goods handled at L.A. 's premiere dock by nearly 16% between 2020 and 2021. This created numerous logistical challenges for the dwindling workforce at the nation’s busiest ports while increasing emissions.
“The thing that we're trying to think about are ways in which we can leverage biological systems and software to make more immediate changes in markets that have a low barrier to entry,” Braid Theory co-founder Jim Cooper said of accelerator’s approach to addressing a wide range of climate and logistical issues.
Cooper founded Braid Theory with his colleague Ann Carpenter after the pair left PortTechLA, a maritime and logistics incubator that shuttered in 2016. The two wanted to create an accelerator for port and ocean startups that went beyond logistics and took into account other promising sectors of the ocean economy, including sustainable fish and plant cultivation as well as tools to make the shipping sector more efficient.
Jim Cooper co-founded Braid Theory with his former colleague from PortTechLA, Ann Carpenter.Image courtesy of Braid Theory
Accelerators like Braid Theory are attempting to fill a void in the blue economy ecosystem. Despite being home to several universities with robust maritime research centers and a giant port infrastructure that could be better optimized, few startups survive in Los Angeles due to a lack of early stage funding, according to a 2020 report from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. The accelerator provides funds and lab space and investor connections to nascent startups tackling a wide range of ocean-related problems.
The same report found that ocean startups, particularly early-stage ones, have a difficult time getting funding to accommodate the need for expensive lab equipment like centrifuges, chillers and pipettes. Startups in the blue economy space are primarily funded through federal and state dollars, NGOs and philanthropies, and competitions. But while angel funding has historically been slow to trickle into blue economy startups, some are starting to take note of the size of the market. In the first cohort, eight out of 12 startups received federal funding and investor funding with the help of Braid Theory.
The accelerator’s first graduating class included Florida-based Tampa DeepSea Xplorers, which makes seafaring autonomous vehicles that can scrape the bottom of the ocean and collect data faster for researchers to use as they study climate change impact or source for different medicines. Irvine-based ReCreate Energy is another graduate, which sources algae to create a more sustainable bio-crude oil that can be used at gas and oil refineries. While FlashQ, a Canada-based AI platform, is trying to reduce truck congestion and the emissions caused by them at the port by creating a scheduling platform that optimizes waiting and shipment times.
“The key is the opportunity, the opportunity was there,” Mimi Carter, a biotech investor with the Pasadena Angels, said of the business opportunities in the ocean market. “We saw a market that was unaddressed and is still an emerging market.”
A cluster of cranes at the Port of Long Beach.Photo by DJANA 575/ Shutterstock
To Carter’s credit, L.A. County boasts 75 miles of coastline that the LAEDC expects by 2023 will produce more than $80 billion in regional output, make roughly $50 billion in gross county product, and create over 200,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to a 2020 report. And, according to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, economic and job growth in this sector relies heavily on the creation and implementation of new technologies, making angel investors necessary players in bolstering the ocean economy.
“Not only do we want to be investing in a sustainable product, but someone we count as a first mover,” Carter said of her investment approach. Already, groups like the Pasadena Angels and Techstars L.A. have made investments in the space. Reece Pacheco, a blue economy angel investor, is quietly working on a new venture fund around the blue tech space that hasn’t been announced yet.
“What we're starting to see is there are entrepreneurs who are either coming up through these research firms, or there are entrepreneurs who have cut their teeth elsewhere but care about the ocean,” Pacheco said.
There’s also Braid Theory’s neighbor (and landlord), AltaSea, the nonprofit research hub that has facilitated a number of partnerships with companies across the world.
“We do want to become the leading destination for the blue economy in terms of technology, finance, the education pathways it takes for students to get into these jobs in the future, and then the actual workforce development for the jobs of the future,” said Terry Tamminen, the new CEO of AltaSea.
Braid Theory’s makeshift shipping container-turned-lab is next door to a slew of other startups and projects in the blue economy space. USC researchers are incubating bubbling cauldrons of kelp that could create biofuels and alternative food sources. While Oceanographer Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic wreckage in 1985, set up a sea exploration program a few doors down.
“The ocean is more than a destination for tourists and a place for Jacques Cousteau and David Attenborough to go diving,” Tamminen said. “It's actually something right at our doorstep that we need to protect for our own survival, but it’s also an economic opportunity.”
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