dot.LA hosted its first virtual pitch showcase on Thursday featuring three emerging companies that will have a positive impact on the current COVID-19 crisis. Founding entrepreneurs from Flowly, Shared Harvest Fund, and Meal Share talked through their business plans, shared decks, and explained their market strategy,
Anna Barber, Managing Director at Techstars LA & Partner at The Fund and Spencer Rascoff, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at dot.LA weighed in with their thoughts on how these companies should present themselves and ideas about how to grow their respective businesses. Stay tuned to dot.LA and sign up for our newsletter for information on the next event.
dot.LA Pitch Showcase: Startups Addressing the COVID-19 Crisis www.youtube.com
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About the Judges:
Anna Barber is an Investor, advisor, connector and coach for founders at Techstars LA and The Fund LA.
Anna Barber, Managing Director
Investor, advisor, connector and coach for founders at Techstars LA and The Fund LA. - Founder, co-founder and early employee at e-commerce, media and ed tech startups; former strategy consultant, corporate lawyer, talent manager, film producer, round-the-world traveler and outdoor adventurer.
Spencer Rascoff is the cofounder of dot.LA
Spencer Rascoff, Co-Founder, Executive Chairman
Spencer Rascoff is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire and dot.LA, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. He is currently executive chairman of dot.LA and a board member at Zillow and TripAdvisor. In fall 2019 Spencer was a Visiting Executive Professor at Harvard Business School where he co-taught the "Managing Tech Ventures" course. In 2015, Spencer co-wrote and published his first book, the New York Times' Best Seller "Zillow Talk: Rewriting the Rules of Real Estate." Spencer is the host of "Office Hours," a monthly podcast on dot.LA featuring candid conversations between prominent executives on leadership, diversity and inclusion, and startups.
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Snap’s parental controls.
Courtesy of Watchful.
Snapchat is planning to introduce Family Center, which would allow parents to see who their children are friends with on the app and who they’ve messaged within the last seven days, according to screenshots provided by Watchful, a product intelligence company. Parents would also be able help their kids report abuse or harassment.
The parental controls are still subject to change before finally launching publicly, as the Family Center screenshots—which were first reported by TechCrunch—reflect features that are still under development.
Santa Monica-based Snap and other social media giants have faced mounting criticism for not doing more to protect their younger users—some of whom have been bullied, sold deadly drugs and sexually exploited on their platforms. State attorneys general have urged Snap and Culver City-based TikTok to strengthen their parental controls, with both companies’ apps especially popular among teens.
A Snap spokesperson declined to comment on Friday. Previously, Snap representatives have told dot.LA that the company is developing tools that will provide parents with more insight into how their children are engaging on Snapchat and allow them to report troubling content.
Yet Snap’s approach to parental controls could still give teens some privacy, as parents wouldn’t be able to read the actual content of their kids’ conversations, according to TechCrunch. (The Family Center screenshots seen by dot.LA do not detail whether parents can see those conversations).
In addition, teenage users would first have to accept an invitation from their parents to join the in-app Family Center before those parents can begin monitoring their social media activity, TechCrunch reported.