CES 2024 or bust, Superpedestrian e-scooters hit the auction block and Fisker struggles to meet sales goalsThe Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation.
I appreciated a bit of rest and recovery, just in time for CES 2024.
The Big Three U.S. automakers (Ford, GM and Stellantis) won’t have big splashy displays and announcements as in past years.
However, there will be plenty of automotive, and more broadly, transportation companies and startups in attendance.
Shell Ventures, InMotion Ventures, Porsche Ventures, and Revo Capital also participated.
Fisker remains far from meeting CEO and founder Henrik Fisker’s publicly stated goal of delivering 300 electric SUVs per day globally, according to internal documents viewed by TechCrunch.
The EV startup spent much of December aiming to meet an internal sales goal of between 100 and 200 vehicles a day in North America, where the bulk of its inventory and sales efforts are.
Fisker is delivering its SUVs in a number of European countries, and contract manufacturer Magna Steyr builds them in Austria.
Henrik Fisker told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the lack of a physical footprint has harmed sales here.
The slow pace of deliveries has widened the gulf between the amount of Fisker Ocean SUVs being produced by Magna and the number sold.
The transition to multi-product can be a significant revenue generator when done successfully.
During my first few years, the company saw rapid growth as customers continued to use our software in new and inventive ways.
Drawing on my experience of graduating monday.com from the one-product mold, here are three steps to ensure your multi-product journey is successful.
If the (product-market) shoe fitsWe all know that finding a product-market fit can be challenging, especially when you have limited resources and must move quickly to find and serve your target market.
But there are a few signals that your initial offering has a wide product-market fit, and it would be easy for you to identify your second product:
Arduino is considering manufacturing in India.
Violante considers fake Arduino boards the key reason for this discrepancy.
Therefore, by starting local manufacturing, Arduino would sell its boards in India at reduced prices — in line with those of its Chinese counterparts.
However, most of it results from the growth of local mobile phone manufacturing.
Arduino is currently considering both large international EMS companies and smaller local players in India, which specialize in producing electronic boards or development boards, Violante told TechCrunch.
As promised, Apple has officially removed the Watch Series 9 from its online shop.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is similarly unavailable.
You can, however, still buy the entry-level Apple Watch SE, likely owing to the product’s relatively limited on-board health metrics.
This includes pausing sales of Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from Apple.com starting December 21, and from Apple retail locations after December 24.
Should the order stand, Apple will continue to take all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the U.S. as soon as possible.
Salesforce has announced plans to acquire Spiff, a platform that automates commission management for sales teams.
The deal also constitutes the latest in a line of ecosystem companies that Salesforce has eventually brought in-house.
Back in September Salesforce acquired Airkit, a low-code platform for building AI customer service agents.
And similar to Spiff, Airkit was also available on AppExchange.
So it’s clear that Salesforce continues to see tried-and-tested ecosystem companies as a safe bet for its M&A endeavors, with “low-code” playing a key factor too.
Apple will be halting sales of its Series 9 smartwatch, TechCrunch has confirmed.
The news, shared by 9to5Mac, follows an October ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC), owing to a patent dispute with California-based med tech firm, Masimo.
This includes pausing sales of Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from Apple.com starting December 21, and from Apple retail locations after December 24.
Apple strongly disagrees with the order and is pursuing a range of legal and technical options to ensure that Apple Watch is available to customers.
Should the order stand, Apple will continue to take all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the U.S. as soon as possible.
Until recently, many startups have prioritized growth at all costs, using abundant venture capital to acquire users and dominate markets without regard for profitability or sustainability.
However, recent market conditions have shifted toward “efficient growth,” balancing growth with profitability to create a sustainable path to scale.
The churn rate is not stable enough to accurately forecast customer lifetime.
With a product improving over time by adding features that address customers’ needs, we would expect the churn rate to decline.
Despite an improvement in a product, there are external factors beyond a company’s control, such as macro headwinds, that may encourage a higher churn rate.
Tesla has adopted an age-old tactic in the industry by waging price wars against legacy companies. This strategy is effective because it helps to undercut prices and gain market share.…
Tesla is always fighting for market share with their aggressive price cuts, and China has been a major driving force behind this. However, with domestic carmakers gradually catching up Tesla…
