WeWork backs New York tech clubhouse Betaworks Studios

Betaworks Studios, the brainchild of New York City seed-stage venture capital fund Betaworks, has amassed the support of WeWork, or The We Company, as they now call themselves.

JLL Spark Ventures and the co-working giant have led co-led a $4.4 million investment in the membership-based co-working club described as a supportive community for builders. Launched in 2018, Betaworks Studios offers entrepreneurs, artists, engineers and creatives a place to work on projects and accumulate a network, similar to a WeWork hub.

Betaworks Ventures, which filed today to raise a $75 million sophomore fund, and BBG Ventures have also participated in the funding for Betaworks Studio, which previously raised a pre-seed round led by BBG.

Founded in 2008 by John Borthwick, Betaworks operates an investment fund, an accelerator and builds companies internally with spinouts including Giphy, Digg and Bit.ly. The idea for Betaworks Studios was to expand its resources and network to the greater entrepreneurial community.

Borthwick brought on Daphne Kwon, the former chief financial officer of Goop, to run the studio arm, which charges $2400 per year or $225 per month.

Betaworks says its studio has hosted some 9,000 people for meetings and speaking events. It currently has only one club location in New York City’s Meatpacking District but plans to open additional studios with the fresh cash.

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DoorDash launches a new program highlighting immigrant and refugee business owners

DoorDash launched a new initiative today called Kitchens Without Borders, which it says is designed to promote business owners who are immigrants and refugees.

It’s starting out with 10 restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area: Besharam, Z Zoul Cafe, Onigilly, Los Cilantros, Sabores Del Sur, West Park Farm & Sea, Little Green Cyclo, Afghan Village, D’Maize, and Sweet Lime Thai Cuisine.

The entrepreneurs behind each of these businesses is profiled on the Kitchens Without Borders site. Their restaurants will also get promoted within the DoorDash app, and they’ll receive $0 delivery fees for up to six weeks.

A DoorDash spokesperson told me the initial 10 participants were selected from 60 applicants, and that the program will be expanding to include other restaurants across the country in the coming months.

This announcement comes a month after DoorDash announced that it had raised another $400 million in funding. The company also drew criticism earlier this year for its driver compensation practices.

In a blog post, CEO Tony Xu said he has a personal connection to the program:

For one, I’m an immigrant. I moved to this country from China when I was five, and my mom ran a Chinese restaurant with the purpose of creating a better life and fulfilling her dream of becoming a doctor. I worked alongside her as a dishwasher and saw firsthand what it takes to make it in this country. Over the course of 12 years, she eventually saved up enough money to become the doctor that she wanted to be and opened up a medical clinic, which she has now been running for the past 20 years.

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Facebook needs a white hat Cambridge Analytica

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Lyft prices IPO at top of range

Lyft raised more than $2 billion Thursday afternoon after pricing its shares at $72 apiece, the top of the expected range of $70 to $72 per share, CNBC reports. This gives Lyft a fully-diluted market value of $24 billion.

The company will debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange Friday morning, trading under the ticker symbol “LYFT.”

The initial public offering is the first-ever for a ride-hailing business and represents a landmark liquidity event for private market investors, who had invested billions of dollars in the San Francisco-based company. In total, Lyft had raised $5.1 billion in debt and equity funding, reaching a valuation of $15.1 billion last year.

Lyft’s blockbuster IPO is unique for a number of reasons, in addition to being amongst transportation-as-a-service companies to transition from private to public. Lyft has the largest net losses of any pre-IPO business, posting losses of $911 million on revenues of $2.2 billion in 2018. However, the company is also raking in the largest revenues, behind only Google and Facebook, for a pre-IPO company. The latter has made it popular on Wall Street, garnering buy ratings from analysts prior to pricing.

Uber is the next tech unicorn, or company valued north of $1 billion, expected out of the IPO gate. It will trade on the New York Stock Exchange in what is one of the most anticipated IPOs in history. The company, which reported $3 billion in Q4 2018 revenues with net losses of $865 million, is reportedly planning to unveil its IPO prospectus next month.

Next in the pipeline is Pinterest, which dropped its S-1 last week and revealed a path to profitability that is sure to garner support from Wall Street investors. The visual search engine will trade on the NYSE under the symbol “PINS.” It posted revenue of $755.9 million last year, up from $472.8 million in 2017. The company’s net loss, meanwhile, shrank to $62.9 million last year from $130 million in 2017.

Other notable companies planning 2019 stock offerings include Slack, Zoom — a rare, profitable pre-IPO unicorn — and potentially, Airbnb.

Updating.

Zoom, a profitable unicorn, files to go public

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Boundless gets $7.8M to help immigrants navigate the convoluted green card process

Two years ago, former Amazon product manager Xiao Wang stood on the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco and made the case for a platform meant to help couples apply for marriage green cards, a complex process made worse by bureaucracy and red tape.

Called Boundless, the startup had spun out of Seattle startup studio Pioneer Square Labs and raised a $3.5 million seed round. Now, Foundry Group’s Brad Feld has led a $7.8 million Series A in the startup, with participation from existing investors Trilogy Equity Partners, PSL, Two Sigma Ventures and Founders’ Co-Op.

“Families have really only had two choices, they could spend weeks or months trying to figure this out on their own, or they can spend thousands and thousands of dollars on an immigration attorney,” Wang, Boundless co-founder and chief executive officer, told TechCrunch. “What we are trying to do is basically give everyone access to the information, the tools and the support that was previously only available to those that could afford high-priced attorneys.”

Boundless charges $750 for its online green card application support services, which includes ensuring families correctly complete applications and have access to an immigration lawyer to review those applications. The fee comes at a major discount to the costs of an immigration lawyer and streamlines a process that can be delayed months when errors are made. The startup also offers a recently launched $395 naturalization product meant to assist eligible green card holders with their U.S. citizenship applications.

Wang founded Boundless in 2017 after helping build Amazon Go, the e-commerce giant’s line of cashierless convenience stores. Wang is an immigrant, having relocated to the U.S. from China when he was a child.

“We spent almost five months of rent money on an immigration attorney because the stakes were so high and we only had one shot,” Wang said. “We wanted to make sure we were doing it right. This is a story that is echoed by millions of families every year; this is such an important part of them starting a new life in a new country.”

Wang, after three years at Amazon, realized he could use his technology background and data prowess to build an information platform supportive of these millions of families.

“This is exactly what tech and data is meant to do,” he said. “I believe there is a moral obligation for tech to be used in meaningfully improving people’s lives.”

Boundless plans to use this investment to expand its team and product offerings, as well as build out its content library, which Wang said is rapidly becoming the go-to place for immigrants navigating the legal labyrinth that is the U.S. green card and citizenship process. Its resources page, which includes straightforward guides, a number of forms and more, counts 300,000 unique visitors per month.

“We hold their hand through the entire process,” Wang said. “We want to be the single source of information and tools for all family-based immigration.”

Wang and his team also hope to shine a brighter light on immigration policy. In late 2018, as part of its effort to be louder advocates for immigrants, Boundless, alongside Warby Parker, Foursquare, Foundation Capital and more, published an open letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security opposing its proposed “public charge” immigration regulation, which would allow for non-citizens who are in the country legally to be denied a visa or a green card if they have a medical condition, financial liabilities and other disqualifiers.

“The stakes for making sure your application is correct have never been higher; the government has far more leeway to be able to deny applications,” Wang said. “While we can’t speed up the government processing times, we can make meaningful improvements to helping families gather all the materials they need to send in the right information.”

Pioneer Square Labs is invigorating Seattle’s startup ecosystem

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Turns out The Correspondent isn’t opening a U.S. newsroom after all

Dutch news organization The Correspondent surprised some of its supporters earlier this week, when co-founder and CEO Ernst Pfauth posted an update on Medium saying that the company would not be opening a newsroom in New York City.

Which was odd, since the organization raised $2.6 million in a crowdfunding campaign last fall with the express purpose of launching in the United States.

At least, that’s what I thought. After all, I wrote an article titled, “The Correspondent launches campaign to bring its ad-free journalism to the US.”

But here’s how Pfauth explained the decision in his post (emphasis in the original):

We’ve closed our campaign office in NYC, and we have decided that we won’t open a newsroom in the US for now. We don’t aim to be a national US news organization (we have founding members from more than 130 countries around the world!) but instead want to cover the greatest challenges of our time from a global perspective — in English. For that vision, Amsterdam is as a great place to start.

So was this the plan all along? In an interview with NiemanLab, Editor in Chief Rob Wijnberg argued that this is consistent what The Correspondent team promised in the campaign: “We’re setting up in English language, and we’re going to hire U.S.-based journalists as well.”

I’ll say it coz no one else will: everything about TheCorrespondent’s so-called U.S. expansion plans for last two years felt like a huckster’s dream, everyone shilling for them have some explanation to do. Or not, coz really, no one should’ve given a shit in the first place.

— Rafat Ali, Media Operator (@rafat) March 26, 2019

He went on to say that the team “never really talked about setting up an office” in the United States. Still, he acknowledged that it was a U.S.-centric campaign, with Wijnberg and Pfauth spending most of their time in New York, reaching out to U.S. journalists to write about the campaign and recruiting other journalists and pundits to serve as “ambassadors.”

“So it got interpreted by a lot of media who wrote about us as, ‘They’re launching in the U.S.,'” Wijnberg said. “Which is pretty much 80 percent true, in the sense that we are going to have English-language correspondents in the U.S. — just not only in the U.S. And we never promised — or never said, because that’s not our model — to have, to cover the United States or anything.”

So I thought: Okay, that makes sense. I must have misunderstood what Pfauth was telling me.

Still, I wanted to figure out how I got this wrong, so I went back to the initial email I received from Pfauth. Here’s how it began: “Dear Anthony, I’m CEO and cofounder of The Correspondent, an online journalism platform from Amsterdam that will soon be launching in the U.S.”

Then he gave a quick description of The Correspondent’s ad-free, reader-funded model, adding, “We aim to bring the same journalistic integrity and unconventional editorial approach when we launch in the U.S.”

It’s so weird that I ended up thinking they were planning to launch in the U.S.!

So @robwijnberg says everyone thought The Correspondent was going to launch in the U.S. because that's how it was "interpreted by a lot of media." But ummmmmm https://t.co/3EXj7ShxVO pic.twitter.com/bZZQ6YMdLc

— Anthony Ha (@anthonyha) March 28, 2019

Wijnberg acknowledged the confusion in his interview, telling NiemanLab, “Tons of people talk about what we’re trying to do. So the idea that you can keep all these people on message all the time would be kind of totalitarian, right?”

Maybe … except this isn’t an overly-enthusiastic ambassador; it’s the company’s CEO. (And it seems he made a similar pitch to other publications.) One might argue that keeping him on message — a.k.a., making sure he accurately describes the company’s plans as he asks people for money — is not only not “totalitarian,” but actually the responsible thing to do.

The truth is, I don’t know what happened here. If The Correspondent never planned to open a U.S. office, thinks it can do a good job covering the U.S. without one and simply did a bad job communicating? Fine. If the original plan was to open a U.S. office, then it reconsidered? That would be disappointing, but if the model still produces worthwhile journalism about the U.S., then I suppose it’s a net positive.

But these confusing, convoluted, “I’m sorry that you didn’t understand us” explanations don’t just make the company look disingenuous — they also seem antithetical to running a newsroom that depends on readers’ knowledge, goodwill and money.

Lordy is this interview mealy-mouthed… you can’t blame people for believing your marketing, PR, and the people you hire as “ambassadors” https://t.co/xnT0hGja2E pic.twitter.com/kHv5Rj7c26

— Gabriel Snyder (@gabrielsnyder) March 28, 2019

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Twitter introduces a battery-saving ‘Lights Out’ dark mode option

As promised back in January by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the company today is rolling out an even darker version of the app’s existing dark mode. Before, Twitter’s dark theme was more of a blue-ish shade instead of a true black, which not everyone seemed to like. Now, there’s an optional setting that makes the current dark mode more of a pitch black.

To use the new feature, you’ll first visit the Twitter app’s “Settings and Privacy” section, then click on “Display and Sound.” From there, you can toggle on the “Dark mode” which enables the current blue-black theme.

A second option, “Lights out” is offered below. If checked, dark mode ditches the blue tones and becomes black instead.

It was dark. You asked for darker! Swipe right to check out our new dark mode. Rolling out today. pic.twitter.com/6MEACKRK9K

— Twitter (@Twitter) March 28, 2019

It’s an interesting choice to not just darken the existing theme, but rather introduce a third option. Most apps offering a dark mode don’t do this – they just offer a bright, white theme and another darker one. Twitter – which doesn’t always do things by the book to say the least – has gone a different route.

A tweak to the dark mode may seem like a minor adjustment to be concerned with, but dark modes today have grown in popularity as larger phone screens became the norm – particularly because they can help to conserve battery life on high-end OLED devices. (And especially on apps used as regularly as Twitter!)

Some people also feel a dark mode is just easier on the eyes when apps are used for long stretches of time.

The topic of dark modes even made its way to The Wall Street Journal which made a case for darker themes becoming standard not only for the battery benefits, but also because they may help lessen device addiction and improve sleep.

Today, a number of apps support dark themes including YouTube, Google, Medium, Reddit, Instapaper, Pocket, iBooks, Kindle, Google Maps and Waze, and others. WhatsApp is also reportedly working on a dark mode, according to recent reports.

Dorsey first announced Twitter’s plans for a new dark mode a few months ago, in response to a customer complaint which called Twitter’s dark mode a “weird blue.”

Twitter says the new Lights Out mode is rolling out today.

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How to delay your Form Ds (or not file them at all)

Building a startup is incredibly tough. There are the constant ups and downs, the moments of sheer ambiguity and terror. And so, few moments in a startup’s life are as triumphant — and crystal clear — as closing a round of funding. Yes, yes, raising venture capital shouldn’t be celebrated as a milestone, and the focus should always be on product and users … but it just feels so damn good sometimes just to feel that sense of euphoria: I built something, and now others are giving me potentially millions of dollars to shoot for the stars.

Unfortunately, that clarity is increasingly vanishing. First, “closing a round” is rarely as sharp a distinction as it used to be. Seed rounds (and even later-stage rounds) are often raised over extended periods of time, with many partial closings conducted as new angels and seed funds come to the (cap) table.

Then there is also the growing disconnect between raising capital and the actual announcement of that fundraise. Founders are trying to remain under stealth for longer periods of time to hide from competitors, and they want to message their news in a careful manner.

All of which means that the Form D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission when closing an exempt fundraise (aka venture rounds) is no longer as simple a process as it once was.

Lawyers will state publicly that startups should always file their legally mandatory paperwork (that’s probably also a good rule for life). The reality, though, is pretty much the opposite when you talk to startup attorneys in private.

Here’s the secret about Form D filings today: the norms in Silicon Valley have changed, and Form D filings are often filed late, not at all, and many startups are advised to lie low in the hopes of avoiding stricter SEC scrutiny. What was once a fait accompli is now a deliberative process, with important decision points for founders.

Extra Crunch contacted about two dozen startup attorneys, from the biggest firms in the industry to the one-person shops with a shingle out front. Getting straight answers here has been tough, if only because no lawyer really wants to say out loud that they actively recommend their clients violate government regulations (there is that whole law license thing, which apparently lawyers care about).

Practically all of these conversations were done off-the-record and not for attribution, since as one lawyer said, “the last thing I need is the damn SEC sending our firm a nastygram.” Other firms wholly swore us off from even discussing their Form D cultures.

Full disclosure: I am not an attorney, and while I had attorneys read over this draft, this does not constitute legal advice, particularly specific legal advice for your specific startup and situation. Get inspiration from this analysis, but always (really, truly, always) consult qualified legal counsel to answer legal questions about your startup.

With that said, here is our guide to the new world of venture capital securities filings.

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Drake invests in esports betting startup Players’ Lounge

Drake’s latest collaboration isn’t with Kanye or Kendrick, it’s with Marissa Mayer.

The rap superstar has joined a bevy of Silicon Valley investors, including Strauss Zelnick, Comcast, Macro Ventures, Canaan, RRE, Courtside and Marissa Mayer, to fund Players’ Lounge, an esports startup looking to pit gamers against each other in their favorite titles with some friendly wagers on the line.

The startup has just announced that it closed $3 million in funding.

The company, which has been around for five years, got its start as an esports startup looking to organize real-life matches at bars in New York City to play FIFA. That’s obviously not the most scalable business of all time, but last year after joining Y Combinator, the company really dove into a new model that looked to create an online hub for gamers to battle each other in titles of their choosing, with money on the line.

Players Lounge lets gamers make money off their eSports skills

The company has a heavy emphasis on sports titles, like FIFA 19, NBA 2K19 and Madden 19, but there are also some heavy hitters like Fortnite, Apex Legends and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Gamers can set a match or join one in head-to-head challenges or in massive 500-person tournaments. The wagers are often a buck or two but can swell much higher. Players’ Lounge takes 10 percent of the bets as a fee. Because it’s a game of skill, not chance, there aren’t many issues with gambling regulations, though a few states still don’t allow the service, the company says.

The startup plans to use their new cash to beef up their library of playable games and add to their development team.

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PayIt, a payments platform designed for public services, raises $100M+ from Insight Partners

Government services, for many, epitomize the worst of bureaucracy: they are, at their low point, large, lumbering organizations working under strained budgets, staffed by lifer employees who don’t get much say in improving things, and lots of paperwork. But as ageing public information infrastructure grinds to a halt and public services start making the switch to digital, that image is slowly starting to change, and the tech companies helping this along are reaping some of the rewards.

Today one them, PayIt — which has designed a platform to take payments and produce related documentation for public services through web and mobile interfaces — announced that it has raised a hefty funding round of over $100 million to tap that opportunity.

PayIt’s platform is currently operational in the US and covers a variety of applications that fall under the general category of public services that require government organizations and agencies to take money from us, and issue us with certificates and other documents confirming we have done something official. They include Courts and Citations, Environmental Services, Health and Human Services, Motor Vehicle, Parks and Wildlife Services, Professional Licensing, Public Safety, Taxes, Turnpike and Tolling, and Utilities.

The plan for PayIt will be to expand that list to cover more use cases, to win more business in the US, and to also begin the process of breaking into more international markets.

The funding is coming from a single investor, Insight Partners (which used to go by Insight Venture Partners), and it is also notable because of some of the funding context.

Since its founding in 2013, PayIt had only raised $11 million, John Thomson — the CEO who co-founded and runs the company with Michael Plunkett (COO) in Kansas City — told me in an interview.

And in case you are wondering, Thomson added that the reason they’re not disclosing a more exact funding figure — or PayIt’s valuation — is because the company doesn’t want the financial aspects to be the focus: both because he wants this to be about expansion, and because he doesn’t want to give too much information to competitors.

Indeed, while the market is massive — in the US alone, Thomson estimates that some $2 trillion flows between public services and constituents annually — it is also crowded with payment companies that want to tap some of that for themselves.

Competitors include other payment platforms that work with government services such as Aliant, other payment providers like Stripe and PayPal, companies like Visa, and sometimes even the governments itself. Thomson does not what PayIt’s own share of the pie is except to note that it is handling a “small but rapidly growing percentage of the market.”

As citizens, we all know some of the pain points of older systems: they might require in-person visits or snail mail to make payments and procure various official documents. (DMV appointments, for one, can take months to sort out.) As Thomson describes it, what’s going on under the hood is equally as inefficient and slow moving.

“To do business with the government — whether its US, state or local — the entire burden in many cases is placed on constituents,” Thomson said. Behind the scenes, it’s also bad. There can be “as many as six or seven systems in use to handle a request, a payment and more.”

The idea is that PayIt has built a platform that can integrate all of that into a single process, behind a single front end. “Payments happen in the form of a wallet,” he said, adding that PayIt handles sensitive information in the cloud and doesn’t require users to re-enter too many details, or for too many organizations to have to hand off information between each other to complete a payment subsequent document order. “Consumers love it because it’s like interacting with a business in the private sector,” he said.

PayIt’s notable for straddling two big areas — fintech and govtech. While the former has seen a ton of innovation that has mirrored the growth of the internet overall, tech companies (and governments) have really only started to scratch the surface with the latter. It will be interesting to see how this develops both in terms of innovation, but also where people will potentially draw a line on too much centralised and digitised information. Recent moves in India around Aadhar — which is now the world’s largest biometric ID system — have been more than a little controversial.

For now, however, there are a lot of incremental processes to fix and make efficient, and that is where PayIt sits for now.

Insight Partners is an interesting investor for PayIt in that regard. The VC has a track record for backing startups that are using tech to disrupt and rethink legacy infrastructure, with previous investments including WordPress’s Automattic, BlaBlaCar and N26 in Europe, Docusign and many more.

“What excited us most about the PayIt platform is its ability to scale and make a true impact on a broad base of stakeholders,” said Ryan Hinkle, Managing Director at Insight Partners, in a statement provided to TechCrunch.

“We’ve all dreaded having to wait in line for a new driver’s license, or jump through hoops to pay for a parking ticket. It’s clear that with PayIt, that doesn’t have to be the reality. PayIt seeks to dissolve those stressful interactions making processes seamless and simple for constituents and governments, allowing issues to be resolved and revenue to be collected efficiently. At Insight Partners, we’re looking forward to helping John and the team scale the best-in-class platform they’ve already built, and reach new constituents and governments with these solutions.”

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Startup branding: how much does it really cost?

[Editor’s note: This article is a part of our latest initiative to demystify design and find the best brand designers and agencies in the world who work with early-stage companies — nominate a talented brand designer you’ve worked with.]

A brand is far more than logos and colors. A consistent brand identity not only communicates your company’s purpose and values to customers, but it also shapes your product development cycle and corporate culture. A branding project can help you figure out what and how to communicate your company’s story, but how much does it cost?

I’ve been a designer for over a decade (and a marketer before that), working with organizations ranging from tiny startups to the Fortune 500; this piece will give you a general idea of branding costs, with the knowledge that these broad numbers may not be applicable in every single case (in fact, you’re likely to find exceptions).

Bootstrappers and pre-seed startups

For most startups at this stage, your goal is to establish a proof of concept that can show product/market fit and bring investor dollars. You may only need a logo, website, and basic brand positioning. Isla Murray, Creative Director and Cofounder at Lama Six, also recommends investing your money in designing a beautiful deck: “It will set you apart and allow your message to shine through.”

Brand strategy and positioning

Positioning involves understanding who you are as a company, how your product fits the marketplace, and how you communicate your company’s values. This is the most important piece of the branding puzzle and one that’s worthwhile to begin on your own – when you have more funding, your original strategy work will give you a base for conveying your identity to professionals who can take it further. Two suggestions that designers commonly recommend are Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout and Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler, a primer on brand design.

Approximate cost: Your time.

Logo and visual identity

A brand is a relationship with your audience, and you’ll want to make sure that every interaction with them communicates your message. You’ll almost certainly need to hire a designer for this work. Sites like Fiverr and 99designs offer cheap logos, but independent consultants like Pablo Defendini advise that if you can find a small budget, you’ll get far better results by hiring an experienced professional to create a more polished logo and simple usage guide.

Approximate cost: $100-$3000.

Website

As a UX designer and front-end developer, I often recommend that young companies not spend their limited dollars on building a website from scratch – pre-built, templated websites like Squarespace can get you up and running for minimal cost, and you can buy domain names from a registrar like Namecheap. Customizations will be minimal, but you can’t beat the price.

Approximate cost: $10-30/month, plus $20/year per domain.

Early-stage, funded startups

Once you’re paying for experienced help, finding a good fit with a designer is crucial: Trust is the most important factor in a designer-client relationship, and design is ultimately a collaborative process. So take the time to find a contractor or firm that you respect and feel comfortable with.

Another option: If you already have a strong designer in-house, you might consider setting aside time for them to focus on your brand identity — they’ll cost less, and they already have intimate knowledge of your company values and audience.

Pricing comes in a wide range depending on your needs: Defindini says he’s worked on identity projects ranging from $5000 for a standalone logo to $200,000 for a complex identity system with multiple brands. Costs are also driven by scope and time. When you receive proposals from firms, be clear about your needs and transparent about what you can afford. Murray says that if clients don’t have a full budget, she’ll look for ways to scope down projects, which might involve reducing deliverables or going through fewer rounds of feedback and iteration.

Many designers will charge project rates, but if you’re paying by the hour, expect to spend $100-$150/hour for an experienced consultant and $150-$600/hour for a firm depending on their size and location.

Brand strategy and positioning

Brand strategy and positioning should drive most of your business decisions, so it’s worth taking the time to do this right. With a smaller budget, a consultant might spend a few days with your company leadership figuring out your core values and how to articulate them. For a larger budget, expect design teams to do more research and a competitive analysis, resulting in deliverables like a communication strategy and voice/tone guidelines for your marketing team.

More expensive projects may also include things like trainings to make sure your staff correctly and consistently implements your brand. In general, pricing is determined by how many people are working on your branding project and the complexity of your deliverables.

Approximate cost: $5000-$20,000 (freelancers and small firms), $30,000-$80,000 (large firms).

Logo and visual identity

Visual identity is the result of independent research, visual moodboarding, and rounds of feedback and iteration, says Murray. At the end of the process, you’ll typically receive a logo, typeface, color and design elements, and visual brand attributes. Larger-budget projects will typically involve detailed guidance on specific illustration and photography styles, iconography, and more – Murray suggests also including social media visual strategy and Instagram post templates.

Pricing here increases the more logo variations you need, the more brands you have, and the level of detail required in your visual guidance. Rounds of feedback and iteration add cost, as does the size of the team you hire.

Approximate cost: $5000-$15,000 (freelancers and small firms), $15,000-$75,000 (large firms).

Website

This is the branding piece with the greatest variability in cost, with projects getting more expensive as they require more user research, prototyping, content creation, and engineering work. Pricing is largely dependent on the complexity of engineering requirements and the number of iterations you want to go through.

Generally, you have static marketing sites on the lower end, websites built on lightweight content management systems (i.e. a custom visual design built to run on WordPress) in the middle, and web applications managing heavy databases or a more robust CMS like Sitecore or Drupal on the higher end.

Approximate cost: $2000-$20,000 (freelancers and small firms), $30,000-$200,000 (large firms).

Company name development – for more mature startups

Many startups find themselves at a stage where they’re well-funded but have a name that no longer fits – what feels right when your company is a month old and bootstrapped with your savings account may not feel the same two years later. A naming agency will develop names that work with your brand positioning, do a competitive analysis to research the tone, strength, and messaging of these names, and pre-screen them for trademark availability. (Note that you’ll typically need to hire a legal team to register the trademark once this is done.)

Approximate cost: $15,000-$75,000 (naming firm).

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution

You may hire one of the top branding agencies in the world or you may have a family member who’s an experienced designer and willing to give you an incredible deal. But no matter who you choose to work with, branding is a vital part of your business that will help you both understand and communicate who you are.

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Atom Tickets to challenge MoviePass with a subscription ticket platform for theaters

MoviePass may still be trying to figure out how to make a movie ticket subscription service financially viable, but it can be credited for at least correctly identifying consumer demand for such a thing. There’s now a market for movie tickets by subscription from it as well as rivals like Sinemia, AMC Stubs A-List, Cinemark Movie Club, and — as of yesterday — newcomer Infinity. Now you can add one more: Atom Tickets, which is today announcing a platform that will allow theaters to build their own movie ticket subscription services.

The idea here is that the exhibitors themselves — not startups — should be involved in establishing the business model that’s right for them. Atom Tickets will instead provide the underlying technology and support that makes such a thing possible.

The new platform, called Atom Movie Access, will be offered to exhibitors across North America. It provides a fully digitally booking platform for subscribers through the Atom Tickets app. That means subscribers can also take advantage of Atom Tickets’ other benefits — like reserving seats in advance, inviting friends through their contacts, pre-ordering concessions for quick pickup where available and checking in using a phone instead of paper tickets.

On the back end, Atom Tickets will also handle the payment processing, customer service, fraud detection and anti-abuse measures. The latter is particularly important for movie ticket subscriptions, as MoviePass noted that as much as 20 percent of its customers were abusing the service, which significantly contributed to its financial issues.

In addition, the platform will allow subscribers to be able to make complex transactions in-app, like redeeming a free movie while also buying full-priced tickets for a guest in one sale. It also supports things like being able to choose between an included free screening or saving it for later, the company says, and allows for the creation of differently tiered plans. For example, there can be plans for both individuals or groups and tiers for standard and premium movie formats.

“Atom Tickets is an innovative ticketing platform that enables exhibitors to reach and engage new and incremental audiences,” said Matthew Bakal, chairman and co-founder of Atom Tickets, in a statement about the launch. “We’ve always believed in being a valuable partner to exhibitors, starting with the core functionality of our app, which allows for marketing promotions at specific locations, integrating exhibitor loyalty plans and giving customers the ability to pre-order concessions. Now with Atom Movie Access, we’re thrilled to provide the technology that will enhance the direct-to-consumer relationship of moviegoers with their favorite theaters.”

There are still several unknowns about the new platform — most notably the pricing for exhibitors. In an interview with Variety, Bakal suggested it would not be prohibitive as Atom Tickets would instead take a cut of subscriptions. The report also noted that no theaters have signed up yet, but the pitching will begin in earnest at a trade show next week in Las Vegas.

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