The False Confidence Of The LTV/CAC Ratio For Early Stage SaaS StartupsFounders often describe their unit economics in terms of their LTV/CAC ratio - the ratio of the Lifetime Value (LTV) of a customer to the Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC). The LTV/CAC metric can be a powerful metric to unpack the health of the go-to-market team of a company, as Netsuite has shown. But this figure is often meaningless for early stage startups. Why? Because a company one or two or even three years into sales can’t yet accurately forecast customer lifetimes. If a business suffers from a very high churn rate, then, yes, it’s possible to calculate LTV in just a few years. [ TOMASZ TUNGUZ ] Chilling Immigration Climate Not Stopping These EntrepreneursDespite recent attempts at making it harder for immigrants to come to the United States, it’s indisputable that immigrant tech entrepreneurs are becoming an increasingly common phenomenon in this country. A 2016 report by the National Foundation for American Policy found that over half of 87 American unicorns – a term for startups valued at one billion dollars or more – had at at least one immigrant founder. The foreign-born entrepreneurs also created an average of 760 U.S.-based jobs per company, according to the study. [ CrunchBase ] E776: Social Capital Chamath Palihapitiya: VC ecosystem, rethinking biz; Samsung NEXT Pres David EunUber loses appeal in UK employment rights caseThe ride-hailing firm Uber has lost its appeal against a ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers with minimum-wage rights, in a case that could have major ramifications for labour rights in the growing gig economy. The US company, which claims that drivers are self-employed, said it would launch a further appeal against the Employment Appeal Tribunal decision, meaning the case could end up in thesupreme court next year. [ The Guardian ] The Startup Catering To Women's Curiosity About CannabisTalk isn't cheap for the founders of Ellementa. It's the foundation of their business, a new digital platform and community that highlights how cannabis can be used to improve wellness for women. Partners Aliza Sherman, Melissa Pierce and Ashley Kingsley are building their audience one city at a time by hosting candid, in-person conversations about a topic that has long been taboo in the U.S. 'There is a great deal of curiosity but...then that fear hits them [attendees] like, 'What if somebody I know knew I was here?" explains Sherman, a tech pioneer and author, of the fears expressed by women who grew up in the “Just Say No” era. [ Forbes ] This AI startup wants to solve the hard problem of robots picking things upf there’s one simple skill roboticists would love to steal from humans, it’s our ability to pick things up. Apples or eggs, pens or power drills, it doesn’t matter to us. Our hands are dextrous, able to grasp a range of shapes, and — more importantly — we can calculate how to handle any object we’ve not seen before in a flash. Robots, by comparison, are slow and clumsy butterfingers. Their hardware is capable of doing the actual grasping, but they get confused by even tiny changes in size, shape, or position. This is a big a problem if we ever want robots to be helpful around the house, or if we want to improve their utility in warehouses, factories, and other industrial settings. [ The Verge ] Venture capital firm Blume Ventures plans to launch $100 million fundWith already 75 startups under its fold, venture capital firm Blume Ventures now plans to raise around $100 million in funding to expand further. The fund-raising process will start with the dawn of the new year and Blume hopes to close it by middle of 2019. Blume Ventures is already one of the leading investors in India at this time and their portfolio of startups includes such popular names as Ola, Cashify, Runnr and so on. Blume prefers to fund tech startups and it has a few exits also, to be fair. Notably, Taxi For Sure, Zipdial and Promptec were some of the 10 companies Blume Ventures had invested in earlier, but pulled out later to choose alternate ventures with better potential. [ The news minute ] Our Meatless Future: How The $90B Global Meat Market Gets DisruptedRussian Money in Silicon Valley |