📚 Hit the (Metaphorical) Stacks

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🌟 Top News in Startupland 🌟 

The New York Times is Done with Perplexity, Issuing a Cease & Desist to the AI Startup

Perplexity and babies just about to take their first steps have something in common: older figures want them to stop crawling. 

On October 2, the New York Times sent Perplexity a letter to “immediately cease and desist all current and future unauthorized access and use of The Times's content.” In a copy of the cease-and-desist letter obtained by Reuters, the NYT claimed that “the way Perplexity was using its content, including [creating] summaries and other types of output, violates copyright law.” The publisher gave Perplexity until October 30 to deliver the “requested information,” which the startup anticipates to meet.

This is not the first time Perplexity has been called out by major news outlets for scraping its sites for content. 

• Back in June, Wired investigated Perplexity’s web crawling practices and accused the startup of violating the Robot Exclusion Protocol of multiple websites, in addition to closely paraphrasing Wired articles and hallucinating article summaries. 

• Amazon Web Services subsequently launched an investigation into Perplexity’s web scraping practices. The cloud provider is owned by Amazon, and its co-founder Jeff Bezos is a major investor in Perplexity. 

• Forbes accused Perplexity of plagiarizing at least two articles and republishing them across multiple platforms without proper credit.

Despite all this, Perplexity denies claims it uses web crawling technology surreptitiously. Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity’s co-founder and CEO, said in an interview with Fast Company after that “Perplexity is not ignoring the Robot Exclusions Protocol and then lying about it [...] We don’t just rely on our own web crawlers, we rely on third-party web crawlers as well.” To address publishers’ concerns about their technology, Perplexity started a revenue-sharing program in July.

What Your AI Startup Needs to Grow — TechDay Has It

The TechDay AI Founders Day on November 21 at Times Square Tower is the premier event for founders building in the AI sector to…

1. Hear AI market-specific insights from top investors

2. Get top-of-the-line funding advice

3. Learn actionable business strategies to accelerate their growth

4. Connect with startup peers in high-impact networking sessions

Don’t miss out. Register now before spots run out (and prices increase)!

⚡️ Community Poll ⚡️

Even More Headlines

🕵️‍♀️ This startup is fighting one of AI’s most notorious applications: deep fakes.

📤 40% of the $79.2B in funding for cloud firms went to genAI startups.

☢️ Google partners with Kairos to build small nuclear reactors to power its data centers.

📑 The FTC issued new rules for mergers, and they affect private equity a lot.

❤️ iCardio.ai gets FDA approval for its echocardiography evaluation software.

What You Need for a Great Q4: Video Content

Let’s talk about what everyone’s gearing up for in Q4: video. We’re talking explainers, customer testimonials, product demos. Video content that gets your message out there. Fast.

Marketers and founders are using this stuff everywhere. Websites, social media, sales decks—you name it. It’s a no-brainer if you want to stay ahead.

One agency that’s crushing it with video? Spacebar Visuals. These guys make the whole process easy, especially for startups like yours. They know you’re juggling a million things, so they take care of everything.

Here’s the best part: we’ve teamed up with them, and if you drop the word TechDay, you’ll get an exclusive startup deal.

Ready to see what Spacebar Visuals can do for you? Let’s make it happen.

📚 Dive A Bit Deeper 📚

Competition Is Good for the Soul (of Your Startup)

Every founder must research the competitive landscape when building a startup. Depending on the product and market, competition can be fierce.

But that isn’t a sign to scrap a startup altogether. Alan Jones, a partner at M8 Ventures, says competition is a positive indication that your startup and your product are on the right track. 

In an article he wrote for Startup Daily, Jones advises ideation-stage startup founders on how the competition in their market can be “the validation and motivation you need to pick up your startup idea and run with it.”

For brevity, we’ve gathered the top three pieces of advice that every ideation stage startup founder should keep in mind when it comes to channeling competition into success:

If others are in the market, chances are there is a need for your product or service

One of founders’ (and investors’) worst nightmares is spending so much time and money on a product only for it to be too niche to generate demand. 

A good sign this isn’t the case for your startup? When there are multiple players in the market with similar products. Competition equals validation; there is demand for the product. Otherwise, there would not be other startups in the space.

“If you’re solving a problem and others are too, then welcome to the game — the market has been at least partially validated for you,” Jones states. When it comes time to pitch your idea to investors, showing the competition in the space can add credibility to your idea. 

Just because the market seems saturated, doesn’t always mean it is

Take the phrase, “The market is too saturated” out of your lexicon. It’s unproductive because it perpetuates the belief that there is no room for innovation or differentiation in a market. Competition may mean there are more players, but it doesn’t mean the team isn’t looking for more members.

Jones explains it well: “Most industries can accommodate multiple players, especially if the problem being solved is significant enough. Even in seemingly crowded markets, there’s usually space for a new player to offer a better, different, or more niche solution.” The key for founders is to figure out what gap their product or service can fill that competitors can’t. Founders need to be creative about how they can best differentiate themselves in a burgeoning market.

Every founder and startup is unique

It’s a cliché, but we’ll say it anyway: you bring something unique to the table, er—market, that no other founder will have.

As Jones puts it, “No one else has your exact perspective, and that will shine through in how you build your product, interact with customers, and position your brand. The same problem can be solved in many ways, and your way could be the one that truly sticks.” You never know until you try.

Bottom line: reframe how you think about competitors and the market. As an ideation stage founder, you have a lot going for you. Highlight your strengths, do your research, develop your product, and you will be well on your way.

Deep Dives Galore

📚 HIT THE (METAPHORICAL) STACKS — As much as TechDay Express keeps your finger on the pulse of the startup ecosystem, you have to make room for some good old-fashioned book-reading. Luckily, TechRound built a list stacked (pun intended) with some great reads for startup founders. Maybe you’ll meet your Goodreads goal!

🏗️ CONTECH THROUGH THE YEARS — Clelia Warburg Peters, a managing partner for Era Ventures, discusses how the construction tech (contech) industry has grown over time, how this growing industry fits into the current ecosystem, and how to foster diversity in construction and technology.