Gm. Building a startup on your own is harder than finding a decent bagel in SF.

So we created a free resource to make things a little easier.

• It’s called the Startup Library and it’s a collection of hundreds of curated articles, essays, videos, and software tools all focused on helping you build a company.

• Want to learn how to split equity among early employees? Or the hidden psychology behind product pricing? It’s in the Library.

We’re live on Product Hunt today and we’d love it if you could stop by and toss us an upvote. Hope you enjoy!

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

Startup to watch: Cashify is an India-based startup trying to give phones a second lease on life. It runs hardware hospitals where the patients are iPhones who can’t be fixed by a night spent in a bowl of rice. It just raised a $90 million Series E from Prosus Ventures and NewQuest Capital Partners to serve the growing “re-commerce” space in India.

FINTECH

Check yourself before you Brex yourself

Having too many customers sounds like a problem most startups will kill to have. But the fintech decacorn Brex is dealing with the consequences of its own success. It announced last week that it would stop serving small-to-medium sized businesses, causing a decent sized uproar in the startup community.

Here’s the tea

Brex originally started out as a corporate card provider that served mainly startups. But two-years ago it expanded its target market to also include “brick-and-mortar small businesses,” as its co-CEO Henrique Dubugras then described it.

• Fast forward to today, and that decision to expand is coming back to haunt them like expired queso in a Chipotle burrito. Brex’s core market, venture-backed startups, had very different needs from mom and pop business, and Brex soon found itself failing to meet either of them adequately.

Last week it made the call to drop the slower-growing small-business category to return its focus to its original market.

It totally botched the announcement

Brex emailed thousands of its customers with the ominous subject line of “We can no longer serve you,” scaring lots and pissing off even more. Worse still, it accidently sent the email to some of its startup customers, the very segment of its users it was focusing on serving.

Yesterday, the company went into full apology mode. In a blog post from Dubugras titled “About last week’s announcement,” he acknowledged that the messaging could have been worded better saying, “as someone whose dad was a small business owner, the way we communicated this decision weighed heavily on me.”

Bottom line: One thing Dubugras didn’t apologize for is the new direction Brex is going. In the blog post, he laid out clear guidelines for the type of customer Brex is looking for: making over $1 million a year in revenue, 50+ employees, and with more than $500,000 in the bank.

CRYPTO

NFT Restaurant will cost you an arm and a leg

Ideas conceived in bull markets but executed in bear markets tend to end poorly. But, SHŌ Club, the group behind the world’s-first NFT-based restaurant in SF, is plowing ahead with its plans to shake up the fine-dining world.

This week, the hospitality group shared the pricing deets behind its three-tiered NFT memberships.

• An Earth membership ($7,500) grants you access to priority reservations, members-only menus, and exclusive events.

• Water ($15,000) gets you everything in the Earth tier with some valet parking and a monthly omakase dinner tossed in as well.

• Fire ($300,000) is where things get interesting. Dropping over a quarter-million US snags you all of the above perks as well as a share of the club’s revenue and a seat on the “Fire Board.”

Zoom out: Lots of crypto projects use the promise of ownership and access to raise funds to buy an asset in the future (see ConstitutionDAO). But those words start to really mean something when the thing you have ownership and access to is a world-class restaurant.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Khaby Lame officially passed Charli D’Amelio as the world’s most popular TikToker with over 142.7 million followers. The 22-year-old Senegalese creator rose to prominence by silently reacting to absurd lifestyle hack videos, much to the chagrin of parents whose teens now think rolling your eyes is a viable career path. 

Story we're watching: Netflix, once a bastion of ad-free content, is finally succumbing to the dark side of media. After months of rumors, it confirmed yesterday that it is in talks with partners to help it launch an advertising arm. The move follows an arduous six months for Netflix, one that saw its stock drop nearly 75% amidst its first quarterly subscriber drop in over 10 years. The revenue bump ads will bring can’t come soon enough—just yesterday Netflix announced its laying off 300 more full-time employees.

Rabbit hole: The case of the missing $46 million, an untold story of a historic crypto heist (Toronto Life)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• The FDA banned Juul from selling its e-cigarette products in the US.

• Binance signed a deal with Cristiano Ronaldo to help promote the launch of its upcoming NFT collection.

• Twitter is testing a new long-form feature called Twitter Notes that could signal the end of the 280 character-era.

• Chamath confirmed that the All-In podcast is returning after an unnamed bestie “lost their mind.”

GUESSTIMATE

With sky-high gas prices sending EV adoption into ludicrous mode, more and more models are hitting the market every day.

But some break the bank more than others. Can you rank these popular names from most expensive to least?

• Porsche Taycan

• Mercedes EQS

• Nissan Leaf

• Rivian R1T

• Tesla Model 3

• Lucid Air

• Hummer EV

FUNDRAISING FRIDAY

A founder wants to know what to do with their $1.5 million ARR bootstrapped business. Ryan Hoover provides a great response.

CORRECTION

In Wednesday's edition, we wrote that Esusu was an African-based startup. That was a mistake.

Esusu is actually a New York-based fintech started by African immigrants, but doesn't conduct any business in Africa.

Shout out to Homescreen reader Chinedu for catching the error.

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Netflix

• Industry: Streaming

• Amount laid off: 300

• % of workforce: 3%

• Date of layoffs: June 23

• List of employees affected: N/A

Masterclass

• Industry: EdTech

• Amount laid off: 120

• % of workforce: 20%

• Date of layoffs: June 22

• List of employees affected: if you are hiring, reach out to [email protected] 

Ebanx

• Industry: Fintech

• Amount laid off: 340

• % of workforce: 20%

• Date of layoffs: June 21

• List of employees affected: N/A

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this week that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🧵 A step-by-step guide on how to never run out of content ideas

⏰ The best time-saving tools for startups

📊 A curated database of 150+ of the best resources for founders

GUESSTIMATE ANSWER

1. Hummer EV ($108,700)

2. Mercedes EQS ($103,360)

3. Porsche Taycan ($84,050)

4. Lucid Air ($77,400)

5. Rivian R1T ($67,500)

6. Tesla Model 3 ($39,890)

7. Nissan Leaf ($27,400)