🏠 Commercials and chill?

Netflix just reinvented cable

Gm. Hey everyone, it's Toby as in "Toby from Homescreen."

Today is officially my last day at the helm of the newsletter. I'll be turning it over to the capable Jason Levin going forward. I may be leaving, but Homescreen isn't going anywhere—Jason and team will continue to bring the same great stories, jokes, and resources to your inbox 3x-a-week.

It's been a heck of a ride these past 8 months and I can't thank everyone enough for the constant support, consistent opens, and kind messages throughout.

Appreciate you all.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

STREAMING WARS

Netflix launches ad-supported plan for $7/mo

“Netflix just reinvented cable television,” wrote finance blogger Jack Raines.

Yup, sounds about right.

With their new ad-supported plan, we’re jumping back to the days of cable.

Netflix has long been against adding advertisements, but subscriber growth has stalled and its stock is down 62% this year.

Guess we’re Netflix & commercials & chilling now?

The Plans

Through a new $6.99/mo. ad-supported plan, Netflix is hoping it can bring in a batch of new budget-conscious customers and kickstart growth.

The streaming package includes four to five minutes of commercials per hour and a lower video quality than its higher-priced packages. The plan will debut in the US and 11 other countries including Japan, France, and Brazil.

Ads will be 15 to 30 seconds long and play before and during TV shows and films. Unsurprisingly, Netflix officials said they have already sold out most of their ads inventory.

The Market

“They are pricing aggressively,” Bloomberg analyst Geetha Ranganathan said.

Netflix’s ad-supported streaming package is $3/mo. less than HBO Max’s ad-supported program and $1 less than Disney’s soon-to-be-launched ad-supported package.

Following Netflix’s announcement, shares of Netflix rose as much as 4.4% to $230.51.

METAVERSE

Decentraland is a ghost town

There’s been a lot of rumors floating around about Decentraland, the $1.2 billion metaverse. It’s time to clear things up.

DappRadar, a data aggregator for web3 apps, reported that Decentraland only had 38 daily active users (DAU). This led to a series of hit pieces across the internet, mocking Decentraland and the concept of the metaverse.

While the game isn’t at Fortnite levels, there’s way more activity than reported.

The Truth

According to Decentraland, DappRadar was incorrectly tracking Decentraland’s smart contracts. Decentraland actually has 8,000 DAU or roughly the size of everyone’s favorite midwest getaway Mahtomedi, Minnesota.

In response to the controversy, Decentraland tweeted their full September metrics There were 56,697 MAU, 1,074 users interacting with smart contracts, 6,135 sold wearables, 300 creators who received royalties, 161 created community events, and 148 DAO proposals.

Decentraland said they are working with DappRadar on fixing their tracking.

Looking Forward

In November 2021, Tokens.com bought a plot of virtual real estate in Decentraland for $2.4 million to be used to sell metaverse fashion. Many mocked them.

A few months later in March 2022, Tokens.com hosted its first Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week with brands like Dolce & Gabbana and Tommy Hilfiger. For reference, most first-time fashion events don’t get Dolce & Gabbana to be on their roster.

Whether or not they recouped their investment is not clear, but what is clear is there is obvious interest by both users and brands. That was all in a bull market though. Times change.

Currently, it’s a bear market and the people in crypto to get-rich-quick folks are gone for American Dynamism or AI songwriting apps or whatever.

But, brands like Decentraland are still building the metaverse we dreamed of.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Uniswap is now valued at $1.7 billion with their latest $165 Series B funding led by Polychain Capital with participation from a16z, Paradigm, SV Angel, and Variant. Since Uniswap’s founding in 2018, it’s processed $1.2 trillion in trading volume.

Story we’re watching: Puttshack, a Chicago-based mini golf operator, raised $150 million in growth capital. Turns out there is no such thing as a bear market in mini golf. BlackRock led, and was joined by Promethean Investments. Serious firms for the least serious sport of all time.

Rabbit hole: Why there might be a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war (Effective Altruism Forum)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

  • Ghostwriters for VCs apparently can make $200,000 writing tweets for 5 hours per week. Calling BS on the weekly hours, but not the pay.

  • JP Morgan dumped Kanye West’s Yeezy brand, giving him until November to find another bank.

  • Nikita Bier, founder of TBH, is back with a #1 app called Gas that is for teens to see who likes them…sound familiar?

  • Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians, is interviewing Terra founder Do Kwon on Friday and we’ve got our popcorn ready.

GUESSTIMATE

How long on average does someone spend with a piece of content before scrolling away, according to a recent study conducted by Facebook?

Hint: Our attention spans really are getting shorter.

FUNDRAISING FRIDAY

Raising? Try the “pencil and paper” method. KISS — Keep it simple, stupid.

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Udacity: 50 people (13%)

Picasso: 87 people (30%)

Noom: 500 people (10%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

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

👀 Mightyapp’s Suhail Doshi is looking for a new founder for his 6-month Builder in Residence program.

🚀 Paul Graham says he doesn’t worry when a startup describes itself as “x for y”. Good news, that Zillow-for-the-Metaverse we’ve been incubating is raising a pre-pre-pre-Seed round.

🌎 Gaby Goldberg ponders what it means to be "good" at consumer apps and how this can translate over to crypto consumer apps like block explorers.

GUESSTIMATE ANSWER

Facebook is saying that people are spending an average of 1.7 seconds with a piece of content on mobile.