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The US is settling in for some new form of national gridlock, but state and local propositions are busy defining how technology businesses will be allowed to work (legally) in the US. Policies on topics as broad as customer usage and employment or as narrow as a drug chemical got the vote across the country. The results provide a blueprint for what you might expect to see in many more places.
Perhaps the best example is Proposition 22 in California, where a majority of the voters approved of new rules that allow companies like Uber and Lyft to continue operating with drivers as independent contractors. A previous piece of state legislation and related lawsuit would have required the companies to classify many drivers as full-time employees. Here’s Megan Rose Dickey, on the impact of the result:
Throughout the case, Uber and Lyft have argued that reclassifying their drivers as employees would cause irreparable harm to the companies. In the ruling last month, the judge said neither company would suffer any “grave or irreparable harm by being prohibited from violating the law” and that their respective financial burdens “do not rise to the level of irreparable harm.”
But now that Prop 22 is projected to pass, this lawsuit has far less legal ground to stand on. It’s also worth noting that Uber has previously said it may pursue similar legislation in other states.
Naturally, the affected companies got a boost to their stock prices after the vote was called, and Uber is already working on taking the campaign global.
The US presidential election of 2020 has been the most technologically sophisticated ever, but I’m gonna skip because there are relatively few startup angles for us here. However, if you are trying to craft user policies about politics, consider this election-eve analysis from Taylor Hatmaker about how Facebook and Twitter have changed their approaches since 2016.
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Other notable startup-y items from our election coverage:
Cannabis legalization measures set to pass in 5 states
Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance
Massachusetts voters pass a right-to-repair measure, giving them unprecedented access to their car data
Calm’s hilarious CNN ad campaign sent the meditation app flying up App Store charts
YC-backed nonprofit VotingWorks wants to rebuild trust in election systems through open source
Something else happened in government this week that was not about the election — but may still be relevant to your startup. The SEC will now let companies raise up to $5 million per year in equity crowdfunding, up from a previous rule of $1.07 million. Lucas Matney has more for Extra Crunch.
The next billion-dollar e-commerce company will be a B2B marketplace
Business-to-business transactions are full of complexities beyond the consumer space, including four types of standard payment methods, sophisticated financing tools, bulk discounts, contractual pricing, delivery schedules, insurance and compliance. Merritt Hummer of Bain Capital Ventures breaks it down in a big guest post for Extra Crunch:
[I]t’s no wonder B2B e-commerce has been slower to digitize than B2C. From product discovery through the checkout process, a consumer buying a bag of licorice looks nothing like a retailer buying 100,000 bags of licorice from a distributor. The good news for B2B marketplace founders is that, based on the parameters above, there are many creative ways to extract value from transactions that go beyond the GMV take rate. Let’s explore some of the creative ways to monetize a B2B marketplace.
Instead of trying to take a cut of the gross merchandise value, like what Apple does with the App Store, successful startups have to be creative. These can include data monetization, embedded financial services, targeted advertising, private-label products, subscription fees and sampling fees. Here’s an excerpt from Hummer about that last one:
In most B2B verticals, individual transactions are so large that charging fees on a percentage basis means scaring potential customers away. In high-value markets with infrequent orders, charging a take rate on purchase orders will be perceived as unfair, especially when suppliers and buyers know each other already. But the fee-per-sample model is a unique wedge to aggregate suppliers and buyers, who often sample supplies before placing large orders.
One of our portfolio companies, Material Bank, has used this monetization strategy with success. Material Bank is a B2B marketplace for construction and interior design materials that warehouses samples (fabric swatches, paint chips, flooring materials, wall coverings, etc.) from hundreds of brands. Architects and interior designers can order free samples from Material Bank and receive them the next morning, and then ship samples back for free when they’re no longer needed. Material Bank charges the manufacturers a fee every time one of their samples is shipped out. Manufacturers receive new customer leads that require no effort to generate and are happy to outsource sample fulfillment, which was historically a cost center and not a core competency. Other B2B markets where sampling is well-established include chemicals, apparel and packaging materials.
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