Daniel Heaf

I’m super excited to be kicking off a new series of events: Open Invite. There are two strong beliefs we hold at Metrikus that are behind this series of events. 1. We’re still in the early days of creating workplace experiences and the smart building industry is still young – but the change is more necessary than ever and real progress will only happen when we come together to share insights and collaborate. 2. Buildings aren’t just stand-alone structures – they shape cities, build communities, and leave a lasting mark on culture and history. This is something that should not and cannot be forgotten as we innovate into the future. So... we’re celebrating these things by hosting a series of meetups at interesting venues, offering unique experiences that inspire curiosity, spark conversations, and connect people from the PropTech, smart buildings, and workplace industries. For the first event, we’re heading to a free gig at the Southbank Centre, featuring Toby Corton and Kiiymm. It’s at 6pm on Thursday 10th October, and we’ll be heading to a pub nearby for a catch up after. It’s free to enter but please let us know here if you’re planning to come: https://lu.ma/4r5xu6q3 We’re starting in London but hope to celebrate the diverse culture of New York in the not-too-distant future.

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The recently announced shuttering of The Pro's Closet (TPC) should be a cautionary tale for all early stage companies looking to raise capital… be careful what you wish for. TPC raised over $90M, with a large $40M Series B in May 2021, followed by a $5.5M “modest Series C” round in January 2024 that was likely an emergency cash infusion. To the early-stage outdoor and consumer companies that I work with, these seem like huge dollars and most founders couldn’t imagine burning through $45.5M in less than 3.5 years. But given VCs’ expected returns, those raises were probably based on a future enterprise value of close to $1B for this "revolutionary approach to the bike-buying and selling process" (per their 2021 press release). After the $40M raise and huge pandemic-fueled growth in 2020 and early 2021, TPC had to continue to fuel its business, but inventory was super tight in late 2021 and early 2022. Rather than take what was available, management likely felt immense pressure to stretch, causing them to overpay for used bikes – reportedly paying some customers more than they had paid for the bike when new a few years prior. The whole cycling (and outdoor) industry is painfully aware of what happened next. New inventory eventually started arriving months late in April and May of 2022 just as COVID lockdowns were lifted and people decided to spend money on travel and experiences… not gear. TPC was stuck with a huge new warehouse facility that was half-full of over-priced inventory and cratering demand. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback and say that TPC should have used its $40M war chest to hunker down and weather the storm, but that’s not why the VCs invested. Many other companies in our space made the same decisions and got caught in the same inventory squeeze. Ultimately, founders that are raising money need to be comfortable with the growth they are signing up for. One of my start-up founders was having a very receptive VC pitch until it came to her financial projections of “only” $100M in revenue in 4 years. The VC rapidly lost interest, as they “only invest in $1B ideas.” My advice? > Boot strap and seed strap as long as you can. > Get to profitability as soon as possible. > Don't get forced into unattainable growth goals. > Find investors that share your vision for the company. #OutdoorIndustry

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This is an interesting read about Gen Z and AI. I consistently get asked about AI and my thoughts about it, so here it goes. If you're in a creative business, making TV, or making music, I'm pretty wary of AI. Those businesses shouldn't be about labor-saving devices, and that's really what AI is. It's a labor-saving device. It saves you from having to pay a person. And as an adult human being, I'm interested in art from the human experience. And if I find out that it's being generated by artificial intelligence, then I'm not interested in it. Now, if you're running a business like mine, a marketplace helping people find each other, whether online dating or logistic services, AI is a legitimate tool to do things and save time. In this world, if a person has been hired to do some task that AI can do, it probably means that person will not get to do that task. That's just the progress of industrialization. I have no trouble with that. It just always has to be that AI works for me and does what I need to do in the ways that I need it to. I'm not about the idea where you see a shiny new tool and then you look for ways to jam it into your company. That doesn't work well with any tool, and certainly not even with this one. Who's on the same page? Or not? I'd love to get your thoughts. #artificialintelligence #AIsolutions

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Meta continues to be late to their own party. And Roblox seems to be doubling down in 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 experiences.  Roblox recently teamed up with Warner Bros. Entertainment and Fandango to sell tickets to the upcoming ‘Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice’ movie premiere. Considering the fact that over 60% of Roblox users are under 16 years of age, this is a smart move for all parties involved. If this model works, we may see other proto-metaverses like Minecraft and Fortnite bridge gaming payments with physical-world perks. Techies at Meta might be underestimating the complexity of tapping into cultural trends. Agree? 💬 #roblox #metaverse #gaming #startups Read more on the topic here: https://lnkd.in/dHyFf6aQ

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ROI is making it RAIN!!! (aka incremental revenue) No Seattle jokes please;) We are working with large scale publishers in News, Sports, Entertainment, Health, Travel, and Autos verticals. High volume, high frequency. STOP READIG NOW if you are not interested or incentivized by incremental revenue. Now that we have dropped nonrevenue incented/operation types, let's talk about increasing revenue. If you are selling 100% of your supply you are in a rare, probably non-optimized group. Most publisher do not and should not fill more than 75% of supply directly. Using the bottom 25% to leverage floors higher, increasing bids/ecpm. ROI allows publishers the opportunity to efficiently monetize 100% of their supply. Accomplishing this by selling unfilled outside of the direct adstack in a secondary auction or post-bid strategy. We will deliver real time market data on supply value, allowing publishers to understand supply value and flooring. Selling and optimizing your unsold is a simple and import part of a balanced programmatic strategy. ROI is the only company that is doing this and has been doing this from the beginning of programmatic. Let's talk, let's drive incremental rev!

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Ever curious about what's under the curtain? Dailymotion has just unveiled Auto Path, a groundbreaking high-impact creative tailored specifically for the Auto Industry. By leveraging our Predictive Targeting audience insights and vast scale, we've crafted activations that resonate with car buyers, all while providing measurable in-ad actions with OLV and CTV. Key Standard Features: - Custom Multi-touchpoint elements envelop your video creative - Product feature hotspots seamlessly integrated within the video environment to capture attention - Outbound click features to enhance data collection, site traffic, and conversion rates Experience an exclusive peek behind the scenes... Let us guide you on a test drive and engage seamlessly across all screens! Hit me or our exceptional sales team Brenda Rodriguez Valeria Basmagi Edivaldo Junior to introduce you to this exceptional innovation in Latin America #autopath #Dailymotion #creativeinnovation #predictivetargeting

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