TechCrunch Disrupt 2022

Get your Disrupt day three highlights right here

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Two live and in-person days down and one more great day to go! Welcome to day three of TechCrunch Disrupt, where the opportunities to learn, connect and grow your business just don’t stop.

What can you experience today over at the Moscone Center? We’ll break out just a few of the speakers, topics and happenings to help you wake up and seize the day. Remember, you’ll find all the day’s programs, stage location and times listed in the Disrupt agenda and in the event app.

You’re definitely late to the party, but you can still benefit from what Disrupt has to offer. Buy your pass right here.

Ready for day three? Let’s go!

Expo Hall & Demo Booths

Head to the expo hall each day to check out early-stage Startup Battlefield 200 exhibitors and sponsor booths.

Live on Stage: TechCrunch’s Found

TC Plus Stage | 9:05 am

Join Jordan Crook and Darrell Etherington for a live podcast recording of Found, a show about founders and company-building, featuring people actually doing the work. They’ll interview Parker Conrad, the co-founder of Rippling and Silicon Valley’s comeback kid, about how he took the plunge to begin with, and how he navigates everything from building product roadmaps to raising funding from some of the world’s top investors — and how he manages failure, too. Come for the news and analysis, stay for the jokes — and breakfast!

Founder Fireside: Clubhouse

TC Plus Stage | 9:40 am

Few startups had as much hype — and early consumer buy-in — as Clubhouse. Since its mega-hit introduction, however, it has seen its service copied by a host of competitors while working to expand and fine-tune its model. TechCrunch will sit down with Clubhouse co-founder and CEO Paul Davison to talk about the company’s past, present, and future.

Negotiating Your First Term Sheet

TC Plus Stage | 10:50 am

It’s always a good time to sit down and chat about the mechanics of term sheets and the give and take between investors and founders. It’s an especially good time now as the balance of power between founders and investors has shifted from a period in which founders never had great ability to demand friendly terms to an era in which it feels like investors have more power than in recent history. So we’ll get the latest from All Raise CEO, Mandela SH Dixon, Techstars Head of Portfolio Capital and Investments, Kevin Liu and Black Operator Ventures General Partner, James Norman on term sheets, negotiations and terms to help founders navigate the current climate.

Founder Fireside: Metafy and Seven Seven Six 

TC Plus Stage | 1:30 am

Metafy is bringing video game coaching to the masses, and it’s not only for gamers who may want to go pro. As digital gaming has become one of the most important international pastimes, consumers are more willing than perhaps ever to spend on their hobby. TechCrunch will sit down with Metafy founder and CEO Josh Fabian and his venture capital backer, Katelin Holloway of Seven Seven Six, to dig more deeply into the company, its market, and how it is working to grow even faster.

State of VC in 2022

Disrupt Stage | 10:00 am

VCs have never had so much capital socked away — with $100 billion more in so-called dry powder than at the end of last year, according to Preqin — but with a tightening exit market, many are “slowing their roll” and asserting more control over deals after years of feverish dealmaking. What new terms are they introducing into deals? Where are they forging ahead — and pulling back — and why? What do founders need to know for their startups to survive and thrive in 2023 and beyond? For a clearer understanding of what’s happening on the ground right now, this will be a must-see conversation. Niko Bonatsos, managing director, General Catalyst, and Caryn Marooney, GP, Coatue Management.

Lessons from the Product Building Trenches

Disrupt Stage | 10:30 am

Figma lived the startup dream — launched in a dorm room and sold for $20 billion to Adobe. But before he achieved those lofty heights, CEO and co-founder Dylan Field was a young guy with an idea and no business experience. Hear the lessons he learned along the way and what he would do differently if he could start over today.

Surveillance in Startup Land

Disrupt Stage | 1:00 pm

Google’s Maddie Stone and ACLU’s Jennifer Granick join us for a crash course in the surveillance state — from spyware makers to location data brokers. Find out what the changing cybersecurity threat and legal landscape means for today’s data-hungry startups.

TechCrunch Startup Battlefield FINAL

Disrupt Stage | 1:00 pm

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000.

Announcing the Winner of TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2022

Disrupt Stage | 4:10 pm

Gen-Z: Adapting to the Next Generation of Consumers 

Roundtable | 10:00 am

This roundtable discussion will aim to provide useful insights on Gen-Z consumer trends to have a better understanding on how startups need to position themselves to prioritize the next generation’s needs. As a Gen-Z consumer tech investor, Emir Talu, Co-founder & Partner, Pentas Ventures, will go over how Gen-Z consumers are responding to emerging industries and how they challenge the established ones to reinvent themselves. Attendees will get to share their own experiences/perspectives on Gen-Z consumer trends and participate in the discussion on which companies they think are doing a good job adapting vs. failing to tailor to Gen-Z’s needs.

Exit Pathways for Africa Startups

Roundtable | 10:30 am

As funding continues to grow on the African continent, we need to start understanding the paths to exit. We have seen a string of $50m+ African exits in the last 2 years; DPO to Network International, Paystack to Stripe, Sendwave to World Remit, Capricorn Digital to MFS Africa. We have also seen an IPO – Jumia. What should investors expect going forward? Sub $500m exits or IPOs? Who are these acquirers – global firms or African giants? Should founders be mindful of these trends and what should they do about it? This is a roundtable discussion – come share your thoughts and learn from others. With Opeyemi Awoyemi, Managing Partner, Fast Forward Venture Studio, Ngozi Dozie, CEO and Co-founder, Carbon, and Adewale Yusuf, CEO and Co-Founder, Altschool.

A Serial Software Entrepreneur Shares the Playbook for Building Breakout Companies 

Roundtable | 11:30 am

Rehan Jalil, founder and CEO, Securiti, has built an enviable 20 year career in tech, as founder of three breakout enterprise companies in cybersecurity, 4G and a unified data controls platform. Along the way, he has raised capital from top tier investors including Mayfield, Accel, Redpoint and General Catalyst; built a capital efficient business model; and served customers from the world’s largest enterprises. In this session, he will share lessons learned including: How to raise capital in a downturn; How to sell to large enterprises as a small startup; How bold marketing can make your dollars go far; How to institutionalize a winning culture; How to make new mistakes and avoid old patterns.

Democratizing Retail with AI-powered Marketplaces

Roundtable | 1:30 pm

On the heels of a global pandemic and economic downturn, the fashion and retail industry has demonstrated more than ever a need to be disrupted. Gone are the days of individual brick and mortar stores, with indie designers and small business owners are struggling to adapt to SEO and social media driven growth tactics as consumers live more and more of their shopping online. Queenly’s CTO and cofounder Kathy Zhou will walk the audience through how she’s built a centralized managed marketplace to solve these problems for the growing formal wear industry, including personalized recommendations, domain-specific search engines, as well as creating a tailoring CV and ML data pipeline for a formerly offline industry.

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