🔈 Agora: the tech behind Clubhouse

Clubhouse is scorching hot right now.

The invite-only social audio app — which lets users conduct real-time conversations or eavesdrop on celebrities and investors — is suddenly everywhere.

While the company is private, those looking to capitalize on its rise have been betting on Agora, a software firm that has seen its market value more than double, rising to $10B+, since the end of January.

Agora makes tools for ‘real-time engagement’

Founded in 2012, the company offers APIs (application programming interfaces) for real-time voice and audio features in only a few lines of code.

It went public last summer with the very relevant ticker $API.

According to investor Justin Caldbeck, Clubhouse was built in 1 week on Agora (Clubhouse does not speak publicly about its tech stack, but a recent Bloomberg article highlights that the connection does exist).

In recent months, Clubhouse has grown to 6m+ users, catalyzed by a Jan. 24 funding round (which valued the startup at $1B) and an appearance by Elon Musk during the GameStop/Robinhood controversy.

And with this growth, Agora has seen its stock price surge.

The tech isn’t just used by Clubhouse…

Per DFT Capital at Seeking Alpha, it powers several billion-dollar firms:

• Bilibi: A $53B Chinese social video-sharing app
• New Oriental Education: A $33B Chinese ed-tech firm
• Yalla: A $5.6B app called the “Clubhouse of the Middle East”

Agora charges on a per-usage basis, which means that the more often people use these services, the more cheddar $API makes (it projects $125-$130m for 2020).

Agora’s founder Tony Zhao is a veteran of WebEx…

… Cisco’s video-chat business that counts Eric Yuan (the founder and CEO of Zoom) among its alumni.

Agora is based in Shanghai — and some observers have raised questions about Clubhouse’s vulnerability to government surveillance. The app has already been blocked in China.

But elsewhere, the hype machine continues.

Next up: a Clubhouse chat between 2 soft-spoken people Musk and Kanye West (and maybe Vladimir Putin, too).

• “We need to inflict pain” is what Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said in reference to Apple, after the iPhone manufacturer unleashed a new privacy policy that will hurt FB’s ad biz. (We wrote more here.)
• Maryland is the first state to tax digital advertising… with a levy of up to 10% on revenue for firms making $100m+. Facebook and Google are a little bit above this threshold, with respective digital ad revenues of $84B and $147B last year.
• Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm have all raised concerns to global regulators about chip manufacturer Nvidia’s $40B acquisition of chip design firm Arm. The issue: a potential change in Arm’s licensing terms.
• The Amazon of South Korea (Coupang) has filed to go public at a potential $50B valuation. It would continue Masayoshi Son’s recent win streak, after his fund notched an $11B profit in the latest quarter on DoorDash’s IPO.
• Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey put 500 bitcoins (~$24m) into an endowment to fund Bitcoin development in Africa and India.

Like many successful entrepreneurs, 36-year-old Keith Wasserman has a good college hustle story.

While studying at the University of Southern California, he operated one of eBay’s largest shops, Keith’s Bargain Center, which sold 200k items. The products ranged from DVDs to clothing.

After graduating in 2007 at the height of the housing bubble, Wasserman purchased a 4-unit building in Bakersfield, California. Today, that property has turned into Gelt Inc., a $1.6B real estate portfolio with 32 buildings (~15k units) across America.

The Hustle recently spoke with Wasserman about all things real estate.

How will “superstar cities” (e.g., NYC, SF) do as people leave?

Wasserman thinks these cities will be fine in the long run.

“At the end of the day, single people want to live in proximity to dating [opportunities] and near big cities,” he says. “Rent drops [will attract] a different set of people who may otherwise have been priced out.”

What cities he’s bullish on in the next 5 years

Here are 3 cities that Wasserman is investing in:

• Denver: “It’s our largest expansion area right now.”
• Salt Lake City: “This is a high-quality city that is very business-friendly.”
• Albuquerque: “We are seeing slow and steady rent growth here among a population of retirees.”

What asset class he recommends for smaller investors

Manufactured home parks. Here’s why:

• Minimal maintenance: You buy the land plots and rent them out to people who own (and maintain) manufactured homes themselves.
• Sticky tenants: It’s inconvenient to move (the average tenancy is 10 years).
• Recession-proof: It’s fairly low-income housing, so people aren’t leaving for cheaper options.

“The thing I love about real estate vs. other industries is that it’s not winner-takes-all,” says Wasserman. “There are millions — if not tens of millions — of millionaires in real estate. There’s enough out there for a lot of people to get involved.”

(Read the full Q&A here.)

Most people spend ~40% of their time on non-work tasks… while at work

As we’ve adapted to work from home, we’ve lost over a third of our productivity to distractions, disorganization, and straight-up Zoom meeting fatigue.

The good news?

This has inspired a flood of companies trying to change how we work.

Take ClickUp, for example — they’re making waves on the internet for their flexible platform that brings your tasks, docs, goals, chat, and more all into one place.

Goodbye confusion (and that 12 pack of stress balls), hello clarity.

With 200k+ teams from companies like Nike, Google, & Uber hopping on board, ClickUp might just be on to something…  so try it for yourself here and see what the craze is all about.

“Going to college is so affordable,” said no one ever. Au contraire, we’ve got a problem on our hands:

• 65% of US college graduates have student loans
• The average loan amount is $37k
• Student debt collectively totals $1.7T

Enter College Cash. It’s a startup that’s helping students repay their debt in a novel way: A marketplace of brands compensates students by paying off part of their debt in return for user-generated content (“UGC”).

Its founder, Demetrius Curry, is currently looking to raise a $1m seed round to make it a reality.

College costs keep rising…

… and as a result, graduates owe 26% more than they did 10 years ago.

Curry was moved to take action after realizing the cost of his own daughter’s future education. He’s even gone as far as to sell his own plasma to pay for web hosting fees to get his idea off the ground.

Per TechCrunch, his startup allows brands to ask users to create photo and video content for their respective service or product.

Why UGC?

• It’s 20% more influential than other types of media
• 93% of customers appreciate UGC when making a purchase

Where does College Cash go from here?

Short-term, the focus is on fundraising. Long-term, Curry envisions College Cash providing additional ways to fund college.

One idea: a tip integration within gig economy platforms (e.g., DoorDash) for workers paying for school.

So… no debt, no problem? Fingers crossed.

2021’s hottest trend is conscious investing

When it comes to investing, you shouldn’t have to pick between companies with great potential and those that have a positive impact on the world.

Why?

Because Betterment’s Socially Responsible Investing portfolios let you do both.

• SRI portfolios let you invest in companies across the world that align with your values without sacrificing performance goals
• Their portfolios range from specific causes (like climate change and social equity) to broad, general impact-focused investments
• In other words… you can finally feel good about your investing

Check out Betterment’s SRI portfolios here:

Creator economy startup Stir is now valued at $100m after a new funding round, per The Information.

The investment is led by Andreessen Horowitz, which has also backed 2 other high-profile creator economy startups: social audio app Clubhouse (you may have heard of it) and newsletter platform Substack.

Stir is used by creators to manage the income they generate from things like ads and fan subscriptions (including revenue splitting with collaborators).

Founded by former Facebook designer Joseph Perri Albanese, Stir raised a $4m round in October 2020 and counts the CEOs of 2 creator payment platforms — Cameo and Patreon — among its investors.

The software is not yet widely available. But with seemingly everyone releasing a newsletter, podcast, or YouTube channel, it looks like the right tool at the right time.

Check out our related coverage:

• OnlyFans’ huge year
• How Stir helped YouTuber Airrack get to 1m subscribers
• How Instagram’s largest meme account launched a top Patreon show, “All Gas No Brakes”