Business

Retired Firefighter Turned Health Entrepreneur Samael Tejada Brings Vitamin IV Therapy to the Masses with Liquivida Lounge

resident and Founder of Liquivida, is a firm believer in the common saying that health is wealth. He believes that no one should put their health on the back burner. As a retired Firefighter/Paramedic on the firefighters’ calendar, he was very fit until he started building his company. Then, with much to do in so little time, he gradually relaxed his fitness regimen and got lost in work. Consequently, he gained a lot of weight, forcing him to slow down and get his health back on track. Sam’s transformation was a wake-up call that motivated him to seek solutions to help people feel more energetic and in control of their health. His company, Liquivida, is a full-service health and wellness center franchise that is helping people across America to replenish, rehydrate, and revitalize through vitamin IV therapy, medical aesthetics, hormone replacement therapies, and innovative weight loss solutions. It is operated by a respected network of medical professionals who believe that sustainable health and wellness can be achieved by understanding one’s body and caring for it through targeted nutrition and a combination of preventative and functional medicine.

As part of their model, clients are encouraged to undergo routine blood work to see where nutrients could be low and why. From there, Liquivida’s medical team leverages various strategic partners to deliver cutting-edge alternative health and wellness solutions for busy clients. We had the good fortune of connecting with Samael Tejada and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Samael, how do you think about risk? For you to progress in life, taking risk is something you have to do. Regardless of what it is, whether it’s participating in sports or business or education, there is some kind of risk that you’ll have to take to get to that end goal. When it comes to business, I think it’s very important to take calculated risks where you list the positives and potential negatives. From there, you decide to take the risk when you find you have more pros than cons. When you’re younger, you can afford to take more risks that will have a greater negative outcome. But, when you’re older, you have certain responsibilities that will make you think twice before taking that kind of risk. In business, you of course risk losing money, but you are also risking your time because once you lose it, you never get it back. I have taken a lot of risks career-wise.I first started the company while I was working as a firefighter paramedic in Broward County. I was stepping away from a secure job, salary and pension to fully embrace my passion. When I started Liquivida Lounge, my wife and I invested a lot of our own money and put a lot of time, sweat, and tears into it, unsure if it would come to fruition. We worked tirelessly to make sure it was a success and sacrificed a lot along the way, with our time especially. However, it has all been worth it, now selling franchises, we can see that our hard work, and investment of time and money has all paid off. The company’s website is www.liquividalounge.com, and they are also active on social media platforms such as Instagram @LiquividaLounge, Twitter @LiquividaLounge, and Facebook @LiquividaLounge.

Business

Amid the AI hype, don’t forget about no-code

No-code startup Softr, which allows its customers to build apps from their existing data, announced Tuesday that it has added Google Sheets to its integration list.

Previously, Softr focused on Airtable databases. Its move to support data from Google’s spreadsheet product likely expands its potential customer pool. Even before that expansion, CEO Mariam Hakobyan told TechCrunch+ that her company grew its annual recurring revenue 3x from December 2021 to December 2022.

Softr’s quick revenue expansion is a good reminder that while the tech world seems completely consumed by all things AI, there’s quite a lot of work going on in other areas that are worth keeping an eye on.

That said, there is an interesting connection between AI and no-code worth writing down: Both are potentially great expanders of human capability. AI tooling could operate as a second brain of sorts for the digitally busy, and no-code services may allow nondevelopers to build the tools they need to complete their work. In both cases, the genres of new tech development have a shot at helping regular folks do a lot more, more quickly and often at a low cost.

Something else that modern AI tooling and no-code share is accessibility. Softr, for example, grew its base of signed-up users from 35,000 to 150,000 in 2022. That’s really quite a lot for a service that was, until recently, Airtable-specific. On the AI side, I don’t need to reiterate just how much market demand there is for modern LLM tooling.

Let’s dig into Softr’s progress since we last covered the company and chat about what we can learn about no-code progress as a method of building more accessible software.

Softr, no-code and empowering the regulars
Ask anyone who works at a company that builds software and isn’t part of the engineering or product orgs how long it will take them to get something built for their own needs. Without even making Jira ticket jokes, we all know what the answer will be. And to a degree, the standard situation makes sense: What nondeveloper employees need is often pretty basic software, and expensive engineers need to focus on the company’s core offering not internal tooling.

Business

Twitter’s legacy blue checkmark era is officially over

Twitter appears to have officially killed off its legacy blue checkmarks, one of the last remaining vestiges of the pre-Elon Musk owner era.

The legacy blue checks, which Twitter doled out to journalists, celebrities and other public officials for free to help curb impersonations and spam, were supposed to end April 1.

Musk took to Twitter on April 11 — days after the legacy checkmarks should have disappeared — to shift the end date to April 20 or 4/20. Yes, that’s the day when folks honor weed because Twitter is now owned by a middle schooler.

With the legacy checkmarks gone, Twitter will have verification marks only for paid users and businesses as well as government entities and officials. Now, if a user sees a blue checkmark and clicks on it, the label reads: “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”

Business

Autotech Ventures’ new $230M mobility fund adds fintech, circular economy to its investment strategy

Autotech Ventures will use its newly closed $230 million fund to expand beyond its foundation of early-stage ground transportation startups and invest in what the firm believes are the next big opportunities in automotive and mobility.

Fintech, logistics, supply chain and the circular economy are at the top of the list.

The $230 million fund, its third since launching in 2017, will be used to invest in seed through Series C mobility-related startups, according to the company. A mixture of financial and corporate LPs, including Allison Transmission, American Axle, Iochpe-Maxion and Shell participated in the fund.

“We’re still a ground transportation-focused firm and we have a very similar strategy [with this fund],” Alexei Andreev, Autotech Ventures managing director told TechCrunch. “On a high-level, it’s same as Fund 1 and Fund 2. However, one of the fastest areas of growth is SaaS-enabled fintech. Auto commerce is inefficient and there are large pockets of profit to capture.”

The firm is particularly interested in transportation-related fintech ventures that are poised to grow during a recession.

“We made a prediction that sooner or later there will be a recession and we identified areas that benefit when the economy softens, Andreev said, noting that this latest fund invested in Yendo, a Dallas-based startup (formerly known as Otto) that lets customers borrow against their vehicles at the same interest rate as standard credit cards.

Autotech Ventures’ previous fintech investments include U.K.-based buy now, pay later startup Bumper and Carpay, a buy here, pay here loan servicing SaaS platform for car dealers.

Andreev said the firm is also investigating investment opportunities in the circular economy, a nascent industry focused on finding ways to reuse materials and products. Circular economy startups have garnered an increasing amount of attention and investment as automakers transition away from gas-powered vehicles and towards EVs.

Autotech Ventures is also cautiously wading into generative AI, although Andreev was quick to note that the company has not made any investments in that area.

Autotech has more than $500 million under management and has invested in more than 40 companies.

Some of the firm’s investments include computer vision startup DeepScale (which was acquired by Tesla), Lyft, used vehicle marketplace operator Frontier Car Group, Drover, Outdoorsy, Swvl, parking app SpotHero and Xnor.ai, which Apple acquired in January 2020. Five of those startups have gone public, including indie Semiconductor and Volta Charging.

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