Daily Crunch: Finnish tech conference yanks $1M pitch contest prize from Russian co-founders

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What are you talking about, crunchers? We are excited to have a wall of amazing stories from our team of wordcrafts people. Christine and Haje are ready to go.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Here yesterday, gone today: “We should have reviewed all participants’ operations more closely before entering into the competition.” That’s what Slush organizers said after they and VC pitch judges decided to revoke a $1 million award to Immigram after discovering the company had ties to Russia. Mike has more.
• Dark times at Tesla: Tesla recalled about 350,000, or 1% of electric vehicles it sold over the past two years or so for some pretty major issues, including taillights that go out and front passenger airbags that malfunction, Jaclyn writes.
• Cloudy with a chance of doom and gloom: There is no rosy outlook for startups here. Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy doesn’t mince words when he warns startups that “a lot of turmoil and volatility” is in the funding forecast over the next 12 to 18 months, Manish reports.

Startups and VC

According to Mary Ann, Noah Schnapp, who plays Will in the hit series "Stranger Things," is passionate about a company he co-founded that aims to "re-invent" the chocolate spread. The company is trying to raise funds for a vegan product.

Darrell sat down with a lot of people in the space to talk about the regulation of cryptocurrencies. The benefit of the FTX situation is that there is more incentive to come up with a regulatory framework specific to the U.S.

You can find a group of stories to read through the rest of the day. When all other lights are out, may it be a light to you.

Get your product and customer success teams on the same page to improve net retention

If you want to maximize customer success, you don't have to move the needle far. Small wins can change the company's trajectory.

Bryan House, senior vice president of product and customer success at Elastic Path, wrote about the benefits of rolling product and customer success teams into a single unit.

Product management should report to the same person regardless of what role they are in. A structure that shares incentives and common goals should be created by the leader.

Get your product and customer success teams on the same page to improve net retention

There are three more people from the team.

The membership program helps startup teams get ahead of the game. This is where you can sign up. You can get a 15% discount on an annual subscription.

Big Tech Inc.

It is back under the scrutiny of competition regulators for the second time in as many years. The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority is looking into the chip giant's proposed acquisition of VMware. If you don't remember, it was when the two companies tried to acquire each other. The deal was scrapped due to national security concerns. It's difficult to predict how this will all unfold, but Paul got a comment from the company on what they think.

The game is back. Lauren will show you how to stream it.

For Monday, there are five more.

The Slush conference was incorrect in the first version. The headline has been changed so that both sets of Vikings don't see eye to eye. Slush is an annual tech conference that takes place in the country of Finns. Haje is embarrassed by the mistake. Folkens!