Last June, Andreessen Horowitz introduced an accelerator program called the Talent x Opportunity Initiative (TxO) to serve consumer startups built on top of cultural tailwinds.

We caught up with Nait Jones, a partner at the VC firm, to talk about the recent launch of products from the first TxO cohort. He explained why consumer startups, particularly those outside of Silicon Valley, are worth investing in:

“Time and time again, we’ve seen culture applied to an existing category, recreating that category entirely. Culture is just that strong. Sadly, the inventors of culture-forward ideas who manifest these huge shifts too often lack strong resources and networks.”

Nait also noted the importance of TxO launching to our community.

“Most companies in the TxO cohort... need to acquire users and buyers. That’s why launching on Product Hunt is so cool, because Product Hunt itself is a cultural phenomenon and has become the world’s foremost community of early adopters.”

Take a look at all those Alpha TxO launches:

📺 FUTURESTREAM - A ticked live streaming platform
💃🏽 Autumn Adeigbo - Made-to-order, ethically-produced, small-batch fashion
🎤 Breakr - Platform for artists to break into new audiences
🪒 Oui the People - A bodycare brand (expanded from its Oui Shave launch)
👓 Coco and Breezy - Design-driven eyewear brand
🍩 The Elite Donut - Low-sugar, protein-packed donuts
💅 Pamper Nail Gallery - Made-to-order, reusable nail art

We hope to see initiatives like TxO help underrepresented groups find funding and support. One study from 2019 found that just 1% of VC-backed founders were black and 1.8% were Latino. There’s a lot to be done.

You can read Nait’s full blog here.👇

Play chess? ♟ You’ve got options. Storm Chess just launched with immersive games in your browser, plus tournaments and matchmaking. Perhaps warm up there before trying your strategies against a chess computer written with 1KB of JavaScript in The Kilobyte’s Gambit.

We’ve also had some fun this month guessing tunes with Songlio.