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Here’s a meme for you. Little miss started off selling books online and ships your medicine now too.

Amazon's decision to buy One Medical for $3.9B might not come as big of a surprise to those following its strategy. Notorious for reinvesting its revenue in fast-growing areas, it took Amazon seven years to become profitable after its inception. While the company’s interest in the healthcare sector started back in 2018 with PillPack’s acquisition and the launch of Amazon Pharmacy, the One Medical deal will be its third largest, behind Whole Foods and MGM.

If you’re not familiar with One Medical, the primary care provider offers both in-person and 24/7 virtual care that can be covered by your insurance. We saw telehealth’s drastic growth moment when the pandemic first hit. While that seems to have settled now, interesting takes on improving and monitoring your wellbeing from home (or your mobile device) continue to spring up.

Yesterday iollo launched. The FDA-registered kit uses a blood sample to measure 500+ molecules and design a dietary and behavioral plan to help you live healthier. The plan tells you things like how many steps a day your metabolism needs, what types of vegetables you should eat, and what supplements to take based on your deficiencies.

Makers include a Computational Biology research fellow at Stanford, a Cornell University Professor in Computational Biomedicine, and the former co-founder of YC-backed Circle Medical, an in-person and virtual primary care clinic.

One of the biggest concerns with Amazon’s medical products and products like iollo is how your data is shared. Maker Brent LaRue assured that the company doesn't share your data — “Your information, results, and recommendations will never be shared with employers or insurance companies.”

As for Amazon, One Medical will still be required to comply with HIPAA and other applicable laws, but if it still feels sus that little miss has all of your info, you’re not alone.

BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) has been a topic of contention. The service is aka point-of-sale loans, which you can find all over eCommerce sites these days thanks to providers like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna. Even a $17.30 pair of jeans at Forever21 can be split up into four payments of $5.77.

BNPL has its benefits (it funds this writer’s Peloton without interest). The problem is it’s a little too convenient and younger generations are paying the price — over and over again with little payments that add up to big debt. BNPL constituted 91% of consumer loans in California in 2020. Gen Z is “spending 925% more now through point-of-sale services than in January 2020.”

The controversy we’ve seen over BNPL has been appropriately focused on the consumer space. Credit companies have always been subject to regulation to protect consumers, but point-of-sale, tech-supported loans are so new that many governments are only now tackling its downsides.

But what about BNPL for business? tranch’s launch in this space caught our eye earlier this week. At a basic level, the model seems much less problematic for companies — decision-makers are more experienced with defined budgets.

tranch offers an embedded BNPL solution for SaaS companies. This means businesses can get paid upfront and offer their customers flexibility for larger payments.

tranch got its start after co-founder Philip Kelvin realized while working as a CFO that payment options were lacking — “all offline, all painful.” In addition to enabling online payments that you can spread out, tranch lets businesses use their account to fund other large invoices with suppliers.

The community had their interest piqued by the concept, many noting its potential for SaaS companies and agencies who work with startups and SMBs. The makers at tranch closed a pre-seed earlier this year and joined YC’s Summer 2022 cohort, so things are starting to heat up.

What do you think of BNPL for business?

You’d think taking on a giant like Google in the quest for a better search engine is crazy. Yet, plenty of ambitious start-ups are doing it anyway. Neeva and DuckDuckGo, for instance, tackle the issue of privacy, while Ecosia donates 80% of its profits to planting trees.

What’s more interesting is how search has evolved over time. Ten years ago you’d get most of your answers from Google or Bing. Given the insane amounts of content being produced now, we’re not surprised to see people resort to TikTok and other creator platforms to get their questions answered. According to Insider and Google’s Knowledge & Information team, “nearly half of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram for search instead of Google” when looking for a spot to eat. Mark Zuckerberg also announced today Instagram is introducing a searchable map to make it easier to find popular locations.

VC firm a16z’s Future adds an interesting point into the mix, arguing that “the opportunity in search is not to attack Google head-on with a massive, one-size-fits-all horizontal aggregator, but instead to build boutique search engines that index, curate, and organize things in new ways.”

That’s what the You.com team is doing with YouCode. Founded by two former AI scientists at Salesforce, this new launch is a spin-off from its core search engine. YouCode is aimed at developers and makes it easier to discover, copy, generate code snippets, and answer coding questions.

Naturally, there’s an AI element to it, too. YouCode can generate code with Code Complete, an AI-powered coding tool that writes code using a neural network language model – think Smart Compose in Gmail.

What’s your take? Is Google fine as is or does search need disruption?

If you were on the Internet in the early-2000s, you know the grip that LimeWire had on music listeners across the globe. What started out as a file-sharing software ended up being a god-send for those looking to download music and movies without paying a cent (aka, illegally). LimeWire was the it girl, up until several lawsuits forced the owners to shut down. The demise of LimeWire was met with lots of dismay, but now it's back. Meet the new LimeWire: a music NFT marketplace.

LimeWire’s return comes during a time of uncertainty for the future of NFTs. The market has seen several downturns this past year, but that hasn’t put a damper on new owners Julian and Paul Zehetmayr’s goals. They purchased LimeWire’s intellectual property a year ago, and have been crafting the company’s comeback ever since. Just as the OG LimeWire served as a place to easily access music, the new LimeWire looks to make the world of NFTs accessible to music enthusiasts, and empower artists and creators. Unlike many NFT marketplaces, LimeWire users can use a credit card to purchase NFTs.

“We want to bring the NFT world to the mainstream and to people who aren’t into that right now,” said Ivis Buric, Chief Communications Officer at LimeWire. “NFTs aren’t just another buzzword—they can bring benefits to people’s lives.”

The folks at LimeWire are tapping into two markets that are often confusing and filled with barriers to access—the music industry and the crypto/NFT space. For musicians dealing with income limitations due to pesky record deals, LimeWire presents an opportunity for artists to add another revenue stream to their roster. For the average music fan, LimeWire hopes to clear the path for NFT ownership.

As Buric puts it, the new LimeWire is about “giving more power to people, especially artists and creators. It’s about getting paid, creating new projects, and having ownership of your work.” LimeWire will outcompete Spotify in terms of artist compensation, offering much more revenue to artists than the streaming platform does.

And don’t worry, this time, LimeWire is partnering with record labels like Universal Music Group to propel its efforts and hopefully, avoid another legal showdown.

Will you channel your early-2000s nostalgia and use the new LimeWire?

We’re a little more than halfway through the year and have already seen tons of cool developments in the world of AI. It might seem like many of these are the result of the metaverse craze the social media giant ignited at the end of last year. In reality, a lot of the bigger projects like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, Codex, Google’s Imagen, or Meta’s latest No Language Left Behind have likely been years in the making.

The topic of AI is a hot one already. Recent claims from one Google engineer arguing that the AI he was working on became sentient aren’t putting minds at ease either. While most of us can’t get our hands on these (somewhat) dystopian programs, makers have found day-to-day use cases for AI that remove some of the manual work and let you focus on the high-impact things instead.

ICYMI, Copilot by Github x OpenAI is now available for all developers to suggest code and entire functions in real-time.

Slogan Generator creates a catchy one-liner for your business from a short description you input.

Typeform launched Relayed, a tool that captures real conversations (via async talking or a meeting import) and summarizes them to help your team stay up to date.

Code Language Converter uses AI to convert code snippets from one programing language to another. Similarly, AutoRegex uses OpenAI's GPT-3 to produce regular expressions from plain English.

Also using OpenAI, this tool suggests namings for your GitHub repositories.

Octie.ai is a free marketing assistant that writes emails, product descriptions, social media captions, and subject lines for you.

What did we miss?

If you’re taking a flight anywhere in the world this summer, we’re sending hugs. As airlines are cutting tens of thousands of flight schedules due to staff shortages, the excitement of going on holiday is likely in free fall. While some matters are out of our control (unless you’ve got a private jet), there are things we can do to make the rest of our trips less stress-inducing.

Travelley, for instance, gives you up-to-date information about popular travel destinations in one place. You can find data on average rent prices, safety, visas, transportation, and things to do. While you’re there, snap some pictures for the Gram in locations discovered using this Backdrop app.

Baryl takes a more technical approach and uses AI/ML to algorithmically curate restaurants and recommendations based on your personality and interests. Similarly, iplan.ai uses AI and your answers to a few questions to put together a complete itinerary that fits your preferences.

If you’re on a tighter budget, Elude helps you find your next adventure based on how much you’re willing to splurge.

FlightPenguin also recently launched its flight search app as a successor to the popular sunsetted Hipmunk. The app lets you search for flights on a visual timeline.

For traveling in larger groups, Triphie lets you plan and manage trips collaboratively.

If all these tools don’t make you feel like a global citizen yet, feel free to use this digital scratch map to visualize how much of the world you’ve seen.

We’ll leave you with a pro tip too – AirTags for your checked bags to avoid the mayhem of lost luggage.

We hear it all the time in start-up land: you can't be everything for everybody. Yet somehow, a few giants out there managed to become a lot of things for a lot of folks. One of these is HubSpot.

When the company launched 16 years ago as an inbound marketing platform, founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah wanted to give smaller start-ups a chance to compete against established, larger companies. As they highlight in their latest launch, HubSpot Free CMS, that statement still holds true: “though the platform is much more robust than it was even a few years ago, we're still not really going after the ‘enterprise,’” Shah shares.

At its core, HubSpot Free CMS is a website builder. However, given the array of tools HubSpot offers, that changes things a little. The no-code tool uses a drag-and-drop builder and gives you access to web hosting, SEO recommendations, and analytics. As the name suggests, these are available for free, with additional features being part of a premium subscription.

The requirements for a website can become very specific, which might be a reason the no-code space won’t be a winner takes all situation. If you want to browse and compare some of the latest launches – we got you. 👇

Siter.io also launched recently as a no-code website builder that allows you to create directly inside your browser, using workflows similar to ones you’re already familiar with, like Figma’s.

Daftpage works like a document. The app lets you build web pages using an editor similar to Notion, drag-and-drop functionality, and pre-existing templates.

Superflow is building a library of Webflow components that you can copy and paste into your project and customize to fit your branding.

Typedream CMS lets you create a website from your Notion data, as well as build an NFT mint page.

Most days we bring you the deets on all the cool software makers are launching, so each time we see new, shiny hardware, it’s a little extra special. If you haven’t felt excited by new phone releases in a while, these announcements might do the trick.

First up, we have the highly anticipated Nothing Phone (1) from OnePlus co-founder, Carl Pei. The device stands out with its “glyph interface,” which consists of a set of light strips on its rear. These act as notifications for things like the state of your battery and incoming calls.

When the device goes on sale at the end of July, it will be available in the UK and parts of Asia and Europe, at a mid-range price of about $475. Nothing seems to be betting on its distinctive design (it’s transparent) and powerful integrations with third-party products and technologies, like Polygon, instead of costly (yet cutting-edge) processors.

Xiaomi also launched its 12S Ultra flagship phone recently, which sports an impressive, custom-built 50.3MP 1-inch camera sensor from Sony that lets you take crisp images in low light, adding depth to your shots. In contrast to Nothing’s device, the 12S Ultra comes with the new, energy-efficient Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor.

If you’re an old soul and like to describe yourself as quirky, the Nokia 5710 XpressAudio might be a better choice. A blast from the past , the device brings back the traditional keyboard, but with a twist. The back of the phone has a built-in charging case for the earbuds it comes with.

In a world where giants like Apple and Samsung reign +40% of the smartphone market, seeing companies like Nothing try to disrupt feels exciting. Will you be snagging any of the above?

We oftentimes fall victim to the planning fallacy – overestimating how much we can get done while underestimating the time it will take to do it. It might be that we’re just being optimistic, or it might be that there’s so much noise, and finding the signal becomes hard. This applies particularly well to the vast amounts of content we see every day.

Upnext promises to solve a notoriously difficult problem – helping you consume the things you’re saving, rather than leaving them to die at the bottom of a folder. The app collects everything – from articles to Youtube videos and Twitter threads – and displays them in a homepage digest called Daily Picks. This shows you a curated list of items you have yet to go through, as well as previously created playlists of content.

Another interesting feature is its review tool, a Tinder-style interface that allows you to swipe and decide whether to keep an item as “up next” or archive it. While this could prove useful for decluttering, it might not be enough to nudge users or give enough reason to come back and consume the content. The recommendation system the team is working on to help with categorization might bring it closer to that, though. “Our upcoming ML models will automatically categorize anything you save, to make your library self-organizing and let you focus on a particular topic,” the team shares.

We’ve seen companies from big to small try to tackle this very issue. A few notable examples in the space that the community has shown interest in include Heyday, Omni, and Raindrop.

The question remains: do we actually want to consume everything we’re saving or is knowing that everything is safely stored enough? Join the discussion.

How can you tell someone’s a bot? That’s the $44B question. If you haven’t been following recent tech drama, here’s a quick rundown. In April, Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share. When Twitter allegedly refused his request to see more internal data (particularly bot-to-real-account ratio), Musk decided he no longer wanted to complete the purchase.

This morning, Twitter reportedly hired the legal firm behind the “poison pill” invention to sue Musk. A loss in court could have him paying a $1B breakup fee, unless he is able to prove the data he received about the company’s valuation was misleading.

Regardless of the claims, the hold that Twitter has on the tech world (us, too) doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and we continue seeing makers find interesting ways to build tools that improve the experience. Did anyone tell Elon about these?

This Dynamic Twitter Banner automatically displays social proof and gives thanks to your latest followers.

Twitter Thread analytics by ilo.so helps you understand how impressions and engagements change throughout your threads, using detailed metrics, funnels, and breakdown charts.

Launch Tweets is a collection of tweets from makers and teams who are using Twitter to announce the launch of their product.

Twitter for Shopify is a recent add-on that lets you sync your Shopify product catalog to Twitter Shopping Manager, and set up your Shopping feature in a few clicks.

tweet.pics lets you brand the images you’re sharing on Twitter, adding a colorful frame.

The Typefully team launched Profiles to help you automatically turn your tweets into a blog.