The Leaderboard

Yesterday, we wrote about how startups are tackling employee onboarding challenges caused by a remote workforce. There’s another culprit at play here — the fact that we use so many apps.

On average, small to large businesses implement 73-175 apps. As we mentioned, documentation is one solution to helping teams manage buried knowledge among all these tools. Another is search.

A search tool for your work apps might feel like déjà vu if you read our newsletter on Qatalog. The “work hub” pulls together all your tools and has a master search function. This week we also met Glean.

Glean calls itself a “work assistant.” The hero feature today is the ability to search across all of your work apps, and there are discovery and connection functions for team members, too. This part slightly resembles a social or LinkedIn profile, but Glean says the product reveals insights and helps you find people who can help with whatever it is you need at work.

“Glean can search across the entire breadth of your company... It understands who you are, what you’re working on, and who you’re working with, to deliver highly personalized results,” CEO Arvind Jain wrote.

The makers’ expertise is reflected across Glean. Jain himself founded Rubrik, a cloud data management company, after serving over a decade as an engineer at Google. He’s joined by several other ex-Googlers and Facebook engineers.

Glean and Qatalog are after your holistic workspace, but we’ve seen several other tools launch this year to make information more accessible through search.

Jadoo - Search and manage your mobile screenshots
Findem - Search for the ideal job candidate with the exact attributes you need
Bloop - In-IDE code search engine that retrieves JS and TypeScript code examples
Vehicle Listings API - Programmatically search cars and trucks available for sale
SaveCmd Terminal Search - Search command history from other clients from the command line

Now we just need a product that searches our brains for names we just learned.

No doubt, a lot of you are power users of some of the SaaS tools you use at work, especially if you helped implement them for your team.

A new startup thinks that makes you a treasure trove of potential for helping with onboarding and documentation. Tango is a tool, enabled by a Chrome extension, that automatically creates step-by-step how-to guides as you complete your work.

In today’s launch, co-founder Ken Babcock shared:

“What started as an idea to digitally “shadow” co-workers blossomed into the fastest way to capture and share know-how... We capture screenshots, links, and descriptions to save you time and energy… you become your team’s hero!”

With more companies going remote, employee onboarding is ripe for an upgrade. The makers of Tango told TechCrunch they saw the window of opportunity open in this space when the pandemic happened, so they left Harvard Business School to go start Tango. Last month, the company announced its $5.7M seed round.

Employee onboarding is just one use case for Tango; another obvious one is customer support. Early adopter Jon Bell pointed out on the launch page that automated documentation could work for personal use as well. Bell just launched Replay.io yesterday, which is in a similar cohort of recording tools. It helps teams capture, inspect, and document bugs so developers can squash them faster.

Tango is looking for feedback from the community so if you’re sitting on some knowledge, you can ship it to your team and test the tool here.👇

We weren’t the only ones streaming the party yesterday. Apple held its latest event — the one that annually triggers iOS users to stop and think, “Hm, do I need an upgrade?”

Mobile gamers, in particular, could be tempted by the new iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, which got the new A15 Bionic chip. Apple said it’s the "fastest CPU in any smartphone" with a 6-core CPU (one more than the new non-Pro models). Because of the updates, the Pro models allow for 50% faster graphics and can last about 1.5-2.5 hours longer than the iPhone 12 Pro and Max models, respectively.

Apple unveiling a new iPhone with a better camera is a free space on your bingo card every year. With this update, Pro models got a bigger, 77 mm telephoto lens (these help you to take photos of subjects that are farther away) with night mode and 3x optical zoom (up from 2x-2.5x). Users also get new wide and ultrawide cameras, autofocus, and a new mode for taking close-ups up to 2cm away.

The standard iPhone 13 and Mini models also feature the A15 Bionic chip. The dual camera got updates as well, but Apple is mostly playing up its new Cinematic Mode across all models. It’s basically portrait mode but for video.

Apple Watch Series 7 also got some upgrades, most notably a wider screen and 20% larger display.

The biggest star of the show though was probably the iPad — specifically the new iPad Mini. It got the A15 Bionic chip and lost its home button — meaning it now looks like a mini iPad Air complete with a USB-C port and Touch ID on the power button. The iPad and iPad Mini also got ultrawide cameras with Center Stage. The feature uses machine learning to adjust the front-facing camera during FaceTime video calls to keep you in frame.

We’re looking forward to hearing what you’re most excited about and what you’re disappointed by — you too, Android users.

Tonight in New York City we're gathering (safely) IRL for the first time in over a year!

Bummed, you’re not here? Don’t be — it’s a hybrid event! Join us in our virtual world, complete with lounge rooms for chatting, poolside views, and kitties at every turn.

Tons of fun will be had — we’ll meet the people behind our Product Hunt avatars, talk about the products we’re obsessing over, and you’ll hear from Product Hunt’s CEO Ashley Higgins and HYPER’s Shahed Khan.

The party kicks off at 6:30pm EST. Can’t wait to see you there!

The tech community got the big news we were waiting for on Friday — a U.S. judge issued a ruling in the Epic v. Apple case. Starting December 9, developers can skirt the 30% commission Apple usually takes on in-app purchases by using links and buttons to direct customers outside of Apple’s ecosystem.

Apple plans to appeal, but a settlement between Apple and Japan’s Fair Trade Commission also recently allowed developers of “reader” apps to link externally, so we’re not sure Apple can stop this tide from shifting. In yet another recent case (a class action suit), Apple settled on a $100M payout for small developers.

There has been a lot at stake in these cases, with losses and wins on both sides. At Product Hunt, we’re often happy to see changes that help app developers with distribution and sales.

On that note, we’re highlighting 9 of the newest trending iOS apps you might find handy:

Omnicourse - Grow your skills with audio courses; Lecturers get paid by the minute

Playsit - Organize your game library, mark what you’ve played, and share with friends

Candlewaster - Improve your reading habit with tracking and visualization of your stats

Loggo - Log fevers, meds, liquids and symptoms while you care for a sick loved ones

Jaadoo - Search and manage your mobile screenshots

Holly Health 2.0 - An adaptive burnout-prevention coach with evidenced psychology

Chiff - Login to any website with your face or fingerprint

RPGen - Hand-crafted content for quick hooks and stories in RPG games like D&D

Documents X - Super app for file actions like editing PDFs, unique formats, and sharing

Bartering is the comeback kid of twenty-first-century commerce, even without too much help from technology beyond the internet and its forums.

The continuous growth of sharing economy startups has helped re-familiarize people with the idea of not buying new stuff, but trading without money is still largely left to Craigslist, Facebook Groups, Nextdoor comments, and the desert city of Burning Man.

Now that social distancing and tough times have given people extra incentive to swop stuff, there could be enough demand for better tech.

Enter Swop.it, a new app for exchanging items based on location and interest. Is an app dedicated to bartering enough to take people away from the familiarity of apps like Facebook?

Here’s what makes Swop.it interesting. Along with baked-in shipping, audio, and video calls, Swop.it can create a chain of exchanges where the initiator doesn’t have to negotiate along the way.

“We engineered a mechanism in which [the] user chooses desired item, but if he doesn't have a same-value trade for it or interests simply don't match — we find people with goods that can be placed in-between to complete the deal,” maker Julie Bonbina shared.

We’ve all read those articles — the ones where someone swops a bobby pin for bigger and bigger items until they end up with a house. They’re fun, but gimmicky too. Swop.it doesn’t seem to be too interested in gimmicks. Bonbina explained that the service is designed for individuals, not resellers. Also...

​​"The morale [of those stories] is the exact reason why we engineered our product in a way where not only one person can get something valuable from the deal and enjoy it, but many."

“The lack of women in the tech industry has been referred to as a leaky pipeline problem. From high school to college to early careers — women are dropping out,” maker Dora Palfi explained during a talk she gave online at the tech conference UPPSTART last year.

So Palfi did research on where she could have the greatest impact. She found that up until ages 11 and 12, girls and boys have a similar interest in technology and science before they start to drop off (at age 11, 86% of girls express interest in such topics, but by age 16, only 36% do).

Taking a user-centered design approach, Palfi and her co-founders worked with girls in this age group to understand what they like, and then they built imagi.

imagi is an app that helps kids learn to code with games and social experiences on their phones. The company is targeting 300 million pre-teen girls worldwide with the goal of encouraging them to start coding but boys, nonbinary kids, and adults can also enjoy the app.

imagi’s mobile-first approach to learning how to code is also of note, too. Phone use is a hard line to tow for parents, but simply put, more pre-teen kids have phones now. Global usage varies but to throw a couple of stats at you, estimates show more than half of kids in the US have a phone by age 11. In South Korea, the number is 72% by age 11 or 12. imagi may just be hitting where it matters most.

Today’s Product Hunt launch is an iteration following imagi’s initial launch two years ago. Palfi explained:

“Our imagi iOS app has recently gone through a major makeover, and now introduces Python through a visual and gamified learning journey, where colorful pixel art can be both created and shared.”

On the flip side, yesterday a second iteration of Tappity launched, too. Tappity is a library of hundreds of interactive science videos to inspire kids age 4-10. Among it’s updates, Tappity’s makers have released a web version, explaining:

“Realizing not all kids have Apple devices, we’re excited to make Tappity available to the other millions of kids out there.”

"But what about my baby, you say?" The community’s got you covered there too with the Computer Engineering for Babies book.

Among hard forks and nodes, “on-ramp” may be the most friendly term in the cryptosphere. It’s the exchange of government-issued currency for cryptocurrency.

Creating accessible, user-friendly ramps is one of the biggest hurdles to crypto becoming more mainstream. Imagine a non-technical person on an NFT marketplace, credit card in hand, confused about how to buy in ETH (you're not alone).

MoonPay launched today on Product Hunt, a product that enables both easy on/off-ramping for individual users, and a B2B integration for makers to incorporate the same functionality into their products. Dapper Labs (NBA Topshot) and OpenSea are two NFT marketplaces we’ve covered that partner with MoonPay, so the confused user we imagined above can buy a Lebron dunk shot with a simple exchange to crypto starting with their credit/debit card.

MoonPay first began enabling the purchase of Bitcoin in the UK and EU in 2019. Now its users can buy or sell over 80 cryptocurrencies in 160 countries. The makers are working on recurring purchases and an NFT direct purchase widget, among other new features. Co-founder Victor Faramond shared:

“At MoonPay, we’re obsessed by User Experience (we’re always running dozen of experiments on our widget) but also Developer Experience (any developer can set up our buy widget in a few minutes...)”

Many in the Product Hunt community are giving that experience a thumbs up so far:

“I was pretty nervous about buying my first cryptocurrency, I didn't even know where to start as there is a lot of specific terminology... I have to say MoonPay are true to their word…” - Lauren Borodajko

“Not every company has the resources... [to build] their crypto-payments stack. Empowering any product to offer.. the buying & selling of crypto with just a few lines of code is simply amazing.” - Aveem Alvi

Four years ago, Brian Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase (which makes competitor products), made a prediction on a Product Hunt AMA using back-of-the-napkin math. He guessed between 270M and 2.5B people would have or use digital currency in 3-5 years. TripleA estimates there are 300M crypto users worldwide today (not bad, Armstrong).

MoonPay wants a piece of the next 1B: "Our mission is to give the next billion people access to cryptocurrency."

We wouldn’t be surprised to hear stories about the Tooth Fairy paying by Venmo or in Dogecoin these days.

Dental, like the rest of the world, has been moving towards digital and at-home care. Mostly we’ve seen D2C orthodontics and subscription products, like Quip which just raised $100M.

Today’s launch of Adent Health goes a step further with an app for scanning your teeth and tracking your dental health. Adent uses your smartphone’s camera and AI computer vision to give you a free dental checkup, spotting signs of more than 10 oral conditions (so far).

If it makes you a little weary to leave dental health to an app, that’s understandable. The makers explain that Adent is a certified medical device, and they’ve worked with dental professionals for over 40k hours to build and test its algorithms and clinical outcomes.

Dentists from the team are also chiming in to answer questions from the community. When asked about spotting hidden caries or cavities deep in the mouth, maker Leila Samadi explained that an X-Ray would likely be needed, but the app often detects signs from users who report pain or sensitivity.

“We are not in this world to replace dentists — a dentist will always be the gold standard… we are strong believers in prevention and early intervention... You scan your teeth and get a 95% accurate answer... And because you can do it every one or two weeks, we see that our users are tracking their health.”

Co-founder Richard Bundsgaard shared that he was inspired to start Adent Health after receiving an incorrect diagnosis from a dentist himself, all but highlighting another point: IRL misdiagnoses do happen. Maybe another way to think of Adent is as your first opinion, if the dentist is your second (after all, you'll still need to go to one for treatment).

Adent is offering an exclusive for the Product Hunt community: a free scan and consultation in exchange for feedback.

A small investment, like $10K, is enough for a solo founder to fund their own salary for six months while they build their product.

That’s the premise behind Micro Invest from maker Mohd Danish, which launched on Product Hunt after a positive response to a tweet about connecting founders to investors, one-to-one.

To the outside world, tech fundraising is often portrayed as meetings with eccentric personalities in cutthroat VC firms, like Silicon Valley’s Russ and Laurie. That won’t stop any time soon since venture capital continues to set records. Crunchbase shows "funding was up by more than $100 billion for the first half of 2021 compared to the previous half-year peak [of] global funding in the second half of 2020."

Founders have more options these days though, like crowdfunding. Platforms like Republic offer makers access to a large pool of individual investors, including people they don’t have existing relationships with.

However, Danish believes that single relationships might help makers skip headaches related to fundraising and get straight to conversations with passionate backers who are also focused on building the product.

A focus on execution is one reason makers cite choosing to bootstrap their company rather than fundraise at all. Bootstrappers often see their decision as one between focusing on users of their product and pleasing investors.

Resources for bootstrappers are growing, too. A year ago, Andrew Gazdecki launched MicroAcquire, a marketplace that helps bootstrapped startups start conversations that lead to an acquisition. MicroAcquire has now surpassed $800K in annual recurring revenue from premium buyer subscriptions. Last week, Gazdecki deepened his dedication to this space by launching Bootstrappers, a publication dedicated to covering bootstrapped makers and their products.

Whether makers choose to fund their own projects or fundraise is a decision they have to make based on personal and product needs. If you’re a maker that’s considering fundraising, in addition to Micro Invest you can check out a couple of resources from others in the Product Hunt community: Max Fleitmann has put together 6 Lessons From Raising Millions from Investors and Eric Crane shared his 6 lessons after raising a $35M Series A for Flatfile in March.