The Leaderboard
Our ultra-fast Daily: Three takes on new products. Yesterday’s top ten launches. That’s it.
Help India’s Covid crisis with these community initiatives
India is experiencing a major health crisis. COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing and relief in many places is still out of reach.
Product Hunt’s community support manager Aditya Choudhary told our team “The situation is really grim in the sense that there is a total collapse of health administration. But, the civil society has shown resilience and people have come together to support each other in numerous ways.”
In response to the crisis we’ve seen makers across the community rally to launch products that can help.
The Product Folks (an Indian community of product enthusiasts) and Cope Studio have just launched a website and app with a directory of resources to contribute to verified causes. As a thanks for your donation, they’re offering the opportunity to chat with some of India’s best product builders, thinkers, and entrepreneurs. Even if you are not a maker, the product is an excellent resource to find ways to contribute.
Another initiative is Fable’s NFT Fundraiser. Each crypto collectible for sale has been minted by an artist who has pledged their work towards COVID relief efforts in India. All proceeds go to CryptoRelief, an initiative by Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon.
These 5 additional community-driven projects are also available to cut through the noise of information on social media and get the help where it's needed faster.
CovidTweet - Filters recent tweets and extracts calls-to-action, like a call button to find verified sources of oxygen and beds
Twitter Covid Resources - Search tweets by city and filter topic (e.g. ventilators, tests)
Help India Fight Covid: A straight-forward compilation of resources shared on Twitter
Hyderabad Covid Resources - Emergency resources for Hyderabad
Verified Covid Leads - 200 volunteers are working together to power this app of resources for Delhi NCR & Maharashtra
If you’re not in India, these initiatives can be shared for others who may find them useful, and if you are able, consider donating to a verified cause.
Product Hunt’s community support manager Aditya Choudhary told our team “The situation is really grim in the sense that there is a total collapse of health administration. But, the civil society has shown resilience and people have come together to support each other in numerous ways.”
In response to the crisis we’ve seen makers across the community rally to launch products that can help.
The Product Folks (an Indian community of product enthusiasts) and Cope Studio have just launched a website and app with a directory of resources to contribute to verified causes. As a thanks for your donation, they’re offering the opportunity to chat with some of India’s best product builders, thinkers, and entrepreneurs. Even if you are not a maker, the product is an excellent resource to find ways to contribute.
Another initiative is Fable’s NFT Fundraiser. Each crypto collectible for sale has been minted by an artist who has pledged their work towards COVID relief efforts in India. All proceeds go to CryptoRelief, an initiative by Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon.
These 5 additional community-driven projects are also available to cut through the noise of information on social media and get the help where it's needed faster.
CovidTweet - Filters recent tweets and extracts calls-to-action, like a call button to find verified sources of oxygen and beds
Twitter Covid Resources - Search tweets by city and filter topic (e.g. ventilators, tests)
Help India Fight Covid: A straight-forward compilation of resources shared on Twitter
Hyderabad Covid Resources - Emergency resources for Hyderabad
Verified Covid Leads - 200 volunteers are working together to power this app of resources for Delhi NCR & Maharashtra
If you’re not in India, these initiatives can be shared for others who may find them useful, and if you are able, consider donating to a verified cause.
If Etsy and TikTok had a baby, by ex-Airbnb makers
Ever purchased art and then visited friends to find the exact same thing on their wall? It’s a lot different from that feeling when you snag a keepsake from a marketplace on your travels.
Rare Things debuted its e-Commerce store which combines what we love most about TikTok and Instagram shopping, without the ads. The store introduces you to clothing and home goods through short-form video of artisans in their studios doing their thing. Audio-lovers: they have interviews clips, too.
Rare Things comes from a team of ex-Airbnb makers. One noted:
“A creative renaissance is underway, but shopping on the internet is stuck in 2005… The contemporary creative class does not have the storytelling tools to properly convey the deep craft that goes into their work...”
Shoppers have a big appetite for artisanal and small-batch products these days, for good reasons. It’s a great way to support independent designers and makers. Plus you can find high-quality, brag-worthy items that are truly unique, recreating that feeling of travel shopping sorely missed. As one commenter puts it:
“Looking forward to being able to purchase a hand-made bag straight from a crafts(wo)man from a remote village in Italy, or ceramics straight from an independent maker in Taiwan, and feeling like I've met them in person. :)”
Now’s a great time to get out of that Ikea funk. More unique shopping:
👾 SuperRare - Rare crypto art and collectibles
👜 Italic - Unbranded goods from manufacturers of luxury brands
🕶️ Coco and Breezy - The sunglasses Beyonce loves, too
✂️ Mademyself - A ready-to-sew kit for fully DIY t-shirts
🪴 Nano Garden - A sleek smart garden for your tabletop
♻️ Lomi Composter - Countertop waste-to-compost appliance
🧴 Vacation - Poolside’s new “best-smelling sunscreen”
Rare Things debuted its e-Commerce store which combines what we love most about TikTok and Instagram shopping, without the ads. The store introduces you to clothing and home goods through short-form video of artisans in their studios doing their thing. Audio-lovers: they have interviews clips, too.
Rare Things comes from a team of ex-Airbnb makers. One noted:
“A creative renaissance is underway, but shopping on the internet is stuck in 2005… The contemporary creative class does not have the storytelling tools to properly convey the deep craft that goes into their work...”
Shoppers have a big appetite for artisanal and small-batch products these days, for good reasons. It’s a great way to support independent designers and makers. Plus you can find high-quality, brag-worthy items that are truly unique, recreating that feeling of travel shopping sorely missed. As one commenter puts it:
“Looking forward to being able to purchase a hand-made bag straight from a crafts(wo)man from a remote village in Italy, or ceramics straight from an independent maker in Taiwan, and feeling like I've met them in person. :)”
Now’s a great time to get out of that Ikea funk. More unique shopping:
👾 SuperRare - Rare crypto art and collectibles
👜 Italic - Unbranded goods from manufacturers of luxury brands
🕶️ Coco and Breezy - The sunglasses Beyonce loves, too
✂️ Mademyself - A ready-to-sew kit for fully DIY t-shirts
🪴 Nano Garden - A sleek smart garden for your tabletop
♻️ Lomi Composter - Countertop waste-to-compost appliance
🧴 Vacation - Poolside’s new “best-smelling sunscreen”
Hold workshops as smooth as butter
“That could have been an email.”
“Zoom fatigue”
“Just use async”
Anyone else getting fatigued from all the stress?
Butter has joined the chat with an all-in-one tool for collaborative and delightful sessions that are “as smooth as butter” thanks to its features.
If you’ve already integrated all the apps for better Zooming and you’re killing it with productive meetings, tell us more! If you’re struggling at this point in the pandemic, Butter might be just your jam. Agenda, polls, breakouts, Miro, reactions, sounds, and session recaps are easily accessible in Butter, which works in your browser.
“Butter is a masterclass in product design and user delight!” - Luc de Leyritz
“Finally i don't feel like talking to a wall. Butter sessions are so much more fun.” - Tamer
There’s no doubt the video call space (and the anti-video call space) is packed tight, even beyond Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Whereby just launched Breakout Groups and we saw Around 2.0 launch earlier this year with AI-based noise suppression. Google knows they’ve got work to do — they announced that Google Meet will be getting a UI refresh next month, although from what we can tell, there are no plans for integrated collaboration tools (Google team, may we suggest Figma’s FigJam?).
The team at Butter is using their launch to help you make the most of your day with a full schedule of workshops. It should be a good way to learn something new and see how you like the tool.
“Zoom fatigue”
“Just use async”
Anyone else getting fatigued from all the stress?
Butter has joined the chat with an all-in-one tool for collaborative and delightful sessions that are “as smooth as butter” thanks to its features.
If you’ve already integrated all the apps for better Zooming and you’re killing it with productive meetings, tell us more! If you’re struggling at this point in the pandemic, Butter might be just your jam. Agenda, polls, breakouts, Miro, reactions, sounds, and session recaps are easily accessible in Butter, which works in your browser.
“Butter is a masterclass in product design and user delight!” - Luc de Leyritz
“Finally i don't feel like talking to a wall. Butter sessions are so much more fun.” - Tamer
There’s no doubt the video call space (and the anti-video call space) is packed tight, even beyond Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Whereby just launched Breakout Groups and we saw Around 2.0 launch earlier this year with AI-based noise suppression. Google knows they’ve got work to do — they announced that Google Meet will be getting a UI refresh next month, although from what we can tell, there are no plans for integrated collaboration tools (Google team, may we suggest Figma’s FigJam?).
The team at Butter is using their launch to help you make the most of your day with a full schedule of workshops. It should be a good way to learn something new and see how you like the tool.
A super-fast browser from Suhail Doshi
Don't close those tabs.
Mighty has just launched — a faster browser that is entirely streamed from a powerful computer in the cloud.
“When you switch to Mighty, it will feel like you went out and bought a new computer with a much faster processor and much more memory. But you don't have to buy a new computer. All you have to do is download a desktop app.”
Mighty is the newest company from Mixpanel co-founder Suhail Doshi. Mighty says that its speed will enable users to have 50+ tabs open without your computer coming to a crawl. It’ll also give users 2+ hours of battery life. Designing in Figma will feel 2x faster.
Suhail explained in Mighty’s launch blog that while the team initially started its work by looking at streaming Microsoft Windows (“80%+ of humanity still runs Windows”), it became clear that the better focus was browsers now that people have shifted much of their activity to web apps.
“From the user's point of view, the browser is the operating system.”
Mighty suggests its impacts go beyond the browser. Suhail's master plan is to reignite the future of desktop computing. Today, power users are chucking out hardware for newer, pricier models every few years. Suhail’s vision is the opposite. He sees a future where we upgrade less, replacing expensive computers with lower-powered ones, yet still achieving multi-day battery life.
Critics may deem software speed less necessary as hardware improves, but Suhail views things as a virtuous cycle where one inspires the other.
“By changing the constraints we're all used to as software and hardware engineers, a new kind of computer is possible. A computer that can directly benefit consumers to take advantage of cloud infrastructure and networking.”
Mighty is now onboarding new users from their waitlist every week.
Mighty has just launched — a faster browser that is entirely streamed from a powerful computer in the cloud.
“When you switch to Mighty, it will feel like you went out and bought a new computer with a much faster processor and much more memory. But you don't have to buy a new computer. All you have to do is download a desktop app.”
Mighty is the newest company from Mixpanel co-founder Suhail Doshi. Mighty says that its speed will enable users to have 50+ tabs open without your computer coming to a crawl. It’ll also give users 2+ hours of battery life. Designing in Figma will feel 2x faster.
Suhail explained in Mighty’s launch blog that while the team initially started its work by looking at streaming Microsoft Windows (“80%+ of humanity still runs Windows”), it became clear that the better focus was browsers now that people have shifted much of their activity to web apps.
“From the user's point of view, the browser is the operating system.”
Mighty suggests its impacts go beyond the browser. Suhail's master plan is to reignite the future of desktop computing. Today, power users are chucking out hardware for newer, pricier models every few years. Suhail’s vision is the opposite. He sees a future where we upgrade less, replacing expensive computers with lower-powered ones, yet still achieving multi-day battery life.
Critics may deem software speed less necessary as hardware improves, but Suhail views things as a virtuous cycle where one inspires the other.
“By changing the constraints we're all used to as software and hardware engineers, a new kind of computer is possible. A computer that can directly benefit consumers to take advantage of cloud infrastructure and networking.”
Mighty is now onboarding new users from their waitlist every week.
One fintech investor thinks this is the next big trend
“Embedded fintech” may be the least sexy industry trend term, but on the positive side it means everyone gets to be the banker (sort of)!
Embedded banking or finance is on the up over the last few years, meaning more businesses are giving their customers a one-stop shop by integrating finance services into their products. According to Forbes, embedded finance will generate $230 billion in revenue by 2025, a 10x increase from $22.5 billion in 2020.
Method is the latest launch to help companies provide financial services. Method allows makers to embed debt repayment into their apps for credit card, student loan, car loan, and mortgage payments. The makers formed the idea while building Gradjoy, an app that helps students tackle their loans.
The term “embedded fintech” was coined in 2019 and despite a couple of early risers in this space, we’re just at the start of its boom. Yet if you’re thinking “embedded fintech is old news,” Merritt Hummer, partner at Bain Capital Ventures, agrees. Her article in TechCrunch speculates that we’re on the heels of the next trend wave: embedded procurement.
Hummer sees this as a sister concept, where businesses will begin managing inventory and procurement for their customers too. Imagine a SaaS which provides scheduling and POS for salons adding inventory management for supplies like shampoo. That company can begin aggregating its customers' demand to purchase for their customers at better prices.
This transition from “every company will be a fintech company” to “every company will be a marketplace” is on our watchlist. In the meantime, here are six more embedded fintech launches you may have missed:
Stripe Treasury - Banking-as-a-Service API from Stripe
Puzzl - Embedded payroll
Check - Another embedded payroll service
Lendflow API - Embedded lending infrastructure
Finch - Payroll and HR API
Alpaca Broker API - End-to-end brokerage embedding (we also wrote about Alpaca’s fractional trading API here)
Embedded banking or finance is on the up over the last few years, meaning more businesses are giving their customers a one-stop shop by integrating finance services into their products. According to Forbes, embedded finance will generate $230 billion in revenue by 2025, a 10x increase from $22.5 billion in 2020.
Method is the latest launch to help companies provide financial services. Method allows makers to embed debt repayment into their apps for credit card, student loan, car loan, and mortgage payments. The makers formed the idea while building Gradjoy, an app that helps students tackle their loans.
The term “embedded fintech” was coined in 2019 and despite a couple of early risers in this space, we’re just at the start of its boom. Yet if you’re thinking “embedded fintech is old news,” Merritt Hummer, partner at Bain Capital Ventures, agrees. Her article in TechCrunch speculates that we’re on the heels of the next trend wave: embedded procurement.
Hummer sees this as a sister concept, where businesses will begin managing inventory and procurement for their customers too. Imagine a SaaS which provides scheduling and POS for salons adding inventory management for supplies like shampoo. That company can begin aggregating its customers' demand to purchase for their customers at better prices.
This transition from “every company will be a fintech company” to “every company will be a marketplace” is on our watchlist. In the meantime, here are six more embedded fintech launches you may have missed:
Stripe Treasury - Banking-as-a-Service API from Stripe
Puzzl - Embedded payroll
Check - Another embedded payroll service
Lendflow API - Embedded lending infrastructure
Finch - Payroll and HR API
Alpaca Broker API - End-to-end brokerage embedding (we also wrote about Alpaca’s fractional trading API here)
Amazon wants to be your palm reader 🖐
Amazon announced it's expanding its contactless payment solution, Amazon One, from a few Amazon Go stores to seven more Whole Foods Market stores in the Seattle area.
After signing up once, shoppers wave their palm over the Amazon One reader to pay — no wristbands or device needed. The reader captures biometric data from your palm to identify you for payment.
While Amazon slowly works its way up to battle Square, here are new launches speeding up payments in other spaces.
Healthcare
Just-launched Peachy Pay is frictionless payment for medical bills. While we’re not quite at the “wave your palm as you exit the hospital” place, Peachy Pay could be a leap forward for an industry still bogged down by paper bills, clunky payment portals, and phone negotiations.
Subscriptions
As D2C boomed, the stack for small businesses grew too. Still, as hot as subscriptions have become, it's been tough for local sellers to keep up. Per Diem offers local businesses like coffee shops and farmers market sellers a quick onboarding to set up and manage subscription sales, fulfillment, and delivery. The company just announced a $2.3 million fundraise led by Two Sigma Ventures.
Cryptocurrency
Lastbit Cards recently launched to give Europeans the ability to pay in Bitcoin, followed by Lastbit Lite, a solution to pay and get paid in Bitcoin. Maker Prashanth Balasubramanian explained that he was “frustrated with not being able to use Bitcoin in the real world.” Today, it’s rare to see a shop accept Bitcoin, and we recently wrote about how Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong believes payment acceptance is essential to crypto really going mainstream.
Coindesk reported that Lastbit has also been working with Visa to get to market faster in the U.S.
B2B
B2B payments are often slow and manual because they’re full of TBDs. Balance is a new self-serve B2B checkout system to deal with those complexities. Businesses can set up their own payment process, defining their net terms and how they want to pay through a checkout that looks as simple as modern B2C checkouts.
After signing up once, shoppers wave their palm over the Amazon One reader to pay — no wristbands or device needed. The reader captures biometric data from your palm to identify you for payment.
While Amazon slowly works its way up to battle Square, here are new launches speeding up payments in other spaces.
Healthcare
Just-launched Peachy Pay is frictionless payment for medical bills. While we’re not quite at the “wave your palm as you exit the hospital” place, Peachy Pay could be a leap forward for an industry still bogged down by paper bills, clunky payment portals, and phone negotiations.
Subscriptions
As D2C boomed, the stack for small businesses grew too. Still, as hot as subscriptions have become, it's been tough for local sellers to keep up. Per Diem offers local businesses like coffee shops and farmers market sellers a quick onboarding to set up and manage subscription sales, fulfillment, and delivery. The company just announced a $2.3 million fundraise led by Two Sigma Ventures.
Cryptocurrency
Lastbit Cards recently launched to give Europeans the ability to pay in Bitcoin, followed by Lastbit Lite, a solution to pay and get paid in Bitcoin. Maker Prashanth Balasubramanian explained that he was “frustrated with not being able to use Bitcoin in the real world.” Today, it’s rare to see a shop accept Bitcoin, and we recently wrote about how Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong believes payment acceptance is essential to crypto really going mainstream.
Coindesk reported that Lastbit has also been working with Visa to get to market faster in the U.S.
B2B
B2B payments are often slow and manual because they’re full of TBDs. Balance is a new self-serve B2B checkout system to deal with those complexities. Businesses can set up their own payment process, defining their net terms and how they want to pay through a checkout that looks as simple as modern B2C checkouts.
Best indie product of 2021?
Every month we announce the three new determined makers who’ve been awarded a $5,000 Maker Grant for their launches from the previous month, and acknowledge the awesome products they’ve built with grit and innovation. Congrats to...
🧘 1Feed from Ethan
You can scroll with less stress thanks to 1Feed. Ethan first built it to solve his own consumption problems. 1Feed will keep you up to date, yet serve as your quiet place with one spot for your Google news feed, Twitter timeline, etc.
💌 Rollups from Danielle Johnson and James Ivings
Rollups is the second product from this bootstrapping team as part of their overall mission to help people take back control of their emails. Rollups bundles all of your mailing lists into one weekly digest email. It follows Leave Me Alone, an email unsubscription service.
💡 Product Lessons from Linda Zhang
Product Lessons are actionable lessons to accelerate your career. Linda was inspired to create this library of resources after finding there was an overabundance of theory on building products, but a scarcity on how to apply those ideas.
In the launch of Product Lessons, Linda noted she was a long-time lurker, first-time launcher. She shared with us how she approaches the mindset of being a maker.
🧘 1Feed from Ethan
You can scroll with less stress thanks to 1Feed. Ethan first built it to solve his own consumption problems. 1Feed will keep you up to date, yet serve as your quiet place with one spot for your Google news feed, Twitter timeline, etc.
“Best indie product of 2021 by far!” - Ferminrp
“I love the idea of taking the dopamine out of a feed. Great mission!” - Justin
💌 Rollups from Danielle Johnson and James Ivings
Rollups is the second product from this bootstrapping team as part of their overall mission to help people take back control of their emails. Rollups bundles all of your mailing lists into one weekly digest email. It follows Leave Me Alone, an email unsubscription service.
“You really upped your game” - Francesco Di Lorenzo
“Love the Rollups. It keeps getting better and better...” - Fajar Siddiq
💡 Product Lessons from Linda Zhang
Product Lessons are actionable lessons to accelerate your career. Linda was inspired to create this library of resources after finding there was an overabundance of theory on building products, but a scarcity on how to apply those ideas.
“That's one hell of a collection, and I love it :D” - Rashika Ahuja
“It really helps you develop the intuition and mindset of developing great products” - Hiba Ganta
In the launch of Product Lessons, Linda noted she was a long-time lurker, first-time launcher. She shared with us how she approaches the mindset of being a maker.
NEW from Apple
It’s that time of the season—the time when most of our team stops what they’re doing to watch the latest Apple announcements.
Two updates that were anticipated but still big news were the inclusion of the M1 chipset into the new iMac and new iPad Pro. The Apple team did a side-by-side comparison of the new iMac with the previous generation. It showed how the M1 enabled Apple to completely redesign the iMac, making it 50% smaller in volume while significantly increasing its speed and performance.
In addition, the new iMac comes in seven vibrant colors. So far, our Twitter poll shows teal to be the fan-favorite.
We also finally got the AirTag, Apple’s answer to Bluetooth trackers like Tile and Pebblebee. While it seems like Apple took its time to get into this space, many are expecting the wait to pay off.
AirTags work using the Find My app, which Apple customers already rely on. Apple combines its advanced tech features in the camera, accelerometer, gyroscope, and ARKit to bring “Precision Finding” to device tracking. Plus, if your AirTag is out of Bluetooth range, it can use the billion other Apple devices that are connected to the Find My network to detect your tracker. While other tracker companies highlight a similar feature, none of them have a network as large as Apple’s.
Creators: Apple is revamping their Podcasts app with Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, enabling a marketplace where you can offer premium subscriptions to listeners.
Go here for a succinct but fuller recap 👇.
Two updates that were anticipated but still big news were the inclusion of the M1 chipset into the new iMac and new iPad Pro. The Apple team did a side-by-side comparison of the new iMac with the previous generation. It showed how the M1 enabled Apple to completely redesign the iMac, making it 50% smaller in volume while significantly increasing its speed and performance.
In addition, the new iMac comes in seven vibrant colors. So far, our Twitter poll shows teal to be the fan-favorite.
We also finally got the AirTag, Apple’s answer to Bluetooth trackers like Tile and Pebblebee. While it seems like Apple took its time to get into this space, many are expecting the wait to pay off.
AirTags work using the Find My app, which Apple customers already rely on. Apple combines its advanced tech features in the camera, accelerometer, gyroscope, and ARKit to bring “Precision Finding” to device tracking. Plus, if your AirTag is out of Bluetooth range, it can use the billion other Apple devices that are connected to the Find My network to detect your tracker. While other tracker companies highlight a similar feature, none of them have a network as large as Apple’s.
Creators: Apple is revamping their Podcasts app with Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, enabling a marketplace where you can offer premium subscriptions to listeners.
Go here for a succinct but fuller recap 👇.
8 new community favorites for collaboration
True story: This writer once had an otherwise savvy manager who gave feedback by taking actual photos of the screen and texting them. Despite urging for a better solution, the habit stuck. It was a nightmare that would pain any technophile because we know there are better solutions.
Here are eight new collaboration tools the community embraced quickly:
Disbug - Record your screen, narrate, and post technical logs to Jira.
Now go check out what commenters were calling the “greatest launch video of all time.”
Here are eight new collaboration tools the community embraced quickly:
Disbug - Record your screen, narrate, and post technical logs to Jira.
“Quick way to create defects and attaching with JIRA. Well Done Man :)” - Vincent George
ProductShot - Enrich your screenshots to highlight what matters.“I love this idea and tool… So far I’ve been using Keynote, and it’s pretty tedious.” - Norah Klintberg Sakal
“Record a short video of a few slides or diagrams, or a spreadsheet, and include an intro clip... Think business TikTok for short meetings....” - Elliott Ng
Screenity - Record, draw, highlight, and collaborate. Plus it’s open source.“Loving how intuitive this is to use, particularly with the drawing features!” - Calum Webb
/record by Standups - Send recordings with AI-powered transcripts.“very cool; super low friction to recording a voice memo and sharing in slack.” - Walter Chen
Bubbles - Drop a comment on anything on your screen.“Yes - it is as simple as - Click, Comment, Share.” - kashif shamaz
Loom for Android - Watch, share, and record video messages; now on Android.“FINALLY 😍” - Tasos Valtinos
Brevy Beta - Collaborate Google-doc style on your website.“This reminds me of the workflow on GitHub where a commit can be linked to issues.” - Vahid Fazel-Rezai
Now go check out what commenters were calling the “greatest launch video of all time.”
“Stick the finger to free trials”
How long has it been since you were enticed by a free trial that ended up costing you?
Over the weekend, Slash launched with a service to save you from the consequences of forgetfulness. Slash lets you issue joint, shared debit cards that you and friends can “co-own” so you can split the costs on things like streaming subscriptions. This also means you can quickly create new cards, say with a limit of $1, to skirt being charged once your free trial expires. As maker Victor Daniel Cardenas notes, you’ll be “sticking the finger to free trials!”
“We started Slash as an answer to the ridiculous number of streaming, music, news, and other subscription services that have popped up, each offering their own silos of exclusive content.”
Remember not long ago when we talked about all the different forms of fractional ownership popping up? Add this one to the bank.
Slash’s two main use cases are growing in relevancy.
In the early days of streaming, apps like Netflix and Hulu were seen as an escape from excessive cable bills. As Bloomberg just reported, “If you put together the flagship streaming services… it would now cost you $92 a month in the U.S… as much as a typical cable-TV subscription.”
Separately, Vox writer Emily Steward just lamented about free trial enticements, and did a deep dive on the psychology and finance behind them, noting “Free trials flip the switch from choosing to buy to remembering to quit.”
Slash may be playing in gray territory. Commenters asked how the product will stand up against Terms of Service violations. It looks like the makers are willing to face the risks, partially because splitting amongst a household is totally kosher and partially because...
“Our bet is that it's pretty unlikely that most of them will crack down on cost-splitters, as they depend on these users to keep their service afloat!”
Last summer we saw a similar product, Braid, launch on Product Hunt. Braid enables group accounts by connecting to your existing bank accounts. Like Slash, Braid’s makers noted a lack of Venmo features and stitched-together solutions with apps and excel sheets as a driving motivator behind their product. Unlike Slash, Braid currently offers one credit card paired to a group.
Over the weekend, Slash launched with a service to save you from the consequences of forgetfulness. Slash lets you issue joint, shared debit cards that you and friends can “co-own” so you can split the costs on things like streaming subscriptions. This also means you can quickly create new cards, say with a limit of $1, to skirt being charged once your free trial expires. As maker Victor Daniel Cardenas notes, you’ll be “sticking the finger to free trials!”
“We started Slash as an answer to the ridiculous number of streaming, music, news, and other subscription services that have popped up, each offering their own silos of exclusive content.”
Remember not long ago when we talked about all the different forms of fractional ownership popping up? Add this one to the bank.
Slash’s two main use cases are growing in relevancy.
In the early days of streaming, apps like Netflix and Hulu were seen as an escape from excessive cable bills. As Bloomberg just reported, “If you put together the flagship streaming services… it would now cost you $92 a month in the U.S… as much as a typical cable-TV subscription.”
Separately, Vox writer Emily Steward just lamented about free trial enticements, and did a deep dive on the psychology and finance behind them, noting “Free trials flip the switch from choosing to buy to remembering to quit.”
Slash may be playing in gray territory. Commenters asked how the product will stand up against Terms of Service violations. It looks like the makers are willing to face the risks, partially because splitting amongst a household is totally kosher and partially because...
“Our bet is that it's pretty unlikely that most of them will crack down on cost-splitters, as they depend on these users to keep their service afloat!”
Last summer we saw a similar product, Braid, launch on Product Hunt. Braid enables group accounts by connecting to your existing bank accounts. Like Slash, Braid’s makers noted a lack of Venmo features and stitched-together solutions with apps and excel sheets as a driving motivator behind their product. Unlike Slash, Braid currently offers one credit card paired to a group.
