👋 It's Friday — you survived. If you made a mistake this week that's still making you cringe, know that no one will remember come Monday. Still feel lousy? At least you're not the Inference CEO who accidentally named his new project after a famous OnlyFans model. Oops.
STARTING UP
Can self-care enter the oral care aisle?
❌ The problem: Dental hygiene isn't fun. While skincare brands promote indulgence and self-care, oral care brands feel medicinal and dull.
💡 The pitch: Penn State student Daniella Omijeh founded Perlae, a toothpaste brand designed to make brushing more enjoyable. After researching ingredients and consulting dentists, Omijeh worked with a manufacturer to bring the tubes to life. The finished product combines an effective formulation with branding that feels more like self-care, less like a chore.
🚀 The outlook: Perlae manufactured 5k+ tubes, officially launched its website, and began taking orders. Omijeh plans to continue growing the company, seek investments, and launch an affiliate program on TikTok. And, we assume, have really clean teeth.
NEWS FLASH
You, but… not: Eternos, a startup that built AI chatbots meant to replicate real people, has changed its name to Uare.ai. It's also pivoted from building chatbots that live on after someone's death to digital twins that can perform tasks for their users.
Bat signal: Nitin J. Sanket, a researcher at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is building robotic "bats" that use ultrasound and software to navigate difficult terrain during search and rescue missions.
That's depressing: The top track on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart in the US is an AI-generated song called "Walk My Walk," attributed to a creator who apparently also generates X-rated music with titles we will not be repeating here.
Sonder, the short-term rental startup once valued at $1.9B, will file for bankruptcy following the abrupt end of its partnership with Marriott International, with the latter citing Sonder's financial difficulties. Sonder hotel guests toldCNBC they were ordered to vacate with less than 24 hours' notice.
COPY THIS
The AI prompt vault: 60 strategic commands
This AI prompt library is designed for the innovators working in sales, marketing, management, and customer service roles.
Open the vault for 60+ commands, including ones built specifically for the HubSpot deep research connector in ChatGPT, that you can use to unlock deeper, faster, more contextual strategic insights.
Prospecting: "Analyze which combination of touch points (calls, emails, LinkedIn messages) leads to the highest response rates…"
Segmenting: "Develop targeted messaging frameworks for our top 3 industry verticals, highlighting…"
Customer success: "Identify the personas that converted fastest from lead to customer in the last 90 days…"
This resource makes it so very simple — click to copy-paste.
RIP, piggy banks — the ceramic cash containers of our youths are on their way to becoming relics of an analog era.
Doing them in: a host of new, parent-favored financial apps that have emerged in recent years to teach today's kids how to budget, save, and invest their money, perThe Washington Post.
How they work
These apps help minors learn about financial literacy through educational videos and gamified lessons, and by giving them debit cards and access to manage their own funds. Teens with jobs can receive direct deposits through their accounts.
Parents, meanwhile, can automate allowances, pay their kids for completing chores, receive real-time notifications about transactions, set spending limits, and block certain vendors.
Most offer a free tier, with monthly subscriptions usually starting at ~$5 and increasing from there, depending on add-ons, like cash back rewards.
One popular family money app…
… is Greenlight, which boasts 6.5m+ users, 4m+ of whom have joined in the last five years.
In 2024, kids and teens managed a record $2B through its app, according to the company's annual report, which also found:
The average allowance across age groups was $13.42.
Their monthly spend hovered at $126, with much of it going to companies like Amazon and DoorDash.
Collectively, they stashed away $259m, with most saving toward cars, college, and their futures, and invested $43m into stocks like Apple and Nvidia.
Other platforms include Acorns Early (3.3m global users), as well as Jassby, Kachinga, FamZoo, and Modak.
Bank or bust?
While it frankly feels wrong for a child to know anything about Nvidia, these apps set them up with key skills that many of us missed out on.
The financial literacy rate is just 57% in the US, and even lower globally (33%).
Mixing minors with sensitive personal information does, however, raise obvious privacy concerns, like media-illiterate tots' vulnerability to scams and hacks, and what the companies might do with their data.
Despite the risks, parents who spoke to The Post said the apps have helped their kids learn important lessons about money and, in some cases, even give them a sense of financial empowerment.
One Acorns user reportedly told her mother, "Spending your own money feels so much better than when somebody buys it for you."
High school dropout turned billionaire? That's a pretty epic journey. Throw in the purchase of an NBA team, and you've got yourself quite a success story.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Age of the penny upon its death, the very last of which were pressed at the US Mint in Philadelphia on Wednesday. With billions still in circulation, the 1-cent coins will remain legal tender, though you might get a bigger bang for your buck by saving rather than spending them — since its introduction in 1793, the penny has become nearly worthless, costing ~4x its monetary value to actually produce, perAP News. US Treasurer Brandon Beach says the move will save taxpayers $56m.
Guess it's time to get used to saying "a nickel for your thoughts," which doesn't have the same ring to it, though, on the upside, it would mean your ideas are now worth more.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1882, the infamous Billy "the Kid" Claiborne was fatally shot by gunslinger Frank "Buckskin" Leslie in Tombstone, Arizona.
Security at every level of an airport is absolutely ridiculous. Until you get to the baggage claim. Then it's just like, take whatever bag you want.SOURCE
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