🥃 Taking the edge off

Plus: A very boozy beer, how to be less annoyed, and more.

Share The Hustle: https://thehustle.co/join?ref=7598767985 Check your referral progress & prizes here 👋  Good morning. Were you up last night staring at the ceiling with a racing mind? You likely weren't alone — psychologists surveyed 4.3k+ people and found we all have a lot to worry about. While there are hundreds of concerns gnawing at our peace of mind, job decisions — taking one, quitting one — topped the list, followed by investing money and driving a car. So your stress is actually very fashionable right now, you little trendsetter, you.   STARTING UP This startup fills a void in chronic illness care ❌  The problem: When a person gets diagnosed with a chronic illness, they're hit with a daunting to-do list of procedures, medications, and tests. But they're rarely given resources to manage the emotional side of that overwhelming process.  💡  The pitch: Mun Health wants to support patients immediately after they've received a chronic illness diagnosis — and while they wait an average of 38 days for an appointment. Nova, Mun's AI-powered companion app, helps people manage the mental load of illness with evidence-based emotional check-ins and guidance.    🚀  The outlook: So far, Nova has a 65% opt-in rate from users who received the link directly via email. Currently, Nova focuses on patients who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, but the startup has plans to expand its support for other illnesses and launch its mobile app. Medical care might get a whole lot better if every specialist could tell their patients, "There's an app for that." NEWS FLASH   Joy Parenting Club, a Bay Area-based platform for parents, raised $14m to scale its AI model. Its app, which has 50k paid subscribers, connects parents to both human parenting experts and AI-powered guidance, tracking, and insights. Gamma, an AI platform for generating presentations, websites, and social posts, raised $68m for a valuation of $2.1B. Since launching in 2020, it's achieved profitability and attracted 70m users. In the flesh: MIT researchers and South Korean beauty company Amorepacific developed Skinsight, a Bluetooth-enabled skin patch that analyzes skin tightness, moisture, aging, and other qualities, then shares these insights and skincare recommendations in an app. Just two guys in an AI trench coat: Fireflies co-founder and CTO Sam Udotong admitted that the AI note-taking startup began as Udotong and his co-founder quietly "taking notes by hand" — not the AI bot the company advertised and has since built — for 100+ meetings. Following backlash, he claimed that these companies knew there was a "human in the loop" and didn't mind.   FOR YOUR TOOLBOX AI tools you've been missing out on   If you're still sitting on the AI sidelines, at this point we have to say you're slacking.    Lucky for you, entrepreneur Greg Isenberg (The Startup Ideas Podcast) just revealed 5 brainy AI apps that help him run cash-flowing businesses:  Comet – AI-first web browser by Perplexity Wan 2.2 – Deepfake video generator by Alibaba Shortcut AI – For Excel sheet wizardry Reel Farm – Slideshow/avatar short-form video maker AI Apply – For applying to hundreds (or thousands) of jobs  "Having an AI-first browser is an absolute game-changer… I can't go back. My eyes would bleed. It's too slow." His words, verbatim. 5 AI shortcuts   THE BIG IDEA Feel the burn? This startup would prefer you didn't Those of us who've ever taken a shot of bottom-shelf liquor have likely immediately regretted it due to its unpleasant taste and worse burn. Voodoo Scientific, a California startup founded by husband-and-wife team Martin Enriquez and Joana Montenegro, wants to mellow the harsh of spirits, per Wired. How it works The pair consulted David Julius, head of physiology at UCSF, who explained how they might go about locating which pain receptor triggered the response. They eventually identified one called TRPA1, but because that receptor can't be blocked, they pivoted to instead blocking the byproducts of the fermentation process that trigger it. Voodoo Scientific's patented method, Viriato, uses enzymes that target the byproducts in fermentation tanks and neutralizes them. Voodoo Scientific is currently testing the product at various distilleries and hopes to eventually produce it at scale. Why? For those who drink, the end result is a much smoother spirit, according to Wired reporter Christopher Null, in which additives, like sugar, and other flavors in a particular spirit are far easier to taste. Distillers may thus be able to add less, which may appeal to consumers who prefer more transparency in what they drink or who enjoy particular flavors. For distillers, this could mean a better-tasting product or spirits with more nuanced flavors. Voodoo Scientific has compared its product to the way coffee manufacturers experimented with precision roasting to curb bitterness. It may also be cheaper. Enriquez told AgFunder News that one distiller that typically filtered its vodka through charcoal ~16 times was able to achieve similar results sans filtering with Voodoo's enzyme. This could benefit distillers at a time when customers are pulling back on both spending and alcohol consumption, and Voodoo Scientific told FoodBev that the process could apply to low- and no-ABV beverages in which the alcohol is removed. Another benefit: Allowing you to look very tough because you won't make that gagging face after taking a shot.  🔗 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED   Is your Zoom room looking weary? Your team might be burnt out. Before you plan that pizza party, check out a smarter way to rekindle motivation.   NEWSWORTHY NUMBER Alcohol content of Samuel Adams' Utopias 2025, the world's strongest beer, released earlier this month. The beverage — a noncarbonated brew priced at $240 per 24.5-ounce bottle and barrel-aged for up to 30 years — is considered beer by definition since it's fermented from grain, but is illegal in 15 states, where it exceeds local ABV limits, per Food & Wine. The average beer has an ABV below 10%, with most higher-ABV brews maxing out at ~16%. The stiff drink contains notes of toffee and caramel, has a longer-than-normal shelf life compared to other ales, and is not meant to be enjoyed by the pint but sipped on like a spirit — because chugging a beer as strong as liquor probably isn't advisable (though there are no laws on that front to stop you from doing so). AROUND THE WEB 📅  On this day: In 1883, the first time zones were created by American and Canadian railroads when they began using four continental zones. 🌊  That's cool: Where you can see Hokusai's Great Wave today. 😖  How to: tolerate annoyances using the ACT method. 🚢  That's interesting: Why TikTok is obsessed with a 1975 shipwreck. 🐢  Aww: A tiny tortoise. SHOWER THOUGHT It's possible that the first interstellar transmission we receive from an intelligent alien species will be an advertisement. SOURCE   Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Sara Friedman, and Singdhi Sokpo. Editing by: Ben "Smooth operator" Berkley.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. Working on something big? We've got a whole library of business-building resources for you. Subscribe to our other newsletters Stay up-to-date on AI: Mindstream  |  Expert insights: Masters in Marketing  |  Sell better: The Science of Scaling Follow The Hustle on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram. 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