Keep them hooked

Happy Hump Day! In today’s digest, we’re talking about Zoom fatigue and how to keep your audience engaged with a new app from ex-Shopify employees. But first…

The headlines: 

⛔ The US Senate has passed a bill that could ban TikTok. 

🤖 Rabbit officially launched its AI-enabled handheld device at an event last night.

🍎 Apple is launching new iPads on May 7th at an in-person event.

Most people check out of calls after 10 minutes, according to Vanderbilt University. Ouch. As much as I like to think the meetings I hold are riveting, that will make me thing twice about scheduling one.

So how do keep your audience focused? That's what a small of team of ex-Shopify (the company that banned pointless meetings) employees wondered.

They made Boom, a MacOS camera app designed to keep your audience engaged. It works across meeting apps and consists of three main tools: Boom Studio, Boom Mirror, and Boom Remote.

Boom Studio is like your virtual green room. You're able to customize almost every aspect of your video. Think blur, filters, themes (I like the old-school Windows one), backgrounds, and even getting into the nitty gritty of exposure settings. Boom Mirror is a handy tool that lives in your MacOS menu bar. Click it, and it will show you exactly how you look before you go live, effects and all. Boom Remote is how you access all of Boom’s features while on a call. With a single click, you can add video effects like a news intro, overlay your video with GIFs and stickers, and send emoji reactions to your audience.

So here’s an example of how I saw myself using it in my next meeting: I’d open up with a quick icebreaker by adding my location and weather. I mean, who doesn’t love talking about the weather? From there I’d break up the meeting by crowdsourcing my team’s pet pictures and superimposing them on my screen. Finally, I’d add a countdown GIF to build suspense for a big reveal at the end of a meeting, like this newsletter’s open rates.

Boom starts at $15 a month but it comes with a 14-day free trial, and it works with Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams, and more. 

Our Picks

Trackify lets you relive Spotify Wrapped everyday by tracking your listen history. 

Candle is a tool that links to your financial apps and uses AI to answer your questions.

NewSub lets you pick and customize sources to build your own news reader app. 

 

Maker’s Corner 

LangWatch is an open-source tool for measuring and improving your LLMs

Wizad uses AI to help generate eye-catching social posters in click. 

Neurelois a tool that transforms your databases into ready-to-use APIs.

 

Leaderboard Liftoff 

Subframe clinched yesterday’s top spot. It’s a tool that lets you visually build your UI before exporting ready-to-ship code.

Mixpanel is one of those tools that works kind of silently in the background. It lets users quickly pull out insights from their customer and revenue data to make decisions faster. It’s earned its way into one of the most shouted out products on Product Hunt. Here’s what makers had to say:

“Mixpanel makes tracking and visualising look like child's play.”

✍️ Weavely, an AI-powered form builder inside of Figma. 

“It's a super useful way to get a quick glimpse at the data and allows you to actually understand and build what users love”

🗣️ LangAI, a messaging-style language-learning app. 

“Allows you to make data-driven decisions and improve product performance every day”

 📱Slidey, an Android app for generating presentations with AI.

Makers: How many times have you had an idea that you wanted to build but needed a cofounder with more know-how than you? Yeah, same. 

Coffee Space is a Tinder/Hinge like platform that’s built to help you connect with others who might be exploring startup ideas. It uses your preferences to match you with different people daily until you find the ideal cofounder for your next big thing.