Talk to your data

Hi, hi, hi. It’s Tuesday. Today, I’m covering a YC-backed tool that lets anyone communicate with their data. But first:

🚗 Four self-driving cars went up against an F1 car in a head-to-head race.

💌 Bumble launched a new feature for crafting an opening message.

🗣️ Yelp has launched a new AI tool to help you connect with businesses.

🇪🇺 The EU has opened an investigation into Facebook and Instagram.

If you want to make educated decisions on things like product direction, design variants, or copy, you need to back it up with data. Take this newsletter, for example. Every week, I dive into the data to see what resonated with you all and how I can make it even better. 

For a long time, querying data has been left to people with experience in things like SQL, and if you’re a solo founder or a small team, this isn’t always possible. Since AI exploded onto the scene, though, that’s begun to change. 

Originally launched back in 2023, Outerbase is a solution built to help founders and their teams easily navigate their data with AI. A big part of how it does this is with its AI chat assistant “EZQL” which lets you query your data in plain English. 

Now, after participating in the 2023 YC winter batch, the team is back with Outerbase 2.0. So what’s new? 

Mobile love: According to founder Brandon Strittmatter, Outerbase has been redesigned from the ground up with a specific focus on being mobile-friendly so you can have a data scientist in your pocket. 

More databases: Outbase now supports over ten database connections, including MySQL, Postgres, and MongoDB, so there is no need for any pesky database migrations before using it. 

New data studio: 2.0 comes with a new data studio with some new features, including an optimized GPT-4 client, an SQL co-pilot, and AI-powered data visualization tools. 

Alongside that, the team also launched native Mac and Windows apps, an SQL sandbox so you can drop in a CSV to build your database, and more. 

OUR PICKS 

Credible is a personal speech coach to help you cut down on filler words. 

Sofa is a service that creates lists of things to watch, read, play, and more. 

Braudit is an AI-powered coach that helps you navigate your career.

MAKER’S CORNER 

Microns helps you discover profitable startups that are up for sale.

Dokploy is an open-source alternative to Heroku, Netlify, and Vercel.

Yardstick makes it easier to benchmark and value your startup.

BEYOND THE FOLD

FAQ Generator lets you paste a public url and instantly generate a ready-to-use FAQ.

“Loops makes it really easy to create powerful campaigns and helps us ensure everybody has a smooth onboarding process…” is what the team behind today’s Product Highlight, Outerbase, had to say about Loops. 

Loops is a modern email platform for marketing and transaction emails. The startup has received a handful of shoutouts from makers this month. Loops was also a runner-up in the 2023 Golden Kitty Awards for the best marketing tool.

Arguably the best way to learn a language is to surround yourself with it. What if you want to learn Italian but don’t live in Italy? You can watch Italian shows and movies. Another way is to use something like Trancy, which provides bilingual subtitles for your favorite YouTube channels.