The Leaderboard
Our ultra-fast Daily: Three takes on new products. Yesterday’s top ten launches. That’s it.
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.
NEW from Google
Earth Day is almost here but Google is ready to show you the effects of climate change now. They’ve launched the biggest update to Google Earth since 2017 — Timelapse.
The Timelapse feature compiles 24 million satellite photos from the past 37 years, creating an interactive 4D experience. The Timelapse video translates to quadrillions of pixels and required “a significant amount of ‘pixel crunching,’” Google noted in their blog. As far as anyone knows, Timelapse in Google Earth is the largest video on the planet of our planet.
The driving force behind the update is to show the rapid environmental change on our planet from the last half-century. Timelapse highlights five themes, which can be clicked to activate a “guided tour” through each topic — forest change, urban growth, fragile beauty, warming temperatures, and sources of energy. Google worked with experts at Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab on the technology and to translate all that environmental data into a digestible guided tour.
If you’re feeling inspired once you’ve completed the guided tour, here are four tools that can help you reduce your carbon footprint.
Watershed - A software platform to help companies create their own climate program
Aerial - An app that pulls data from your inbox, notifies you of emissions activity, and suggests options to offset your carbon footprint
Klima - An app that lets you calculate your carbon footprint and find verified climate projects to offset it
Neutral - A browser extension that enables you to offset your purchases
The Timelapse feature compiles 24 million satellite photos from the past 37 years, creating an interactive 4D experience. The Timelapse video translates to quadrillions of pixels and required “a significant amount of ‘pixel crunching,’” Google noted in their blog. As far as anyone knows, Timelapse in Google Earth is the largest video on the planet of our planet.
The driving force behind the update is to show the rapid environmental change on our planet from the last half-century. Timelapse highlights five themes, which can be clicked to activate a “guided tour” through each topic — forest change, urban growth, fragile beauty, warming temperatures, and sources of energy. Google worked with experts at Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab on the technology and to translate all that environmental data into a digestible guided tour.
If you’re feeling inspired once you’ve completed the guided tour, here are four tools that can help you reduce your carbon footprint.
Watershed - A software platform to help companies create their own climate program
Aerial - An app that pulls data from your inbox, notifies you of emissions activity, and suggests options to offset your carbon footprint
Klima - An app that lets you calculate your carbon footprint and find verified climate projects to offset it
Neutral - A browser extension that enables you to offset your purchases
11 calendar tools for better scheduling and meeting
Today an open-source alternative to Calendly launched on Product Hunt called Calendso. The vision behind Calendso sounds akin to other open-source alternative softwares.
Still, between the two if you find yourself struggling with meeting fatigue or app hopping, here are 9 more tools that can help.
Superpowered - Manage your calendar from your menu bar
MeetingBar 3.0 - An alternative to Superpowered 👆
Meeting Calculator - Track meeting stats like you would a workout
Routine - Combine tasks, notes, and your calendar
Hugo 2.0 - One place to collaboratively prepare for your meetings
Comeet - Add async video to your calendar
Time Zone Pro - See everyone on your team’s time zone in a glance
Aerotime - Group meetings to free up space in your calendar
Defragged - Like Aerotime but this one's just a game for fun
“Our mission is to democratise and decentralise calendar scheduling, enabling everyone to be able to use calendar scheduling however they'd like… What email has done to communication, we hope Calendso will do to meetings.” - Bailey Pumfleet, Maker
Calendso can be seamlessly integrated into businesses. Advanced customization, an open API, and payments enabled via Stripe were a few of the main draws exciting early adopters:“Fantastic to see an open-source alternative… The UI is great as well, but the main magic is being able to do deeper integrations.” - Chris Deitrich
“Calendly [is] a revolutionary product that combined great UX & functionality… Calendso has taken it up a notch… without compromising on UX.” - Lakshmi Narayanan G
Many will likely still find Calendly’s ease of use to be beneficial for their business cases. The company launched Calendly Workflows in September to help strengthen your relationships with invitees using automation for reminders and follow-ups.Still, between the two if you find yourself struggling with meeting fatigue or app hopping, here are 9 more tools that can help.
Superpowered - Manage your calendar from your menu bar
MeetingBar 3.0 - An alternative to Superpowered 👆
Meeting Calculator - Track meeting stats like you would a workout
Routine - Combine tasks, notes, and your calendar
Hugo 2.0 - One place to collaboratively prepare for your meetings
Comeet - Add async video to your calendar
Time Zone Pro - See everyone on your team’s time zone in a glance
Aerotime - Group meetings to free up space in your calendar
Defragged - Like Aerotime but this one's just a game for fun
Super-fast backend development is here
Two new product launches have arrived to speed up backend development.
Yesterday, Sourcery debuted its tool that essentially works as a Grammarly for code tool. In other words, it analyzes your code, finds problems, and suggests changes for making it easier to read.
One commenter seeking information on how Sourcery makes accurate code edits got this reply from maker Nick Thapen.
If you’re starting a new project, you might first look at today’s beta launch of Napkin, a production-ready, browser-based, backend development tool.
Developers spend countless hours setting up their backend infrastructure. Napkin works to remove all of that tedious and repetitive work. Napkin’s maker, Thomas Wang, explained his and his cofounders’ vision is to make the power of computing available for everyone, without having to become a professional software developer.
Online IDEs (integrated development environments) like Repl.it do provide some conveniences to devs, but Wang explained Napkin’s next-generation approach.
Yesterday, Sourcery debuted its tool that essentially works as a Grammarly for code tool. In other words, it analyzes your code, finds problems, and suggests changes for making it easier to read.
One commenter seeking information on how Sourcery makes accurate code edits got this reply from maker Nick Thapen.
“Firstly bucketloads of internal testing around each suggestion, secondly lots of detailed static analysis of the code, and as a backstop we run all of our suggestions over lots of open-source libraries then check that their tests are still green...”
Sourcery can be installed into PyCharm, VS Code, or your GitHub repos, and it works fully locally so your code is always private.If you’re starting a new project, you might first look at today’s beta launch of Napkin, a production-ready, browser-based, backend development tool.
Developers spend countless hours setting up their backend infrastructure. Napkin works to remove all of that tedious and repetitive work. Napkin’s maker, Thomas Wang, explained his and his cofounders’ vision is to make the power of computing available for everyone, without having to become a professional software developer.
Online IDEs (integrated development environments) like Repl.it do provide some conveniences to devs, but Wang explained Napkin’s next-generation approach.
“Our goal was to differentiate early, to fit in neatly with all the modern API's, libraries, and frontend frameworks/clients. We don't want to replace, we want to complement.”
And early adopters are taking note.“This would've made the learning process for a younger me so much less intimidating… I think we'll see an explosion of ideas manifest on Napkin… 🥳: - Jonathan Xu
“I have 0 backend experience but I've already managed to make a discord bot, slack app… and it was super simple!!” - Isamu Naets
We recently covered Paragon Connect, a low-code Zapier-like tool for speeding up integrations. We’re thinking of Napkin as a relative to the blossoming low and no-code space — another wave of making development less cumbersome and more accessible.
Two innovative alternatives to Duolingo
Learning a new language is difficult.
To make it easier, the makers of Fluent launched a new iteration of their learn-a-language Chrome extension yesterday.
“We want Fluent to be the best teacher, ever… We think that seeing yourself get a little better, every single day, is the best motivator of all.” - Gavid D, Maker
Fluent’s goal is to help you learn a new language (right now French and Spanish with Italian on the way) while you’re browsing the web — from Product Hunt to Twitter.
One of the main feature updates is tracking your progress against each word you learn, with little low-key quizzes built into your browser. You might already be aware of a similar product called Toucan, which launched onto Product Hunt seven months ago. A couple of other early adopters were curious about the differences.
We will be watching both of these products, particularly with the boost that remote life has given to EdTech. So far 2021 has already seen 24 EdTech exits compared to 45 in all of 2019, according to Crunchbase. The scope is wide-reaching. For example, MasterClass achieved a $2.5 billion valuation last week for its adult learning content, and Quizlet and Kahoot! — new to the unicorn club as of 2020 — made their first acquisitions to expand capabilities, curriculum, and communities.
Then there’s Duolingo, which raised $35M on a $2.5B valuation in November. All of this has us wondering what its next move will be, after it finishes rolling out its expansion to Yiddish and toilet paper, of course.
While we speculate, learn a new mot (that’s “word” in French).
To make it easier, the makers of Fluent launched a new iteration of their learn-a-language Chrome extension yesterday.
“We want Fluent to be the best teacher, ever… We think that seeing yourself get a little better, every single day, is the best motivator of all.” - Gavid D, Maker
Fluent’s goal is to help you learn a new language (right now French and Spanish with Italian on the way) while you’re browsing the web — from Product Hunt to Twitter.
One of the main feature updates is tracking your progress against each word you learn, with little low-key quizzes built into your browser. You might already be aware of a similar product called Toucan, which launched onto Product Hunt seven months ago. A couple of other early adopters were curious about the differences.
We will be watching both of these products, particularly with the boost that remote life has given to EdTech. So far 2021 has already seen 24 EdTech exits compared to 45 in all of 2019, according to Crunchbase. The scope is wide-reaching. For example, MasterClass achieved a $2.5 billion valuation last week for its adult learning content, and Quizlet and Kahoot! — new to the unicorn club as of 2020 — made their first acquisitions to expand capabilities, curriculum, and communities.
Then there’s Duolingo, which raised $35M on a $2.5B valuation in November. All of this has us wondering what its next move will be, after it finishes rolling out its expansion to Yiddish and toilet paper, of course.
While we speculate, learn a new mot (that’s “word” in French).
