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The Microsoft Teams notification sound has become somewhat of a meme for being an anxiety-inducing noise that Gen Z-ers love to complain about. If social media frevor is any indication, tech companies tend to prefer Slack over Teams. One reason could be the plethora of add-ons that makers are building for it.

If the clackety-clack of Slack doesn’t induce horror and terror for you, here are 8 products that make Slack less scary and more fun.

Thanks app for Slack helps you build a culture of recognition in your team by encouraging you to give kudos to your peers and celebrate wins, big or small.

FlyWheel is a Slack bot that provides community managers with intelligent analytics about members and automates everyday tasks. It also allows responding to queries straight from the dashboard.

MicroAcquire App For Slack integrates with MicroAcquire and lets you receive instant alerts when new startups go live for sale.

Scott Bot by Threado auto-generates conversation prompts to help you encourage participation and drive engagement in your community. You can customize any of the 200+ curated prompts and schedule at any cadence.

SpotMyStatus syncs your Spotify music or podcasts to your Slack status.

Org Chart ⚡ by Roots is a free Slack plugin that helps growing teams stay on top of company changes and search for members by skill or department.

Dispatch is like Superhuman for Slack. The app lets you reply, react, @-mention, compose new messages, mark a conversation Done when you’re finished with it, mute conversations you no longer need to follow, snooze them, and use keyboard shortcuts.

Rootly is a Slack app used by the likes of Canva, Grammarly, and Bolt. It automates manual admin work like creating incident channels, Jira tickets, Zoom rooms, and generating postmortem timelines so you can manage incidents easier.

Some of you might’ve gone back to the office but it seems like Zoom meetings are here to stay.

We recently saw Zoom launch its SDK publicly for all developers. This is exciting, as it will likely result in more apps and games added to the Zoom ecosystem. An interesting one recently popped up after one of the makers teased it on Zoom’s SDK launch.

The app in question is called twine for Zoom and it presents itself as “speed networking and matchmaking for Zoom.” twine automatically sorts participants into roulette-style breakout rooms for timed, back-to-back small group or 1:1 conversations. You can also set custom sorting rules for breakout rooms based on any variable you choose – this could mean matching mentors with mentees, HR with new hires, or students with research assistants.

Although the team’s original mission to “end loneliness” hasn’t changed, they pivoted from what they were initially building: “Our first app, due to launch in March 2020, was a face-to-face serendipity app that was somewhere between Sofar Sounds and a Church for the Rest of Us. 🤝 Then Covid happened, and it became clear that the problem of the Moment was how to connect people, meaningfully, online.”

A couple of other cool Zoom-related launches we’ve seen include tl;dv for Zoom, which lets you record, transcribe, edit, and timestamp for Zoom & Google Meet (and had another amazing launch video after winning a Golden Kitty last year). And Unpopular Opinion for Zoom, which gives your team a wide range of hotly debated and polarizing viewpoints that are equally as fun to defend as they are to challenge.

We’re excited to see more makers use Zoom’s SDK. What do you think would make Zoom more fun? Let the makers know.

There’s not much you can say that will hurt a founder who’s gone through fundraising – they’ve most probably heard it all. Pitching and finding interested investors is one struggle, but as one maker put it, the biggest challenge is “staying excited when you hear ‘no’ for 10-20-30 times in a row.” Sometimes, a single “yes” can kickstart it all. But how do you get there?

Funden runs an “assisted fundraising” program for founders who are looking to make the process easier and who would rather focus their time on building. The team creates and implements a fundraising plan that includes investment analysis, pitch deck review, strategy sessions, storytelling, investor selection, warm intros to Funden’s partner network, and progress management.

While it may seem like the fundraising landscape has slowed down given the current state of the tech market, one of Funden’s makers shares that “not a lot has changed. We're seeing a focus on ‘fundamentals,’ meaning valuations have come down to Earth but deals are still being done for companies that have good growth and teams.”

Once your investment plan is reviewed by ex-VCs and operators, Funden helps you put together a pitch deck and matches you with those interested in investing in your sector and vertical. One differentiator the team shared with the Product Hunt community is its ability to make warm intros, rather than using cold emailing. The platform currently features a network of 500+ VCs, angel networks, family funds, and syndicates that operate globally.

If you’re a founder looking to do a little bit of reading on frequently asked questions around fundraising, you can also check out articles from Jason Yeh, an ex-VC and contributing writer for Product Hunt who covers topics like seeking a lead investor and the concept of “alpha.”

These past few years, we’ve seen products tackling remote work in all shapes and sizes. From fun socials with your remote (global) team to async collaboration tools and job search engines, much of it wouldn’t be possible without solid hiring tools.

We first saw Deel launch on Product Hunt in 2019 as a way for companies to hire people from all over the world without needing to create an entity in each country or having to deel with the paperwork. It since skyrocketed into a $12B unicorn that also tackles other parts of the business, like payroll.

Deel's Global Payroll allows companies to manage payroll across 90+ entities in one unified dashboard. This means you no longer have to pay your team using separate vendors, which, as Deel’s co-founder Alex Bouaziz put it, “makes it hard to analyze data, creates more room for error, and adds substantial operational cost, time, and complexity when running payroll each month.”

Regardless of which country your team members work from, Deel’s payroll lets you view and adjust salaries, benefits, bonuses, and expenses in the same dashboard. The product also integrates with HR tools like Workday, BambooHR, and Hibob to remove manual work and manage data inconsistencies.

Have questions about how it works? Leave them here for Alex and the Deel team.

One of the biggest struggles amongst people with a tight budget is coming to terms with how much is actually in their account. The looming possibility of an overdraft means having to always be aware of the peanuts left in your pocket.

That’s why a maker by the name of Jonathan created Cashews.

“The first little seed of Cashews started way back in 2014 in response to my growing anxiety around my personal finances. I had a young family and was feeling increasingly stretched money-wise. We were leaning more on credit cards, less cash was going into savings, and it was literally keeping me up at night.”

So Jonathan started scraping his bank info and texting his balances to himself each day. Over time, with requests and feedback from family and friends, he turned the concept into Cashews.

Unlike other financial tracking and planning apps, Cashews doesn’t offer an “insane level of customization” and is “user friend as f*ck,” according to the makers. It connects with 12K+ banks and shows you precisely how much you can spend to take the stress out of your cost of living.

Those (pea)nuts reminded us that it’s been a while since we checked in on Acorns, the micro-investing app that lets you invest your spare change on auto pilot. The company was planning its initial public offering by SPAC last year, but backed out earlier this year citing volatile market conditions — it feared being lumped in with other companies with inflated valuations. Nonetheless, the team has pressed on, saying the process got them IPO-ready, and instead fundraised $300M, earning its unicorn title as a privately-held startup.

Of course, every penny counts so no judgement if even the smallest investments are causing you stress. Start off by finding out how much you have to begin with.

Many of us are still using Microsoft Excel or its direct competitors, despite the fact that it takes an influencer to teach many of us how to use it.

We’ve been highlighting promising nextgen spreadsheet software (Equals, Rows, ActionDesk) as it pops up, and today a new product in this space caught our attention because of its focus on using the power of the spreadsheets without much of the traditional spreadsheet UI.

Causal is a new tool for working with numbers but unlike Excel or Sheets, it enables you to write formulas in plain English and create interactive dashboard reports where you can play without breaking things. Live integrations pull data from your accounting system, CRM, HRIS, or data warehouse. One early adopter's favorite feature is the ability to bake uncertainty into your models: “Instead of saying our cost of showing 1,000 ads (CPM) is $10, we can say it's $8 to $10 and then everything downstream that references that will show a range too.”

We first met Causal a couple of years ago when the makers, Taimur Abdaal and Lukas Köbis, launched its browser extension for Google Sheets. The London-based team has since closed a Series A, grew its team to 50+, and last year added 30% more customers month-on-month.

The tool is meant to be for just about everyone at your business. Founders can use it to forecast runway, sales teams to forecast pipeline, marketing for performance planning, and of course, financial teams for budgeting and beyond.

Of course, when it comes to non-numbers people actually being able to work with numbers, the proof is in the pudding. When asked by a Product Hunt community member if the tool is easy to use, Abdaal shared, “There's a bit of a learning curve but you can understand most of the concepts in 15 mins or so!”

The demo video will show you an example of how users can create new visualizations in plain English.

We gave Shopify low-key props not long ago. The company managed to grow during the pandemic and the many features its been adding indicate the team is paying attention to the creator economy and its customers.

The makers over at Shopify must have recognized that all of these small to core features can get lost in the shuffle and that Shopify can get more bang for its buck by showing how fast it's shipping. So Glen Coates (VP Product, Shopify Core) and team launched Shopify Editions — a collection of product updates, which it plans to bundle and launch semi-annually. Here in Product Hunt land, you can compare it to the 2.0, 3.0, etc. launches that we see on the regular.

So what does Shopify Editions, Summer 2022 have in store? There are a whopping 100+ updates wrapped into this edition. The most notable are worth mentioning here:

B2B: The new B2B product works to make it easy for merchants to sell to the businesses that they use for D2C. Shopify found that “A world of opportunity exists when merchants connect with other businesses to sell wholesale… Billions of untapped revenue and multiple times that of D2C.” So the product eliminates hassles like manual data entry and provides an online store experience similar to their B2C storefront, but is optimized to do things like buy in bulk.

Web3: “We believe the most exciting experience isn’t selling NFTs, but activating them,” the Shopify team shared with us. Now Shopify merchants who’ve turned their consumers into loyal fans will be able to offer NFT holders exclusive access to products, perks, and experiences — even IRL with Shopify’s POS.

Also interesting from this launch is Twitter Shopping, a partnership with Stripe to enable Tap to Pay on iPhone (so Shopify merchants can expand offline easier), and a new local inventory sync on Google that helps merchants let nearby customers know when a product is available in store.

That’s only five products out of 100 though so go check out the rest and leave your comments and questions for the Shopify team.

Last week, Bitcoin fell below $19,000. It was the first time dropping below $20K since 2020. As crypto prices fall, controversial stablecoins collapse, and tech leaders like Bill Gates wax skeptical about NFTs, you may be wondering — what’s going to happen to web3?

Everyone from HODL-ers to right-clickers have an opinion but there are still a lot of “what ifs” no one can answer with certainty. Cryptocurrencies have largely been moving in tandem with stocks, and you’ll find as many articles debating the inevitability of a recession as you will the future of web3.

So what is there to do? Just keep shipping. Fears and skepticism have not stopped makers from continuing their on-chain work.

Here are some of the most popular projects we’ve seen in just the past 60 days.

Haha Crypto - App for tracking your crypto and NFTs and cost-basis calculations
YIN Finance - Asset management platform for NFTs that helps with various strategies
Ramper - Free web3 SDK to onboard users who don’t have a wallet to your Dapp
Highlight.xyz - End-to-end no-code toolkit to build NFT memberships
OnJuno - Crypto friendly checking accounts with 6% interest and 10% cashback

Pundits suggest that harsh “crypto winters,” such as the one we’re in now, weed out the “fundamentally worthless projects [that] proliferated” among periods of hype. Makers will definitely be under pressure to make better decisions while confidence and funds wain. We'll be here rooting for thoughtful leaders and the best ideas to break through.

Join us tomorrow for a Twitter Spaces with Peter Yang (Maker Grant Recipient) and Odyssey DAO (Golden Kitty Winner for Education) to talk about the state of Web3. Send us your questions too.

In the meantime, buckle up and…

Last week we talked about upskilling using the help of mentors when tutorials fall short. Another ideal way to improve at just about anything is to learn by doing.

At work, being “thrown in the deep end” is an excellent way to internalize knowledge, but on-the-job learning comes with the risk and the stress of costly mistakes. Practice and repetition usually do the trick too, whether you’re refining your work or life skills, but many people find they struggle with the motivation to start or keep going.

Fortunately, we often see makers launch products to help us overcome these challenges with help from strategies in gamification. The latest is a “flight simulator” that helps developers explore new technologies, brush up on skills, and gain achievements.

Here are 9 new products that make daily practices fun with gamification.

Wilco: Go on quests rooted in real-life engineering challenges you might encounter at work, using a tech stack of your choice.

Rust Adventure: This new collection of courses is designed to help you put Rust into production through real-world projects.

(Not Boring) Habits: If you couldn’t make a habit out of using that habit tracking app, give this Apple Design Award winner a try.

Joon for Kids: This “Pokemon meets Club Penguin” app teaches your kids important life skills.

GIOS: TikTok-style content gets a bad rap for attention span, but try using it for good with interactive math learning.

WikiTrivia: Does it blows your mind that Anne Frank and Barbara Walters were born the same year? Gain knowledge and get addicted to sorting historical events like others in the community.

Letterfall: Wordle a little slow for your liking? Tap the falling tiles and push your vocabulary skills to the limit with this fast-paced word game.

Stride: Runners, walkers, and aspiring movers can enjoy turning their outings into adventures as they collect tiles and compete with friends.

Peloton Lanebreak: If you’ve got a Peloton that’s collecting dust or clothes, clear it off and try this “bike-driven version of Beat Saber.”

Telegram just launched something that most of its largest competitors don't have — a premium tier.

“Today is an important day in the history of Telegram – marking not only a new milestone, but also the beginning of Telegram’s sustainable monetization,” explained the Telegram team on the company’s blog.

The $4.99 per month subscription allows users to unlock extra features and fixes, like larger file uploads, exclusive reactions, animated profile photos, and improved chat management. And the new revenue stream allows Telegram to monetize some of its user base, which is up to 700 million monthly active users, as the company shared simultaneously with the latest news.

Telegram has touted its focus on its customers since its launch almost nine years ago. Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, shared in a message that he believes Telegram should be funded by its users, not advertisers so that the customers remain the top priority. Durov got ahead of concerns about freemium users too, noting that premium tiers will improve the experience of existing users as well. As an example, free users will be able to download the extra-large files that paying users can upload.

Telegram likes tackling competitors — like Signal, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger — head-on, writing “we will keep implementing free features available for everyone, and do it faster than any other massively popular app.”

The chat app’s frequency of shipping is working. Analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein reported that Telegram’s competitive features have led to it taking “a significant share” from WhatsApp and Messenger, even though the latter two still make up a majority of messaging app downloads.

The new launch has drawn mixed reactions from the Product Hunt community. Would you drop a fiver for the new features?