The Roundup

Y Combinator is the most competitive startup accelerator. Thousands of teams apply every batch. Only ~1% get in.

Today, YC’s bi-annual Demo Day kicks off. Over 100 founders will take the stage, pitching a room packed with investors and journalists at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

We've put together a collection of some of the startups coming out of Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 batch, from wild AR apps to AI assistants that watch you in your home:

📈 CoinTracker is a cryptocurrency portfolio tracker that will do your taxes for you automatically. Supports 2,000 tokens. That's a lot of tokens.

🚭 Quit Genius gives personalized and proven advice on how to quit smoking, founded by a doctor.

📝 Slite is a beautiful note app for teams. Launched with 1,800+ upvotes.

👉 Piccolo lets you control your IoT devices just by pointing at them. Imagine if Alexa had eyes that could see evvverryyything you do at home.

📰 Substack will help you launch your own paid newsletter. Create your own Stratechery like Ben Thompson.

📹 Arrow for iOS lets you add AR text and emojis to your videos.

💌 EasyEmail is a Chrome extension that will write your emails for you.

🤖 Molly is an AI version of you that can answer everybody's questions, so you can focus on building. It's like a cookie from Black Mirror. 😳

Jeff Bezos can't stop, won't stop. In the last 30 days, Amazon teamed up with Berkshire Hathaway to launch a healthcare company, acquired a home security company for over $1B, and is rumored to be building a bank.



They also figured out why Alexa was randomly laughing at people. Creeeeeeeepy. 👀

We have a secret: you can save up to 35% of every Amazon order using a little-known site called Purse, if you pay in bitcoin.

Purse finds people who want to trade their Amazon gift cards for bitcoin, so everybody wins in the end. They integrate directly with Coinbase too, so you can buy and spend seamlessly.

If you're looking for easier ways to shop on Amazon:

• 🤖 Earny gives you money back on purchases when prices drop
• 💳 Amazon Prime Rewards Card gives you 5% cash back
• 🐪 Camel alerts you in advance when a product's price drops
• 👀 WikiBuy finds you lower prices from across the internet and displays them directly in Amazon
• 😀 Smile Always redirects all purchases through Smile.Amazon so you're always donating to charity

Artificial Intelligence is here to automate your entire life: scheduling meetings, shopping for groceries, and identifying whether you're about to eat a hot dog (with 2900+ upvotes!).

But... AI isn't just about efficiency. Here are 15 products to help you design and build beautiful things, powered by Machine Learning:

🎹 Play a piano duet with Google's AI on your laptop.

🎥 Your SO will love this: AI for picking the perfect movie. Solving the biggest 1st world problem of our generation.

😂 Your SO will LOL at this: AI for generating only the best memes.

📸 Shazam for fonts, so you can find every font with just a pic.

📝 Then find the perfect font pairing with this tool from IDEO.

👀 Use with caution: you can now clone anybody's voice (to make them say anything). It's like Photoshop, but for audio.

Justin at Algorithmia curated the 15 most creative AIs, just for you 🤖

BIG news, times two, just for you. 🤗

Yesterday, we launched our new iOS and Android app so you can discover the most best products, everywhere. We even support the notch.

Every new app needs a new phone. Enter to win a free iPhone X and AirPods, thanks to our friends at GQ and Digg:

😺 Animoji support, so you can make the best faces.
🔒 Perfectly secure with only your face.
✨ The most stunning, bezel-less screen.
🕺 Dance anywhere with Apple's "best cordless product ever."

New app, new phone, new headphones. Boom. 💥

Last year, more than 20,000 products launched on Product Hunt, including some of these scary/innovative/useful/hilarious additions:

🍎 Apple launched a social video app.

🤖 Elon introduced a new startup to turn us all into cyborgs.

🛠 Stripe created a platform to help makers start a company.

😘 Giphy continued to make GIFs cool.

✏️ Google flexed its AI doodling technology.

🙀 This Y Combinator backed company freaked everyone out.

💰 Earn launched their crypto-powered LinkedIn InMail competitor.

🌭 HBO's Silicon Valley released a much-needed hotdog app.

🖌 A small team in the Ukraine built a handy tool for designers.

...and many more.

Today we're releasing our second book*, celebrating the most upvoted products from 2017. It's free to download.

*ICYMI, download our first book on How to Build a Career in Tech or share with a friend.

Black Mirror is real, and it's backed by Y Combinator. 👀

Meet Molly, a startup that's building an AI-version of you. It's already live with Gary V, Michael Seibel (President of Y Combinator), and 100s more.

Molly learns from everything you've ever done or typed on the internet, so it can answer questions for you using machine learning.

Molly was launched by a small, talented team including last year’s Golden Kitty award winner and long-time community member, Chris Messina.

You'll soon be able to ask the best founders and investors anything. Since Molly is like a "download" of one's brain, it can answer questions 24/7... even from those that are no longer alive. Freaky.

Get early access and reserve your name on Molly by signing up here. 😎

Despite the price swings and frequent comparisons to tulips, Bitcoin and the blockchain is here to stay. Microsoft is now selling Blockchain-as-a-Service and Robinhood's new cryptocurrency trading platform has 1,000,000+ users waiting for access.

Many of these currencies don't have world-changing use cases yet, but the first wave of blockchain Beanie Babies has definitely arrived.

🌷 Design and trade tulips on the blockchain. Powered by the same browser-based software as CryptoKitties, you can now breed your own unique digital tulips on the Ethereum blockchain. Tastefully ironic.

🐶 Breedable dogs on the blockchain. Chinese tech giant Baidu launched CryptoDoggies, a near close of the adorable, collectible CryptoKitties whose transactions almost broke Ethereum this summer.

📸 Famous celebrities on the blockchain. Elon Musk, Angelina Jolie, Kanye West, and Vitalik Buterin are all available for sale... well, sort of. Crypto trading cards of your favorite celebs are here.

🦌 Alpacas on the blockchain. Adopt, breed, and feed adorable alpaca that live directly on the blockchain. From the comments: "My GF always wanted her own alpaca and her birthday is coming up. Perfect timing!" 😂

🦎 Pokémon on the blockchain. Every Pokémon Go fan wanted to battle their captured monsters: now you can. CryptoFighters are trainable, collectible warriors that live in the Ethereum blockchain.

Not sure how blockchains work? Here's a beautiful visual demonstration of the technology behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more. ⛓️📦

Come visit the home of many of your favorite products (and TV show): Silicon Valley.

We’re giving away a free trip to San Francisco and tickets to the Habit Summit. Join Stanford professor and Hooked author Nir Eyal, the Product Lead for Google Photos, Netflix’s former VP of Growth, and other accomplished speakers sharing their tips for building engaging products. The package also includes:

✈️ $700 towards domestic round trip tickets.

🏘️ $500 Airbnb gift card for your stay in SF.

💻 A Microsoft Surface Pro from Microsoft, handy for taking notes (or browsing Product Hunt) on the go.

Put your name in the hat and if you win, remember to wear layers. 🎫

The 3rd Annual Golden Kitty Awards are here, a celebration of all the amazing products, makers, and community members.

This year we have 14 CATegories, including additions highlighting two big tech trends from 2017: augmented reality and crypto/blockchain, as well as:

🌟 Product of the Year
📱 Mobile App of the Year
🛠 Hardware of the Year
😍 Consumer Product of the Year
🏢 B2B Product of the Year
💥 Breakout Product of the Year
🌚 Side Project of the Year
🤖 Bot of the Year
🙀 WTF Product of the Year
⚡️ Lifehack of the Year
🖥 Developer Tool of the Year
🖌 Design Tool of the Year
💻 Maker of the Year
🤗 Community Member of the Year

Check out the complete list and upvote your favorites. 🏆😽

Voting starts today and closes Sunday January 28th at 12pm PST. The winners will be crowned with a one of a kind Golden Kitty trophy a week from today.

Irrespective of made up awards, big thanks goes out to the Product Hunt community and makers around the world launching new projects every day. It’s a great time to be a maker. ✌️