Better luck next time…

Surging services and stable iPhone sales boosted Apple’s stock more than 4%

Apple reported higher than expected earnings and revenue results for its 3rd quarter yesterday, bumping Apple’s market cap as high as $972B in after-hours trading.

As fears of a massive sell-off of tech stocks continue, Apple’s strong earnings should soothe the worried minds of investors -- and make Amazon sweat in the ongoing race to $1T.

Not ‘trillion-dollar’ good… but still pretty darn good

Although Q3 is typically Apple’s lowest performing quarter, the company reported positive results across the board with an overall 32% increase in profits. But, Apple investors should be particularly excited about the 31% growth in Apple’s services division.

Apples services (which include the app store, music-streaming, and iCloud storage) typically take a back seat to iPhone sales, but their growth proves Apple can compete beyond hardware.

It doesn’t hurt that Apple’s hardware sales also remained strong -- with iPhone sales increasing 20%, Apple watches and AirPods growing 37% (the only slight decrease was iPads and Macs, down 5%).

Frazzled tech investors can take a deep breath

After a lackluster earnings report wiped a historic $120B+ off Facebook’s market cap last week, investors feared a broader tech slump when Netflix, Amazon, and Alphabet stocks all subsequently slipped.

But now, thanks to Apple’s strong earnings and stable sales, tech investors can put aside the panic buttons and pick up the popcorn to watch the final leg of the race to $1T play out.

Box office flop: MoviePass takes all the good things about MoviePass away to survive

You guys as tired of reading about MoviePass as we are of writing about it? Well, don’t take it for granted: Soon, it could be gone.

MoviePass, whose parent company borrowed $5m last week to keep the lights on, may have finally jumped the shark: On Monday, after users reported outages on the app, they laid out their new rules to stay afloat.

‘Say hello to my little survival plan…’

MoviePass is (well, was) a service that let subscribers pay a monthly fee of $9.95 to see multiple movies a month.

But, as of Monday, the subscription service announced they will soon raise prices to $14.95 a month, and limit availability for new, major-releases (we blame Mission Impossible).

The company said the changes aim to reduce its costs by 60% as they continue to take more measures to trim the fat.

We need to talk about Helios and Matheson…

If there’s any company suffering a bigger headache over MoviePass’s existence than MoviePass, it would be their parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics.

The company reported an average cash deficit of $45m for both June and July, and last week did a 1-for-250 reverse stock split (merging floundering corporate stock to form smaller, more valuable shares) in an effort to keep their share price above $1 and avoid being kicked off the NASDAQ entirely.

Unfortunately, it didn’t help. After MoviePass announced the new rules, Helios and Matheson’s stock plunged 60% (shares most recently clocked at $0.46), flirting yet again with being delisted off the exchange.

Optoro raises $75m to help e-commerce retailers find new homes for returns

As the volume of e-commerce sales continues to grow (increasing 16% last year), so does the problem of e-commerce’s unruly alter-ego: returns.

To address the costly problem, ‘returns optimization’ startup Optoro raised $75m to expand its platform that helps e-tailers find new homes for returned e-commerce products

Riding growing e-commerce to success

Since 2010 -- the year Optoro was founded -- e-commerce has grown from justs 4.2% of overall retail sales to about 10% today. According to the Commerce Department, US e-commerce totaled $453.5B last year.

But as online purchases increase, so do online returns, posing a problem for retailers that can’t process a high volume of returned merch.

We’re talking half a billion

Last year, 10% of retail sales were returned, and e-commerce sales are returned at an even higher rate (up to 40%). Optoro estimates the annual market for US returns is $380B.

Since many e-commerce retailers don’t sell returns at full value, this growing volume of returns translates to huge losses. That’s where Optoro comes in: The platform uses data analytics and multi-channel analytics to find returns new homes, ensuring that losses stay as low as possible.

Now Optoro, which has raised $244.4m to date, will use this cash to expand its platform in time for the biggest blitz of the year: holiday returns.

Uber kills the engine on its self-driving truck project to focus on autonomous cars

This week, Uber announced that it will close the doors on its self-driving truck unit, a program built on their $680m acquisition of autonomous truck startup Otto just 2 years ago.

The decision comes 6 months after it settled a lawsuit from Waymo, the Google spinoff that accused Uber of using its proprietary designs.

After all that??

Yep. Shortly after developing the program in 2016, Uber received mass media attention for moving one of their self-driving trucks 120 miles with a trailer stocked full of 51k cans of Budweiser.

But, 9 months later, Waymo filed a suit accusing Otto’s founder, ex-Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski, of stealing more than 14k confidential files related to Waymo’s self-driving technology.

Uber fired Levandowski as their head of self-driving research, and eventually reached a $245m settlement with Waymo.

Now they’re back to focusing on cars

Uber’s not completely writing off self-driving trucks in the future, but for now, the company will double down on their OG self-driving car department.

Uber says it will reassign employees in the self-driving truck division, many of whom will be relocated from San Francisco to Pittsburgh, their self-driving car HQ.

Not so fast, Chipotle: Adding insult to E. coli, chain’s app breaks after 100s get sick

Yesterday, we wrote that Chipotle had finally recovered from a highly publicized E. coli outbreak after years of effort. Well, the good news didn’t last long...

Just hours later, local news outlets reported that at least 368 people had gotten sick after eating at a Chipotle in Ohio.

Then, the company’s app crashed in the middle of a guac giveaway on National Avocado Day, prompting an apology as Chipotle scrambled to fix it.

Either way, we doubt a streamlined app will matter to the hundreds of people with the runs...

You’re not a Super Soaker...

So why does your marketing strategy feel so “spray-and-pray”?

Here’s a freebie: No one wants to be ‘blasted’ with anything. But, without insight into what’s working, you’d never know one way or the other.

That’s where SharpSpring comes in -- letting you double down on the good stuff and scrap the crap.

SharpSpring lets you (finally) track marketing ROI

Their marketing automation platform helps you manage and optimize your marketing efforts, from lead qualification and custom email campaigns to prospect pipelines and social calendars.

For agencies, they give you re-brandable client management tools to provide clients with rich insight at a price that helps you grow revenue. And for businesses, SharpSpring lets you finally make sense of your fragmented funnel.

Plus, their pricing is a fraction of the cost of competitors: Compare the top 6 marketing platforms right on their site (as a fellow lean company, we love this).

"On the first day of August, the Gods of Bargain have delivered. You're welcome penny pinchers."

- Barnaby Wild from Thermopolis, WY

SPONSORED

• $50 credit + free trial at Airtable, the productivity tool used by over 30k companies
• Get your first brush head and optional toothpaste refill free with quip, the better electric toothbrush
• 30% off police-grade breathalyzer from BACtrack. Offer valid for next 48 hours, use code HUSTLE

• Up to 70% off outdoor sale at Wayfair
• Staples mesh office chair at Staples for $99.99 (was $199.99)
• Google Daydream View at Verizon Wireless for $29.98 (was $99.99)
• TP-Link Wi-Fi Range Extender at B&H Photo for $24.95 after you click the instant 58% coupon below price (was $79.95)