👋 Good morning. If you’ve been hearing the term “basket case” a lot lately, maybe take the day off. But also — we've got a piece of real estate for you: the Basket Building. Built in 1997 to house basket-maker Longaberger Co.’s corporate headquarters, the seven-story, 180k-square-foot structure sits 40 miles outside Columbus, Ohio, and looks like a giant woven basket. It can now be yours for $8.5m.
NEWS FLASH
🌱 Putting the plants in power plant: UK startup Bactery is developing batteries that generate usable electricity from bacteria in soil. The tech is designed to be buried and forgotten, passively generating power for 25+ years with no maintenance needed. The startup’s immediate goal is to power agricultural sensors with its batteries, and perhaps one day scale up to offset household electricity use by turning your veggie garden into a mini power plant.
📈 Proof that life is one big high school: Talent and brand conglomerate United Talent Agency unveiled the Culture Index, its “first-of-its-kind measurement system that quantifies cultural significance.” It’ll track 10k brands across 44 industries for the influence they drive, ranking them through a complex data set measuring reach, resonance, and relevance. Its initial data set shows two industries sitting at the cool kids table (outpacing others in cultural impact): software and gaming.
⚽ AI is coming for your kids’ soccer game: Sports tech company Sportway Media Group will expand its live sports streaming operation, which sets up cameras at smaller venues hosting youth, semi-pro, and lower-level pro games and then lets AI direct the broadcast. The machines pan, tilt, and zoom the camera, pull data from official scoresheets to create broadcast graphics, and spit out automated replays and highlights. Congrats, sports parents, on adding yet another streaming subscription to your credit cards.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
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Rose-colored glasses: Meta broke away from its Ray-Ban partnership and unveiled a new line of AI smart glasses made in-house and with a lower $300 price tag.
- Use more AI! Now less! Startup Engram raised $98m to build a “memory layer” that helps AI models remember company-specific information to use up to 100x fewer tokens and curb rising AI costs.
- No space cooties: As missions to space ramp up, a biologist and former Pentagon strategist are urging NASA to construct a “lunar biocontainment facility” to quarantine extraterrestrial samples before they ever reach Earth.
- For the hoarders: Bed Bath & Beyond will once again accept its 20% coupons — even if they expired a decade ago — as it returns to brick-and-mortar stores.
WIN AT WORK
The best new colleagues are bots
What’s better than a fresh set of shortcuts to help you win at work?
One with advice from a16z, Asana, Graphite, and Marketing Against The Grain. Check out some major ways to help you reshape your workflow.
Power productivity with AI:
- Systematize content creation
- Master impactful chatbot prompts
- Optimize go-to-market framework
- Scale-up your prospecting efforts
- Solidify SEO strategy
- Automate marketing busywork
- Build out “one-to-one” apps
THE BIG IDEA
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Here come the Etsy witches
Etsy is great for things like personalized whisky glasses for dad, vintage jewelry, houseplants — maybe even a Picolas Cage magnet.
But a spell that promises perfect weather on your wedding day? Well, there's an Etsy witch for that.
For many couples — especially those dropping $30k-$100k on the Big Day — purchasing a spell on the ecommerce marketplace to ensure a flawless, Instagrammable celebration has become a no-brainer, per Bloomberg.
Which witch is the weather witch?
The average cost of a wedding skyrocketed in recent years, according to data from The Knot, leaving many nearlyweds desperate to protect their investment however they can.
- The average wedding cost reached $34.2k this year, up ~$6k from 2019.
- Big city weddings can cost even more: NYC ($75k), Chicago ($54k), San Francisco and Boston ($51k), LA ($45k).
- While 41% of couples surveyed went over budget, only 4% reported staying under.
And 58% of couples host an outdoor ceremony, which means rain and chilly weather risk putting a damper on the celebration.
The Etsy witch appears
Enlisting the help of witchcraft has a long history, but the latest digital incantation incarnation garnered attention when Etsy banned the sale of magic spells in 2015 (following a ban on eBay).
Many sellers skirted the rules by including tangible items or listing "for entertainment purposes only." But earlier this year, the site began enforcing the rules, removing shops in what some described as a modern-day witch hunt.
Despite setbacks, the trend shows no signs of vanishing in a plume of smoke — thanks to support from WitchTok.
While last wedding season saw a rise in Etsy witches, with nuptial costs soaring like a magic broom, brides are increasingly calling upon the digital coven for a perfect wedding day.
- Perfect weather spells start at ~$3 and often include a PDF download.
- Bloomberg found some sellers make over $1.5k/week.
- Other spells include "marry me" and "demonic obsession" for extra help.
- Blessings From New Orleans offers an elevated non-Etsy blessing box for $222.20 — and runs a meteorology service for luxury weddings.
Considering many are spending tens, if not hundreds of thousands on the Big Day, sending an internet stranger a few bucks to feel a little less anxious about things beyond your control seems like a decent investment.
And hey, it seemed to work well for Mariners fans.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Meet you in Buckeye, Arizona: Little-known cities are adding more residents than Los Angeles and New York City — why?
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
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The maximum share of a family's annual adjusted gross income that eligible students at Whitman College can pay for tuition each year, as of this week. The small liberal arts college in Washington state is the latest of a growing handful of schools to introduce income-based tuition pricing, which offers transparency for families and students, who won’t have to wait until after applying to find out if they can afford to attend.
As for Whitman and its peers, The New York Times says the initiatives could help attract more upper-middle-class applicants, whose families are too rich to qualify for financial aid but not rich enough to be paying $90k a year just for their kids to go through a bluegrass phase and major in anthropology.
HOW YOU HUSTLE
We don’t need to tell you — our readers are amazing. We wanted to dedicate some real estate to a Hustler building something big.
Who: Colleen Winfough
What: RUF
The elevator pitch: “RUF is redefining luxury for dogs, starting with thoughtfully sourced freeze-dried treats.”
The problem they’re solving: “RUF was born from a simple observation: while people increasingly invest in premium experiences for themselves, the pet category often forces them to choose between quality, aesthetics, and brand experience. We set out to create a brand that delivers all three — thoughtfully sourced ingredients, elevated design, and a luxury experience worthy of the dogs we consider family.”
One truly innovative thing they’re doing: “We're approaching the pet category through the lens of luxury brand building rather than traditional pet marketing. Every touchpoint — from product formulation and packaging to photography, film, and storytelling — is designed to create an experience that feels more like a luxury fashion house than a treat company.”
What are you working on? Tell us here.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 2010, the iPhone 4 went on sale. Engineer Gray Powell infamously left a prototype at a California bar, which Gizmodo purchased and leaked before Steve Jobs could announce it.
🧶 That’s interesting: People used to play a game called Pushball, in which they pushed around a giant ball.
🗞️ Newsletter: Learn what's actually moving markets and why with The Daily Upside.
🧠 Game: A word search, but there is only one word at a time.
🐱 Aww: If a cat sees a bag, it goes in the bag.
SHOWER THOUGHT
The person you always see at the gym, no matter when you go, making you think that they must live at the gym, is probably thinking exactly the same thing about you. SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Danny Jensen, and Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Sara "Spell checker" Friedman.
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