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NEWS FLASH

⚤ Decoding hormones: Prickly Pear Health is building an AI-powered platform focused on women’s brain health that uses voice analysis to help users understand how hormones can impact cognitive and emotional health. The platform, which is designed to support women through multiple hormonal phases (including pregnancy, postpartum, and menopause), has 2k+ active users and aims to build a new category that marries hormonal science and behavioral data with personal tech within the $600B hormonal health market.

🤦 Oof: An Oregon court fined an attorney $10k for submitting a legal brief that contained 15 citations and nine quotes hallucinated by AI, the highest fine yet for such an offense. But wait till you get a load of this: The lawyer told the court that his staff had attempted to confirm the cases by — deep sigh — asking Google, and its AI-powered search engine said the bogus cases were real. What a double whammy.

🌿 Fur from the farm: Startup BioFluff is developing a plastic-free alternative fur made from plant fibers like hemp, flax, and nettle. Called Savian, the material has the potential to cut carbon emissions by at least 75% compared to plastic faux fur and can biodegrade within a few years or compost in ~12 weeks. BioFluff is opening a showroom in Paris and has already made its debut in runway shows for major brands.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Very sci-fi: Bay Area startup R3 Bio wants to test on “organ sacks” in lieu of lab animals. These structures contain all organs but the brain, so no sentience. R3’s future plans include human sacks, which could also supply organs and tissue for donation.
MBA markup: Average MBA tuition is rising — up ~11% over the last four years — as business schools face higher operating costs, including faculty salaries, which jumped 17% between the 2020-21 and 2024-25 school years.
Full circle: Renasens, a startup with a waterless recycling system that turns mixed textile waste into fibers for reuse, has raised $11.5m to build a pilot plant in Sweden.
Console woes: Sony will raise the price of its PS5 again on April 2, bumping the standard to ~$650 and the Pro to ~$900, citing “continued pressures in the global economic landscape.”

ONE-WEEK APPS

Let’s build a ChatGPT companion app

If you haven’t heard this from The Hustle founder Sam Parr, or Starter Story founder Pat Walls: simple iOS apps are making a comeback — and you don’t need a team of engineers to collect your first fans.

Our launch challenge for you…

Block off seven sweaty days.
Digest our detailed tutorial (20+ follow-along videos).
Emerge from your room, eventually, with a clever app that brings you cash.

We’re not kidding. This walkthrough focuses on finding a companion app idea, vibe-coding a wireframe prototype, and launching your final product within the App Store TestFlight system.

Build your first iOS app

THE BIG IDEA

A rack of clothes next to a table piled with items including vinyl records, a globe, a guitar, and various knick knacks.

Boom goes the boomer estate sale

As the old proverb goes: one generation’s trash is another generation’s treasure.

Welcome to the heyday of the baby boomer estate sale, where Gen Zers are cleaning house and cashing in, per Business Insider.

Whether to shop more sustainably, save money amid rising costs, or a nostalgia-fueled resistance to disposable monoculture, a younger crowd is increasingly lining up at estate sales. And, in some cases, reselling their hauls on sites like Depop, Whatnot, and Facebook Marketplace.

From hashtags to price tags

Estate sales are nothing new. But thanks to the "boomer stuff avalanche," they're on the rise.

Estate sales' rise in popularity among Gen Zers is often attributed to influencers like Macy Eleni, who began sharing her hauls and tips on TikTok and Instagram during the pandemic.

Now, countless #estatesale posts on TikTok and Instagram share tips, preview sales, and show off the latest finds. EstateSales.net is even aiming to attract younger shoppers via social media, and is one of many sites seeing an uptick in younger participants.

For Gen Z, estate sales are a way to slow down, touch grass, and live more intentionally:

Avoiding fast fashion and cheap furniture in favor of high-quality finds for a fraction of the cost.
Purchasing items with a backstory while connecting with fellow thrifters IRL.
The trend also dovetails with the rise in offline "grandma hobbies" and the pandemic-fueled rise in "cottagecore."

Plus, there's the thrill of treasure hunting inside someone's home without feeling creepy.

The Martha Stewart aesthetic

Pinterest notes that Gen Zers are increasingly thrifting:

Searches for “dream thrift finds” increased by 550% last fall.
“Martha Stewart aesthetic” of farmhouse vibes was up by 2,889% last year.
This spring, searches for “grandma core kitchen” are up 545%.

While vintage clothes and collectibles are perennial favorites, Gen Z is also on the hunt for:

Art Deco furniture, including bar cabinets and sculptural light fixtures.
Ornate antique jewelry, including colored stones and large brooches.

Quirky serving items like vintage caviar trays and oyster plates.

Heck, even spice jars from the 1980s are coveted.

Now, if only we could find some more affordable housing options to go with these oyster plates.

🔗

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Nokia once ruled the cellphone world… until it almost disappeared. Here’s why Nvidia just dropped $1B on the company in one of the wildest pivots in tech.

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

How much Richard Boccato, a former bartender and the founder of Hundredweight Ice, made from selling frozen water last year, per Business Insider. In 2011, when Boccato first launched his fancy ice-cube business, he was carving 300-pound blocks of ice with a chainsaw from the back of a bar.

Fifteen years later, his operation is all grown up, as are his profits: With the help of ~$200k worth of equipment, he and his team now sell 3m+ pounds of the pretty little drink coolers each year to hundreds of customers, including 20 Michelin-starred restaurants, with revenue expected to hit $3.5m in 2026.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1939, Batman made his comic debut in Detective Comics No. 27 in a story written by Bill Finger and illustrated by Bob Kane.

🐍 Game: Word Snake.

👀 That’s cool: A scrollable Wikipedia.

🌐 Useful: 10 Google Chrome hacks.

🐱 Aww: Reality TV for cats.

SHOWER THOUGHT

Companies near the airport could make money by selling roof space for billboards. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Danny Jensen, and Singdhi Sokpo.

Editing by: Sara "Treasure hunter" Friedman.

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🕰️ One boomer’s trash…