Oddball Rooms, Sham Perks & Sidey Side Jobs🪞

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A Colorful Room of One's Own

Spaces: a queer-owned, queer-run app providing a safe platform for the LGBTQ+ community. 

Spaces is a group chat platform (very similar to Slack) for queer people to connect over topics they are passionate about, discover new interests and hang out.

It launched on iOS in March this year, and is coming soon to Android. It’s raised $899k+ on Wefunder, and already has ~1.5k individual “spaces” (group chat channels) on the platform. Its parent company, Hornet, was founded in 2011 as a dating app for queer men and is now a social network with 35m users.

How it Works: 

  • Anyone can create public or private channels called “Spaces”. They function like group chats with threaded conversations (just like in Slack). 
  • Each Space is a micro-community for a specific interest groups — gaymers, runners, drag lovers, queer Star Wars fans and yoga practitioners.

The first space to get really popular was for Black, queer, and transgender weightlifters.


Why this matters?

A 2021 report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) revealed that 64% of LGBTQ people experience more bullying and algorithmic aggression than any other demographic online. That abuse is compounded when racism, sexism, and other biases co-occur. 40% of all LGBTQ+ adults report not feeling safe on social media.

Large media apps like TikTok have been frequently criticized for their failure to stop such harassment.

The value proposition of Spaces is about a non-judgement digital platform where queer people can be their full selves.



WTH is an Anti-Perk?

Do you remember the Owen Wilson movie The Internship and how it glamourised Google’s workplace? The napping rooms, the free food, the campus bikes and volleyball courts, Mmmm

But a recent viral Twitter thread suggests workers don’t even want these things. 

They call these the “Anti-perks”… 

…. perks that sound good but don’t actually matter to workers. 

Why not? Think about the following perks. 

  • Unlimited vacation: Doesn’t really work unless the company encourages employees to take time off.
  • Free Booze: How can anyone work being drunk? Also alcohol breath isn’t any better than coffee breath. 
  • Napping pods: Back-to-back meetings and tight deadlines hardly help workers nap peacefully.

If anything, these perks act as an excuse for employers to burden workers with high-stress projects and extended hours. Rose Byrne’s character in The Internship was chronically overworked and under-slept. She was so over-reliant on the perks that she had literally no time for life outside the company. 

What do workers actually want?

  • Location-agnostic pay, which lets them work from wherever they want without compromising on salary.
  • Leave policies that don’t need them to pretend their grandma died for the 4th time just to justify the day-off.


Generation of Teenage Entrepreneurs  

Many Gen Z college graduates are flipping a corporate career in favor of entrepreneurship. 

We already know that Gen Z is super into hustle culture. Their side jobs also have side jobs and many employers are starting to make peace with that. 

But now the traditional idea of “hustle culture” is also evolving.

62% of Gen Z workers have started, or intend to start, their own business, according to data from the Center for Generational Kinetics. From Etsy stores to offering TikTok ads, some of them are running full-fledged businesses on the side.

A recent Microsoft survey sheds more light on this entrepreneurial spark. 

  • Nearly half of Gen Z have numerous side hustles. 
  • Entrepreneurs who use TikTok for their business (48%) are twice as likely to have multiple side hustles as those who do not.
  • 81% of Gen Z entrepreneurs work on vacation, out of their own volition. 
  • 86% of small business owners stated they would quit their 9-to-5 in favour of keeping their business.

Clearly Gen Z doesn’t seem to care about the stress and burnout that comes with too much hustling. Instead, many see it as a way to fast-track their retirement. About 61% believe they will be able to retire faster owning a small business than if they held a corporate job. 

Interestingly, since they start their entrepreneurial journey before college, many don’t even find a formal degree critical anymore. Instead, they prefer to ask TikTok for business advice.


Britain, Bonds and Budgets

Britain has been a major world economic power for over two centuries. But after the budget last week, the country is suddenly starting to look like an emerging market

  • The budget included major tax cuts for high earners and scrapped a planned hike in corporate taxes. 
  • It spelled out government plans to spend £150 billion on energy subsidize as the nation prepares for a hard winter. 

Ideally, lower taxes + more subsidies = ‘hoorah’ among the masses. Instead, the markets reacted to the budget like they don’t quite trust the British government to handle its financial situation. 

So what went wrong? 

  • Investors started selling off government bonds quickly, pushing rates to record highs.
  • The GBP fell over 3% against the USD - the lowest it’s been since 1985.

This combo of soaring bond rates and plunging currency is usually what countries without sound economies experience—not wealthy nations like the UK. 



Shorts ⏳
A Porsche Story - Luxury vehicle maker Porsche went public last week. Its shares soared higher, making it Germany's largest IPO in 25 years.

Nike's World - Seven million visitors have traversed Nikeland since its launch five months ago making it the most famous virtual world.

Open to All AI - Creator of the text-to-image program DALL-E, removed the program’s waitlist so anyone can now use it. And make money off it. 

Paradox of Prices - In the '80s, mortgage rates were almost three times as high — But it's still harder to buy a home now

McD for Adults - McDonald's is experimenting with an adult meal box this month. Yes, there is a toy inside the meal box. No, it's not what you think. 


Stash Recommends: Tools to Explore
🪶 AlbatrossA comprehensive hosted desktops solution (Desk as a Service Software) for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises.

🧑‍🍳 AdButlerA multi-format ad server solution that helps businesses manage, target, and track their advertising campaigns.

⚕️RippleA software designed for use in clinical trials, with the express purpose of aiding in patient enrollment, participation, and retention.

📞 OpenPhone: Move over Skype and Telegram. Here's an all-in-one phone system for teams that brings your business calls, texts, and contacts into one delightful app.


 
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