Its been over 60 years since Walt Disney took a fateful flight over an undeveloped section of Central Florida and decided that he wanted to put a sprawling theme park there. Today, the Orlando metro area is the most-visited destination in the United States, with its tourism industry generating an economic impact of more than $92 billion in 2023.
Disneys namesake company, of course, no longer has that balmy playing field all to itself. For decades, its competed with Universal Studios for its share of Orlando touristsa fierce rivalry that hit a new plateau last month with the opening of Universal Epic Universe, a 750-acre mega-park that comprises five distinct worlds, including those based on popular intellectual property such as Harry Potter and Nintendo.
Epic Universe marks Orlandos first major theme park 25 years, opening a new front in the battle between Disney and NBCUniversal owner Comcast to win the hearts, minds, and dollars of the regions park-goers.
A big question looming over the opening of Epic Universe is how it will impact the decisions of tourists and families who plan to visit the Orlando area now and in the coming years. Will more families forego the notably family-friendly Disney World in favor of what Epic has to offeror will Universal’s new park simply siphon off visitors who would have otherwise attended another Universal park?
One way to predict future trends is by looking at past park openings, known in the industry as gates, according to Carissa Baker, an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida and a longtime researcher of theme parks.
What we have seen in the past is that there is a bit of cannibalization from the parks that the existing company has, Baker told Fast Company. So even when Disney has opened their newer gates, there is sometimes a little bit of drop-off from their existing gates, because most guests are not going to do every single park in Orlando in one single visit.
The Florida projects
Orlando attracted 75.2 million visitors last year, according to the Visit Orlando tourism association. Thats an increase of 1.8% over the year before, and nearly even with pre-pandemic highs. Most of the area’s visitors come from elsewhere in the United States, while more than 30% are Florida residents.
Although inflation and more recent economic instability could have a negative impact on overall visitor growth in the years head, one thing Orlandos theme parks have going for them is that families tend to plan their vacations long in advance.
These are destination parks, Baker said. The average family doesn’t go to these parks every year.”
In a research note on May 22, analyst firm MoffettNathanson expressed doubts about a substantial impact to Disney from Epic Universe, although the impact wont be negligible, either.
The firm estimates that Epic could see 5.2 million visitors this year and 9.2 million next year, compared to an estimated 54.9 million for Disney during both years. It projects a modest year-over-year decrease in Universals other parks, from 18.9 million in 2025 to 18.4 million in 2026.
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In other words, Disneys attendance is projected to be flat while Universal will see a bump from Epic, at least initially. Given strong early reception during previews and solid forward bookings guidance, we think Epic is off to a strong start, MoffettNathanson analysts wrote.
Both companies have invested heavily in theme parks in recent years. In 2023, the Walt Disney Company announced it would double its capital expenditures for its Parks, Experiences, and Products segment to roughly $60 billion over the next 10 years. Meanwhile, NBCUniversal spent more than $10 billion on new and existing Universal destinations in California, Florida, Texas, and Nevada between 2018 and 2024, according to Comcast.
Crucially for Disney, the firm also pointed out how Epic Universes Nintendo and How to Train Your Dragon worlds could appeal to families with younger children, a demographic traditionally ruled by Disney. Comcasts ambition is clearly to take share of vacation time with these families, the analysts wrote.
Baker, who had already been to Epic Universe seven times when we spoke earlier this month, said its appeal with visitors was perhaps most obvious with the immersive Super Nintendo World, which further leverages a successful decade-long partnership between Universal and the video game maker. Similarly themed worlds are already up and running in theme parks in Japan and California.
Its very, very popular, Baker said. People are just covered in Nintendo merchandise . . . Every time I’ve been in there, it’s been quite crowded.
If youre planning on making a bologna sandwich anytime soon, you might want to stop and check your meat first. On June 27, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a recall notice for almost 150,000 pounds of lunch meat due to undeclared meat content.
Several different kinds of bologna manufactured by Gaiser’s European Style Provisions of Union, New Jersey, may contain types of meat and chicken not listed on their respective labels. Heres what to know about the recall.
What happened?
The recall comes after the FSIS received a complaint pertaining to the meat content of a Gaisers product. After conducting an investigation, the FSIS was able to confirm that seven different kinds of bologna from the brand included some combination of pork, chicken, or beef that was not stated on the product label.
This type of rebrand is described as a misbranding, which falls under the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations Class III designation, or a situation in which use of or exposure to a violative product is not likely to cause adverse health consequences.
The recall notice states: Although FSIS does not expect any adverse health effects for Class III recalled products and there have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products, anyone concerned about an illness should contact a healthcare provider.”
What product is getting recalled?
Seven different types of bologna are affected by the recall, totaling 143,416 pounds of lunch meat. All of the products were produced between March 20 and June 20, and include the establishment number EST. 5385 inside the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels.
Per the recall notice, the meats were sold to wholesale and retail locations nationwide, though specific stores were not listed. However, the notice flags that some products may have been weighed, wrapped, and labeled in retail store locations at the time of purchase.
Below is a list of the products to look out for:
Vacuum-packed packages of FAMILY TREE BOLOGNA VEAL containing undeclared pork.
Plastic-wrapped packages of BABUSHKAS RECIPE CHICKEN BOLOGNA containing undeclared pork.
Plastic-wrapped packages of FANCY BOLOGNA labeled with pork as an ingredient but containing undeclared beef and chicken.
Vacuum-packed packages of GAISER’S RUSSIAN BRAND DOKTORSKAYA BOLOGNA containing undeclared beef.
Plastic-wrapped packages of GAISER’S BOLOGNA VEAL containing undeclared chicken and pork.
Plastic-wrapped packages of GAISER’S TURKEY BOLOGNA containing undeclared chicken and pork.
Plastic-wrapped packages of CHICKEN BOLOGNA KYPOYKA PABA containing undeclared pork.
The recall notice also includes images of the packaging for all of the affected items.
What should I do if I have a recalled Gaisers product?
While Class III recall products are generally not likely to cause adverse health effects, the FSIS urges both consumers and restaurants not to serve the recalled bologna products. Instead, the recall notice says: These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.
For follow-up questions on the recall, consumers can contact Gaisers manager Steven Shuchinski at 908-686-3421 or gaisers@verizon.net.
Dubai just took one step closer to its goal of launching electric air taxis in early 2026.
U.S.-based Joby Aviation, Inc., a company that is developing electric air taxis for commercial use, announced Monday that it successfully completed a series of piloted flights in Dubai, a first for the region’s eVTOL aircraft sector. (eVTOL stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing.)
Jobys all-electric air taxi is designed to carry a pilot and four passengers at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, with minimal noise and zero operating emissions, for faster and quieter commutes, with the aim of revolutionizing travel in Dubai while reducing traffic congestion.
Shares in the company (NYSE:JOBY) were trading up over 15% in midday trading on Monday.
The United Arab Emirates is a launchpad for a global revolution in how we move, Joby Aviation founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in a statement. Our flights and operational footprint in Dubai are a monumental step toward weaving air taxi services into the fabric of daily life worldwide.”
According to Bevirt, the goal is for air taxis to become a “new normal” in Dubai.
Joby plans to launch service between Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Palm Jumeirah, Dubai Marina, and Dubai Downtown, with construction already underway. The short flights are expected to significantly cut down travel time. For example, instead of a a 45-minute car ride, a trip from DXB airport to Palm Jumeirah is expected to take just 12 minutes.
A landmark 2024 agreement with Dubais Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) granted Joby exclusive rights to operate air taxis in Dubai for six years. The company is also working with the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) and the United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) on the project.
In a post on X, Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said the initiative “is part of the UAEs broader vision to lead the world in innovation and the deployment of advanced technologies.”
Joby Aviation by the numbers
Joby Aviation’s first-quarter earnings for 2025, which ended March 31, were mixed, with the company posting earnings per share (EPS) of -$0.11, beating expectations of -$0.19. The company had a market capitalization of $9.05 billion at the time of this writing.
On its earnings call, Joby said it was on track to launch its commercial service in Dubai by early 2026, and is continuing to work toward FAA certification in the United States while expanding its manufacturing facilities in California and Ohio to support future growth.
In May, Joby’s shares jumped about 29% after the company announced it received $250 million from Toyota, as part of its October 2024 deal for the carmaker to invest $500 million to support certification and commercial production of its electric air taxis.
Israel’s Cato Networks said on Monday it had raised $359 million in a funding round, valuing the cybersecurity firm at more than $4.8 billion, as investors bet on growing demand for artificial intelligence-driven security and networking solutions.
An uptick in sophisticated cyberattacks has prompted fears of operational disruptions among companies and an increase in investor interest in AI-powered cybersecurity providers.
The funding was led by Vitruvian Partners and ION Crossover Partners, along with existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Acrew Capital, among others. The latest round brings Cato’s total funding to more than $1 billion.
“With analysts projecting information-security outlays to climb at a double-digit clip through 2028, investors continue to treat cybersecurity and zero-trust plumbing as ‘can’t-cut’ line items even as other tech niches cool,” said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital.
Cato Networks plans to use the new funds to enhance its AI-driven security capabilities, increase investment in research and development, and expand its global footprint.
“Hefty private cash for Cato is less a one-off jackpot than a barometer that big-ticket appetite for cybersecurity is still running hot and that an exit wave through IPO, active secondaries, or acquisition may be warming up behind it,” Schulman said.
Reuters had reported last year, citing sources, that the company was gearing up for a potential 2025 IPO.
Cato, founded in 2015 by Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz, combines network services and security into a single cloud platform known as secure access service edge (SASE).
Its SASE solution helps businesses prevent threats, protect data, and quickly respond to incidents.
The SASE market is projected to surge to $25 billion by 2027, from $7 billion in 2022, according to Gartner’s 2023 report.
Customers listed on the company’s website include Swissport, Carlsberg, Element Solutions, and Komax.
By Prakhar Srivastava and Steven Scheer, Reuters
An innovative and potentially impactful new device can turn air into drinkable water, even in the driest climates.
The tool, which comes from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could be a huge step toward making safe drinking water worldwide a reality. The lack thereof impacts 2.2 billion people, per a study on the invention, which was recently published in the journal Nature Water.
The device was developed by Professor Xuanhe Zhao, the Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and his colleagues. According to the study, the contraption is made from hydrogel, a material that absorbs water, and lithium salts that can store water molecules. The substance is enclosed between two layers of glass, and at night it pulls water vapor from the atmosphere. During the day, the water condenses and drips into tubes.
It is about the size of a standard window, but even in environments that are hot and dry, its able to capture water. Zhao’s team tested the tool in the driest environment in the U.S.Death Valley, California. Even in the ultradry conditions, the tool was able to capture 160 milliliters of water per day (about two-thirds of a cup).The success of the model has the scientists thinking on a bigger scale. We have built a meter-scale device that we hope to deploy in resource-limited regions, where even a solar cell is not very accessible, says Zhao, per MIT News. He continued: Its a test of feasibility in scaling up this water-harvesting technology. Now people can build it even larger, or make it into parallel panels, to supply drinking water to people and achieve real impact.
The new design addresses several issues that past similar devices have come up against. It’s better at absorbing water than metal-organic frameworks that can also capture water from air. The new design, which has a sophisticated composition and added materials, is also better at limiting salt leakage. During the experiment, that meant that the water collected met criteria for safe drinking water.
We imagine that you could one day deploy an array of these panels, and the footprint is very small because they are all vertical, Zhao says. Then you could have many panels together, collecting water all the time, at household scale.
Two key U.S. Republican senators agreed to a revised federal moratorium on state regulation of artificial intelligence to five years and to allow states to adopt rules on child online safety and protecting artists’ images or likelinesses.
Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz originally proposed securing compliance by blocking states that regulate AI from a $42 billion broadband infrastructure fund as part of a broad tax and budget bill.
A revised version released last week would only restrict states regulating AI from tapping a new $500 million fund to support AI infrastructure.
Under a compromise announced Sunday by Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a critic of the state AI regulatory moratorium, the proposed 10-year moratorium would be cut to five years and allow states to regulate issues like protecting artists’ voices or child online safety if they do not impose an “undue or disproportionate burden” on AI.
Tennessee passed a law last year dubbed the ELVIS Act to protect songwriters and performers from the use of AI to make unauthorized fake works in the image and voice of well-known artists. Texas approved legislation to bar AI use for the creation of child pornography or to encourage a person to commit physical self-harm or commit crime.
It is not clear if the change will be enough to assuage concerns. On Friday, 17 Republican governors urged the Senate to drop the AI plan.
“We cannot support a provision that takes away states powers to protect our citizens. Let states function as the laboratories of democracy they were intended to be and allow state leaders to protect our people,” said the governors, led by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick voiced his support for the revised measure, calling it a pragmatic compromise. “Congress should stand by the Cruz provision to keep America First in AI,” Lutnick wrote on X.
Congress has failed for years to pass any meaningful AI regulations or safety measures.
Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said the Blackburn-Cruz amendment “does nothing to protect kids or consumers. It’s just another giveaway to tech companies.” Cantwell said Lutnick could simply opt to strip states of internet funding if they did not agree to the moratorium.
By David Shepardson, Reuters
U.S. stocks are adding to their records on Monday as Wall Street nears the finish of a second straight winning month.
The S&P 500 was 0.3% higher in its first trading after completing a stunning rebound from its springtime sell-off of roughly 20%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 218 points, or 0.5%, as of 11:40 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.
Stocks got a boost after Canada said its rescinding a planned tax on U.S. technology firms and resuming talks on trade with the United States. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump had said he was suspending talks with Canada because of his anger with the tax, which he called a direct and blatant attack on our country.
One of the main reasons U.S. stocks came back so quickly from their springtime swoon has been the hope that Trump will reach deals with other countries to lower his stiffly proposed tariffs. Otherwise, the fear is that trade wars could stifle the economy and send inflation higher.
Many of Trump’s announced tariffs are currently on pause, and they’re scheduled to kick back into effect in a little more than a week.
In an interview with Fox News Channels Sunday Morning Futures, Trump said his administration will notify countries that the trade penalties will take effect unless there are deals with the United States. Letters will start going out pretty soon before the approaching deadline, he said.
The U.S. stock market being back at a record high could raise the risk of renewed escalations on tariffs, according to strategists at Deutsche Bank led by Parag Thatte and Binky Chadha. They point to the pattern in 2018 and 2019 of rallies for the market prompting escalations for tariffs, which then drove market pullbacks followed by relents on tariffs that then sparked rallies again.
Despite the rhetoric to the contrary, this dynamic looks alive and well, the strategists wrote in a report. In our view, beyond the market reaction, if negative impacts of tariffs on growth, earnings or inflation start to materialize, we will get further relents.
On Wall Street, Oracle’s 4.8% rise was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. CEO Safra Catz said the tech giant is off to a strong start in its fiscal year and that it signed multiple large cloud services agreements, including one that could contribute over $30 billion in annual revenue two fiscal years from now.
Bank stocks were also strong after the Federal Reserve said on Friday that they are financially strong enough to survive a downturn in the economy. JPMorgan Chase climbed 1.8%, Wells Fargo rose 1.5% and Citigroup gained 1.1%.
GMS stock jumped 11.8% after the supplier of specialty building products said it agreed to sell itself to a Home Depot subsidiary in a deal that would pay $110.00 per share in cash. That would give it a total value of roughly $5.5 billion, including debt.
Less than two weeks ago, another company, QXO, said it was offering to buy GMS for $95.20 per share in cash. After the announcement of the Home Depot bid, QXOs stock rose 2.2%, and Home Depots stock slipped 0.8%.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise rallied 13.7% and Juniper Networks climbed 8.4% after saying they had reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that could clear the way for their merger go through, subject to court approval. HPE is trying to buy Juniper in a $14 billion deal.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased a bit ahead of major economic reports later in the week. The highlight will be Thursdays jobs report. Its often the most anticipated economic data of each month, and it will come a day earlier than usual because of the Fourth of July holiday.
The job market has remained relatively steady recently, even in the face of tariffs, but hiring has slowed. Economists expect Thursdays data to show another slowdown in overall hiring, down to 115,000 jobs in June from 139,000 in May.
Such data has kept the Federal Reserve on hold this year when it comes to interest rates. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said repeatedly that its waiting for more data to show how tariffs will affect the economy and inflation before resuming its cuts to interest rates. Thats because lower rates can fan inflation higher, along with giving the economy a boost.
Trump, meanwhile, has been pushing for more cuts to rates and for them to happen soon. Two of his appointees to the Fed have said recently they could consider cutting rates as soon as the Feds next meeting in less than a month.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.26% from 4.29% late Friday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped modestly in Europe following a more mixed finish in Asia.
Stocks fell 0.9% in Hong Kong but rose 0.6% in Shanghai after China reported its factory activity improved slightly in June after Beijing and Washington agreed in May to postpone imposing higher tariffs on each others exports, though manufacturing remained in contraction.
Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
There isnt a single element that carried Zohran Mamdanis campaignexcept, well, for Mamdani himself. However, there was one campaign artifact that became ubiquitous on New York City streets in the months ahead of the mayoral primary: his campaign poster. Taped up on storefronts, in apartment windows, and around light posts, it was impossible to miss. The mix of colors (Metrocard yellow, Mets blue, and fire-engine red); Mamdanis affable portrait; and a hand-drawn wordmark with an exaggerated drop shadow that alighted his head like a crown stood out in the cacophonous cityscape (and bland arena of the competitions branding). Could a single-term assemblyperson ascend to the highest political office in the United States most-populous city? The poster sure made it easy to envision.
Mamdanis aesthetics, from his fashion to his video filters, are a master class in the communication required for a 21st-century campaign to be successful. His branding, by the Philadelphia-based design cooperative Forge, was nimbly applied to social media, mailers, and merch and brought cohesion to the multi-platform campaign without veering into corporate territory. And for all the new media associated with Mamdani, his poster, one of the oldest tools in a candidates kit, encapsulated the innovative messaging at the heart of his campaign: It was fresh, welcoming, and specificand set a new gold standard for progressive, political design.
The poster was designed by Tyler Evans, a designer based outside of Washington, D.C., who was Bernie Sanderss design director and, as of three months ago, became Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs creative director, and was the first widely circulated printed matter rooted in the visual identity that Forge created for the campaign. We spoke to Evans and Aneesh Bhoopathy, a creative at Forge, about what makes Mamdanis poster design so compelling.
[Photo: Tyler Evans]
Rooted In New York
The poster is based on the design system Bhoopathy and the team at Forge created. The identity is grounded in New Yorks iconography and typographic legacy, Bhoopathy says, and features a primary color palette that pulls from Metrocards, taxi cabs, and even the New York Lottery logo.
While design systems trace their roots to corporate branding, Mamdanis avoids feeling contrived or stiff. Bhoopathy hand-drew Mamdanis wordmark, a nostalgic nod to the once-ubiquitous hand-painted signs that adorned bodega storefronts, and specified Unique Gothic, a sans-serif typeface, for all other text as a way to balance out the playfulness so the identity doesn’t get too Barnum and Bailey, he says. The colors, lettering, and levity help Mamdanis branding feel relatable. The nostalgia, the human touchthat is obviously different from a more corporate brand, Bhoopathy says. Its just the feeling of it being for everyone.
[Photo: Zohran for New York City]
A Handmade Look
Before designing Mamdanis mayoral campaign, Bhoopathy designed graphics for his assembly run and has also worked with New York State Senators Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport. These experiences taught him that the branding for progressive candidates is often memedlike the famous Hot Girls for Zohran shirtswhich he welcomes.
One thing about working in leftist campaigns is knowing that people are going to remix, screen print, and make their own things, Bhoopathy says. And so you have to be comfortable with letting things take on a life of their own and not feel too precious about it, like you might be with a corporate brand.
A human touch is also important to Evans in poster design. In Democratic politics especially, there was a rush to kind of put a corporate sheen on things and to make things really nice and clean, he says. And it kind of forgets the fact that people are involved and people are messy. I don’t think people should be afraid of making things look a little rough, making things look handmade, or potentially even doing things handmade. The people element of politics cant be overlooked, and that follows through into visuals.
The campaign poster was the first project to test Forges flexible approach to the design system. The only constraints? Evans was asked to use a portrait Mamdanis team provided and to stick to the typefaces that Bhoopathy specified; everything else was open to interpretation.
[Photo: Zohran for New York City]
Not a Political Type
Evans designs political posters that dont look political. Its a strategic move the voters his candidates are vying for are distrustful of establishment politics. Usually this draws people in and makes them curious about what this person is about, Evans says.
In order to do this, Evans opts for expressive typography. There’s always got to be some mood, energy, and spirit present, he says. It has to feel alive.
The sensibility Evans likes is common in the sports and entertainment industry and, occasionally, in political design from the past, especially from the FDR and Lyndon B. Johnson eras. Baseball logos are frequent reference material; he used the Gothic font from the Pittsburgh Pirates in an Instagram poster for one of Bernies rallies in the Steel City; in an Instagram poster he designed to announce Bernies endorsement of Mamdani, he borrowed from the Brooklyn Dodgers logo for Sanderss name and from the Mets logo for Mamdani. (In addition to designing the printed campaign poster, Evans also designed multiple Instagram posters for the campaigns pivotal moments.)
The wordmark Bhoopathy designed has the gravitas Evans looks for. Evans riffed on the drop shadows found in Bollywood posters so it stands out even more. Somebody on the AOC campaign said [Zohrans poster] looked more like a concert poster for a singer than a political campaign poster, which I take as a compliment, he says.
[Photo: Kara McCurdy]
Brevity, for Legibilitys Sake
There is very little writing on Mamdanis poster and what words are there are efficient. They say exactly what he is running for and what his campaign platform is: A New York You Can Afford. And once the poster earns that attention, its respectful of it by being clear with what it saysno vague proclamations of Hope, which might have worked in Shepard Faireys 2008 poster for Obama, but isnt enough today. Thinking of people walking by on foot, you have probably two seconds max for people’s attention, Evans says.
Editing down the copy to the right amount was trial and error. Originally, the campaign wanted Mamdanis full name on the poster, but Evans eventually pared it back to Zohran. Additionally, when Evans began working on the poster, the campaign hadnt finalized its tagline; the working copy was Afford to Live and Afford to Dream, a phrase that appeared on a banner behind Mamdani when he gave his election night speech.
The back of the poster features Mamdanis platform: building affordable homes, making buses fast and free, and a rent freeze for all stabilized tenants. This campaign is uniquely disciplined and sharp, Bhoopathy says of the messaging.
In March, the campaign released a new version of the poster on Instagram, which was even more pared back.
Brief phrases also help with another key aspect of Mamdanis campaign: its multilingual. Mamdani frequently spoke to constituents in Spanish and filmed videos in Urdu/Hindi. His printed material was translated into 14 languages, some that are written in characters and some that are read right to left. The need to be nimble influenced the identity Forge designed and the poster Evans designed. Keeping the copy short and sweet lends itself to translations, Evans says.
[Photo: Zohran for New York City]
A Design Fit for the Candidate
But most importantly, the campaigns design fit Mamdani. No matter how good a visual identity might be, if it isnt authentic to the candidate, it just wont work. The candidate matters, Bhoopathy says. And Evans echoes a similar sentiment. Not to oversimplify it, but 95% is him.
To wit: Dianne Morales, a candidate for mayor in 2021, had distinctive gradient-inspired branding (and inventive merch), but her campaign spectacularly flopped after her staffers protested against poor working conditions. If you cant manage your campaign, it doesnt bode well for managing a city. Meanwhile, the branding for Kamala Harriss 2020 presidential campaign nodded back to Shirley Chisholms historic run for the countrys top office, but her For the People slogan was impotent against the chorus of Copmala memes.
Meanwhile, Mamdani understood how important branding is and had strong personal opinions about what his should look like. I admire his attention to detail, his belief in the power of design to communicate ideas, and his willingness to get creative with it, Bhoopathy says.
The classic funding announcement post is getting the Gen Z treatment.
More startups, especially those led by young founders, are moving away from LinkedIn posts or X threads and turning to viral TikToks and short-form videos to stand out, Business Insider recently reported.
With traditional media coverage harder to land and social posts quickly vanishing from feeds, founders are rethinking how they announce major milestones.
Cluely, the cheat on everything startup, recently raised $15 million and announced it with a shot-for-shot homage to The Social Network. Earlier this year, they also launched with a video that cost $140,000 to produce. The 90-second narrative short, posted to X, shows a man on a first date being fed lines in real time by Cluely. The investment paid off. The video went viral and crashed Cluelys servers, founder Chungin Roy Lee told Business Insider.
Cluely is out. cheat on everything. pic.twitter.com/EsRXQaCfUI— Roy (@im_roy_lee) April 20, 2025
For Hedra, a startup focused on digital avatars, the announcement video doubled as a product demo. Founder Michael Lingelbach appears in the clip as himself, as a Studio Ghibli character, a Pixar animation, and with a full tech bro makeover, complete with gold chain. Those viral baby podcast videos that were everywhere last month? That was them.
@hedra.labs We’re hooked on the baby podcasts, so we made our own with Character-3. #ai #babypodcast #aibaby #aivideo #chatgpt #hedra original sound – Hedra – Hedra
Not every announcement needs to be a high-budget production, though. British entrepreneur Grace Beverley turned to TikTok last year to announce two fundraises: one for her activewear brand TALA, and another for Retrograde, her AI-powered talent agency.
Sign my businesss series a funding round with me, read the caption of one TikTok, where she signed the 5 million deal with a pink fluffy pen. Just a few months later, she returned with a white fluffy pen to sign the 1.9 million round for Retrograde.
@gracebeverley a pinch me moment original sound – grace beverley
Instead of relying on blog posts or LinkedIn updates, startups navigating a saturated market may find that a viral video is more likely to attract new customersor even the right investor sliding into their DMs.
For many people, when a “For Sale” sign pops up in their neighborhood, one of the first questions that comes to mind is: how much will that place go for? This price curiosityfueled by house flipping shows on HGTV and doomscrolling on Zillowhas gone from idle neighborhood interest to multimedia obsession.
Now that experience is being turned into PropQwiz, a live daily trivia sweepstakes, and accurately guessing the listing price will give players a chance to win up to $350,000 to purchase a home, pay off a mortgage, or make a down payment.
[Photo: Popqwiz]
Like a mix of the defunct daily trivia game HQ Trivia and the real estate listings on Zillow, PropQwiz is a live game played through an app that uses actual real estate listings to quiz players on the likely selling price of homes around the U.S.
Every weekday at 3 p.m. (Eastern Time), the PropQwiz app will broadcast a three-minute video featuring one house currently on the market, offering five clues about the home, the property, the amenities, and the location, and then giving players 15 seconds to guess the listing price. The closer the guess, the more points a player receives, and each point counts as an entry into a periodic sweepstakes for the grand prize of $350,000 toward a home, or $175,000 in cash. According to PropQwiz’s rules, the first home giveaway will happen after the total number of plays on the daily game and other minigames within the app reaches 31 million. By comparison, HQ Trivia had 2.4 million concurrent users at its peak of popularity.
“The more people who play this game and the more games that are played, the more homes we get to give away,” says PropQwiz creator Jim Casey. “In the beginning, it might be a home a month. We’re looking to quickly turn that into a home a week, and perhaps even a home a day.”
A longtime television producer behind shows like Building Outside the Lines and The Dead Files, Casey says the idea for the game came from his own experience, walking his dogs in his Los Angeles neighborhood with his wife and quizzing each other on the prices of homes that were up for sale. “It was fun in our neighborhood, but we found that when we traveled and we were in unfamiliar areas, it was even more fun,” he says.
That guessing game turned out to be a common one among Casey’s friends, and as he looked into it, he realized that there is an even larger pool of people who browse real estate listings just for the fun of it. Research from 2021 found that more than a third of Zillow users were not actively in the market for housing but were just using the site casually. “People were doing this everywhere,” Casey says.
But there’s also a bleaker side to that stat, which is that many people are only casually looking at real estate listings because they can’t actually afford to buy a home on the market. For people in the Gen Z and millennial age range, more than half believe they’d need to win the lottery to be able to afford a home, according to research from Zillow. “So we thought, alright, let’s give them a lottery, or at least a form of the lottery,” says Casey. (Legally speaking, the game is a sweepstakes; PropQwiz is free to play, and is supported by ads.)
Ahead of PropQwiz’s first official live game on June 30, I tried my luck at a beta version of the game. I watched a three-minute video montage of a contemporary house while a narrator cheekily explained its stats and amenities: 5,200-square feet, five bedrooms, six bathrooms, walk-in pantry, saltwater pool, hot tub, all on three quarters of an acre. The final, and most important, cluelocation, location, locationis that the home is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not knowing much about that particular housing market, and likely not ever being in the market for such a big house, I used my 15 seconds of guessing time to frantically suggest a listing price of $7.8 million. Within seconds, the true price was revealed: $3.45 million.
“So you were pretty far off there,” says PropQwiz COO Daniel Tibbets.
“But that’s okay,” he adds, noting that even a very bad guessone off by multiple millions of dollars, for exampleearns a player at least 100 points, or 100 chances to win. Somebody guessing closer to the $3.45 million mark would have racked up 5,000 points, vastly improving their odds of winning the ultimate sweepstakes.
In addition to the daily live game, PropQwiz also features what Casey and Tibbets call minigames, which are multiple-choice quizzes that show a home and as for its current listing price, or in a version called Time Machine, its price decades ago.
The homes featured in PropQwiz aren’t pulled from real estate listing aggregators like Zillow and Redfin but licensed from real estate photographers across the country. “They own the copyright on all these images,” Casey says. “So we ask them what are your favorite homes?” The PropQwiz team digs through thousands of images to find good candidate houses. Casey, the longtime television producer, says they aren’t always big expensive homes, but they do have to have some standout feature or unique quality. “We always want something that people are going to enjoy taking a tour of,” says Casey. “It needs to be something that’s either very relatable or very aspirational.”
And, hopefully, entertaining enough that people tune in repeatedly, and get others to as well. “You bring in more people to play, you play more games, you get to have fun playing a game, and we get to give away homes,” Casey says. “That’s the goal.”
