đ Good morning. Remember that itâs good to be a team player â but that thereâs a fine line. This guy mightâve crossed it: Tim Friede let himself be bitten by venomous snakes 200+ times along with hundreds of venom injections over 18 years. Why, you might ask? Friedeâs antibodies were able to fully or partially neutralize venom of 19 of the worldâs deadliest snakes in mice, according to a new study, and could one day do the same for the ~3m people who are bitten each year.
đ§ On the pod:DoorDashâs play for food-delivery dominance.
NEWS FLASH
đ MrBeast â AKA Jimmy Donaldson â has yet another venture:a novel. Donaldson is teaming up with author James Patterson on a thriller slated for 2026. The plot centers around a contest in which 100 contestants face risky challenges, form alliances, and backstab one another to win $1B, which sounds like a very âSquid Gameâ version of the viral stunts MrBeast pulls IRL. Itâs unclear how much publisher HarperCollins ponied up to score the collab between Donaldson, YouTubeâs biggest creator, and Patterson, who has published 67 No. 1 New York Times bestsellers, but itâs rumored to have won an eight-figure bidding war.
𼥠Did someone order a billion-dollar deal? DoorDash said itâs acquiring restaurant booking platform SevenRooms for $1.2B in cash. That wasnât all: DoorDash also snatched up British food-delivery service Deliveroo in a deal worth $3.9B. While that all sounds great, DoorDash reported Q1 revenue that fell short of analyst expectations. Those analysts have high expectations, though: The companyâs $3B+ quarterly revenue represents a 21% increase from last year, and it saw 732m orders, up 18% year over year.
đ From beyond: NBC will use NBA narrator Jim Faganâs voice on its next season of âNBA on NBC,â despite the fact that Fagan, who narrated the games from 1990 to 2002, died in 2017. The NBA received permission from Faganâs family to recreate his voice with generative AI. In a statement, Faganâs daughters, Jana Silvia Joyce and Risa Silvia-Koonin, said their father would have been âso thrilledâ to participate as someone who took âgreat pride in his work with NBC Sports.â Previously, NBC used AI to recreate broadcaster Al Michaelsâ voice for use during the 2024 Paris Olympics, though Michaels is still alive and calling NFL games.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
One more time: Rite-Aid filed for bankruptcy on Monday, not even a year after it exited its first bankruptcy. It intends to keep stores open as it finds buyers.
Heads up: Cosmos 482, a piece of space debris from a Soviet vehicle that went kaput on its way to Venus 50+ years ago, will be crashing down to Earth around May 10 â though the specifics of the when, where, and on whose head are unknown.
Instacart launched Fizz, a 21+ drinks and snack delivery app that wants to help you plan your next soiree. The app lets hosts invite guests to their carts for item selection and bill splitting before scheduling a delivery.
BUSINESS BLAST OFF
For building the business of your dreams
Time to climb into the olâ mind palace and dig up that genius thing you thought up last summer⌠or was it the summer before that? (Just keep stabbing, itâs in there somewhere.)
Once you remember: use these nine nimble templates to test your next big idea and expound on the pitch.
Nine startup-friendly templates for:
Assessing feasibility
Brainstorming names
Pitching and presenting
Building your tech stack
Estimating expenses
Planning profit channels
Fill out all of these and youâll have the bones of a business plan, swank-lookinâ slides, and foundational docs for your first co-workers.
Nylonâs new idea: An invite-only influencersâ club
Groucho Marx famously said he wouldnât want to belong to any club that would accept him as a member, but thatâs unlikely to be the case with Nylon. The magazineâs high-profile parties are coveted invites.
Nylon is launching an invite-only membership program centered around events and community later this year. It costs nothing to join, but you do have to be very cool.
How cool?
Bryan Goldberg, CEO and founder of Nylon parent Bustle Digital Group, toldFortune that the goal is to assemble âthousands of the most influential young tastemakers in America.â Specifically, 50k people who average 100k social media followers each, for a reach of 5B.
Why? Well, while similar communities and private clubs charge members to join, Nylonâs model is different. Goldberg is counting on brands that want access to its tastemakers to pay up, much like they already do to be featured at Nylon events.
Thatâs interestingâŚ
⌠when you consider that most publications try to earn revenue through subscriptions and ads â both of which are on the decline â unless youâre talking about the The New York Timesâ recipes and games.
They seem to churn out as much content as possible, farming for clicks and social media engagement, but donât really focus much on in-person communities.
While Nylonâs model may not be accessible to regular people, it may inspire other publications.
People are hungry for IRL opportunities to make new friends â whether thatâs through friendship apps that facilitate meetups or, as we recently covered, communal saunas. So, sure, why not a membership around a shared interest in a particular media brand?
For example, Atlas Obscura, which achieved profitability in 2023, earns revenue from brand partnerships, but also experiences, including members-only events, online courses, and even group trips.
Time will tell if Nylonâs model will turn a profit, but it does sound a lot cooler than clickbait and articles divided into 20 slides with five pop-up ads each.
Got milk? If not, youâre late to the trend: Big Dairy is making a comeback, and itâs not just for kids this time.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Share of parents with children ages 0-13 who say that âreading books to my child is fun for me,â according to a survey from Nielsen and HarperCollins, perThe Guardian.
It seems that the age-old tradition of a bedtime story is on its way out, with just 41% of parents with kids ages 0-4 saying they frequently read to them, compared to 64% in 2012.
Some parents blame a lack of time and an increase in homework, while Gen Z parents, more so than their millennial and Gen X counterparts, see reading as an educational subject versus a âfun thing to do.â HarperCollins suggests this is because the younger generation grew up with more digital forms of entertainment.
We think itâs because theyâre not doing the voices. If you want reading to your children â or your pets, even â to be fun, everyone knows you have to do the voices.
HOW YOU HUSTLE
We donât need to tell you â our readers are amazing. So amazing, in fact, that it was worth dedicating some real estate to. Hereâs our weekly spotlight on a Hustler doing something big.
The elevator pitch: âWe make it easier for filmmakers to create their dream project.â
Origin story: âI started Cinora because I was frustrated at the industry falling apart. I have worked with the BBC, major funders in the UK, and I am a member of BAFTA, and I was struggling to find work. So I started producing my own films, and along the way realized I had insight from a lot of successful productions â I pulled this knowledge together and created the Filmmakers Gameplan, which synchronises all areas of production and saves time and energy on managing a film project.â
Biggest win: âLaunching the Filmmakers Gameplan and an optional course to learn more about production management whilst using the tool. The first cohort started in March and weâre so excited to be working on bringing their films to life.â
Advice to a fellow entrepreneur: âStart on your idea as soon as you can â it starts growing as soon as itâs out there in the world.â
Conventional advice you think is BS: ââWe all have 24 hours in a day.â Itâs not the same 24 hours for everybody, so donât beat yourself up if you have to go to a day job and canât dedicate all of your time to your hustle.â
Want to be featured here? Tell us how youâre hustling.
AROUND THE WEB
đ On this day: In 1824, Ludwig van Beethovenâs final symphony, âSymphony No. 9,â debuted in Vienna.
đŚ Thatâs cool: A short film about the owls at Bostonâs Logan Airport.
đď¸ Thatâs cool: The Assist is a free, 4x-weekly newsletter sending actionable career and wellness tips to 200k+ go-getters.
đą Haha: An interactive Nokia 3250. (In case you forgot, hold the power button on the top of the phone to turn it on.)
Ainât no party like a VR party, âcause a VR party donât stop â unless you decide itâs over⌠at which point you pop off your goggles to realize youâre suddenly way too drunk, alone in your living room, and unsure what day it is.
VR parties have exploded in popularity since the pandemic, offering unmatched visuals and world-class DJ sets. But unlike IRL clubs, virtual ones never close, which can make it hard for VR ravers â like one 38-year-old IT worker who toldWired he once partied in the metaverse for 60 hours without ever leaving his apartment â to know when to call it quits.
SHOWER THOUGHT
Thereâs no biological flying thing a human can ride.SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Singdhi Sokpo and Kaylee Jenzen. Editing by: Ben âDog Fancyâ memberâ Berkley.