When Marissa Mayer co-founded a startup in Palo Alto, Calif., six years ago, expectations for the former Yahoo CEO and early Google employee were sky-high. When the startup Sunshine announced its first app, centered around subscription software for contact management, people wondered if something more ambitious was just around the corner. . Today, Sunshine released the Internet after he released two equally mundane features: event planning and photo sharing. Commenter definitively confused.
I was also perplexed last week when Mayer told me about Sunshine's new product. Everything Sunshine offers includes an AI component, but it's hard to see how Sunshine's new photo app will enhance photo sharing as it currently does, and the same goes for the new The same goes for event apps. Like other apps, we encourage users to share photos related to events held on the platform. (Photos are hosted on his Shine servers and will be available “indefinitely,” Mayer said, adding that users can share or invite albums via text, iMessage, email, and other communication and sharing platforms.) (Added that you can easily send letters.)
It's tempting to ignore the composition of 15 people as irrelevant. But Mayer may be onto something with Sunshine, and that's nostalgia. Most Silicon Valley startups focus on the latest new things, but as the U.S. Census Bureau declared last year, America is aging. Mayer said that while Sunshine tackles issues that appeal to people of “all ages,” it would be a smart move to target a slightly older demographic who are drawn to something familiar. Older Americans now account for a record share of spending. They have time to interact and take photos. Sunshine's interface is even dyed the same purple hue she's long been associated with Yahoo, where she famously led it for five years starting in 2012.
When asked if the design choice was intentional, Mayer appeared momentarily surprised, then replied, “It was pure coincidence.”
Indeed, Mayer sees a need for something simpler. “There are a lot of companies that are focused on the cutting edge of AI,” she said. “But we think there is a lot that AI can do to help solve everyday problems, problems that we all experience every day and that are often overlooked.”
For example, Sunshine rolled out its birthday app as “kind of an area adjacent to addresses and contacts,” she said, before launching events and photo sharing.
She declined to say how many customers she has, but the move is reminiscent of an app called BirthdayAlarm.com run by husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Michael and Sochi Birch. The birthday reminder and e-card site didn't exactly have the most advanced design, but at one point had more than 50 million registered members and previously sold its social media company to AOL for $850 million in cash. The couple's profits increased by millions. dollar.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mayer is friends with Birch and says he was “definitely influenced by Michael.” He talked about the following facts: [BirthdayAlarm] It's a very simple app that got a lot of attention early on. ”
Sunshine doesn't seem to have that appeal with its contact management service. But perhaps (for now) free photo sharing and event planning will change things for Sunshine. Sunshine raised $20 million in 2020, much of it self-funded, Mayer said.
In the meantime, Mayer has other tricks up his sleeve, including eventually video sharing. “We've got a list of different features that we think will be in the first version, and hopefully soon after that,” she said last week. “We always knew we would become a portfolio company. The core theme was always to transform the ordinary into magic.”
The team “considered naming it Mundane AI,” she continued. “Sometimes I wonder if it could have been a better name.”
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