See you at Startup Week 👋 🚀

👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we’re leaning into the local community in our hometown, Washington DC, where next week (October 16th-20th), DC Startup Week takes place. As title sponsors we’re proud to support this initiative and to host two fantastic sessions! We also have news on X, where more changes are raising eyebrows and questioning the platform’s direction of travel. We have stories about Google’s move to passkeys, as well as some AI wizardry from Canva. Our Stat of the Week has a message to founders on World Mental Health Day. And What’s dAppening looks at the NFL Alumni’s drive to help former players take control of their image rights with NFTs.

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Meanwhile at 3Advance...

🏛🚀 Next week is DC Startup Week: Sponsored by 3Advance

🗓 Wednesday Oct 18th, 1pm-3pm at Expansive Co-working

Office Hours: ChatGPT Hands-on - Create your Personalized AI Playbook

Drop-in anytime during this session designed for non-technical startup founders, but applicable to anyone with an appetite for learning. We will use ChatGPT to review your bio, and automatically draft an action list for you to apply AI workflows in the success of your business. Then we’ll turn to good old fashioned human interaction! We’ll talk about your startup, your app idea, or your current job functions, and modify your AI Playbook in order to maximize its impact.

Register here, then check out the schedule.

🗓 Friday Oct 20th, 11:30am-12:15pm at the National Building Museum

Make Your Own Luck: How Tech Startups Can Engineer Success

This panel, moderated by our CEO Paul looks at how "luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. Four of our most inspirational friends and founders (Hewitt from Teambuildr, Adrienne from Keep Company, Chase from EZOS and Mike from Bene Tipping) will join Paul on stage to provide advice, tactics and some honest truths about what it takes to get your startup off the ground, and acquire the customers it needs to succeed.

Register here, then check out the schedule.

💡And there’s more… We’re also hosting a booth at Friday’s (Oct 20th) Expo at the National Building Museum. We’ll be showcasing our work and can answer questions about how successful startup apps get developed, or anything tech related (Cloud, AI, Web3, etc).

Takes 🎬

✖️😮 X – New Changes Leave Users Both Bewildered and Disgruntled

The X app has seen a raft of new changes in the last few weeks. Some aesthetic but worrying, such as the removal of news headlines from media posts, create a situation where there is a lack of context and a gift to those who trade in misinformation. Proposed changes, like removing the like and retweet count from the feed, have left users puzzled. A new function allows only verified accounts to reply to posts. This matters. Twitter was “organic”, with the best tweets and comments rising to the top because they were funny, insightful, or both. X is not organic. Comments reach the top because someone paid $8 a month to get there. Think it doesn’t matter? Consider the voices from Israel and Gaza today with suppressed engagement because they don’t have a blue tick. The once great platform feels broken, perhaps beyond repair. #XMissesTheMark Read more here.

🗞️ News – The Other Stories Catching Our Eye this Week

🔑 Google Default Setting for Passkeys on All Devices Starts Today. Big Tech gatekeepers have long been committed to killing the password. Google is getting serious about it starting today, where you’ll be prompted to use a passkey on all devices. Read about it here.

🎨 Canva releases a suite of new AI design tools. Team 3Advance has been waxing lyrical about Magic Studio, a new suite of AI design tools from Canva, which allows users to automate labor-intensive tasks or use generative AI to take the pain out of editing. Get the details here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: $10 Ad

💓🌍 Wellness – 1 in 2 Entrepreneurs & Founders Suffer Mental Health Issues

It’s World Mental Health Day, and we’d like to bring your attention to a startling statistic: Up to 50% of founders and entrepreneurs can develop mental health problems. In particular, young founders, those under pressure to reach for the stars and not miss, can be susceptible to severe mental health issues. We have worked with our clients to build apps like Brightn, No Weigh, and Second Breath that promote positive mental health and well-being, but sometimes it’s about simply realizing that it’s okay not to be okay. As this poignant video released today by an English soccer club says, check on yourself and check in on those around you. #WorldMentalHealthDay Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

A dApp is a decentralized app. Here’s the latest in web3, NFTs and blockchain apps.

🏈🫰 NFL – NFT Program Aims to Help Retired Athletes with Collectible Sales

NFT Alumni is a charitable organization that helps retired football players after they have left the game, working with former athletes on everything from healthcare to organizing speaker gigs. The charity has now partnered with NFT platform Aventus to monetize digital collectibles featuring players’ likenesses. Aventus will mint NFTs for players who sign up, allowing them to sell them to collectors. On the collector side, they will get access to special content and other goodies like signed memorabilia. NFL Alumni CEO Brad Edwards, himself a Super Bowl-winning safety, called NFTs the next evolution for athletes taking ownership of their image rights. #TouchdownNFT Read more here

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