🍪 The startup Olympics are here

Good morning, friends. Happy first week of September, aka SeptemBear. ‘Cause in the last century, the S&P 500 has averaged -1.1% returns in September.

It’s the only month where the S&P’s price has decreased 56% of the time.

Buckle up, friends, it’s open season - and the bears are out huntin'.

Alright, let’s get to the good stuff.

In the oven this week:

• 🤓 YC demo day picks

• 🗳️ Poll of the week: who here’s a founder?

• 🍪 Cookie crumbs: 5 bite-sized headlines

• 🍫 Chocolate chips: our 3 favorite finds this week

• 😂 Snickerdoodles: memes for the weekend

FRESHLY BAKED

YC DEMO DAY IS HERE

The nerd Olympics just started and we snagged a front row seat.

That’s right folks, it’s YC Demo Day.

That time of the year when the whole YC batch drop their pencils and pitch investors on what they've been working on.

It’s for all the marbles.

Of course, we had to go spectate, and out of the 217 contenders, here were our 3 top picks:

1. Roame

We’ve been waiting for Google to come out with this, but looks like this startup beat them to the punch.

Roame is a flight search tool, but for points/miles. They sift through a ton of airline rewards programs and partners so you can now figure out the cheapest way to get to Japan, in points.

Time for us to book some holiday travel 👀

2. Decoda Health

What would Demo Day be without a windfall of AI startups??

Before you roll your eyes, hang on. This one’s actually a great use case.

Let me tee it up for ya. AHEM.

What’s the one thing worse than going to the doctor’s?

Getting a bill from the doctor’s charging you for the wrong thing.

Apparently, there are 30% fewer medical coders (the people that log your appointment for billing) than there should be, and most of them are over 50 years old.

And what happens when you have a bunch of old geysers hurrying to finish their work?

Errors!!!

That’s where Decoda Health comes in. They’re using AI to read electronic health record systems and automatically assign billing codes to clinician notes.

The result?

Clinics save 30% in coding costs, see 20% fewer claim denials, and cut claim processing time to seconds.

Pretty sweet.

3. Flint

Teachers can now have AI do their homework for them.

Flint’s an AI tool that creates all the content K-12 teachers have to come up with: classroom activities, worksheets, quizzes, you name it.

You know those days when your teacher didn’t come up with a lesson plan and just forced the whole class to watch a movie?

Well, now everyday is gonna be a movie day for them.

FROM THE COOKIE JAR

POLL OF THE WEEK: ARE YOU A FOUNDER?

Demo Day got us thinking… how many of our readers are founders?

We’ve got a lot of you in big tech and venture, but how many of you have either started a company or are currently a founder in the trenches?

THE BIG PIZOOKIE

It’s a good thought exercise, right? Instead of trying to figure out what you’d be good at, think about what you’d be willing to do for 5000 hours.

‘Cause if you can sustain it for that long, you’ll get good.

COOKIE CRUMBS

BITE SIZED HEADLINES

CHOCOLATE CHIPS

OUR FAVORITE FINDS

• The life events that are most likely to change your personality

• From a business coach: 6 game changing mindset shifts

• 100 learnings about life

SNICKERDOODLES

THURSDAY MEMES

 😂 

What'd you think about this email?

• 🍪🍪🍪 Top notch!

• 🍪🍪 Meh... could use more milk

• 🍪 Undercooked, do better