🇺🇸 showtime: NFT social network for art. (Founded 2021, Total Funding Amount: $7.6M seed)

How it works: Creators and collectors showcase their digital art. Showtime aims to offer a social media platform that enables everyone to discover and share NFT art.

Team: Based in San Fransico. Showtime is co-founded by Alex Masmej and Alex Kilkka.

Masmej is known for tokenizing himself in April 2020. He raised $20,000 by allowing $ALEX token holders to vote on his life choices, such as exercise and diet.

The backstory: “We’re turning the world of social media on its head by putting users beyond platforms,” co-founder & CEO Alex Masmej, and co-founder & CTO Alex Kilkka

Why it’s worth checking out: NFTs are on the rise. Can Showtime become the next Facebook or Twitter, but for NFT and Crypto?

🇧🇬 Haptic: Humanize your product. You have a story to tell. And so does your product. Share the story with the world. (Founded 2021, Total Funding Amount: bootstrapped)

How it works

When Twitter and LinkedIn have a baby, Haptic is born. You create an account, publish your product, and engage with your audience.

The Team

Borislav Grigorov is the solo founder. He’s based in Sofia, Bulgaria, and is currently bootstrapping his way to success.

Boris is an experienced full-stack developer and designer. I had a lot of fun chatting with Boris, and I’m confident in his abilities.

The backstory

Why it’s worth checking out

(1) A unique product that launched 2 days ago (13th May 2021). He already landed his first customer, in just a couple of hours of launching the product.

(2) High-quality founder tinkering and working 24/7 to find the market fit for his startup.

🏁 You’re all set!

Startups Crushing It! is a premium newsletter about early-stage (before series A) technology startups. I publish the insights each Tuesday or Friday.

I look for strong positive signals using the FPTM model: Founders — Product — Traction — Mission.

I interview the founder(s), toy around with products, crunch numbers, and based on that, I decide which startups to feature.

If you want more, you can dig through the archives for the previous digests.

Support me by forwarding it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.