It is very rare that I interact with an app that changes my life. Instagram and Snapchat were amazing in their prime, back in middle and high school. However, now that I have grown up, games and social apps just do not do the same thing they used to do. In 2021, some friends recommended an app called Letterboxd, which is a movie cataloging service that also involves a social aspect. Because of my love for movies, I was able to jump right in and start reviewing my first films, and it made me feel like a serious movie critic.
Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow invented Letterboxd in 2011, which completely shook the world of movie critics. Before, critics would hide behind sites such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, and create reviews that were far different from audience reviews. With Letterboxd, there are millions of different reviews for each film, and there are so many different ways to write reviews.
In conclusion, Buchanan and von Randow changed how movie reviews are written and read today, and as an avid movie lover, I am so grateful for these entrepreneurs changing a market that I never thought would change.
In the app, there’s personalized investing recommendations and caters towards different demographics and generations. Another cool feature of the app is how users can even start investing with as little as $1 for fractional shares of stocks and EFTs. Not every investing app lets you start off with $1, and with the starting price being so low the risks are also pretty low. Alinea also has a feature called “playlists” that are groups of stocks that can be customized based on what your values or lifestyles are. There’s even the option to invest in female-founded companies and many others. Over the years, this app has $2.1 million in funding from a lot of strategic investors and even Hardvard! Alinea is SEC registered investment advisor, FINRA & SIPC Insured as a drivewealth partner, and bank-level security, and SSL & 256-bit encryption. Having all of these features makes investing safer and easier, with lower risks and a whole lot of learning without the stress! With an annual membership only being $96, you can get access to a whole lot of support and learning opportunities on how to invest! Check out their website 
Ben Pasternak looked like an ordinary teen, but behind the scenes, he was creating viral apps in his bedroom and would eventually start a multimillion-dollar tech company. Many teenagers play video games and enjoy the apps on their phone, but Ben did not just enjoy using technology, he wanted to know how it was created and why people enjoyed it. At only age 15, he designed his first gaming app called Impossible Rush. After only a few weeks of its release, it had gained over a million downloads. People with more power started to become interested in Ben’s work. Ben decided to drop out of high school and move to New York City after receiving numerous offers from tech investors including Greylock Partners and Tumblr’s former president, John Maloney. In 2016, Ben founded Flogg, an online marketplace for young adults to buy and sell products and network with others. Flogg grabbed even more people’s attention, and Ben received more funding as a result. The app, Sup, became Ben’s next tech business endeavor. This social networking app allowed friends online to meet in real life. The focus, ironically, was to encourage face-to-face conversations rather than virtual connections. A few years later in 2019, Ben focused on combining the food industry with the tech industry and co-founded NUGGS. NUGGS was a food technology company that made plant-based nuggets. They have since rebranded NUGGS and renamed it Simulate. They expanded to make a variety of foods with meat alternatives.
