One of the hardest things about starting a business is coming up with an idea that people will pay money for.

That was the problem Distelli CEO and founder Rahul Singh faced when he left Amazon Web Services in 2012, after spending nearly nine years there. He was its fourth engineer.

Singh always knew he wanted be an entrepreneur. He also had a clear goal of wanting to start a software company. Combining his engineering skills with the customer-centric approach he learned at Amazon, Singh believed he could build a kick-ass consumer product. 

But after six months, and a few failed projects that “went down bad tracks,” Singh started thinking he might be better suited for an enterprise startup. After all, he was one of the first people to join AWS and had years of experience in cloud computing. He reached out to people, asking for advice. He spoke to a lot of different software engineers, trying to find the right business idea. 

“I just didn’t know what problem I wanted to solve, or what company I was going to be building,” Singh told Business Insider.

But through numerous conversations with engineers, Singh started to realize he was hearing the same problem over and over again: deploying code to allow applications to actually go live on servers was a much more complicated process than he thought it would be.

In order to launch an application, for example, engineers first have to write the code, test it to make sure it works, and then push it out to multiple servers, so it can handle all the traffic it gets. In doing so, engineers often lose track of who’s in charge of what part of the software, or which servers are being used. If a bug is found, it could take weeks to fix the code. Plus, every server, like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, requires a slightly different deployment process that could drag the project further more.

Singh wasn’t fully aware of this problem until he left AWS, he says. It’s because at AWS, engineers have access to what is called “one-click deployment,” where application software can go live on servers with essentially a click of a mouse. 

“Inside AWS, we almost took it for granted. But when I left AWS, it became clear that these tools were solving a problem for the rest of the world,” Singh said.

So in 2013, Singh launched Distelli. Its software basically serves as the dashboard for engineers to keep track of who’s working on what part of the software deployment process. It works with any type of server — whether it’s on-premise, public cloud, virtual machines, or containers — and can quickly deploy apps in a single click. In fact, Singh says this flexibility is what sets apart Distelli from its competitors like Rightscale.

"Distelli allows software teams to ship faster by making it easy to push code to any server - essentially with one click - regardless of where the server resides," he said.

Although Distelli is still in its early stages, Singh claims the company is growing at a rapid clip. He didn’t share any growth metrics, but investors seem to believe in its product, as Distelli announced on Tuesday that it raised $2.8 million from Andreessen Horowitz.

Singh says, in hindsight, his business idea seems obvious, considering his long experience at AWS. But he says it took him a while to discover his passion because he failed to ask the right questions. “It’s very important to know what problems people have,” he says. “You always have to be thinking, ‘Am I solving someone’s problem?’ Picking the right problem that someone would pay money to solve for is very critical.”

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Laundry is a time-consuming chore I'd rather not think about.

That's why I was eager to try out Washio, an 0n-demand laundry startup with door-to-door service. 

I tried something like Washio in college. Laundry Luv, as it was called, would wash and fold as much clothing as I could fit in a laundry bag and return it two days later. It wasn't affordable and there certainly wasn't an app to help you out. But in the modern era, almost every service you could imagine is available through an app  — especially in San Francisco, where I live.

When I opened up the Washio app I was prompted to enter my address and payment info. The app takes Apple Pay, too.

Once I entered my info, I hit the "order" tab to set up my delivery. The app lets you schedule your pickup, delivery, and how frequently you'd like your laundry done all on the same page. You don't have to commit to a reoccurring order to use Washio; one of the options is "one time only."

The pricing is easy to understand. Washio weighs your laundry after it's picked up and charges by by the pound. In San Francisco, simple wash and fold service is $1.60 a pound. Washio offers dry cleaning service too, and will even wash your blankets and outwear like coats, but those options are more expensive. Dry cleaning a two-piece suit costs $15 and a formal dress costs $24.

I scheduled my laundry pickup for Tuesday at 9pm and delivery for Wednesday at 9 pm. Both times, they gave me 30 minute windows. Pickups are always the next day.

The company gives you a black reusable bag to put your clothes in on your first delivery. The person who picked up my laundry reminded me not to include items I thought might shrink.

Loading my dirty laundry into Washio's bag was a little weird. I felt pressured to shove my clothes in the bag as quickly as possible while trying to pick out shirts I thought would shrink. The person picking up my laundry was polite and tried not to stare at me while I did this.

Drivers usually show up with a cookie when they pick up your dirty clothes, but mine didn't. It was the end of the day and he had run out from previous pickups. 

Once my laundry was out of sight, it was out of mind. I didn't think about it at all until I was waiting for my delivery on Wednesday.

When my clothes arrived, I got a card thanking me for using Washio. Still no cookie, though. My laundry was divided into two bags: one for socks and underwear and another for everything else.

It was kind of amazing to look at the finished product. All my laundry was meticulously folded. Socks were paired correctly. It was glorious.

It's a good thing Washio is such a friendly company, because on-demand laundry isn't cheap.

My wash and fold order, which would have cost me around $6 to do myself in the coin-operated laundry machines in my building, ran me $28 (including a delivery fee). That was probably two weeks' worth of laundry. I'm sure some people would pay $14 a week for the service.

I'm fortunate because I have a washer and dryer in my building. A lot of my colleagues who use laundromats might pay extra just to avoid the hassle of dragging their clothes around and being stuck away from home with little else to do.

Washio is only available in a few cities so far: San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, and Boston. If you live in one of those places, and have more money than time to spend, Washio is worth a look. Otherwise, you can always catch up on your reading at the laundromat. 

SEE ALSO: What It's Like To Use Postmates, San Francisco's Hot Delivery Startup

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Tuxedo rental startup the Black Tux has announced a $10 million Series A funding round lead by First Round Capital.

The company is the first online-only tux rental and handles everything from suit design to production, rental logistics, and order processing.   

It might seem strange to order a suit online without trying it on, but founders Andrew Blackmon and Patrick Coyne explain that it’s actually a much more streamlined process.

A normal tuxedo rental requires visiting a brick-and-mortar retail shop, getting your measurements taken, returning multiple times to pick up and drop off the suit, and when all is said and done the suit you’ve rented is an off the rack generic cut that has probably been worn over 50 times. 

Blackmon, who organized suit rental for his own wedding explains, “When I look back at the wedding photos now it looks like everyone is wearing their dad’s old suit, boxy, ugly.” 

He and Coyne, then one of his groomsmen, decided there must be a way to modernize the system and the Black Tux was born.   

When you rent from the Black Tux you’re sent a measuring tape and instructions on how to take your own measurements (though if you’d rather leave it to a professional most local tailors will happily assist).

“No matter what size you choose we have a fit specialist team that looks after you, makes sure the size is right, and will answer questions about your body type,” says Blackmon.

The company also offers a Test Tux program which allows you to try out a tux up to six months beforehand for only $40.

Once your order is placed, the suit is shipped directly to your door seven days before you plan to wear it. Blackmon says replacement suits are only needed 10% of the time and replacement sizes are free.

The total rental cost for a Black Tux suit averages around $150, which is less than the average in-store rental especially when you consider the ease and time saved.

You’re given two days post-event to ship back the rental and Blackmon and Coyne promise that you’ll notice the difference in the way you look in photos immediately.

“Instead of some generic off-the-rack thing, people look and feel like they’re wearing a $1,200 suit,” says Blackmon. “Our suits aren’t glued together or ‘fused’ like most rentals, they are high quality and hand stitched."

The company currently offers five designs: three tuxedos and two suits. It has hired an in-house men’s suiting designer to spearhead its suit design efforts and has established a relationship with an Italian mill where it sources its materials.

The Black Tux also employs a team of in-house tailors and cobblers to keep their products looking fresh. When suits get worn out, the company donates it to a local charity in Los Angeles.

Blackmon and Coyne plan to use their new funding to build out the team in their Los Angeles warehouse and expand on their current suite of designs. 

“We plan to launch more trend-specific and fashion forward styles this year,” says Blackmon. “You’ll definitely see a velvet tux coming out in the fall.”

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The founder of Ship Your Enemies Glitter, a single-purpose website that lets customers anonymously ship their enemies glitter, has sold his business for US$85,000 less than two weeks after starting it.

Mathew Carpenter, a 22-year-old Australian, launched the site with little but a PayPal account and some well-written advertising copy. But a week later, he was swamped by orders, leading him to put the whole thing up for sale in an attempt to rid himself of what he described as a "horrible product."

The site was sold on Flippa, an online marketplace in which entrepreneurs can trade in startups, domains, or toolkits for building a business from scratch. Bidding rapidly rose to $70,000 in the first days on sale, before stalling until the last hours, when a further $15,000 was added on the price.

The buyer, who is anonymous, is believed to be legitimate, having spent $83,000 on the site previously.

In the four days Carpenter ran the site, he says he took more than $20,000 in sales, far beyond what he was expecting for a website launched "as a bit of a joke." As a result, he closed the ability to make new orders, and he later decided to be shot of the whole site.

The site gained fame, in part, because of its tone. "We f--king hate glitter," is how its pitch opens. "People call it the herpes of the craft world. What we hate more, though, are the soulless people who get their jollies off by sending glitter in envelopes."

Shortly before closing orders, he took to the startup news site Product Hunt to ask potential users to stop. "Hi guys, I'm the founder of this website. Please stop buying this horrible glitter product — I'm sick of dealing with it. Sincerely, Mat."

In the meantime, he is continuing to fulfill older orders, although, in an email sent to customers, he warned that "there will be a bit of a delay with delivery times, as the site somehow got popular."

Whoever has bought the site will find more competition than Carpenter experienced, however. Numerous copycat sites have sprung up since he closed orders, including the British-based Glitterbombs and America's "Mat Won't But We Will."

SEE ALSO: The Founder Of 'Ship Your Enemies Glitter' Is Begging People To Stop Using His Service

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Amanda Bradford doesn't think her dating app, The League, is elitist. She prefers the word "curated," the same way Ivy League schools and top employers select only the best candidates.

The League, which just raised a $2.1 million seed round, is operating with 4,500 beta users in San Francisco. The goal is to make a more selective Tinder that's only for the most interesting and motivated single people in cities around the world.

Ultimately, Bradford wants to match tons of power couples. Since November, the app has paired 20,000 people, resulting in 19 couples.

Right now, the app skews slightly female, and its users often have advanced degrees. They tend to be in their late 20s; all have been carefully selected by Bradford's team using an are-you-cool-enough algorithm her tech team built.

Those accepted into The League get one "ticket" they can give to another single friend, and about 50% of The League's users were referred by another member. All other singles have to wait in a virtual line and hope they're top-notch enough to join The League's elite pool of prospects. Lawyers, doctors, and tech executives frequent the app. Many of the beta users have never signed up for a dating service before. Or if they were on Tinder, they weren't pleased with the experience.

"We want people to think of The League as a little more grown up and tasteful, for young professionals who want to go out for a coffee or a drink and aren't just about hooking up," Bradford says. To get only the most serious singles, Bradford feels it's important to be highly selective rather than target hard-partying college students.

"The best universities curate students. Employers curate their employees. Work and school are the top places where 20-somethings meet each other. So it makes sense for a dating community" to curate as well, Bradford says.

Unlike Hinge and Tinder, The League relies more on LinkedIn than Facebook to determine who is up to snuff. Bradford says she and her friends frequently LinkedIn-stalk dates before meeting them for coffee to make sure they aren't scary and that their goals align.

The acceptance algorithm that The League uses scans the social networks to ensure applicants are in the right age group and that they are career-oriented. That doesn't mean they have to be Ivy graduates or work for a big-name firm. But they should have accomplished something in their 20s.

"It's not an 'If this, then yes, or, if no, then no' algorithm," Bradford says, insisting that membership isn't based on salaries. "We want our users to say, 'Hey, we trust your judgment.' These people are going after their dreams. They're just interesting, ambitious, and doing something they're excited about."

The League also looks at users' social graphs to see who they know who is already a member of The League.

Once accepted, users are shown only a handful of matches per day. They can log back in during "happy hour" at 5 p.m. for a new batch of matches to scan. The League makes sure users aren't shown first connections or current coworkers, to minimize awkward virtual encounters.

Bradford, who worked at Salesforce, attended Stanford Graduate school and interned with the top venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, was hoping to raise $750,000. But she found numerous angel investors — including five of her professors at Stanford — eager to invest. IDG Ventures gave her the first check in June followed by Sherpa Ventures and others. She has a computer science background and was offered a product management role at Facebook, but she opted to launch a startup instead.

Bradford is using her millions to grow her team of four and to hire engineers. The League will most likely launch in New York City next, where Bradford says there is already a sizable wait list. She is also eager to launch in London, where motivated individuals tend to flock. She would rather tackle the world's most interesting cities than smaller US towns.

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Pranking friends and coworkers never gets old, but old stand bys like covering a colleague's desk in tinfoil can feel tired. 

Product Hunt, a discovery site focused on new products, put together a collection of the best apps and services to catch your pal off guard or at least make them crack a smile. 

These are some of our favorites.

Prank My Ride lets you easily alter photos of a friend's (or parent's) car and add fake dents, shattered glass, scratches and more.

Check out Prank My Ride.

CatFacts lets you spam your friends anonymously with endless facts about felines. The service also offers dog and sloth facts.

Check out CatFacts. 

Turn Down for Webpage blasts Lil Jon's rap song "Turn Down for What" on any webpage.

Check out Turn Down for Webpage.

When 17-year-old Eddy Zhong's 14-year-old little brother couldn't find a teen-focused accelerator program or summer camp focused on entrepreneurship, Eddy Zhong decided to found one.

He dropped out of school two months ago (he plans to get his GED) to launch the business venture called Leangap, a startup accelerator just for teens.

The program has been heralded as "the first high school entrepreneurship accelerator program in the world that helps students ages 14 to 18 conceptualize and launch their businesses in six weeks," reports Sara Castellanos at the Boston Business Journal. 

Leangap's first class will consist of 40 students, selected by Zhong, whose business plans have a strong focus on software and technology.

"Realistically, we can teach them to build and code over six weeks," Zhong told the Boston Business Journal. 

The program will take place this summer in Cambridge, MA, Zhong's hometown. 

Already, applications from around the world have begun flowing in. Students from China, Europe, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, California and Texas are all vying for spots in the program. 

Well-known entrepreneurs are also eager to get involved. 

Joe Thornton, former principal at Boston-based Highfields Capital Management and Bain Capital, has provided Zhong with funding and has signed on as Leangap's chief operating officer and chief financial officer. And Tim Peterson, who was formerly a molecular biologist at Harvard University and MIT is the company's new chief technology officer.

Katie Rae, former managing director of Techstars Boston, and John Werner, head of innovation and new ventures at MIT Media Lab, are also both excited about the new accelerator. They both plan to speak at Leangap events this summer.

This isn't Zhong's first go at running a business. His last startup, Blanc Inc., produced a smartwatch called Spark that vibrates softly when a user begins to fall asleep.

He hoped it would help students from nodding off in class. The company is still around and has a few corporate customers including a company that hires security guards at Boston University.

Leangap is accepting applications for this year's class until April. 

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Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested in some of today's most talked-about startups, including Slack, Buzzfeed, and Instacart.

Andreessen Horowitz has its finger on the pulse of what's happening in tech. Over on the firm's website, its investors have shared 16 trends and themes they're excited about this year. It's a sort of State of the Union for what's happening in tech.

We've compiled Andreessen Horowitz's predictions for the 16 startup themes that will be big this year. 

Virtual reality

"Computer enthusiasts and science fiction writers have dreamed about VR for decades. But earlier attempts to develop it, especially in the 1990s, were disappointing. It turns out the technology wasn’t ready yet. What’s happening now  — because of Moore’s Law, and also the rapid improvement of processors, screens, and accelerometers, driven by the smartphone boom  —  is that VR is finally ready to go mainstream," Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, says. 

We've already started to see the emergence of virtual reality: people are still excited and curious about Oculus, which Facebook announced it was acquiring last March. Microsoft and Apple are also reportedly exploring virtual reality too.

Improving enterprise software design

Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Weiss says this is the year for enterprise to play catch-up. Enterprise companies need to get up to speed with consumer-facing startups, which have already created beautiful, functional interfaces, especially on mobile.

"Enterprise UI is woefully behind," he says. "All those well-understood motions that have taken hold from our everyday smartphone behaviors — pinch, zoom, swipe, tap, speak, even just moving stuff around with our fingers — have yet to take hold in the enterprise. The user interface has always been an afterthought, the last thing one did after building a database. That is changing now."

Machine learning and big data

Andreessen Horowitz's Peter Levine says we're going to continue to see big data as a trend this year.

"Where business intelligence before was about past aggregates ('How many red shoes have we sold in Kentucky?'), it will now demand predictive insights ('How many red shoes will we sell in Kentucky?')," he says. "An important implication of this is that machine learning will not be an activity in and of itself … it will be a property of every application. There won’t be a standalone function, 'Hey, let’s use that tool to predict.'"

London-based peer-to-peer money transfer service TransferWise has raised $58 million in a new round of funding that values the company close to $1 billion.

The Series C funding round is led by US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Previous investors Valar Ventures, Index Ventures and Seedcamp also participated, reports TechCrunch.

Ben Horowitz, a founding partner at Andreessen Horowitz with an interest in financial technology, is to join TransferWise's board — a first for him for a European startup, according to the Financial Times.

TransferWise allows users to transfer money across borders and currencies significantly cheaper than the transfer options offered by traditional banking services. Founded by former Skype employees, it's transferred more than $3 billion on its platform and is growing steadily — between 15% and 20% every month, reports the FT.

The European technology scene has historically lagged behind the US, and in that context the funding is an impressive achievement. But even in Silicon Valley, the billion-dollar mark is a significant milestone. CEO of Slack David Butterfield recently told Fortune that being in the "Billion Dollar Club" helps acquire new customers and talent. "One billion is better than $800 million because it's the psychological threshold for potential customers, employees, and press," he said.

However, that Andreessen Horowitz led the round is itself a strong sign of increasing US interest in the European technology scene. Google Ventures also launched a European arm last year.

Horowitz said in a statement that he is"thrilled to be backing [TransferWise founders] Taavet [Hinrikus] and Kristo [Käärmann]. They discovered an important secret and are are uniquely prepared to pursue it... Not only is their solution 10 times better than the old way of exchanging foreign currency, but it could not have come at a better time. Since there has been little to no innovation from the traditional banking sector, we see massive opportunity for new financial institutions like TransferWise.”

CEO Taavet Hinrikus said that "Andreessen Horowitz's interest in TransferWise shows how ripe financial services are for disruption... For too long legacy providers’ dominance of the market has allowed consumers to be hoodwinked into paying huge hidden charges for services as basic as currency exchange.”

The new funds will help finance global expansion and more than double the currency options it offers.

The news comes less than a week after music-discovery service Shazam, another British startup, announced that a new round of funding had valued the company at more than $1 billion. TransferWise falls just short of this "unicorn" status — for now.

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The London money-transfer startup TransferWise is now worth nearly $1 billion, a huge milestone for any tech startup — especially in Europe.

It's actually pretty difficult to explain what TranferWise does. Put simply, it lets people transfer money between different countries and currencies for a lower cost than that of a standard bank transfer. But the way it does that is the clever part.

TransferWise's founders, Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus, stumbled upon the idea for their company when they were trying to transfer money between countries.

Hinrikus moved to the UK from Estonia in 2006, and he told London Loves Business that he often needed to transfer money from his account in Estonia to his account in the UK. The trouble was, every time that he transferred money, he would be hit by transfer fees, often as much as 5%. At the same time, Käärmann was also working in the UK, but he needed to continually send money to Estonia to pay his mortgage.

The idea for TransferWise surfaced when its two founders realised that they could cut down on money-transfer costs by paying each other's expenses. Hinrikus used his money in Estonia to pay for Käärmann's mortgage, and Käärmann used his money in the UK to send payment to Hinrikus.

TransferWise avoids international bank-transfer fees by keeping the money transfers inside the country, using domestic accounts to minimise the distance that money has to travel.

The two founders realised in 2010 that they had saved thousands of pounds using their method of transferring money. After that, they made the decision to start a company to roll out that ability to residents of many different European countries. TransferWise says it's going to use its $58 million in new funding to expand to the US, Germany, and Australia. 

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The London-based finance startup TransferWise has just raised $58 million in venture capital funding, with the Financial Times reporting that the company is now valuated at almost $1 billion.

Even in Silicon Valley, the $1 billion mark is significant. But in the UK, it's a huge vote of confidence in the European technology scene (especially as the most recent $1 billion European valuation came less than a week ago). 

It's not just a sign of the burgeoning technology sector on the continent. The new funding round — led by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz — is also a demonstration of the existing financial sector's vulnerability and the coming FinTech revolution.

Compared with other sectors, the financial industry has remained relatively untouched by technology. Media has been turned on its head; the transportation industry is being racked by Uber; the mobile-app economy didn't exist just a few short years ago but is now bigger than the film industry. In contrast, the major players in finance — with the exception of PayPal — are largely the same as they were 20 years ago.

But TransferWise is the perfect example of how the tech sector is starting to move onto the banks' turf — and to great success. Launched in 2011, the company aims to eliminate the high transfer fees associated with sending money overseas. And it's working — the company is growing 15% to 20% month-on-month, and it has transferred more than $3 billion using the platform, saving its customers money in the process.

To recognise what a threat TransferWise poses to established banking, it's worth looking at another highly publicised FinTech development that doesn't: Apple Pay. Apple's cardless payment system is, fundamentally, a conservative technology. It stores your bank details in your phone, making it easier to pay for goods. It doesn't disrupt the existing banking structure — it reinforces it. 

TransferWise's success, meanwhile, directly translates into a hit against the banks' bottom line. Every TransferWise payment is a payment not transacted by the banks.

London is a particular hub for European FinTech innovation (it's telling that despite being considered a "British" company and being based here, TransferWise's founders are actually Estonian). TransferWise may be the most prominent, but it's far from the only one, and its ongoing success and growth shows that as tech continues to turn its attention to the problems posed by finance, it is the traditional actors that will be losing out.

The involvement of Andreessen Horowitz is also significant to this. It is one of the biggest and most respected Venture Capital firms in the world. Its involvement shows not only that these new financial technologies are working, but also that some of the biggest players in the industry have noticed. 

Ben Horowitz, one of the founding partners at the firm, is to join TransferWise's board. He has written on his blog that the company"could not have come at a better time ... we see little to no innovation from the traditional banking sector, which creates a massive opportunity for new financial institutions like TransferWise."

The injection of American-style venture capital and expertise into TransferWise will accelerate the company's development and the threat it poses to the banks. But it is also a sign that more funding is almost certainly coming for the broader FinTech industry. And with that funding will come unprecedented growth of new and innovative financial services — at the established financial industry's expense.

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TransferWise is the hottest tech property in London right now. The finance startup has raised $58 million on a rumoured valuation of almost $1 billion off the back of its ingenious way to transfer money overseas with almost no fees.

It does this by not actually transferring money across borders — instead, it matches up payments with those going the opposite direction. So "your" money never actually leaves the country — it's just rerouted to someone who's being sent a similar amount by someone overseas. Your foreign recipient, meanwhile, receives their funds from someone trying to send money out of their own country.

The beauty of TransferWise is that despite its complexity, its users never have to worry about these peer-to-peer details. Their money just transfers quickly and cheaply, at the click of a button.

It's all powered by highly sophisticated back-end software, but despite this, the underpinning concept isn't new. In fact, as Michael Levitis pointed out to me on Twitter, it bears remarkable similarities to an ancient Islamic money transfer system called Hawala. (It's a comparison also made by Quartz.)

Much like TransferWise, Hawala sidesteps the headache of actually transferring goods across borders (something even more difficult when you're dealing with gold or physical assets hundreds of years ago). Instead, there's a network of brokers, or Hawaladars, who are based in all of the possible recipient locations. A customer might go to the Hawaladar in the first city, agree to transfer funds, and be given a password. When the recipient in the second city uses that password, funds are given to them from the second Hawaladar's cache. The funds paid to the first Hawaladar, meanwhile, remain with him, until a transfer in the opposite direction releases them.

The Hawala system has been used to bypass the US trade embargo of Iran, Government Security News reports. It's not clear what would happen if a customer used TransferWise were used to avoid an embargo in a similar incident.

So while TransferWise's solution to the age-old problem of international money transfer is an innovative one, it's definitely not a new one. It just goes to show — the old ideas are often the best ones.

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There’s nothing Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs won’t try to hack, including their own biology.

Founders like Dave Asprey, a 41-year-old Californian, chug fistfuls of pills every morning in the hopes that these supplements will give them a competitive edge in an already competitive market, reports CNN.

The drug cocktail Asprey takes is a mix of “smart drugs” meant to increase brain function and performance. These natural supplements are also known as nootropics or by their individual names: Piracetam, Aniracetam, CILTEP, Methyl, and Cobalamin.

“Each one has a different benefit,” Asprey told CNN. “One may help bolster memory, another will help you focus. One of his pills helps improve vision, and another promises more energy. They all have the same goal -- to help you maximize your potential.”  

Like others in his cohort, Asprey occasionally supplements these supplements with prescription pills like Modafinil, an anti-narcoleptic medication that healthy people have begun using to pull all-nighters.

Modafinil is for people “who don’t just need a pick-me-up to get through a deadline; they need to be on, without a break, for months, even years at a time,” Robert Kolker at New York Magazine writes.

The idea is that, with the right supplement cocktail, you can conquer your body’s mortal limits. You can pull that all nighter while finishing up a sales pitch or write code for 19 hours a day multiple days in a row.

"It used to take a lifetime to radically rewire the human body and mind this way. Technology has changed the rules," Asprey writes on LinkedIn. "This is real. It's what happens when you hack the human body the same way you'd hack a website. It's why I can do what I do."

But smart drugs don’t come cheap. Asprey estimates that he’s spent around $300,000 over the past 15 years to "hack his own biology” and he has expanded into marketing and selling some of the supplements he takes as his habit has grown.

But to Asprey and others like him, it’s worth it. He believes that, despite potential side effects, the drugs allow him to lead a higher quality life.  

"Just like an Olympic athlete who's willing to do almost anything, even if it shortens your life by five years…In many people's minds, the difference between completely failing... and making a billion dollars, is right here," Tim Ferriss, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor told CNN as he pointed to his head.

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People in the path of Winter Storm Juno seem to be turning to alcohol as they get ready for what could be one of the worst blizzards New York City has ever seen.

Drizly, an on-demand app for alcohol deliveries, says orders in NYC and Boston are up 477% since 2pm ET compared to a normal Monday. That's nearly six times as much as usual.

Some liquor stores have decided to close early to prepare for the storm, Drizly tweeted earlier.

The National Weather Service is predicting Juno will dump 18 to 24 inches of snowfall on Manhattan and even more on the outer boroughs.

Keep an eye on the National Weather Service's website for more info.

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A web service for mailing your enemies envelopes full of glitter that sold for $85,000 last week has been revealed as just one big viral marketing stunt. 

The founder of the service, Mathew Carpenter, spoke to Ryan Holiday at BetaBeat who writes that Carpenter "knew the media would make him rich if he played his cards right."

Carpenter, a 22-year-old Australian SEO expert, runs Sofa Moolah, a website devoted to teaching people how to make money online.

One of his New Year’s resolutions was to work on more side projects in order to improve his marketing skills. Last year he began experimenting with a few different ideas before hitting success with Ship Your Enemies Glitter. 

He says he knew topping out on aggregators like Reddit and Product Hunt would allow his stunt website to gain mass coverage. However, what he wasn't prepared for was how media outlets would warp his story. 

"It really reinforced to me how little fact checking and verification goes into a story. For example, many outlets reported I was a student at a local University which isn’t true and I have no idea how they came to that conclusion," he says. 

The stunt website wasn't malicious, and it appears from the interview that before it became unmanageable, Carpenter was attempting to fill orders. 

"The great thing about this project, no matter how messy my place has gotten from the glitter, is that I’ve met a lot of really smart & creative people from it," Carpenter says.

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One year ago, startup CEO Jay Meistrich sold all his belongings, stuffed a 40-liter backpack with bare essentials, and headed out of San Francisco.  

Over the next 12 months he traveled to 45 cities, 20 countries, and three Disneylands, all while successfully building and launching his organizational to-do list startup.

In a blog post on Medium, Meistrich writes that his total cost for the entire year was less than what he would have paid just for rent had he remained in San Francisco.

Meistrich is part of a growing community of “digital nomads,” mostly young professionals who take advantage of high-speed internet access and an around-the-clock work mentality to work from anywhere in the globe.

This community is made up of developers, designers, writers, journalists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and others who choose to live a “location-independent lifestyle.”

Meistrich and his colleagues argue traveling constantly is not only cheaper, since rent and food costs are usually much less expensive in other nations, but it also allows them to be more productive than if they were tied to a single office in an expensive American city like New York or San Francisco. 

In Meistrich’s case, he says traveling was the only responsible choice for the sake of his company, finances, and personal growth. He claims that traveling constantly actually allows him to better focus on work by reducing the boredom and fatigue that sets in after weeks in a regular routine.

“If I’m only in Rome for a week, why would I waste my time on Facebook? Being constantly surrounded by novelty … makes me feel healthier and more creative,” he says.

“I wasted a lot of time when I worked in an office because of commuting and the massive distraction that is the internet. Now I spread my work throughout the day and take big breaks for exploring ... if I hit a problem I can’t figure out, I walk it off until I’ve solved it. Cycling between fun and work makes my days less exhausting and makes me less prone to burnout.”

Faris Yakob, founder of creative agency Genius Steals, and his wife, Rosie, agree with Meistrich's point of view. They both quit their agency jobs in New York two years ago to travel the world and never looked back.

After realizing the two could work from pretty much anywhere without sacrificing their income, Yakob says, “working didn’t really feel that much like working."

"Our desks were wherever we chose. When we didn’t have to sit in meetings in offices. When we could take a break for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks to go exploring, without feeling guilty.”

As the digital-nomad community grows, all-inclusive coworking facilities have been popping up in exotic locations to meet their needs. These shared work spaces act as hubs for traveling workers and provide traditional office amenities such as high-speed internet, office supplies, access to printers, and networking opportunities with likeminded professionals.  

Raphaël Harmel, a cofounder of speech startup Speecheo, left his home in France 10 months ago to travel — and he's found coworking spaces in far-flung places like Uruguay invaluable.

“Normally when you arrive to a new location, you have to find a place to live and a place to work,” he tells The New York Times, “For digital nomads and entrepreneurs like me, [coworking] is definitely the best existing option.”

Life on the road isn’t for everyone, however. For entrepreneurs or workers with children, traveling constantly can be impossible to reconcile with school terms. And despite email and remote video-conferencing services such as Skype, organizing a quick chat with coworkers or clients can prove difficult to organize. Time zones can also be challenging. 

Cara Parks, a freelance journalist who spent a year traveling the world all while continuing to work on Eastern Standard Time, eventually found her sleep schedule unmanageable. Though she still enjoys a nomadic life, “I have gained a more robust respect for my individual circadian rhythm,” she writes.

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Every startup wants to change the world, but DC-based incubator and seed fund 1776 fosters the type of early stage companies that just might have a chance.

The incubator is focused specifically on startups for the public good and you won’t find any benign photo sharing apps in 1776’s portfolio.

Instead, the incubator is looking for the next solution to traffic gridlock, or a breakthrough in testing water for unsafe chemicals. 

The fund has helped launch companies like a data-driven service that helps obstetricians identify high-risk pregnancies, an app that uses crowdfunding to help raise money for teachers, and more. 

These aren’t the glamorous startups depicted in films like "The Social Network," but 1776 co-founders Evan Burfield and Donna Harris are confident the long-term impact these companies can have on society is potentially greater and just as monetizable.

In under two years, 1776 has fostered over 250 startups in broken, entrenched industries like education, energy and sustainability, healthcare, city planning, and transportation. 

1776 provides office space, funding, and crucial connections to the fledgling companies, many of which must overcome immense bureaucratic and legislative hurdles to achieve success. 

The incubator helps startups tackle these roadblocks by connecting founders with a “swat team” of support, including access over 2,000 lobbyists, public affairs gurus, and specialists who are focused on helping the company realize its vision.

“There’s a dark arts of public affairs that every major big corporation uses,” Evan Burfield says. “They all have a group of people who shape the rules, get around the rules, but most startups never have access to that.”

He explains that 1776 uses what they call “regulatory hacking” to help startups navigate “markets that don’t like to move.”

“If you’re going to fix the world you’re going to have to figure out how to figure out all this crap,” Burfield says of complicated regulation and procedures. 

He explains that it’s not about blatantly ignoring what you might consider "bad legislation" and charging through no matter what. Many companies aren’t able to buck the rules without getting shut down. Instead, it’s important for startups to be able to deftly navigate murky legal waters in order to scale.

For many startups in highly-regulated industries, it’s not just about understanding the laws, it’s about having access to connections that are able to shape them. Consequentially, 1776 benefits greatly from being in DC, where legislative connections run deep.

Industry connections are also important. A startup could have a groundbreaking idea for a medical device application, for example, but if the company can’t get its technology adopted within a network of hospital systems, their innovation could be fruitless.

Take startup 1EQ, for example. Early last year the startup entered the 1776 incubator program with a vision for how the internet of things would transform healthcare, but was having trouble getting off the ground. Rather than allow the company to waste more time painfully pitching its product to antiquated hospital boards, 1776 hooked 1EQ up with several prominent hospital groups to accelerate their beta testing process. 

1EQ ended up refining its service, and in late 2014, announced a major pilot for its first product, BabyScripts, with MedStar, a non-profit healthcare organization that operates more than 120 hospitals.  

BabyScripts now allows obstetricians to provide expectant mothers with a wireless blood pressure cuff, wireless scale, and an app to guide expectant mothers through their pregnancy. BabyScripts then sends data back to the mother's obstetrician so they can identify signs of high-risk pregnancy.

Burfield says healthcare is 1776’s single most active vertical and he sees enormous potential in the market, though they also make significant investments in many startups tackling education. And though 1776 is based in downtown Washington DC, its investments aren’t limited by geographic area.

The incubator hosts a global competition called the “Challenge Cup,” where Burfield and Harris scout promising companies to bring into their fold.

The competition takes place in 16 cities around the globe and winners from each city are brought to participate in 1776’s Challenge Festival, a weeklong competition in May that gives the startups an opportunity to pitch investors, meet with policymakers, and compete for funding.

So what kind of startup catches Burfield’s eye?

“We don’t do a lot of fashion startups,” he says. “But we’re pretty open.”

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Deliveroo, the London-based startup that lets restaurants offer takeaway delivery to customers online, is raising £16 million in new funding and eyeing international expansion.

The Series B funding is led by Accel Partners, with investment from Index Ventures, Hummingbird Ventures, and Hoxton Ventures.

The company gives restaurants a tablet and bluetooth printer, and that's all they need to start taking online orders. Deliveroo handles the packaging, deliveries, booking, and works with venues to establish their online menu.

Deliveroo is different to sites like Just Eat. Instead of serving as an online platform for takeaways to manage orders, Deliveroo does it all. That's proven a hit for restaurants in London and Brighton.

CEO William Shu started Deliveroo when he realised that it's tough to order decent food in London. He used to work as an investment banking analyst in New York, but moving to London made him realise that the city just doesn't have the same 24/7 food-ordering infrastructure as New York. 

Deliveroo has become a big player in London's takeaway industry. CEO William Shu told Business Insider that the company has signed up over 750 restaurants in London. He also said that many restaurants have seen a 10% increase in revenue after adding the service, with others seeing revenue rise 30% after signing up with Deliveroo.

You might have seen the Deliveroo motorbikes and bicycles driving around London. Shu says that Deliveroo has over 300 drivers, and the company has found that cyclists can sometimes be faster than motorbikes when it comes to delivering food.

Many of the restaurants on Deliveroo are higher-end than what you might find on other takeaway sites. Shu describes the typical venue as "casual premium affordable." But Deliveroo is also working with established chains – Nando's is using Deliveroo for takeaways.

The £16 million in new funding is going to be spent on three things, Shu says. First up is geographic growth, and the company is looking at European cities and Gulf states. Deliveroo also wants to increase its marketing spend and  hire more developers to improve its service.

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Huddle, the London-based company that makes collaboration software for documents, has hired new CEO Morten Brøgger to replace Alastair Mitchell. After the announcement, Brøgger said that any plans for an IPO are being delayed, Sam Shead of Techworld reports.

"We have mutually agreed we’re going to put all these discussions on hold," he said in an interview with the website. 

Brøgger has plenty of experience in working at enterprise tech companies. He was previously the chief sale officer of Syniverse, an international online transactions company.

Huddle raised $51 million in its Series D round in December. It said at the time that it would use the funding to double the size of its product team. 

Huddle's former CEO, Alastair Mitchell, is going to become the company's CMO and President. He told Business Insider in December that an IPO was "probably a few years away." Now, the company's new CEO looks set to focus on international growth instead.

Huddle raised $51 million in its Series D round in December. It said at the time that it would use the funding to double the size of its product team.

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TransferWise is the hottest tech property in London right now. The finance startup has raised $58 million on a rumoured valuation of almost $1 billion off the back of its ingenious way to transfer money overseas with almost no fees.

It does this by not actually transferring money across borders — instead, it matches up payments with those going the opposite direction. So "your" money never actually leaves the country — it's just rerouted to someone who's being sent a similar amount by someone overseas. Your foreign recipient, meanwhile, receives their funds from someone trying to send money out of their own country.

The beauty of TransferWise is that despite its complexity, its users never have to worry about these peer-to-peer details. Their money just transfers quickly and cheaply, at the click of a button.

It's all powered by highly sophisticated back-end software, but despite this, the underpinning concept isn't new. In fact, as Michael Levitis pointed out to me on Twitter, it bears remarkable similarities to an ancient Islamic money transfer system called Hawala. (It's a comparison also made by Quartz.)

Much like TransferWise, Hawala sidesteps the headache of actually transferring goods across borders (something even more difficult when you're dealing with gold or physical assets hundreds of years ago). Instead, there's a network of brokers, or Hawaladars, who are based in all of the possible recipient locations. A customer might go to the Hawaladar in the first city, agree to transfer funds, and be given a password. When the recipient in the second city uses that password, funds are given to them from the second Hawaladar's cache. The funds paid to the first Hawaladar, meanwhile, remain with him, until a transfer in the opposite direction releases them.

The Hawala system has been used to bypass the US trade embargo of Iran, Government Security News reports. It's not clear what would happen if a customer used TransferWise were used to avoid an embargo in a similar incident.

So while TransferWise's solution to the age-old problem of international money transfer is an innovative one, it's definitely not a new one. It just goes to show — the old ideas are often the best ones.

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