Former Yahoo CEO and early Google employee Marissa Mayer co-founded a startup six years ago in Palo Alto, Ca., with high expectations. However, when the startup, Sunshine, released its first app focused on subscription software for contact management, many wondered if a more ambitious project was on the horizon. Yesterday, the startup released two additional features – a photo sharing app and an event planning app – and the internet seems to be uncertain about what to make of them.
In a demo last week, Mayer walked through Sunshine’s new offerings, including AI components. The photo sharing app seemingly doesn’t offer anything new to the current photo sharing landscape, and the event planning app has a dated design that resembles platforms from 20 years ago. The photos are hosted on Sunshine’s servers and are “available indefinitely,” with the ability for users to share albums and send invites through various platforms like text, iMessage, and email.
I was also baffled last week, when Mayer walked me through Sunshine’s new offerings. Though there are AI components to all that Sunshine offers, it’s hard to understand how Sunshine’s new photo app enhances photo sharing as it exists today, and the same could be said of its new events app, which looks very much like something that was designed 20 years ago and, like other apps, encourages users to share photos tied to events organized on the platform. (The photos are hosted on Shine’s servers and “available indefinitely,” said Mayer, adding that users can share albums and send invites easily through text, iMessage, email and other communication and sharing platforms.)
Despite the confusion, Mayer may be onto something with Sunshine – nostalgia. While most Silicon Valley startups focus on the newest trends, the United States’ population is aging, as declared by the U.S. Census Bureau last year. Mayer claims that Sunshine is addressing problems for people “of all ages,” but with a focus on an older demographic that may prefer familiar platforms. Additionally, older Americans account for a record share of spending and have more time for socializing and taking photos. Sunshine’s interface even features a purple hue, reminiscent of Mayer’s time at Yahoo from 2012 to 2017.
When asked if the design choice was intentional, Mayer seemed caught off guard and described it as “purely coincidental.”
Mayer acknowledges the need for simplicity in today’s fast-paced world, stating, “There are a lot of companies that focus on that bleeding and leading edge of AI. But we think there’s a lot of things that can be done with AI that just help with everyday problems, things that we all experience every day, and are often overlooked.”
She also mentioned that Sunshine previously launched a birthday app before releasing the photo sharing and event planning features. The app, focused on birthdays, is similar to an app created by Michael and Xochi Birch, called BirthdayAlarm.com. The couple, who previously sold a social media company to AOL for $850 million in cash, has over 50 million registered members. Mayer is friends with the Birches and attributes some of Sunshine’s ideas to Michael, saying, “I sometimes think that might have been a better name.”
Mayer declines to share specific customer numbers, but it seems that Sunshine didn’t gain the expected traction in contact management, an area consumers hesitate to use due to privacy concerns. However, the startup has raised $20 million in 2020 and is primarily self-funded, according to Mayer.
In addition to photo sharing and event planning, Mayer has hinted at future plans for video sharing. She stated, “I’ve got a list of all the different things that we thought will be in the first version and will hopefully come out soon after. We always knew we’d be a portfolio company. The core thesis has always been to take the mundane and make it magical.”
The team “thought about naming it Mundane AI,” she continued. “I sometimes think that might have been a better name.”
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