Seattle’s Mystery expands to Austin as ‘Night In’ boxes help startup weather lockdown

Mystery, the startup built around putting together a surprise night on the town for couples — or a surprise Night In during the health crisis — is expanding to Austin, Texas, its first market outside of Seattle.

The company, which launched in February 2019 and has raised $1.3 million, is traditionally focused on getting people out of the house for an activity, dinner, drinks, dessert and transportation. Users set preferences and communicate with Mystery through its app.

COVID-19 changed things up and Mystery pivoted to its Night In boxes in March. A specially curated box is sent to a buyer’s home and comes with dinner for two, an activity and a few other goods from local partners. The aim was to keep the business going and support Mystery’s partners whose businesses had been impacted by social distancing orders.

Mystery’s launch in Austin is kicking off with Night In.

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One in Eight Supermarket Employees in the U.S. Now Has Access to Their Money as They Earn It

NEW YORK, April 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- DailyPay, the leading provider of the daily pay benefit, joins forces with many of the country's leading supermarkets to support their heroic workers who are on the frontlines of the global health crisis. Now, more than one in eight grocery store workers across the country has this financial control at a time when they need it most. 

In celebration of the frontline supermarket heroes, including Kroger, Parker's Kitchen, Leevers Supermarkets, Dave's Markets and Loop Neighborhood, DailyPay has committed to a number of initiatives to support them during this crisis. These include:

• Powering their DailyPay benefit programs to give employees access to their pay as they earn it, as compared with the traditional two-week pay period. 

• Enabling employees the opportunity to save an average of $1,205 per year in reduced fees from loans, overdraft and late fees*.

• Introducing a $0 next-day transfer fee for all employees to remove barriers to earned income access during this critical time. 

• Creating a series of free online financial literacy webinars to answer questions about managing through the COVID-19 crisis, including navigating the stimulus package. 

• Educating employers about changes and trends happening in the supermarket industry through the DailyPay Workforce Index to raise awareness about additional financial needs for employees, including adding/offering bonuses and/or shift differentials. 

"We are proud of our amazing staff who has been working hard to keep our neighborhoods fed," said Taylor Leevers, Special Projects Manager, Leevers Supermarkets. "In addition to hiring dedicated cleaning staff, installing sneeze guards at registers and providing appreciation bonuses, we are also proud to offer DailyPay to employees who want access to their pay on a daily basis."

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Boom! Studios Sets 'Day One Retailer Support Program' for Comic Stores

The publisher will be releasing rare issues, offering deeper discounts and full returnability for comic shops as they reopen post-COVID-19 shutdown.

On Tuesday, distribution company Diamond Comics Distributors set a May target for restarting deliveries to stores, and the comic book industry is slowly setting about the matter of restarting. Boom! Studios has announced a new plan to support retailers as they get back to work.

The Day One Retailer Support Service Program will extend existing discounts through mid-May and offer full returnability on unsold material through late August, in addition to making rare variant cover editions of existing titles available for retailers to use as they see fit.

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Niantic’s Greg Borrud: From falling into games to making games for the real world

Niantic is known for its approach to augmented reality and location-based gaming. In the summer of 2016, Pokémon Go changed the world and how communities form around mobile games. Greg Borrud, the general manager at Niantic’s Los Angeles studio, has watched the industry grow and evolve from a reliance on PCs to consoles to phones that are more powerful than our 1997 Pentiums.

I sat down during the second day of GamesBeat Summit 2020 to chat about Borrud’s origin story in the game industry, his work at Seismic Games, Niantic’s approach to AR during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the future of AR may have in store for Niantic’s fans.

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Kroger Implements DailyPay Solution

The Kroger Co. has become the latest grocer to introduce an initiative featuring solutions from DailyPay, a SaaS fintech solutions company, to support their front-line workers.

Kroger is launching a benefit that will enable employees to receive their paychecks as they earn them, in addition to raises and bonuses. ExpressPay, powered by DailyPay,gives employees the financial flexibility to pay their bills, as well as to buy necessary supplies as their earnings are readily available, not just on payday.

“We are proud of our amazing staff who has been working hard to keep our neighborhoods fed,” said Taylor Leevers, special projects manager at Franktown, Colo.-based Leevers Supermarkets, which, along with Cleveland-based Dave’s Markets, also provides DailyPay for its workers. “In addition to hiring dedicated cleaning staff, installing sneeze guards at registers and providing appreciation bonuses, we are also proud to offer DailyPay to employees who want access to their pay on a daily basis.”

Since the COVID-19 crisis began, DailyPay has seen an increase in businesses signing onto and ramping up solution launches. Currently, more than one in eight grocery store workers across the country have access to DailyPay, according to the company.

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