Gumloop

Anti-marketing: Spend Ads Budget on Real Experiences

The article describes the rising tactic of "anti-marketing": spending advertising budgets on non-ad experiences that generate organic attention and stories. Examples include Gumloop paying street musicians to perform with branded signs (a LinkedIn post from Gumloop’s CEO received 2,300+ likes) and Sticker Mule allocating 5% of its ad budget to giving strangers $100 on camera. The author also recounts raffling books and shipping ~45 books (~$2,000) as a marketing stunt. The piece frames anti-marketing as a shareable, attention-driving alternative to traditional ads and suggests small-scale executions can create compelling stories without fully abandoning paid media.

Seven Best Free AI Agents of 2026

This June 15, 2026 guide reviews seven AI agent options that provide meaningful free usage without requiring a credit card. It ranks desktop, self-hosted, open-source, no-code and cloud options by use case: AgentOne (desktop, genuinely free, MCP-native), OpenClaw (messaging-based, MIT open-source, viral project), Hermes Agent (self-improving open-source agent from Nous Research), self-hosted n8n (workflow automation with 400+ integrations), Gumloop (no-code cloud builder with a limited free tier), CrewAI (Python framework for multi-agent workflows), and ChatGPT GPTs (zero-setup within ChatGPT free plan). The article highlights technical details like support for local models via Ollama, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Hermes’ "Skill Documents" self-improvement loop, and trade-offs between usability, cost and technical skill required.

Benchmark raises $2B, launches first growth fund

Benchmark Capital has broken with its long-standing strategy of small, early-stage-only funds by closing $2 billion in commitments across two new vehicles: a $1.25 billion later-stage (growth) fund and a $750 million early-stage fund. The change follows a big return from Benchmark’s early investment in chipmaker Cerebras, where a recent IPO returned roughly $3.25 billion to the firm at the IPO price. Benchmark previously kept fund sizes near $425 million and focused on taking large stakes in young startups; the new funds give it room to back later-stage and capital-intensive AI companies. The firm has also reshuffled its partner ranks in recent years and added investors including Everett Randle and Jack Altman. Benchmark has recently backed Series B startups Gumloop and Monaco and previously used a $225 million SPV to participate in Cerebras’s $1 billion pre-IPO round.