Amazon Launchpad Startup Week & Black Friday Countdown Deals

Getting overwhelmed with the election craziness? Need a lite window-shopping therapy this weekend? You can distract yourself with some pre-Christmas gift scouting right now.

Write, Save to Cloud, Microwave, Erase

Amazon LaunchPad Startup Week Sale

Have you heard of Amazon LaunchPad? It's Amazon's platform for startup companies to sell their products. I think startup companies have to go through a screening and selection process to sell here, and some of the products are crowd-funded. Up to November 8, they are offering deals on new products everyday.

The Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook caught my eye - seems like a unique and useful gift that could get your student into taking notes, or the family writer inspired. It's a notebook that lets you, with a mobile app, send your notes to the cloud. And the notebook is microwave safe. Why? Because that means that if you use a Pilot Frixion pen to write, when you microwave the notebook, the ink disappears and you can reuse it! (Note, the notebook is reusable for up to 5 times, and you must use a microwave with a rotating turntable.)

Heat-erasable ink

This is also the first I've heard of ink that disappears in heat, so now I have to talk about the Pilot FriXion pens. These are pens with heat-erasable ink - the eraser that comes with the pen isn't an actual eraser - it warms up the ink by rubbing which makes it disappear. This sounds like a great play item for kids to create secret messages - because they can write or draw something on a paper, warm it up in the sun or with a hairdryer or something. Then pop the note in the freezer for a few seconds and the ink reappears. Magic! Pretty cheap too - the 7-pack on the left is on sale so each pen is roughly a dollar each. I'm definitely getting some to play with -- I mean for my kid to play with.

Check out the other new inventions on Amazon LaunchPad and let me know if you see any other interesting stuff.

Countdown to Black Friday Deals Week

If you simply cant't wait for Black Friday then you should definitely check out Amazon's Countdown to Black Friday Week. There are sales in every category. Also a lot of sales are now with Prime Early Access, meaning Prime members get to buy an item at the sale price 30 minutes before the public can. If you don't have Prime yet, you can 30-Day Free Trial of Amazon Prime.


Have a great weekend!