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DO DEEP WORK, ENTER FLOW STATE (CHROME EXTENSION)

This Chrome extension helps you enhance focus by setting deep work goals and blocking distracting websites.

NO ONE'S READY FOR THIS

Advancements in AI image generation are blurring reality, making the truth less knowable. While image removal feels acceptable, adding unreal elements is immoral and deceptive. This technology's potential for misuse can be harmful, and such practices should be considered illegal to preserve clarity and authenticity in visual media.

10 LESSONS FROM DESIGNING FOR EARLY STAGE STARTUPS

Designing for early-stage startups involves balancing quality, time, and scope and prioritizing learning, trust, and rapid testing. Embrace autonomy, collaborate on solutions, and pick battles wisely. View setbacks as learning, express challenges openly, and seek help. Share your experiences to foster mutual growth and understanding.

THE WOMBLES GET A SUITABLY CHARMING REBRAND COURTESY OF HOW&HOW

The Wombles received a rebrand from B Corp agency How&How that balanced its classic charm with a refreshed look. The design uses Monokrom's Nordvest for the wordmark and illustrations by Remi Sorbet, preserving the retro, hand-drawn feel while embracing a cleaner, digitized style.

RETHINKING THE UI DESIGN OF A MUSICAL KEYBOARD

The Seaboard Rise 2 replaces traditional keys with soft silicone ridges, enhancing control over notes with five gestures and allowing players to simulate various instrument sounds with greater realism.

FIVE INFORMATION DESIGN CLASSICS THAT ARE SO PERFECT YOU MIGHT FORGET THEY WERE EVER DESIGNED

“Graphic Classics” by Phaidon features legendary but underrated creations like the Venn diagram, copyright symbol, crossword puzzle, U.S. route shield, and Universal Product Code (UPC).

CSS FINALLY ADDS VERTICAL CENTERING IN 2024

CSS's `align-content` property simplifies vertical centering, requiring just one property without a wrapper div.

FOUNDER MODE

The conventional wisdom about running larger companies is often misguided, as it focuses on a modular "manager mode" approach that can be ineffective and damaging. The "founder mode" approach, exemplified by successful founders like Brian Chesky and Steve Jobs, involves a more hands-on and unconventional style that breaks traditional management principles but ultimately leads to better results.

THE STARTUP WORLD OUTSIDE SILICON VALLEY

In regions outside of major tech hubs, startups often face unique challenges due to limited access to venture capital, talent, and infrastructure. These startups, known as "camels," prioritize profitability from day one and focus on slow, sustainable growth rather than the rapid expansion typically associated with Silicon Valley unicorns. Despite obstacles, many camel startups have found innovative solutions to local problems and achieved significant market success.

WHAT A GREAT INVESTOR CAN DO FOR YOU

A well-connected and supportive investor can be the key to a startup's success, providing not only funding but also valuable guidance and introductions to other investors. In one notable case, a prominent investor took a chance on a struggling company despite initial doubts, and his involvement helped secure additional funding and ultimately led to the company's massive growth. This investor's ability to see beyond the company's current state and focus on its potential proved crucial in its eventual success.

PROFITABLE ON DAY ONE!

A startup founder claiming their business is profitable may be ignoring important factors like paying themselves a fair wage and accounting for all costs. True profitability means the business could sustain itself even if the founder stepped away and hired others to do the work at market rates. While it's normal for startups to struggle with profitability initially, founders should focus on their strengths, challenges, and resources to build a truly profitable business over time.

HOW TO KEEP REMOTE TEAMS ENGAGED

AskNicely, a fully remote company with 65 employees across three countries, has found success in building a strong remote culture through frequent communication, innovative virtual events with local elements, and creative daily interactions. However, it still faces challenges such as encouraging cross-functional engagement and finding the right balance and methods for effective communication. Building a thriving remote culture requires intentionality, adaptability, and a willingness to experiment with new approaches.

HOW TO ANALYZE YOUR SALES CALLS TO FIND PRODUCT-MARKET FIT

Founders can find product-market fit by analyzing their sales calls and identifying areas where they are pushing too hard or facing objections from potential customers. By systematically reviewing these "bugs" in the conversation and making adjustments to their approach, founders can iterate towards a product that sells itself. This process of finding product-market fit through sales conversations is a fundamental part of building a successful startup.

UNUSUAL ACADEMY (ACCELERATOR)

The Unusual Academy is a hands-on learning program where select founders learn how to level up as leaders. Teams will be eligible for an investment of up to $2M in a SAFE note.

MINUTES

Simple, hassle-free AI note-taking app for meeting minutes.

KRAFTFUL 3.0

The new way to build products - powered by AI.

THE AI HYPE: $600B QUESTION OR $4.6T+ OPPORTUNITY?

There is ongoing debate about whether the current investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is a bubble or the start of a new technological era. Despite concerns about the high upfront costs and uncertain returns, many experts believe that AI has the potential to fundamentally change the way software creates value and drive significant economic growth. The shift from Software-as-a-Service to "Service-as-Software" could unlock a vast market opportunity, with some estimates suggesting a $4.6 trillion potential market.

DEFINITE OPTIMISM

Embracing challenges and setbacks as opportunities for growth and learning is key to achieving success. By focusing on solutions rather than dwelling on problems, individuals can turn obstacles into advantages and create a better future. This mindset, known as "definite optimism," involves understanding the world, setting clear goals, and taking proactive steps to achieve them, rather than simply relying on luck or positive thinking.

THE SALES STACK OF THE FUTURE

The sales tech landscape has become increasingly complex and crowded over the past decade, with numerous solutions emerging to address various stages of the sales journey. However, the recent rise of AI-first products is transforming the way modern sales teams operate, helping them meet their goals amidst tightening budgets and changing buyer behaviors. As AI continues to evolve, it is expected to significantly impact the sales stack over the next five years, potentially rendering certain roles obsolete, reimagining CRMs, and leading to the emergence of new compensation models.

HOW TO WIN

A startup founder's guide to success: balance personal health, leadership skills, efficient practices, and creative problem-solving while maintaining a long-term vision and embracing calculated risks.

THE DISLOCATION BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WEB3 MARKETS

The public and private web3 markets are showing weak correlation, with Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs differing significantly in size.

WE ONCE MORE HAVE NO FULL-TIME MANAGERS AT 37SIGNALS

37signals has returned to its original management structure, where all managerial duties are distributed among senior staff members who also work as individual contributors.

NGATE ANDROID MALWARE RELAYS NFC TRAFFIC TO STEAL CASH

A threat actor operating in Czechia evolved from utilizing PWAs and WebAPKs to utilizing the NGate malware to attack Android users of major Czech banks. The NGate malware is delivered via smishing, where attackers alert users to either an issue in their banking app or a way to get tax returns faster. The malware then utilizes NFCGate to relay any NFC payments from the device, which allows the attackers to duplicate the cards and withdraw money from an ATM. This attack does not require the victim's device to be rooted.

RANSOMHUB HITS 210 VICTIMS IN JUST 6 MONTHS

US agencies have issued a warning about RansomHub, a rapidly growing ransomware group formed in February with at least 210 victims across various sectors, including critical infrastructure. RansomHub exploits vulnerabilities with common hacking tools.

CRITICAL FLAWS IN PROGRESS SOFTWARE WHATSUP GOLD EXPOSE SYSTEMS TO FULL COMPROMISE

Critical vulnerabilities in Progress Software's WhatsUp Gold, an enterprise network monitoring solution, could allow full system compromise. Over 1,200 internet-accessible instances may be affected by CVE-2024-4885, a critical flaw allowing remote code execution. A proof-of-concept is available.

EXPOSING SECURITY OBSERVABILITY GAPS IN AWS NATIVE SECURITY TOOLING

SecurityRunners' Jonathan Walker provides an analysis of the coverage of IAM Access Analyzer for detecting public or cross-account access to resources. Walker puts coverage at about 65% and lists a few notable gaps. AWS Glue and SES are fundamental services that Walker believes should have coverage. Secrets Manager currently only alerts if a KMS key and secret are public but Walker believes that it should alert on just a public secret in case a method of accessing it becomes apparent. Walker also notes that Elemental MediaStore certainly should have coverage but is fairly obscure so may be a backlog item. He also highly encourages deploying IAM Access Analyzer as it is simple to manage and cost-effective.

UNPROTECTED CONTAINER REGISTRIES

Unprotected container registries are easily detectable on the web through tools like Shodan or scanning for common endpoints. This post demonstrates the ease with which an attacker can locate an unprotected container registry and upload or replace an existing image. The author located over 10k unprotected registries across the full IP space and was able to push a benign, PoC image to over 4,500 of them. They only uploaded a dummy image under an easily detectable name due to ethical considerations, but a motivated attacker could upload a malicious image just as easily.

SET-TOP BOX RE: 6-PART SERIES (1 OF 6)

This blog series examines the security of six set-top boxes to determine if they're compromised or part of botnets. The research involves hardware triage, filesystem extraction, and malware analysis. It also explores how easily these devices could be exploited.

DALEC

Dalec provides a declarative format for building system packages and containers from those packages. It is designed for building containers for Azure and supports Azure Linux 2 and 3 and Windows containers.

UNIQKEY (PRODUCT LAUNCH)

Uniqkey's password and access management solution allows employees to use mobile applications when logging into enterprise systems while keeping passwords encrypted.

NETTACKER

OWASP Nettacker project was created to automate information gathering, vulnerability scanning, and eventually generating a report for networks. It includes information on services, bugs, vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other topics.

ADVANCING THREAT INTELLIGENCE: JA4 FINGERPRINTS AND INTER-REQUEST SIGNALS

JA3 Fingerprints were first introduced in 2017 as a method to fingerprint browsers by taking a hash of the TLS ClientHello message, but they have lost efficacy due to differences in how tools handle various extensions and modern browsers scrambling TLS extensions. To combat this, FoxIO introduced JA4, which introduces other protocol elements into the fingerprint and is resilient to randomization of TLS extensions by first sorting them before hashing. To make JA4 fingerprints more useful to customers, Cloudflare aggregates data across its network on JA4 fingerprints into signals that can be used in Workers and rules. This post includes a breakdown of the different fields in a JA4 fingerprint, the statistics available via JA4 signals for a fingerprint, and a script demonstrating how to utilize signals in a Worker.

DON'T FORCE YOURSELF TO BECOME A BUG BOUNTY HUNTER

Sam Curry, a hacker and bug bounty hunter, reflects on a common mentality of setting up extensive goals and plans for getting into bug bounty hunting. Curry compares this with his experience and failure doing the same with his studies in high school. Ultimately, Curry suggests that the fundamental issue in many hackers that set out these goals and fail is that they aren't actually interested in bug bounty hunting and should instead not force themselves to do it.

CITY OF COLUMBUS SUES MAN AFTER HE DISCLOSES SEVERITY OF RANSOMWARE ATTACK

An Ohio judge has issued a restraining order against a security researcher who contradicted Columbus officials' claims about a recent ransomware attack. The researcher presented evidence that sensitive data stolen in the attack was intact and accessible, contrary to the mayor's statement. The city sued the researcher, claiming his actions made dark web data publicly available.

AN AIR TRANSPORT SECURITY SYSTEM FLAW ALLOWED TO BYPASS AIRPORT SECURITY SCREENINGS

A security flaw in air transport systems allowed unauthorized people to bypass airport security screenings.

GARTNER FORECASTS GLOBAL INFORMATION SECURITY SPENDING TO GROW 15% IN 2025

Gartner predicts that by 2027, 17% of total cyberattacks/data leaks will involve generative AI.

NORTH KOREAN HACKERS DEPLOY FUDMODULE ROOTKIT VIA CHROME ZERO-DAY EXPLOIT

North Korean hackers known as Citrine Sleet used a zero-day exploit in Google Chrome to deliver the FudModule rootkit.

DO WEBSITES EVEN MATTER IN THE AGE OF AI AGENTS?

AI agents will soon transform how information is accessed online, with these autonomous applications replacing the need for humans to visit websites. This shift means that traditional web design and user interfaces will become less relevant, as AI agents will handle data collection and task execution. For marketers, this implies a need to adapt strategies by creating content and APIs optimized for AI interactions rather than human engagement.

NEW REPORT LOOKS AT SOCIAL SHOPPING ADOPTION AND TRENDS

Social shopping is growing but not as quickly in Western markets as it has in China, where Douyin saw $375 billion in sales in 2023. TikTok, in comparison, generated $4 billion in in-app spending last year. Facebook leads in driving social shopping behavior, but Snapchat and Reddit have higher purchase rates among their engaged users. Short-form videos are currently the most influential content type in social commerce, though security and trust issues continue to pose challenges for social shopping adoption.

7 UNEXPECTED LINKEDIN ALGORITHM INSIGHTS

LinkedIn's algorithm tends to favor posts made directly on the platform, so avoiding third-party tools and limiting edits within the first hour can help maintain visibility. Keeping hashtags under 5 and tagging only those likely to engage quickly can prevent the algorithm from throttling posts. Including captions in videos and using vertical formats can further boost engagement and visibility.

MASTERING THE ART OF THE COLD OPEN IN STORYTELLING

A cold open is a storytelling technique that plunges readers directly into the action, skipping preliminary setup to immediately engage their curiosity. This approach grabs attention by presenting a compelling scene without context, prompting readers to seek answers. In marketing, a cold open can make content more engaging by showing rather than telling, drawing readers in with intriguing details and questions. It focuses the narrative on a specific moment, anchoring the story and making it more memorable.

DECKTOPUS

Decktopus is an AI-powered presentation generator with built-in templates and customization tools. It can generate a deck from a simple prompt. Decktopus can also be used to create microsites, online forms, and email signatures.

MINI TOOLS ARE 10X MORE POWERFUL THAN FREE TRIALS

THREE WAYS TO EARN YOUR CUSTOMERS' TRUST

The process of selling should not be aggressive or confrontational. Companies should try to understand the questions, fears, and worries of their prospects. One tactic is to take on a teaching role that helps prospects to be smart consumers, rather than talking down to them. It's also important to clarify when your product might not be suitable and provide honest comparisons with competitors.

ZAPIER'S GROWTH STORY

Zapier grew to 10 million users in 12 years. It leveraged programmatic SEO to create thousands of landing pages, enhancing organic traffic and search result visibility. The brand's freemium pricing model lowered the barrier to entry, attracting a broad user base that gradually converted to paid plans. Strategic partnerships expanded its reach by tapping into the user bases of other SaaS companies.

WHY DO PRICES RISE LIKE ROCKETS…BUT FALL LIKE FEATHERS?

The "rockets and feathers" phenomenon describes how prices rise quickly when costs increase but fall slowly when costs decrease. Consumers typically make automatic decisions but think more carefully when prices change. Companies maintain high prices when costs drop to avoid triggering consumer scrutiny and brand switching.

WORKING IN A COMPANY THAT DOESN'T KNOW THEIR CUSTOMERS

The hidden costs of not identifying your ICP include wasted marketing spend, product-market misalignment, and increased customer churn.

WHY MEME MARKETING ISN'T LEGAL FOR BRANDS

Brands are increasingly facing lawsuits because ‘fair use' doesn't apply to most meme content used in marketing.

THE WEB'S CLIPBOARD, AND HOW IT STORES DATA OF DIFFERENT TYPES

The Clipboard API restricts the data types that can be written to the clipboard. While the Clipboard Events API allows for arbitrary data types, it can only be used in user-triggered events. This article goes into the creative solutions employed by web applications like Google Docs and Figma to overcome these limitations, such as by using custom data types and base64 encoding for transmitting information.

IMPLEMENTING REACT FROM SCRATCH

This article details the process of building a React-like library from scratch, providing insights into its internal workings and design decisions. It starts by implementing a core rendering model, including components, virtual DOM, and reconciliation, showing how React constructs and updates the UI. It then goes into the implementation of essential hooks like `useState`, `useRef`, `useEffect`, and `useMemo`. Finally, the article discusses the implementation of `useCallback` and `useContext`, showing off the challenges and solutions involved in managing state and context sharing within a component tree.