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THE POPOVER DRAMA

A tweet about a slow-loading HEY Calendar popover sparked a social media debate on SPA vs. HTML-Over-the-Wire.

THE CONSUMER RENAISSANCE

The consumer technology sector is poised for significant growth and innovation in the coming years despite being currently undervalued by investors. Venture capital data shows that consumer startups have a higher likelihood of going public and achieving valuations over $10 billion compared to enterprise companies. The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence are creating opportunities for disruptive consumer applications, such as AI-powered avatars for language learning and other use cases, which have the potential to challenge incumbent consumer internet companies.

VC FUNDING TO FEMALE FOUNDERS PEAKED IN 2023

In 2023, a record-breaking 25% of U.S. venture funding, amounting to $34.7 billion, was invested in startups with at least one female co-founder. The AI sector, in particular, saw over 50% of its investment going to companies with female founders, driven by significant funding rounds raised by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Despite this progress, the majority of funded AI startups still lack female founders, and sustained efforts are needed to support women entrepreneurs across all funding stages.

THE RISE OF AI AGENT INFRASTRUCTURE

The rapid development of GenAI apps is being driven by improving models and platform infrastructure, but the pace of development means that new requirements are constantly emerging. AI agents, which are autonomous actors that can plan and execute multi-step tasks, are becoming a common interface for end-users and a core abstraction for developers. A rich ecosystem of AI agent infrastructure is emerging to support the rise of AI agents, including agent-specific developer tools, agents as a service, browser infrastructure, personalized memory, authentication for agents, and managed hosting and orchestration services.

WHY PRICING AND PACKAGING MATTERS MORE WHEN YOU'RE LAUNCHING YOUR SECOND PRODUCT

Launching new products is crucial for B2B companies to expand their market and deepen customer relationships, but it requires finding product-market fit again with a slimmer margin for error. Considering pricing and packaging early on can help determine the viability of a product idea and efficiently capture its value. When pricing a new product, companies should revisit their pricing metric, segment their current and potential customers, and assess customers' willingness to pay to avoid common pitfalls and ensure a successful product launch.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR VOLUNTARY CHURN

This guide explores how to measure, mitigate, and recover voluntary churn. Voluntary churn, as opposed to involuntary churn, is when a customer leaves your product on purpose. Most importantly, you need to understand why they're churning. Is it price, product gaps, or they simply don't need it anymore? Understanding why enables you to build measures within your product to win them back–like automatic discounts, the ability to pause their subscription, or simply remind them what they'd be missing out on.

DOING STUFF WITH AI

AI systems have become more capable and user-friendly in recent months, offering a range of playful and serious applications. Large language models like Claude 3 Opus, Gemini 1.5, and GPT-4 now connect to the internet, generate images, run code, analyze data, see images and video, and work with documents. However, the rapid pace of AI development means that even the most advanced models today may soon become obsolete as new, smarter systems emerge.

PUMP

Pump can help developers save 60% on AWS by using group buying and AI.

YC S24 BATCH (APPLICATION)

Last Chance to apply for YC's S24 batch. Applications close June 13th!

FLOWMAPP 3.0

Visual website planning in the most powerful way.

TIKTOK, ROBOTS, AND OPPORTUNITIES IN CONSUMERLAND!

While the common sentiment is that we're in a “consumer VC winter”, there are still interesting sources of alpha for consumer entrepreneurs & investors. This post explores how TikTok/Xiaohongshu's product design and Roborock's commercialization culture have enabled these companies to dominate the Western markets. These companies are presented as case studies & potential playbooks for other consumer startups to follow.

PESSIMISM, POSITIONING, AND HOW TO BUILD A BETTER SALES PITCH

Nailing your product positioning and sales pitch is make-or-break for B2B growth. April Dunford, expert on both, shares her insights on avoiding common traps and winning more deals. Buyers really want market perspective and option navigation help. Teach them what to value and prove you deliver it better than alternatives. Don't just hope they figure it out. You can influence their decision criteria more than you think.

BILLBOARDS ARE STILL OP

Startups are increasingly turning to offline advertising methods like billboards to boost brand awareness and complement their online marketing efforts. While measuring the effectiveness of billboards can be challenging, companies use various methods such as tracking signup data, conducting surveys, and monitoring changes in website traffic to gauge their impact.

13% OF VC FIRMS AREN'T PLANNING TO RAISE ANOTHER FUND

Venture capital firms are facing challenges in raising new funds due to institutional investors' concerns about overexposure to the asset class.

THE SIMPLE NOTIFICATION THAT BOOSTS RETENTION

Certain apps provide value by preventing undesirable events from occurring, rather than through active usage.

EVERY COMPLAINT IMPLIES A DREAM

When people complain, they are indirectly describing their ideal scenario, providing clues for better understanding their needs.

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TIKTOK FIXES 0-DAY BUG USED TO HIJACK HIGH-PROFILE ACCOUNTS

TikTok has fixed a 0-day vulnerability that allowed attackers to take over accounts. The vulnerability required the attacker to send a DM to the victim and the victim to open the message but did not require any further interaction such as clicking links. TikTok has not given details as to the number of accounts that were compromised.

AUSTRALIAN FOOD SERVICE PROVIDER'S INTERNAL RECORDS AND INVOICES EXPOSED IN THIRD PARTY DATA BREACH

Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered an unprotected database belonging to Patties Food Limited that was internet accessible. The database contained nearly 500K internal logs which exposed internal, customer, and vendor emails. The database also contained over 25K invoices which included vendors, contacts, emails, and banking information. The databases were managed by a third party known as Proveno.ai, which has responded to the responsible disclosure and protected the databases.

UNCLE SAM SEEKS TO CLAW BACK $5M+ STOLEN FROM TRADE UNION THROUGH SPOOFED EMAIL

The US Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture action seeking to recover over $5 million stolen from a Massachusetts trade union. The funds, part of a $6.4 million theft, have been traced to seven bank accounts which are currently seized. The legal action aims to enable the recovery of the stolen money held in those accounts

SECURITY FIRST: DEVSECOPS EMPOWERMENT WITH TERRASCAN

Terrascan is an IaC scanner by Tenable that can be used to scan Terraform files, Helm Charts, Dockerfiles, and other IaC files. This post walks through the steps to install Terrascan and run it against Terraform files. It provides the full output of the sample run and walks through the found vulnerabilities.

SECURE YOUR TAILSCALE INFRASTRUCTURE FURTHER WITH MUTUAL TLS

Viktor Petersson, co-founder of Screenly, walks through the process of utilizing certificates generated by Tailscale for Mutual TLS to provide an added layer of security to sensitive applications or those that don't require authentication. Petersson first generates a client certificate with Tailscale and exports it to a PKCS#12 bundle, then he imports that to a browser, and finally deploys a ghostunnel server to reverse proxy traffic on the server.

WHY SAST + DAST CAN'T BE ENOUGH

Static and dynamic app testing are important but not enough to fully secure modern software. New automated testing procedures are needed to address evolving threats and vulnerabilities. Detection in source code is crucial for enhancing application security beyond traditional methods.

demo here

VULNCHECK (PRODUCT LAUNCH)

VulnCheck provides exploit intelligence for vulnerability prioritization and an early-warning system for in-the-wild software exploitation activity.

OXO

OXO is a security scanning framework that combines specialized tools to work cohesively to find vulnerabilities and perform actions like recon, enumeration, fingerprinting, and more.

TOTALRECALL

TotalRecall is a tool that extracts and displays data from the new Recall feature in Windows 11. The tool demonstrates how the local Recall database can be abused by an attacker. It was developed using an Azure VM with access to the feature as Copilot+ devices have not shipped yet.

UK RETAILERS FILE A £1.1B COLLECTIVE ACTION AGAINST AMAZON OVER CLAIMS OF DATA MISUSE

The British Independent Retailers Association filed a damages claim against Amazon in a £1.1 billion ($1.3 billion) collective action, alleging illegal misuse of members' proprietary data for competitive purposes and manipulation of the coveted "Buy Box" feature.

HACKERS EXPLOIT LEGITIMATE PACKER SOFTWARE TO SPREAD MALWARE UNDETECTED

Threat actors are increasingly abusing legitimate packer software like BoxedApp to evade detection and distribute malware such as remote access trojans and information stealers, primarily targeting financial institutions and government sectors.

MICROSOFT DEPRECATES WINDOWS NTLM AUTHENTICATION PROTOCOL

Microsoft announced that it has officially deprecated the outdated NTLM authentication protocol in favor of more secure alternatives. NTLM will still work in the next release of Windows server and the next annual release of Windows. Administrators are encouraged to audit their use of NTLM and users are encouraged to transition to Negotiate which attempts authentication with Kerberos before falling back to NTLM.

FBI OBTAINS 7,000 LOCKBIT RANSOMWARE DECRYPTION KEYS

The FBI obtained 7,000 decryption keys from the LockBit ransomware group. Victims can now unlock their data for free.

225,000 MORE CYBERSECURITY WORKERS NEEDED IN US: CYBERSEEK

There are more than 1.2 million cybersecurity workers in the United States, but 225,200 more people are needed.

GOOGLE MAPS TIMELINE DATA TO BE STORED LOCALLY ON YOUR DEVICE FOR PRIVACY

Google plans to store Maps Timeline data on users' devices instead of in their Google account starting December 1.

COSTCO IS BUILDING OUT AN AD BUSINESS USING ITS SHOPPERS' DATA

Costco is building out an ad network built on its trove of loyalty membership data, using its 74.5 million household members' shopping habits and past purchases to power targeted advertising on and off its website. The wholesale retailer is still testing such capabilities, and it's fielding offers from potential ad-tech vendors, but the move signals that the third-largest retailer in the US could become a formidable player in the already deeply fragmented retail media space, which is estimated to reach $166 billion by 2025, and responsible for 20% of all digital media spend this year.

A SOCIAL APP FOR CREATIVES, CARA GREW FROM 40K TO 650K USERS IN A WEEK BECAUSE ARTISTS ARE FED UP WITH META'S AI POLICIES

Cara, an anti-AI social app for artists, surged from 40,000 to 650,000 users in a week as artists fled Meta's exploitative AI policies, seeking a safer space to share their work. Founder Jingna Zhang, a renowned photographer and advocate for artists' rights, has positioned Cara as a haven for creatives to display their portfolios without fear of AI misuse.

USE LINKEDIN'S THOUGHT-LEADER ADS TO BOOST ORGANIC POSTS AND REDUCE COST PER RESULT

You will get more impressions and results for your money if a LinkedIn ad has a lot of engagement in the form of likes and comments. First, make an organic post that addresses the problem that your business is supposed to solve and also offers a narrative that gets engagement. It may take multiple tries to find the post that captures people's imagination and inspires the kind of comments and engagements you're looking for. The following day, edit the post to add in a call-to-action and a couple of lines about your service or product. Finally, boost the post with Thought-Leader Ads. This can help you achieve more affordable ad impressions, as well as a higher conversion rate due to the social proof.

SUNSET FLOWS: A CRUCIAL KEY TO BETTER EMAIL DELIVERABILITY

A sunset flow begins with a series of emails you send to subscribers who aren't engaging with your marketing messages. Once you've identified the people who still aren't engaging at the end of the flow, you reduce or suppress sending to them altogether. A good sunset flow sets you up to ensure that your audience is both interested and engaged. This guide covers 2 types of sunset flows for never-openers and for subscribers who previously engaged. It also shares tips and tricks to focus on in the flows and what to do with folks who do not engage at all after a sunset flow.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR VOLUNTARY CHURN

Reducing churn should be the top priority for every team at scaling-stage companies – particularly for subscription businesses. Involuntary churn is when a customer's renewal payment fails, while voluntary churn is when a customer leaves on purpose by canceling. Important voluntary churn metrics include volume of “auto-renew OFF” users, volume of “auto-renew back ON” users, timing of cancellation, cancellation reasons, and take rate of discount/pause offers. To address voluntary churn, use a single-choice survey to determine the reasons, pay attention to how quickly it happens, offer a one-click option to turn auto-renew back on, use discounts in the cancellation flow, offer a pause option, and show what will be lost by downgrading.

INSTAGRAM CLARIFIES ADVICE ON SINGLE WORD CTAS AND LONGER REELS

An Instagram video suggested that posts asking for specific engagement, like single-word comments, might be restricted due to anti-spam measures. After deleting and reposting the video, Instagram clarified that general engagement tactics are acceptable, but content explicitly designed to hack reach by soliciting specific interactions could be penalized. Using 3rd-party services like ManyChat for engagement is also acceptable. Reels longer than 90 secs won't be recommended to non-followers. However, creators can still post longer Reels to engage their existing audience.

NOTEBOOKLM GOES GLOBAL WITH SLIDES SUPPORT AND BETTER WAYS TO FACT-CHECK

Google's NotebookLM, an AI research and writing assistant, is expanding globally to over 200 countries and now supports Google Slides and web URLs. The latest update, which utilizes Gemini 1.5 Pro, offers new features like inline citations for easy fact-checking, high-level source summaries, and the ability to ask questions about images and charts. Marketers can leverage NotebookLM for diverse applications, from creating newsletters and analyzing sales calls to organizing complex storylines in writing projects.

MARKETERS SHOULD STOP BEING FEARFUL OF REDDIT

Many marketers are missing out on what Reddit has to offer due to a lack of knowledge of the opportunities it presents. Non-salesy community engagement, market research via social listening scans, gathering customer feedback, and creator partnerships are all great ways for brands to get value from the platform. At minimum, companies should use Reddit to listen to customers and understand their needs, but there is additional value gained from engaging with other users' content or even creating posts.

MARKETERS ‘PREOCCUPIED WITH WRONG EFFECTIVENESS METRICS', STUDY FINDS

Marketers have been overly focused on less meaningful campaign metrics. Despite 92% of marketers claiming to distinguish these effects, 39% of metrics used in 2023 were less meaningful. Campaigns that avoid using campaign delivery effects in their reporting see a 67% improvement in business results. More effective measurement methods include attribution modeling, brand tracking, and econometrics. KPIs should ultimately align with campaign objectives, document benchmarks, targets, performance, and key learnings for future testing.

NO, THE GOOGLE ALGORITHM DID NOT LEAK

The leaked information from Google was API documentation related to ranking systems, not the actual algorithm. This documentation provides insights into potential ranking signals, such as page views and toxic links, which may influence Google's algorithm but are not guaranteed factors. Marketers should interpret this information as part of a broader strategy and prioritize foundational SEO practices, such as optimizing for site speed, quality content, and user engagement, rather than relying on supposed shortcuts or loopholes.

50+ AI TOOLS FOR ECOMMERCE MARKETING

A list of AI tools categorized by marketing automation, image editing, growth automation, and more.

7 SPICY TAKES ON MARKETING TRENDS (1 MINUTE)

A POV on trends marketers are obsessing over that this author hasn't bought into.

INFLUENCER SEARCH FUNCTION IDEA FOR ASOS.COM

An avid shopper suggests adding an influencer search function on ASOS.com for a better shopping experience.

OKRS ≠ STRATEGY

OKRs must be contextualized within a broader vision and strategy to ensure alignment, buy-in, and effective execution, rather than being treated as isolated goals.

FRICTION, DOCUMENTATION, AND PRODUCT TOOLS

Using simple low-tech documents and manual repetition can enhance thoughtful prioritization and reflection better than specialized digital tools, which often obscure state history and create information asymmetries.