Companies don't die from slow growth - they die from running out of cash. With recession odds jumping from 18% to 55% since January due to tariff uncertainty, CFOs need a plan now. The ripple effects are predictable as stock markets tank, IPOs freeze, VCs slow fundraising, companies cut spending, which further reduces revenue across the board. To survive this perfect storm (especially with AI accelerating job displacement), companies should watch leading sales metrics before adding headcount and have a "Plan B" for getting to cash flow positive before money runs out.
Don't rush to hire a Head of Growth—own it first. Early-stage growth can't be delegated. Founders should dive hands-on into discovering "growth levers": pinpoint bottlenecks in your customer journey, deeply understand user motivations (use "Jobs to Be Done" interviews), and rapidly experiment to move those levers. Avoid getting stuck in the traps of overthinking, underthinking, or prematurely delegating, and instead embed an experimental, growth-driven mindset across your team. Remember, PayPal's explosive growth hinged on a few high-impact bets—yours will too.
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Concierge is the first connected AI Assistant designed for Founders and Product Managers, that can read & write to your apps in real-time. Connect in 2 clicks (Gmail, Slack, Notion, Jira, HubSpot, Linear, Asana, Confluence, Airtable, Attio, etc) and ask Concierge anything. Sign up for free [10] (promo code: TLDR3).
AI dictation that lets you talk into any text field — Cursor, Gmail, Slack, and even your terminal.
Cuckoo provides real-time AI translation for global teams, enabling seamless multilingual communication in meetings.
Numeral automates sales tax compliance for e-commerce and SaaS, handling registration, filing, and remittance in minutes.
Base Power Company has gone from theory to installing over 1,000 home batteries across Texas in just one year, raising $200M, and expanding into homebuilder and utility partnerships along the way. What makes its story fascinating isn't just the speed of execution, but its strategic positioning as the "operating system" for electricity that controls the critical layer between generation and consumption. The best vertical integrators don't try to do everything themselves on day one, they start with a focused beachhead, prove it works, then expand methodically.
2025.04.16·newsletter.angularventures.com·3 min read·TLDR Founders SaaS Security firm Rubrik's IPO has impressed with a $13B market cap, an 80% rise, and $1.1B ARR at 39% growth. Its success is driven by significant cybersecurity demand, from both financial and operational aspects, posting a 120% NRR and barely positive cash flow. Notably, Rubrik grew from 23 to 2,246 $100K+ customers since 2019, highlighting its strong market traction.
The next wave of enterprise solutions will be quietly powerful: invisible systems that intelligently interpret messy data, route actions instantly, and evolve continuously without human intervention, turning complexity from a constant headache into a hidden strength.
Early rounds (Seed, Series A) demand a compelling story, exceptional team, clear differentiation, and signs of product-market fit.
Silicon Valley's influence in Washington has surged as tech founders and VCs join the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
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Earlier this year, Microsoft made MFA mandatory on all Azure logins. IT and security teams were faced with the daunting task of forcing _everyone_ to transition all at once.
The internet forum 4chan was hacked and taken offline on Tuesday. Screenshots of internal systems circulated online, exposing moderator lists and backend code. A janitor confirmed the breach's authenticity and noted that hackers may have accessed subscriber data.
Landmark Admin and Young Consulting have reported major data breaches that affect 2.6 million individuals. A ransomware attack on Landmark via stolen VPN credentials compromised 1.6 million people's sensitive personal data, while a breach at Young Consulting affected 1 million people, exposing names, SSNs, and health information.
DaVita, a major kidney care provider, reported a ransomware attack over the weekend. The firm isolated affected systems, but some operations are still disrupted. DaVita is investigating and has not disclosed which ransomware gangs may be involved or if patient data was stolen.
ReliaQuest discovered a sophisticated attack chain in March 2025 that targeted finance and professional services sectors. It begins with Microsoft Teams phishing but evolves into a novel persistence technique that involves Component Object Model Type Library hijacking. The attack deploys previously unseen malware with a PowerShell backdoor that uses Telegram for command and control, showing similarities to earlier campaigns attributed to the "Storm-1811" threat group known for deploying Black Basta ransomware. To defend against these tactics, organizations should restrict external Microsoft Teams communications, block specific domains at the network edge, and implement various Windows security hardening measures.
MDSec, a British cybersecurity consultancy, provides an overview of ServiceNow functionality and ways to abuse it for red team functionality. This post discusses some access vectors, such as the API and login.do endpoint, and details how custom actions, discovery, orchestration, the LDAP listener, and relaying can be abused.
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This checklist compares Drata with other solutions in the industry including custom, basic, one-stop, and niche players.
NetRise's Supply Chain Detection and Response (SCDR) platform provides a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) covering various devices, which improves vulnerability detection and remediation and helps ensure regulatory compliance.
Justniffer is a network traffic analysis tool that allows you to analyze and trace HTTP traffic in a network. Justniffer allows capturing network packets and decoding of HTTP data, providing detailed information about HTTP requests and responses, such as the IP address of the client and server, the requested URL, header fields, and message content.
An MCP server for using Semgrep to scan code for security vulnerabilities.
OpenAI launched GPT-4.1 without providing a safety report, deviating from its usual practice of publishing such reports. The omission has raised concerns among safety researchers and former employees, who argue that transparency in AI safety is critical.
The Browser Forum voted to reduce SSL/TLS certificate validity from the current 398 days to just 47 days by 2029. The phased reduction begins in March 2026 with 200-day limits, dropping to 100 days in 2027. Tech giants unanimously supported the change to enhance security by limiting abuse of compromised certificates, though sysadmins worry about increased workload without automation.
Microsoft announced that it will begin disabling all ActiveX controls in Windows versions of Office 2024 and Microsoft 365 starting later this month. After this change goes into effect, users will see a notification at the top of content that uses ActiveX stating: "BLOCKED CONTENT: The ActiveX content in this file is blocked." ActiveX can be re-enabled via the Trust Center.
A new malware called ResolverRAT targets healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations through phishing emails with malicious attachments.
A Chinese hacking group, UNC5174, uses open-source tools like VShell and WebSockets to hide its malicious activities and blend in with other cybercriminals.
Google is adding a new feature to Android devices that automatically reboots them after three days of inactivity to enhance security by encrypting data more often.
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Simon Appleby, founder of Bookswarm, was losing holidays to server emergencies while managing 230+ WordPress sites [4] for publishing clients.
As U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods rise to 125%, Temu has halted nearly all ad spend, with Google Shopping impressions falling from 40-50% in early April to 0% by April 12. Social activity also dried up, including a full stop in TikTok sponsorships. The drop created a temporary inventory surplus, but few brands are rushing in due to economic uncertainty and shifting budgets.
The 2025 edition of Stanford's AI Index Report found that AI is increasingly embedded in everyday life. AI performance is improving rapidly, with benchmark scores rising by up to 67.3 percentage points in one year and language models sometimes outperforming humans in coding tasks. Business investment in AI reached $109.1 billion in the U.S. alone, and 78% of organizations now use AI, up from 55% in 2023. The U.S. leads in model output, but China is closing the quality gap while dominating in publications and patents. Governments are increasing regulation and investment, but global optimism and education access remain uneven.
Marketing in 2025 is harder but not hopeless. Big, traditional channels like SEO and ads are saturated, but still useful when approached strategically. Emerging “little channels” like community and influencer marketing are becoming more scalable thanks to new tools. Success now depends on strong products and standout marketing—differentiation is key. Human-centered, creative, and trust-based marketing is rising in value, and teams need to stay nimble, make focused bets, and avoid one-size-fits-all playbooks.
Darker packaging makes products seem stronger and more effective, leading to higher purchase interest. In experiments, 65% preferred a darker anti-hair loss shampoo, judging it 12.3% better, and were 6.9% more likely to buy other personal care items with dark packaging. However, dark colors also raise concerns about side effects, which can reduce purchase intent, especially for sensitive products. Lighter packaging is better when safety is a key concern, such as for children's medicines or skincare for sensitive users.
Vector's ad combines a hook, a pain point-focused headline, results-based UI screenshot, mascot, and CTA. Behind the scenes, it targets high-intent contacts identified by Vector, boosting both ad performance and budget efficiency.
Vidclue is a video idea library categorized by interactive engagement, educational explainers, industry insights, and comedy sketches. Click on the “shuffle” icon to get a video prompt, film your own take, and repeat the process to practice, batch content, and explore new angles.
A go-to list of favorite marketing tools across different categories. It includes GrowthPair for offshore hiring, Distro for content creation, Typefully for social media, and Gumloop for automation.
UX in D2C marketing needs to move beyond efficiency to reflect the diversity of users, integrating accessibility and emotional resonance into every touchpoint. When brands ignore users with disabilities or those less familiar with tech, they lose potential revenue and loyalty. Great UX means syncing every touchpoint, from personalized emails to checkout flows, into a cohesive and inclusive experience. Designing for the edges, like one-handed navigation or high-contrast visuals, improves the experience for everyone and turns usability into real impact.
AI is projected to drive 95% of customer interactions by the end of 2025. Prompts are emerging as the strategic bridge between human intent and AI execution. Marketers are already leveraging prompt engineering to enable hyper-personalization at scale, automate campaign generation, and maintain consistency across channels. Some successful examples include L'Oréal's GenAI lab generating customized recommendations, Airbnb improving CTRs by 30% through personalized itineraries, and Sephora increasing skincare sales by 35% using AI-driven skin analysis.
LinkedIn ads that look like Slack chats, DM convos, and Google search results.
TikTok now shows location-based reviews in a “Reviews” tab on some videos with ratings, photos, and links to reviewer profiles.
Starting in May, YouTube will automatically insert mid-roll ads into “natural break points” in both new and existing videos.
An alternative approach to traditional REST APIs is having APIs return UI components as JSON using React Server Components (RSC). By composing ViewModels, the code generating props is directly linked with the code consuming those props. This ends up with self-contained UI pieces that handle their data dependencies, are rendered in a single client-server roundtrip, and maintain client-side state.
Reducing React bundle sizes leads to faster load times and a better user experience. There are a few practical tips to do this, including removing side effects, deleting unused code, avoiding barrel files, and using lighter libraries. Applying multiple of these strategies allowed this developer to reduce his app's bundle size by over 30%.
A flowing WebGL gradient effect is a great tutorial for teaching basic shader concepts while creating the final product. This post goes over how to write shaders, color mapping, gradient noise, and use WebGL to improve performance. It also goes over creative rendering techniques, like creating animated waves using stacked sine waves and simplex noise, implementing dynamic blur, and using gradient textures for more flexible color mapping.
Modern approaches to CSS architecture fail to uphold the principle of separating structure (HTML) from presentation (CSS). Utility classes in frameworks like Bootstrap lead to verbose HTML with styling information embedded within it, making the code harder to both read and maintain.
Many companies unknowingly slow themselves down with excessive meetings, rigid team structures, and unnecessary approval processes. PostHog avoids these traps by having transparency, giving engineers the power to make final decisions, and maintaining a flexible team structure.