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DEAD SIMPLE SITES

No overly animated content, scroll jacking, or excessive storytelling. Just most minimal websites on the web.

DIETER RAMS-INSPIRED FRAMER COMPONENTS

This set of Framer components translates Rams' design principles into realistic and high-polished UI elements.

ACCESSIBILITY SIMULATOR (FIGMA PLUGIN)

This Figma plugin allows users to simulate different types of vision issues and identify potential accessibility issues early in the design process.

INTERVIEW WITH ARIEL SALMINEN, NORD'S DESIGN SYSTEMS ARCHITECT

Nordic's Design Systems Architect Ariel Salminen discusses the challenges of building a design system, the importance of collaboration, and how design systems affect the organization and its people. According to Salminen, we should focus less on tools and processes and more on the people involved and how our design system affects them.

WHICH IS BETTER; ZOOM, TEAMS, OR MEET?

When it comes to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, the person who creates the meeting decides which tool to use, subjecting every person they meet to a “guest experience” that is often dire. Random updates, installations, errors, account creation, and gear setup are just a few things that users have to go through.

THE THREE SECRETS TO FONT PAIRING

Good graphic design is mainly about a solid typography foundation, which is incredibly challenging with font pairings. This 3-step framework makes pairing a breeze. Start by finding the best anchor font you can find. Next, find a typeface in the sweet spot of similarity and contrast it with your anchor font. Lastly, aim for the right amount of personality without compromising functionality.

WHY HAND-DRAWN DESIGNS ARE RISING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Hand-drawn work's rough charm and human touch are increasingly attracting audiences because of its high level of personality in a world of sleek sterile pixels. In contrast to algorithmic-driven design trends, hand-drawn designs evoke warmth and authenticity, add a human touch, and convey care, thoughtfulness, and uniqueness.

EMBRACING “GOOD ENOUGH” IN DESIGN: A PRACTICAL APPROACH

The temptation to polish everything to perfection is natural - and a mistake. "Good enough" does not mean mediocre - it means meeting the user's needs and attaining the business objectives with efficient and practical work.

ACCLAIMED ARTIST SACHA JAFRI BELIEVES AI ART "IS VERY DANGEROUS" TO HUMANITY

Sacha Jafri sold his painting 'Journey of Humanity' in 2021 for $62 million, the third-highest sum ever for a living artist. The Dubai-based painter uses art to connect with and understand the world - he says AI and other recent technologies do the opposite.

YOUR REFERRAL LINK - https://tldr.tech/design?ref=2613930

REDDIT FILES FOR IPO AND INVITES POWER USERS TO INVEST

Reddit has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the SEC. The filing revealed that it made $804 million in revenue last year, mostly from advertising, while incurring a net loss of $90.8 million. In an unconventional move, Reddit is offering a portion of its shares to some of its most dedicated users, including moderators and those with high karma scores.

BENCHMARKS FOR FOUNDER SALARY AND BURN RATE BY STAGE

Comprehensive insights into founder compensation, employee stock option pools (ESOP), burn rates, and team size by stage. Recent data shows early-stage companies are burning way less cash monthly than during 2021's ZIRP era. While $20M+ high-growth ventures might be burning $1M+ per month, more modest sub-$5M startups now operate on $50K or less.

THE STATE OF SAAS PRICING

Is usage-based pricing still the future of SaaS pricing or does it make companies too susceptible to market uncertainties and changes in customer behavior? This article aims to examine the various pricing models adopted by startups and evaluates their effectiveness.

BE MORE ASSERTIVE WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

It’s easy to feel you're pestering customers, but being afraid to speak up can lead to lost opportunities and revenue. As founders, we’re serving customers with broader industry insights that they lack. It’s okay to be assertive, push back, and say no to certain requests, as long as you’re not aggressive.

WINNING STRATEGIES FOR APPLIED AI COMPANIES

We are currently experiencing the third wave of AI. The first wave was research-driven AI. This was followed by the development of ML infrastructure, and now we are in the era of applied AI. Applied AI refers to SaaS companies that are utilizing AI to significantly enhance their products. This article delves into more than 70 applied AI companies that have raised over $7 million in VC funding, highlighting how they are growing and why.

THE BEST WAY TO DRIVE DEMAND IN MARKETPLACES

In marketplace businesses, the network is the product, and growing both supply and demand is essential for the product to improve over time. Driving between 10% and 40% of demand from supply is the "Goldilocks zone" for maximizing the value of a marketplace's supply to grow demand.

MINDY

Email-based Chief of Staff powered by AI.

EMBED (ACCELERATOR)

An Accelerator for AI-Native Startups. Deadline is March 1st.

HF0 (ACCELERATOR)

This is a program for repeat founders. Deadline is February 25th.

PERFECTING THE PITCH

This article provides a pitch framework composed of five elements: Timing, Pitch, Emotion, Signals, and Assessment. The framework emphasizes the importance of timing in making a good first impression and building credibility. It highlights the need for a concise and engaging pitch that effectively communicates the market, opportunity, product, team, and milestones.

TURNS OUT, GOOGLE IS ALL ABOUT LINKS AND CLICKS

Google is showing more and more bad pages in its search results. Its search engine is not able to easily see this content as spam like a human - it still struggles to evaluate quality content. Google continues to rely on clicks and links to tune rankings, possibly now more than ever.

HOW NETFLIX BUILDS A CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE (73 MINUTE AUDIO)

Elizabeth Stone, the CTO of Netflix, talks through how and why Netflix maintains a high bar for excellence and specifically how it has fostered that internally through its culture with clear communication.

HOW DO INVESTORS FEEL ABOUT ACQUIHIRES?

Investors' sentiment about "acquihires" has evolved over the years. VCs initially worked with acquihires to provide a "soft landing" for struggling startups, even if the returns were minimal. However, VCs today generally don't prioritize acquihires as they don't want to invest energy in getting minimal returns.

BREAKING THE J-CURVE

Venture capital math is smart in theory, but stupid in practice. It’s easy to get caught in metrics like the ideal LTV/CAC ratio. However, be skeptical of rigid J-curve formulas when trying to build a sustainable, growing business long-term. Find an unfair, low-cost source of pipeline that gets you out of the J-curve game.

YOU WANT TO HEAR ADVICE THAT STINGS

Startups can be very kumbaya at times - people don’t want to speak hard truths. However, the truth is exactly what you need to hear. Find people who give it to you straight and cherish them.

YOUR REFERRAL LINK - https://tldr.tech/founders?ref=2613930

EYE CARE SERVICES FIRM FACES LAWSUIT OVER DATA BREACH IMPACTING 2.3 MILLION

American Vision Partners faces a class action lawsuit over a data breach that impacted 2.35 million patients. The unauthorized access resulted in patients' personal info, medical data, SSNs, and insurance details being stolen. A law firm specializing in data breach-related class action lawsuits is urging affected patients to get in touch as it may file a lawsuit against AMV’s parent company.

SNEAKY SSH-SNAKE MALWARE STEALS SSH KEYS - PUTTING YOUR WHOLE NETWORK AT RISK

Approximately 100 organizations have had their SSH credentials stolen using a recently released open source pentesting tool with worm-like capabilities. The tool is completely self-replicating and self-propagating — and completely fileless. In many ways, SSH-Snake is actually a worm: it replicates itself and spreads itself from one system to another as far as it can.

TANGERINE DATA BREACH EXPOSES PERSONAL INFORMATION OF 230,000 CUSTOMERS

Australian telco Tangerine suffered a data breach that resulted in 230,000 customers' personal information being exposed. The exposed information included full names, dates of birth, mobile numbers, postal addresses, email addresses, and Tangerine account numbers. Tangerine's CEO stated that the breach was caused by leaked credentials to a legacy customer database belonging to a contractor.

VOLTSCHEMER ATTACKS USE WIRELESS CHARGERS TO INJECT VOICE COMMANDS AND FRY PHONES

A team of researchers has released a set of attacks called VoltSchemer that take advantage of hardware security flaws in wireless charging standards. Attackers can use finely tuned voltage fluctuations within wireless chargers to create interferences in the regular data exchange between the charger and smartphone. The researchers demonstrated that these interferences can be used to overheat a phone, bypass Qi safety standards, and even inject voice commands.

ALL ABOUT HACKBOTS: AI AGENTS THAT HACK

Hackbots are automated systems that use AI in a meaningful way to find vulnerabilities. This post covers a PoC of several hackbots, including some that are commercially sold. Hackbots could become integral tools in testing software for vulnerabilities before release or as part of an internal bug bounty program.

HIDDEN GITHUB COMMITS AND HOW TO REVEAL THEM

The team at Neodyme has found a method to reveal hidden GitHub commits. The GitHub PushEvent API can be used to retrieve the hashes of commits that have been hidden using a force push. The commit can then be retrieved via the discovered hash. Neodyme has released a tool for discovering secrets via this method.

NOSEY PARKER

Nosey Parker is a command-line tool that finds secrets and sensitive information in textual data. It is useful for both offensive and defensive security testing.

INFISCAL

Infisical is an open-source secret management platform that can be used by teams to centralize their secrets, like API keys, database credentials, and configurations.

AWESOME PENTEST CHEAT SHEETS

Awesome Pentest Cheat Sheets is a collection of cheat sheets for use in pentesting. The cheat sheets are divided by phase, platform, purpose, tools, and other categories.

LUCIFER DDOS BOTNET MALWARE IS TARGETING APACHE BIG-DATA STACK

A new version of the Lucifer botnet is currently targeting Apache Hadoop and Apache Druid deployments. Researchers from Aqua Nautilus, who have been monitoring the campaign, have counted more than 3,000 unique attacks targeting its Apache Hadoop, Apache Druid, and Apache Flink honeypots in just the last month alone.

RESEARCHERS WARN HIGH-RISK CONNECTWISE FLAW UNDER ATTACK IS ’EMBARRASSINGLY EASY’ TO EXPLOIT

The high-risk ConnectWise flaw is an authentication bypass vulnerability that allows attackers to remotely steal confidential data from vulnerable servers or deploy malicious code such as malware. ConnectWise's SaaS customers were patched within 48 hours, but 8,800 ConnectWise servers remain vulnerable to exploitation.

TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE: ASSESSING A KONNI-BACKDOORED SUSPECTED RUSSIAN CONSULAR SOFTWARE INSTALLER

A suspected North Korea-linked malware sample, believed to be KONNI, was discovered targeting the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was found bundled into a backdoored version of Statistika KZU, a Russian language software installer intended for internal use within the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for relaying annual report files from consular posts.

APPLE ROLLS OUT IMESSAGE UPGRADE TO WITHSTAND DECRYPTION BY QUANTUM COMPUTERS

Apple is integrating a new post-quantum cryptographic protocol called PQ3 into iMessage to protect against future attacks from quantum computers.

NSA DIRECTOR TO STEP DOWN AFTER 34 YEARS OF SERVICE

Rob Joyce, the director of the NSA, has announced plans to step down at the end of March. Joyce has led the NSA since 2021 and served in the NSA for a total of 34 years.

FTC SLAMS AVAST WITH $16.5 MILLION FINE FOR SELLING USERS' BROWSING DATA

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a $16.5 million fine on Avast for selling users' browsing data to advertisers despite claiming its products would prevent online tracking.

YOUR REFERRAL LINK - https://tldr.tech/infosec?ref=2613930

REDDIT IN AI CONTENT LICENSING DEAL WITH GOOGLE

Reddit's recent $60 million annual deal with Google will provide content for the tech giant's AI models by leveraging the social media site's vast repository of niche discussion groups. Reddit is positioning itself to capitalize on the growing demand for quality data in the AI industry. For Google, the deal represents a potential 'data' moat in the competitive AI space.

GOOGLE ANNOUNCES PERFORMANCE MAX UPDATES – INCLUDING GEMINI INTEGRATION

Google's latest updates to Performance Max include global expansion of asset generation and image editing, along with the integration of Imagen 2 for creating lifestyle imagery showing people in action. Ad Strength metrics are evolving to emphasize both quantity and quality of assets, offering advertisers insights into maximizing campaign performance across Google's ad inventory.

TREECARD’S 1,027% SURGE WITH TIKTOK SPARK NATIVE ADS

TikTok Spark Ads are a native ad format that allows brands to use organic posts as advertisements. Treecard, a free app that plants trees, split its Spark creatives between two campaigns: one for testing and one for the best performers. Its team leveraged TikTok’s Video Insights to decipher which words, actions, images, and sounds were boosting the app’s installations and fed its findings back to creators to produce new content. This resulted in app installs skyrocketing by 1,027% and spend per app install decreasing by 63%.

TEMPLATE FOR A CLEAR HOMEPAGE

A breakdown of eWebinar’s homepage overhaul. The hero highlights the key product capabilities. Below contains the ‘problem section’, which lays out the exact problem the product solves. The ‘solution intro’ positions the product as the painkiller to the problem stated above. The last section should include the top 3 value propositions that show how to solve the problem above. Ideally, this section also serves as a product demo.

HOW TO DO CONVERSION FUNNEL ANALYSIS LIKE A PRO

Mastering the art of conversion funnel analysis can help marketers pinpoint where potential customers drop off, capitalize on successful channels, and empower teams with actionable insights. This article covers the importance of conversion funnel analysis, the stages of the funnel, and practical tips for improvement. It provides real-world examples across industries and introduces key metrics and advanced tools for effective analysis.

SUBSTACK NOW LETS WRITERS CURATE A ‘NETWORK’ OF RECOMMENDED PUBLICATIONS FOR THEIR SUBSCRIBERS

Substack is introducing a new peer-to-peer recommendation system. It is allowing writers to curate and share lists of publications for their readers to subscribe to. This shift aims to move away from centralized discovery and empower writers to expand their reach while fostering a sense of community. The system allows users to opt into recommended networks and access content from multiple writers, potentially increasing engagement and subscriptions.

FROM FLAGSHIP BACK TO FLEDGLING: STRIPE’S LESSONS ON GOING MULTI-PRODUCT

This article contains 9 lessons from an early Stripe PM on expanding from single- to multi-product. First, identify the buyer of the new product line and determine how closely they align with your existing product’s customers. When building the new product line, leaders should treat it like a business unit, with its own salespeople, targets, and marketing motion. Go in expecting the customer to convince you during customer discovery — not the other way around. More lessons and anecdotes are included in the article.