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THE MANUFACTURING OPPORTUNITY

Everyone's talking about reshoring manufacturing, but most don't grasp what it really means. China produces 44.7 million tons of aluminum while the US makes just 1.3 million - what will we build robot frames with? China controls 90% of the rare earth metals needed for electric motors. Even defense companies can't build without Chinese components. The real opportunity isn't making socks here, but investing in the "primes" - vertical integrators in robotics, energy, defense, and computing who can disrupt incumbents.

THE FUTURE OF FINANCE IS MODULAR

Finance teams used to face a brutal choice: all-in-one suites with four mediocre features or cobbled-together niche tools. Now, best-of-breed partnerships are creating a "choose your own adventure" landscape. Brex cards show up in Zip's procurement flow. Navan handles travel for Brex customers. Finance software makers who focus on doing one thing exceptionally well and then partner with others are winning the enterprise market over bloated all-in-one platforms.

TECH ACQUISITIONS ARE BACK ON (WITH AN ASTERISK)

Recent tech acquisitions, particularly in AI, indicate a possible end to the M&A slump. OpenAI is actively pursuing deals, notably a rumored $3 billion acquisition of coding app Windsurf. Databricks has continued its aggressive acquisition strategy, highlighted by its recent $1 billion purchase of Neon.

WHY AGENTS BREAK PLG (AND HOW TO REBUILD IT)

AI agents are killing product-led growth by changing how users interact with software. Instead of clicking around interfaces and discovering features, users now delegate tasks to AI agents. This breaks classic PLG tactics: onboarding flows become irrelevant, UI optimization loses impact, and "aha moments" disappear when users aren't directly using the product. Companies must rebuild their growth strategies around capturing user intent, measuring outcomes, and building trust in delegation.

HOW TO MEASURE TOPICAL AUTHORITY [IN 2025]

While AI snippets and agents reshape search, one SEO principle remains crucial: topical authority. Google still rewards sites that comprehensively cover related subtopics - leaked documents confirm it. The best way to measure it is to calculate your "Topic Share" - the percentage of traffic you capture from all keywords in a topic compared to competitors.

LESS PRODUCT, NOT MORE

Adding more features won't fix underlying product issues like slow growth or low engagement. Instead, tech teams should focus on understanding customer needs, validating the problem, and ensuring their solution is the best option. Resist the urge to build without first addressing core issues and assumptions.

SUPERWALL

Quickly build & test paywalls without shipping updates.

GITHUB CHAT

GitHub Chat API lets developers chat with and explore any public GitHub repository programmatically.

HEROUI CHAT

HeroUI Chat generates beautiful, production-ready React apps from prompts or screenshots using AI.

THE FIRST 40 MONTHS

Don't just sprint from round to round - map out your first 40 months of fundraising. Today's funding climate is very unpredictable, with many investors chasing momentum over milestones. What's hot changes constantly (neurotech: dead in 2022, hot in 2025). The best founders understand this and build longer roadmaps that account for future financing markets, not just immediate goals.

THE AMBIGUITY EFFECT

When you play it safe and order the same dinner every time - even when exotic options sound better - that's the Ambiguity Effect at work. We avoid choices with unknown odds, sometimes paying to dodge uncertainty. In one study, people gave up 72% of potential payout just to avoid ambiguity.

INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE AGE OF AI GATEKEEPERS

Databricks' acquisition of Neon revealed that 80% of new databases on Neon were created by AI agents, not people. AI app builders default to certain tools, such as Neon for databases and Stripe for payments, establishing these as industry standards. Dev-tool companies must optimize for AI agent visibility and offer seamless, zero-click integrations to become the default choice in AI-driven environments.

THE SYNTHESIS TRAP

When content merely synthesizes existing ideas, AI can now replace it.

SCALABLE GROWTH

Don't force new growth channels when your users already show you what works.

MATH TO EVALUATE SALES REPS & GTM

High-performing sales reps aren't expensive - bad ones are.

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INTRODUCING CODEX

OpenAI just launched Codex, an autonomous coding agent that writes features, fixes bugs, and submits pull requests in isolated cloud environments. Companies like Cisco and Temporal are already using it to handle entire codebases while their engineers focus on higher-level work. The agent can tackle multiple tasks simultaneously, run tests, and provide detailed citations of every change it makes.

CHIME IPO: S1 BREAKDOWN

Sometimes the most profitable customers are the ones everyone else calls "unprofitable." Chime built a $1.67 billion business serving the 70% of Americans making under $100K - customers traditional banks actively avoid. It isn't actually a bank - the company just handles the customer experience while partners deal with regulatory headaches. Users swipe 54 times monthly because Chime doesn't charge overdraft fees. The model works: it earns money on every swipe without owning the banking infrastructure.

GTM EFFICIENCY IS PLUMMETING!

Cloud companies are making record profits but burning more money to get each new customer. Today's strong margins come from customers they acquired cheaply years ago. Current sales teams cost way more to land new deals. When those old, profitable customers eventually leave, companies will replace them with expensive new ones. FCF margins look great now, but will crash later unless sales efficiency improves.

HOW TO IDENTIFY AND INVEST IN TOP TALENT

When you double team size, employee performance becomes harder to track. Two frameworks can help: the 9-box model plots employees on performance vs potential grids, while stack ranking forces leaders to rank everyone from top to bottom. Both create uncomfortable but necessary conversations about who deserves investment, coaching, or exit plans.

HOW TO STOP HOLDING YOURSELF BACK

Everyone stays muted on Zoom hoping nobody notices, but that is just self-sabotage disguised as humility. We give ourselves "free passes" to play small - staying silent in meetings, not negotiating offers, waiting for perfect moments that never come. If you know what needs changing in your role but haven't done it, you're giving away your power.

FINDING "GOOD" DEMAND

Two criteria separate fast growing startups from slow ones: First, how likely is your solution to be the customer's #1 priority right now? When a project tops their list (like Lovable for UI mockups or Vanta for SOC 2 compliance), customers actively seek solutions. Second, how dramatically better are you than alternatives?

SIMPLAI

SimplAI makes building and deploying Agentic AI seamless with governance, security, and scalability across any environment.

SCENE 2.0

Scene 2.0 lets designers and agencies build and publish AI-assisted websites from a single canvas, without sacrificing creativity.

REACT EMAIL 4.0

React Email 4.0 brings new tools like Linter, Spam Score, Compatibility Checker, and Responsive Preview for better email development.

WHEN CUSTOMERS BUY YOUR COMPETITOR'S PRODUCT… AND THEN BUY YOURS

Enterprise sales doesn't have to mean 6 to 9 month long deals. 20 years ago, a hospital had million-dollar HP OpenView monitoring software and also bought What's Up Gold for $500. Both do the same thing. Its explanation: "What's Up Gold has features we use daily, and $500 goes on the credit card without approval." No procurement meetings, no sales cycles. Sometimes the back door is just pricing under the credit card limit.

WHAT'S GOING ON WITH AI PROGRESS AND TRENDS?

AI progress stems from faster algorithmic advances and increased compute for training, with the trend of training compute growth expected to slow from 4.5x to around 3.5x annually. Returns to pretraining are diminishing, shifting focus towards scaling up reinforcement learning, though this brings its own challenges, like environment scalability. Despite some bumps, notable algorithmic improvements have accelerated to potentially 4.5x effective compute per year, primarily driving advancements over merely increasing raw compute.

THE SLOW DEATH OF INDIVIDUAL TASTE

Ever notice how everyone looks exactly the same now? Compare today's algorithmic cloning to photos of individuals from the 70s-90s who looked effortlessly chic in their own distinct ways. We've traded browsing local boutiques for keyword bidding wars and influencer FOMO. Now we scan, click, and purchase, becoming complicit in our own taste erosion.

PURPOSE IS OVERRATED

Maybe you don't need to find your life's purpose.

WHAT INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS LOOK FOR IN PRIVATE MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

Institutional investors evaluate private market opportunities based on alignment with portfolio strategy, team track record, fund structure, market potential, and ESG considerations.

WHY WE INVESTED IN NORM AI

Norm Ai has raised $48M to transform enterprise compliance with AI-driven regulatory checks.

Keep building. Let WorkOS handle the enterprise identity layer.

STATE OF PRIVATE MARKETS: Q1 2025

Venture investors are becoming more selective but paying higher prices, with median pre-money valuations rising at nearly every funding stage despite falling deal counts. Series D valuations soared 211% year-over-year, while dilution decreased across all stages, showing investors' growing willingness to compete for the best startups.

A16Z IDENTIFIES NINE KEY DEVELOPER PATTERNS IN THE AI ERA

Andreessen Horowitz identified nine key developer patterns emerging in the AI era. These patterns fundamentally reshaped how developers built software and what tools they used.

ATOMIC TEAMS

Tech companies like Plaid succeed through "atomic teams," small focused groups (2-8 people) dedicated entirely to a single project. These teams prioritize clear goals, internal communication, and minimal hierarchy to ensure agility and effective decision-making. They also appoint a leader to protect from external processes and support the team through challenges.

YOU NEED A BETTER TESTING STRATEGY

Most A/B testing approaches are fundamentally broken. Companies blindly copy "best practices" that actually lose in head-to-head tests, like single CTAs in heroes and plain backgrounds on signup pages. Even worse, when tests contradict internal agendas, companies frequently ignore the results. We're heading toward an evolution similar to what happened with ad targeting in 2018 – fewer, more targeted tests informed by actual winning patterns rather than conventional wisdom.

HOW TO GET SMART AGAIN

The digital age has created a productivity paradox: our constant connectivity actually diminishes our ability to think deeply. Mindless multitasking and endless scrolling gradually erodes attention span and intellectual curiosity. This post shares a three-month "brain reset" - deliberate constraints (deleting social apps, creating reading structures, and eliminating background content) in order to restore the focus and depth of thought that genuine innovation requires.

DELTY

World's first AI Staff Engineer.

NEEDLE KNOWLEDGE THREADER

Needle unites all your work apps in one smart chat, letting you find info, share data, and get things done without app-hopping.

STRIPO

Stripo's new editor brings AI, real-time co-editing, and seamless teamwork to email design, making collaboration faster and easier.

THE HIDDEN BENEFITS OF BEING AN OPEN-SOURCE STARTUP

Open source creates powerful competitive advantages beyond just free distribution. Beyond just differentiation, open source creates multiple competitive advantages: engineers can review code before joining, users provide direct feedback on GitHub, and transparency builds trust with skeptical developers. The approach isn't without challenges – monetization is tricky, support requests can overwhelm teams, and you might compete with your own free product.

TWO RADICAL NEW SOLUTIONS TO B2B REVENUE ATTRIBUTION

Most founders still can't confidently answer questions like “How much did it cost us to acquire this customer?” or “How can we increase our pipeline without a bigger budget?” Even with fancy multi-touch attribution models, the data is still too fragmented to trust. Upside published a technical deep dive into how it is using two state-of-the-art techniques to solve this age-old problem: radically improving data quality with AI and graph databases, and extracting deal stories using agentic AI analysis.

VENTURE CAPITAL'S SECOND(ARY) CHANCE

The traditional venture capital model of holding investments until exit is being challenged by extended private market lifecycles and complex exit mechanics. Secondary markets offer a solution, allowing early-stage investors to capitalize on opportunities and manage their portfolios more strategically. Shifting to "secondaries by default" ensures better returns and responsible fund management.

HOW DISCORD'S CEO USED FAKE SCREENSHOTS TO FUNDRAISE

Before Discord existed, CEO Jason Citron raised funding using nothing but Photoshop mockups and 200 waitlist signups.

NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR STUFF

Content creation is fundamentally changing as AI becomes the primary reader of online content.

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO LEVERAGING AI IN YOUR PRODUCT

A look at what actually works in AI integration, beyond chatbot gimmicks.