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ADOBE AND FIGMA ABANDON $20BN DEAL

Fifteen months into the regulatory review process, Figma and Adobe no longer see a path toward regulatory approval. Figma will be continuing as an independent company.

STATE OF FINTECH 2023

Fintech has had a rough year. Not only has VC dollars to fintech dropped substantially, but we’ve seen public company share prices plummet and layoffs across the board. This slideshow summarizes fintech in 2023–from banks, to embedded finance and crypto.

“RESERVES EXHAUSTION” IS COMING TO VENTURE-BACKED STARTUPS IN 2024. EVEN REALLY GOOD ONES.

Beyond right-sizing and maximizing your cash runway, sometimes even your investors run out of cash, even if your business is booming. The reckoning is coming for a lot of really good companies. Deals will be had on the cheap coming in Q1’24.

THE BEST GROWTH ADVICE OF 2023

Here’s a recap of all the top content from Growth Unhinged throughout 2023 broken out into sections based on the stage of your journey–from finding product market fit to acquisition, automating sales, and expansion.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CHURN

Churn has been a painful subject for many founders across all domains and industries this year. There are many variations and flavors of churn metrics. This article breaks them down and offers guidance on how you can understand churn at your startup.

HOW LEADING AI STARTUP INVESTORS APPROACHED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN 2023

Most investors took a wait-and-see approach knowing full well that big, big disruptions are coming in the form of new silicon and solutions that go beyond fun parlor tricks. While funds may say they have seen this coming for a long time, no one can say with a straight face how big the impact will be on the general zeitgeist.

THE OFFICIAL OPENAI PROMPT ENGINEERING GUIDE

A comprehensive step-by-step guide that shares strategies and tactics for getting better results from large language models like GPT-4.

V0 BY VERCEL

Describe the interface you want and this tool will whip it up for you, complete with React code to go with it.

CAPGO

Fastest market research in spreadsheet.

ADOBE X FIGMA ACQUISITION TERMINATION: A FEW OBSERVATIONS

$1B breakup fee (3x the money raised by Figma due in 3 days) and the impact on the direction of both Figma and Adobe can’t be underestimated. Really thoughtful observations on what it might mean. Only time will tell.

HOW IBM SEES AI CHANGING THE GAME

AI technology is transforming businesses in various industries. IBM’s VP of Software and Technology Raj Datta and Director of Startups Kylie Rutherford share how AI is changing the game for companies of all sizes, presenting some use cases and various products.

WHAT INVESTORS GET WRONG

This is a fascinating teardown of an investor report on ServiceNow from 2012 betting against the company. It’s interesting to see how, despite common wisdom and deep research, life delivers something else. Today, the company has a market cap of over $140bn. A useful reminder if you’ve heard “No” from investors to keep moving forward anyway.

GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK

We’re coming up to the end of the year. We’re trying to reflect on the year behind us, make plans for the next, and take a break, all at the same time. Prioritize the last bit, if you can. It helps with perspective.

BEST PRACTICES FOR A MODERN DATA TEAM

Instead of being a reactive function, data is having an ops renaissance and becoming much more of a star player. Here are some insights on how Zoominfo structures its team in order to scale the use of data without increasing the headcount of the data team.

OZEMPIC

The impact of Ozempic (both real and potential future) cannot really be estimated. Beyond the health and economic impact, what about the cultural ones? The mind reels at the possibilities of how a startup founder might take advantage of this significant shift.

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CYBER-CROOKS SLIP INTO VANS, TRAMPLE OVER OPERATIONS

A digital break-in has disrupted VF Corp's operations and its ability to fulfill orders, according to the apparel and footwear giant. The threat actor disrupted the company's business operations by encrypting IT systems and stealing data, including personal data. VF Corp aims to reduce disruption to its ability to serve its retail and brand e-commerce consumers and wholesale customers.

DELTA DENTAL OF CALIFORNIA DATA BREACH EXPOSED INFO OF 7 MILLION PEOPLE

Delta Dental of California and its affiliates are warning patients that it suffered a data breach due to MOVEit attacks. The nearly 7 million affected customers had their names, financial information, and social security numbers exposed. This is the third largest MOVEit data breach thus far.

TERRAPIN ATTACKS CAN DOWNGRADE SECURITY OF OPENSSH CONNECTIONS

A group of researchers have discovered a novel attack against SSH connections that can downgrade the security of the connection by truncating negotiation messages. The attack requires the attacker to have established a man-in-the-middle position and the SSH connection to be secured with either ChaCha20-Poly1305 or CBC with Encrypt-then-MAC. The researchers have released a scanner to determine if servers are vulnerable.

HUNTING RANSOMWARE-ASSOCIATED PATTERNS: A KQL-BASED APPROACH

This blog explores a few advanced KQL (Kusto Query Language) queries designed to identify and track known patterns, files, and other Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) commonly associated with the Cactus ransomware.

WTF IS ASPM?

Application Security Posture Management is a new Gartner category that refers to tools that provide everything needed to scan for and remediate vulnerabilities in an application. Broadly speaking, an ASPM should be able to track the lifecycle of a vulnerability, suggest where in the code the vulnerability can be fixed, provide a robust set of scanners, and allow for workflow creation. ASPMs typically include a subset of the following scanners: SDLC, SCA, SAST, IaC, container scanning, secret scanning, DAST, and CSPM.

NKABUSE MALWARE ABUSES NKN BLOCKCHAIN FOR STEALTHY ATTACKS

NKAbuse is a new Go-based malware that utilizes NKN technology for stealthy communication. NKN is a new, decentralized protocol that leverages blockchain technology. NKAbuse can function as a RAT or a DDOS botnet with communication that is difficult to track.

XEOL

Xeol’s focus is to secure software throughout its lifecycle, beginning at the code repository all the way through delivery to customers. Using an agentless system and basing themselves on SBOMs, Xeol manages enterprises' end-of-life software when publishers no longer provide security patches and brings visibility to them.

SECHUB

The free and open-source security platform SecHub has a central API for testing software with different security tools. It supports many free, open-source, and proprietary security tools.

ATLASLDR

AtlasLdr is a reflective x64 loader that uses dynamic indirect syscalls that can be used to avoid detection by Endpoint Detection and Response(EDR) systems.

THE AGE OF WEAPONIZED LLMS IS HERE

A researcher simulated using large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to craft personalized spearphishing emails targeting UK Parliament members. His paper reveals LLMs can iterate malicious emails to successfully trick victims at a fraction of a cent per message. The researcher's findings usher in an era of weaponized LLMs posing immense new cyberthreats.

MALWARE LEVERAGING PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE LIKE GITHUB ON THE RISE

Threat actors exploit public services to conceal command and control infrastructure amongst legitimate traffic. Blending malicious actions through services like GitHub hinders threat detection and allows inexpensive, reliable control of breached systems. This post navigates how malicious actors are using this technology to frustrate incident response and security teams.

AUTHORITIES CLAIM SEIZURE OF NOTORIOUS ALPHV RANSOMWARE GANG’S DARK WEB LEAK SITE

The FBI has reportedly seized the ALPHV Blackcat ransomware gang's dark web leak site as part of a coordinated, international effort. The FBI also released a decryption tool that has allowed more than 500 victims to restore their systems. ALPHV and the FBI have gone back and forth seizing and “unseizing” the site since the publication of this article.

VULNERABILITY IMPACT SCORING SYSTEM VERSION 1.0.0

The Vulnerability Impact Scoring System, or VISS, is a customizable framework that provides a web-based user interface and algorithms to help organizations assess and prioritize vulnerabilities based on actual demonstrated exploitation rather than theoretical impact.

IOS 17.2 PUTS AN END TO FLIPPER ZERO’S IPHONE SHENANIGANS

The Xtreme firmware for Flipper Zero had previously included a BLE spam attack that could DOS an iPhone by causing non-stop Bluetooth popups to overwhelm a device. Apple has added protections to prevent the DOS attack with its latest iOS update.

HOW NORTH KOREA IS COMPROMISING SUPPLY CHAINS

This blog post talks about how North Korea uses open source package managers and the GitHub platform to orchestrate supply chain attacks.

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4 WEB DESIGN TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2024

Good web design crafts immersive experiences that connect, captivate, motivate, and delight. In 2024, more websites will feature denser and richer graphics, as sites will be less limited by technical constraints. Kinetic typography will become more interactive and will be key in landing pages and campaigns. AI-generated designs will unlock a new level of personalization. Microinteractions will evolve to become more personalized and context-aware.

NEW REPORT FINDS FACEBOOK AND IG REELS OUTPERFORM TIKTOK CLIPS IN DRIVING VIEWS

A recent video performance analysis found that Instagram Reels drive more views than TikTok. Longer Reels performed better than shorter ones—8K vs. 6K median views per video. Despite the impressive stats from Reels, brands produced way more Stories, revealing a potential misalignment in strategy.

ALL THE CHANGES COMING TO GOOGLE PLAY AND SIDELOADING FOLLOWING $700M SETTLEMENT

Google is set to enact multiple changes following a $700 million settlement. These include supporting app installs outside of Google Play, permitting alternative billing mechanisms for in-app purchases, and prohibiting exclusive Google Play deals with phone makers.

BOOK MORE MEETINGS BY USING STRUCTURED RETARGETING ADS

Impactable, a B2B ad agency, runs cold ads to drive targeted traffic to its homepage as a way to build retargeting audiences. Its team uses a “retargeting ladder” to ensure that cold visitors are exposed to information in the right order at different intensities. The cold ads appear unprofitable on their own, but they enable highly profitable retargeting campaigns. This post contains examples of each type of retargeting ad the company runs.

14 SHOPIFY TIPS TO BUILD, LAUNCH & SCALE YOUR STORE

From finding winning business ideas to setting up and optimizing your storefront to effectively marketing your store, this guide contains tactics to scale your e-commerce business on Shopify. It shares how Oodie, a brand that sells wearable blankets, optimized its store with an abandoned cart email sequence, product bundles, free shipping thresholds, and paid advertising.

AI TOOLS FOR SEO CONTENT BRIEFS

A content brief is a summary of what to include in an article. Generative AI can streamline the making of content briefs and enhance SEO benefits. Keyword Insights uses AI to discover and cluster keywords, optimize for intent, and generate content, including briefs. MarketingBlocks is a comprehensive, AI-powered content suite. Swiftbrief is a tool that specializes in content briefs.

OUR FAVORITE CHROME EXTENSIONS OF 2023

Google shared its favorite Chrome extensions that help with task management, shopping, and accessibility. Sider is an in-browse sidebar for genAI tools, Transkriptor is an audio-to-text tool that supports over 100 languages, and QuillBot helps with email composition.

HOW BRAND VALUES ACTUALLY BUILD A WINNING BRAND

McKinsey has reached $15+ billion in revenue because one of its early leaders created a set of company values and stuck to them. These values matter because, unlike a mission statement, they should be felt by the customer when interacting with a brand. They should also inform the company culture and drive business results. When using values to build a winning brand, leaders need to fully mean it and design operations around it. As the company grows and changes, brands must preserve the values and use them to guide decisions.

SPOTIFY WRAPPED: 6 PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES THAT MAKE IT GO VIRAL EVERY YEAR

This case study analyzes the psychological principles Spotify leverages to make Wrapped go viral every year. A week before release, it uses the curiosity gap to get users hooked and build anticipation. Then it uses storytelling, delighters, and numbers to make user stats more engaging and interesting. Lastly, it leverages the bandwagon effect by making its content very easy to share.

THE BEST LOYALTY APPS TODAY

This infographic shows the top-rated Restaurant, Shopping, and Travel loyalty apps. Chick-fil-A and Dominos lead the restaurants, Etsy and Sam's Club lead the shopping apps, and Delta leads the travel apps.

7 SOCIAL MEDIA PREDICTIONS IN 2024 FROM A STRATEGIST

In 2024, in-house personal brands will replace influencers, bio links will replace landing pages, and private groups like subreddits and Discord groups will replace a majority of top-of-funnel marketing.

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HOW META BUILT THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THREADS

This article details how Meta's infrastructure teams successfully supported Threads' rapid growth, hitting 100 million users in 5 days. The article highlights the roles of ZippyDB, a scalable distributed key/value database, and Async, a serverless function platform, in managing the high user influx and workload demands. These components demonstrate Meta's robust infrastructure and engineering culture, enabling fast product launches.

WHAT VUE’S CREATOR LEARNED THE HARD WAY WITH VUE 3

Evan You, creator of Vue, recounts some of the challenges the release of Vue 3 unveiled and the lessons he learned with each one. One key lesson was minimizing breaking changes and adopting a deprecation cycle to ensure smoother transitions for users. Another lesson was recognizing the importance of collaborating with ecosystem library authors to address issues before releases and discouraging the use of internal APIs to prevent difficulties in upgrading. Embracing TypeScript and the composition API was crucial for a better developer experience.

WHAT IS A DISTRIBUTED DATABASE AND WHEN SHOULD YOU USE ONE?

Distributed databases are recommended when you need geographical distribution of data, scalability, high availability and data resilience, and routing traffic for lower latency. However, distributed databases also come with challenges such as efficient routing, maintaining data consistency, handling complex ACID transactions, cost considerations, and provisioning.