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We’ve covered the recent tech layoffs from companies big and small. It’s been a rough few weeks, and many startups are going into cockroach mode to survive. That often means cutting costs, reserving cash, and prioritizing revenue. With VC funding slowing down (though not as quickly as projected) startups have to be laser-focused to ride out the storm and keep investors interested. In times like these, sales can be a hail mary that adds months (or hopefully years) to a startup’s runway, and revenue begets funding. 

So how can startups increase sales? One way is to combine a great product with trustworthy testimonials to woo leads into that pipeline.

The problem is: High-quality, engaging testimonials don’t come easy. Even if you have an avid fan base, you have to put resources into mobilizing your users, capturing content, and getting it ready for your website and channels. 

Vouch strives to make getting those quality customer testimonials as easy as sending a Calendly link or scanning a QR code. It’s built to offer a simple experience for customers creating testimonials, with features like in-browser recordings, pre-written questions, recording durations, and Speaker Prompts to keep customers on track. Companies can record their own intro videos and generate testimonial links that can be shared with unlimited customers–a huge timesaver, especially for small marketing teams. Video snippets are then saved to the Vouch library and instantly available for editing and sharing via social channels.

Another in this space is StoryPrompt and both tools can be used beyond testimonials. They can boost your engagement across your org by applying them to your strategies in content creation for comms teams, community building, and recruitment.

Steve Wozniak says he hasn’t been this excited about an innovation since Apple II.

He’s talking about Air (via Cameo video for today's launch of Air for Teams).

Let’s back up. Air launched three years ago, looking to fix clunky cloud storage experiences. “Three years, and nearly 100,000+ users later, I feel confident in saying: we found the better way,” co-founder Shane Hegde shared.

If you’ve been seeing more of Air lately, it's probably because the team closed a $10M "Operator Round" in January and announced plans to use the capital to accelerate the company's go-to-market motion. Prior to that, Air said over 90% of its growth was organic thanks to traction within the D2C community in New York and word-of-mouth. Many of those early adopters are chiming in today to praise the simple UI.

For those who are new to it, Air isn’t just storage — it’s similar to Notion and Airtable in that it’s a cloud-collaboration tool, plus it's a digital asset management system (DAM). Users can import videos and images and Air automates organization with image and color recognition. Boards help teams collaborate and distribute content, and today’s update adds integrations that make the process even easier.

Real-time sync means that your assets stay up to date while you work with editing tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and more. Slack integrations help you work faster. And this might be what Woz is most excited about: “Air flow” lets you view, search, and manage your “Airpsace” right from Apple’s Finder. There are also saved filters and new private spaces and permission levels are coming soon.

“Air wouldn’t be what it is without our community,” ends Hegde. So the team is offering up a discount today and asking what you want to see next.

It’s been a rollercoaster year for Crypto from meme coin pump and dumps to a $2 trillion crash. And just when you think you can take a sigh of relief, buckle in because we’re about to hit the drop.

Yesterday, in the latest shockwave to the crypto world, Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, announced its intent to buy one of its main rivals, FTX.

FTX, once valued at $32 billion was (seemingly overnight) on the verge of total collapse due in large part to rumors of FTX’s finances, which led to massive withdrawals totaling over half a billion dollars according to crypto research firm Nansen. Naturally this led to an even greater demand for withdrawals, which led to FTX issuing a halt, compounding their problems.

What does this mean for crypto? Well, in the short term it means more pain for the markets with Bitcoin dropping a whopping 10% and Ethereum going even further and dropping more than 17%. In the long term, it’s anyone’s guess but this could affect the U.S crypto regulation discussions and it settles any doubt that Binance is truly the powerhouse of crypto — for now anyway.

To buy or not to buy? As they say, the best time to buy is during the dip. But what if you didn’t have to buy at all? Lolli recently dropped their mobile app that rewards you with crypto.

The concept is simple: Go about your day and if you shop online or in-store at 10,000+ plus stores, Lolli will give you up to 30% in Bitcoin or cashback rewards. Of course, we definitely wouldn't blame you for skipping the coaster. What do you think? Is it worth the...

UX is a team effort — as we all know from watching Twitter transform before our eyes with a leaner team (perhaps, maybe too lean).

Whether that team is full of experts or multi-hat-wearing generalists, UX work often spreads across documents, tools, and people. We’ve seen a few seamless solutions recently that make UX/UI collaboration a delightful experience itself.

Frontitude launched today with one place for all of your product copy. The tool lets makers build a library of copy components, so they can loop in someone from legal or a copywriter into one spot and then re-use copy across the project, all while keeping designs and the codebase in sync.

Play had a strong debut in September by throwing away the idea of emulating a native app experience. The founders say Play is “the first native iOS design tool.” Makers can design with real iOS materials and experience the design as they create it on their mobile device. Designers can then easily share work to the device it was meant to be viewed on, and feedback can be left by your team.

Overflow is a diagramming tool for designers but its latest launch, Stories, helps those designers create self-guided tours of their designs to better present their work asynchronously. Tours let your add context into an interactive, self-paced presentation.

Ballpark came from the team at Marvel after interest in its user testing features took off. It lets you capture feedback on Figma and Marvel prototypes, designs, and marketing copy as you survey users. Features include a simple survey builder with templates, heatmaps, the ability to add context to questions/tasks with video guides, and stats like drop-off rates.

New to UX? You can start off with this collection of 100 UI/UX tips to make your interface better.

AI this, AI that… You’ve heard us talk about it all year long. Creepy pictures of bunnies in space, beautiful sceneries of utopic worlds, and more recently, sharp profile pictures for your social media.

If you’re a regular here, you don’t need another recap of the awesome tools utilizing the latest developments in image generation. Today, we’re going old school.

Here are 7 design tools that caught our attention recently:

• tinykiwi is an image editor that lets you design anything from eye-catching screenshots for social media and blog post covers to open graph images.

• html.to.design converts any website into fully editable Figma designs. 

• This pack of holographic abstract 3D backgrounds for Figma from Wannathis is 🤌 chef’s kiss.

• Pixelied's free mockup generator helps you produce designs using editable mockup templates.

• Womp Alpha is a new browser-based 3D creation and publishing app. 

• Tylify helps you create seamless patterns (SVG, PNG, CSS) and is available as a Figma plugin and a standalone web app.

• Mockups by designstripe is an in-browser tool for designing device mockups. 

What did we miss?

Yesterday felt pretty gloomy for those in tech. Several companies announced layoffs, including Lyft, Stripe, OpenDoor, and Chime. And let’s not forget Twitter which is cutting 50% of its employees today. 

Why is this happening? A few reasons. 

• The obvious one is the recession. Recent earnings reports are sending red signals to investors, making it more important than ever for companies to focus on increasing their profit margins and cutting costs. 
• But why so many this week? Chatter on Twitter hints that Elon Musk’s plan to cut 3,700 jobs this Friday gave companies the idea to do the same, thus taking some of the attention off of them for doing the same.
• Another theory we’ve seen floating around is that the holiday season approaching presumably makes the transition period easier. Conducting layoffs now also allows companies to meet the requirements of California’s WARN Act (i.e. 60-day notice) before Christmas.

What now? It’s hard to say how much longer it will be before we see the light at the end of the economic tunnel, or whether layoffs and hiring freezes will continue. What is clear is that, despite the noise in big tech, many companies are still hiring.

In the meantime... some tools to help you spot open positions:

• AI Jobs lets you apply to 1000+ jobs in AI and machine learning. 
• This jobs site aggregates fully remote jobs.
• Dream Job Hub is a step-by-step execution guide; like mission control for job applications.

What could seamless signup mean for crypto? Ex-Reddit PM Mayank Jain and his team built Wally to simplify the transition to crypto.

Before we dive in… ⚡️ CAT NIPS ⚡️

• Folkx leverages your tab-hoarding habit to build contact lists in Chrome.
• Bye-bye plugins and PSDs. Generate your product mockups with Pixelied Mockups.
• doola Banking – the entrepreneur’s bank lets you form your LLC and open a bank account with or without a US SSN.
• Womp lets you jump into 3D-design with an easy, free web app.

What if Brian Chesky had let early users invest in Airbnb? Fairmint is asking the question with their launch today.

But don’t skip these ⚡️ CAT NIPS ⚡️

• Tech Twitter is buzzing about Avatar AI.
• Pursuit helps you take that fly fishing or backcountry skiing trip you couldn’t manage on your own. Learn about founding memberships.
• Praktika lets you practice English with AI avatars.
• Morning Brew co-founder Alex Lieberman has a new show on startups called The Crazy Ones, co-hosted by Jesse Pujji (GatewayX) and Sophia Amoruso (Girlboss).

Who needs the metaverse? The real world is looking up today too with a Rewind button for your life and TAGS that let you buy from anywhere.

First… ⚡️ CAT NIPS ⚡️

• Need a better screenshot tool? Gemoo Snap includes features like annotations, magnify, and pinned images.
• Test your movie knowledge with Famous Movie Props.
• Airbuds is a widget to see what your BFF is listening to.
• Vowel is back with more features (like universal search, clips, and bookmarks) to make that meeting worth the time.

What’s scarier? The future of Twitter or AI gone wrong? Decide after today’s reads.

First… ⚡️ CAT NIPS ⚡️

• Moodboardly lets you create beautiful mood boards in minutes.
• With Ubidrop you can transfer files across Mac and Android seamlessly.
• Seen those viral videos that show the best posts from popular Reddit threads? Create them automatically with Reddit2Video.
• The 8th major installment in the Resident Evil franchise is here – Resident Evil Village. Planning to play?