This past month, we went deep on security. Specifically, we hit a milestone we’re proud of — we’re now 100% compliant with AWS’s Foundational Best Practices. There are over 400 of them, and most aren’t even required for SOC 2, but we tackled them anyway. It wasn’t just about getting a certificate. We wanted to genuinely improve our security posture, not just look good on paper.
It also gives us a solid baseline for the rest of our SOC 2 push, which we’re still aiming to wrap up by the end of this month. Bonus: some customers will be seeing customizable session timeouts rolling out next week.
(And yes, Ben is already drafting the “Security” banner for the website.)
Channels We Actually Own
We’re both increasingly skeptical of “borrowed” channels — platforms where your reach depends on playing someone else’s algorithm game.
- Cold outreach? Feels increasingly ineffective.
- AI-generated LinkedIn posts? Flooding feeds with noise.
- SEO content? Written more for bots than humans.
So we’ve been exploring what a fully owned content strategy might look like. Ben’s been experimenting with Beehiiv, a newsletter platform that also doubles as a CMS. Every newsletter is a blog post. Every post is a real thing people opted into.
You can:
- Segment your audience.
- Publish real-time updates.
- Build a website where your content actually lives and breathes.
It’s an experiment, but one we’re excited about. It feels closer to the kind of content we want to make — thoughtful, helpful, not just optimized for clicks.
Highlighting Our Customers
Another experiment: bragging more about the amazing people who use Masset. Whenever a customer hits a big milestone — raising a round, winning an award, launching something cool — we want to highlight them.
It’s good for them. It’s good for us. And honestly, it’s just fun. We root for them. They root for us. It feels right.
On Taking Time Off (Yes, Really)
We ended this week’s conversation with a real talk about vacations. Or more broadly: stepping away, detoxing from the grind, and why that actually helps the business.
- Founders aren’t machines. You can’t sprint a marathon.
- New ideas usually come when you’re not staring at a screen.
- We want to build a company that works with our lives, not against them.
Tyler talked about automation — how making sure the platform can handle itself makes stepping away possible.
Ben shared how, in the hardest personal moments (losing a son, losing his dad), he realized the only reason Masset matters is because it can support the people who matter most. If we’re not building that kind of company, what are we doing?
This work is hard. It’s worth doing well. But it’s not worth doing at the expense of everything else.
Until next week,
Tyler and Ben
