Hey, friend!

I'm writing this from Laracon US 2024. It's the biggest Laracon ever, and the energy here is incredible. Huge releases in the Laravel world being announced, sure, but also folks are so excited and happy and friendly and encouraging. It's always the case with this wonderful group of people, but it's next level at this event.

I had the fun chance to jump on stage for five minutes to talk about our annual Laracon puzzle, which you can (and should) try out even if you didn't attend, and also to introduce Tighten's new-as-2024 positioning statement:

We build and rescue web apps and dev teams.

And, of course, I was proud to see the Tighten team represent the company so well in conversations with hundreds of individual developers, holding down the fort at our awesome booth. Here's what it looked like before A) they turned off the lights and B) everyone showed up.

There's so much more I could write about it, but I'll just say that it was an absolute joy to come to Laracon and, in the few days before Laracon, an absolute joy to bring my team together in one place at a retreat center outside of Dallas. This was the most peaceful year yet, and we're definitely going to move that forward–more focus on time together, less focus on learning and productivity and talks. We can do all that remotely.

Tighten Newsletter update

You all were very clear in your responses to the last email: You want business insights! So I'm going to take over the Tighten newsletter and write business-y stuff there and personal-y stuff here. First newsletter is going out next week, so be sure to go subscribe now!

What Else?