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Free tools as a SaaS growth channelguidefree tools have been one of the biggest growth channels for every SaaS i've built every niche has a few "free [thing] generator" searches sitting there with weak pages ranking for them you can build a good tool, own that keyword, and get niche traffic on your domain and tools get linked to in a way blog posts never do that's the reason we built Outrank's free tools builder and it's getting better every day 💥 you can ship free tools that do text-to-image with it so logo generator, avatar maker, og image generator, favicon tool anything where someone types a line and gets a picture back pick the one your audience is already searching for, describe it, and Outrank will build it and make it live on your siteTiboJul 26130HCMC and Da Nang offer different tradeoffsinsightAs a Vietnamese person, I think I can add a bit of context to this. Your experience in Da Nang is actually something I’ve heard from some foreigners before. HCMC and Da Nang are very different cities. HCMC has a lot of international companies and expats, so people there are more used to foreigners and English is more common. It’s also known for having the best service culture in Vietnam. But the downside is obvious: traffic, noise, and air quality are worse because it’s a fast-growing megacity. Da Nang is almost the opposite. Pros: - beautiful city - great beach and sunshine - much better air quality - cheaper cost of living But the trade-offs are: - smaller city - fewer English speakers - service culture not as strong as HCMC - fewer expat-heavy neighborhoods In HCMC you have areas like Thao Dien, District 1, District 7 where locals interact with foreigners every day, and many foreigners live and work there long-term. Da Nang is much smaller, and foreigners are more spread out, so locals may feel more reserved, not necessarily unfriendly. Ah, one more thing I personally love about HCMC: It’s basically a city that never sleeps. You can find 24/7 cafes where people are coding, building startups, studying, or working late at night. There are also 24/7 food spots, so you can order something anytime. That “always moving” energy is something I really enjoy about living in HCMC. So I’d summarize it like this: HCMC → chaotic but efficient, city that never sleeps Da Nang → beautiful, slower, and more relaxed Both are great cities, just very different vibes. Maybe in the future service in Da Nang will improve, and if you come back you might have a much better experience. 😁Alex NguyenMar 2650guideIf you wanna do it yourself, this is how: Buy (~15 min) 1. Cheap VPS from Hetzner or DigitalOcean (~€5-10/mo), Ubuntu 24.04, tick automatic backups at checkout 2. Add your domain to Cloudflare (free plan), switch nameservers at your registrar 3. Install Termius (SSH app) + Tailscale (private network) on laptop and phone, free tiers Lock it down (~20 min) 4. Generate an SSH key in Termius, add it to the VPS at creation. Keys only, never passwords 5. SSH in once via public IP, run updates, install Tailscale on the server, log it in 6. Disable Tailscale key expiry for the server (admin console, one click) 7. Verify you can SSH via the server's Tailscale 100.x address BEFORE the next step 8. Provider firewall: delete all inbound rules, allow only port 443 from Cloudflare's published IP ranges. No public SSH at all. You enter through the tunnel 9. Test from outside: public IP times out on everything, Tailscale IP connects. Server is now invisible 10. One SSH key per device. Phone gets its own key added to authorized_keys Install the brain (~5 min) 11. apt install tmux then install Claude Code (official native installer, one curl command) 12. Run Claude Code inside a tmux session so it survives disconnects and keeps working while your laptop is closed Hand over everything else 13. Write ONE long handover prompt telling Claude Code: the server facts, the security model (so it doesn't "fix" it), folder conventions (/srv/http/domain per project, one tmux session each), your preferences, and standing rules (confirm before destructive actions, new services bind to localhost/Tailscale only) 14. Make it write all of that into CLAUDE.md first, so every future session already knows everything 15. Backups before features: nightly job pushing your data to GitHub, tested, before a single page exists 16. Then let it install the web server (Caddy + Cloudflare DNS plugin plays nicest with the locked firewall), set up SQLite, deploy the first page From then on you never administer the server again. You open Termius from anywhere, on any device, and just say what you want. BOSHRob HallamJul 265.5K12 reasons users churn in SaaSguideI've built and sold 2 saas for $8m. now I run a saas portfolio doing $1m mrr churn has cost us more growth than anything else so I made my team a list of 12 reasons users churn. sharing them here too: 1. you sold to bad-fit customers. that churn was booked the day they signed. write down the 3 traits your best accounts share and disqualify leads who miss them, even when you need the cash 2. onboarding never hits the aha moment fast enough. find the one action that predicts retention and rebuild onboarding so every new user does it in session one 3. failed payments cause 10-20% of churn and nobody's watching. add dunning emails, card-expiry reminders, and smart retries. it's the easiest churn you'll ever win back 4. silent churn. they went quiet months before cancelling. build a health score from logins and core-feature usage and get pinged the moment it drops 5. usage isn't value, results are. define the outcome each customer came for and measure whether they hit it, not whether they logged in 6. "budget" is never the real reason. it's the polite version of "I stopped seeing value." when someone leaves on price, dig one layer down and close the value gap 7. you watch net retention and ignore gross. expansion hides a leaking base for a year. if the retention curve never flattens, fix the product before you spend another dollar on ads 8. no expansion revenue, so normal churn drags you backward. add one upsell or usage-based lever that lets good accounts grow, not just renew 9. the product stopped evolving. their needs moved, yours didn't. talk to churned power users and ship against what they outgrew 10. cancelling is all or nothing, so they pick nothing. offer a pause, a downgrade, or a heavy discount, plus a prompt asking why. save who you can, learn from who you can't. read every cancellation reason weekly and then act on it 11. no win-back motion. nearly half of returning customers come back within 30 days. fire a sequence the week after they leave and lead with something they never saw, a new feature or workflow 12. shallow usage means zero switching cost. drive adoption of a 2nd and 3rd feature until you're wired into their weekly workflow. depth is the moat hope it helps 🙏TiboJul 263.2KSEO checklist for product launchesguidethis is the exact SEO checklist I've used for every single product I've launched 20+ products, $8m exit and now $1m+ mrr SEO was the backbone of all of it 💪 here's the sequence: month 1: it's about making Google trust your site month 2: it's about building topical authority month 3: it's when you look at what's ranking position 8-20 in GSC and turn those into your biggest wins most makers skip the foundation and 6 months later they wonder why nothing's moving I put the exact week-by-week breakdown into a free 90 day sprint sheet - every task, in order, linked to the right tool comment SEO and I'll send it over 👇TiboMay 261.1KValidate distribution before building the productinsightI like this way of thinking: Don’t build something just because you’re passionate about it while users don’t actually need it. And don’t blindly build random apps either. Find the distribution angle first. My workflow: > Find viral content in a specific niche > Study the hooks, formats, pain points, and comments > Identify what users are already interested in > Check whether the niche can monetize through subscriptions or one-time purchases > Test different content angles before building > Build the simplest app that solves the problem > Create content using the formats that already proved they can go viral > Track views, installs, conversion, retention, and revenue > Improve the product based on real user behavior > Scale the best-performing channels with more organic content or paid ads Distribution first. Product second. Build the product around a proven path to users. It reduces risk and significantly increases your chances of success.Alex NguyenJun 26683Higher price lowers churn by filtering usersguidehigher price = lower churn sounds wrong but let me explain we launched Tweet Hunter at $9/month then raised prices, slowly $9 -> $19 -> $29 -> $39 -> $49 over roughly 12 months price went up 400%, and churn went DOWN here's what I have learned about pricing and churn from that: 1. churn is decided at signup, not at cancellation your pricing is a psychological filter on who comes in a bad-fit customer will leave in a month or two max. with low prices they come in fast because $9 says "it's someone's weekend project" and $49 says "it's a serious business built for serious operators" 2. the buyer changes with price, so the behaviour changes often if a $9/month user does not see value, they cancel right away (at this price, users generally come in to try or buy on impulse) but a $49/month user comes in with a goal and they usually try harder to get the value from it and if they have issues, they raise support tickets that make the product better what cheap pricing actually costs you: 3. cheap customers are the most expensive ones low prices don't just bring in users who leave fast, they bring in the most demanding people you'll ever serve more unreasonable feature requests, more support tickets, more refunds, and less revenue to cover any of it. I still do support on all 6 products, so I feel this one directly 4. your pricing decides what kind of users you let in, and that changes what YOU build low prices quietly cap what direction you take your product in how to actually raise prices: 5. raise slowly and ship while you raise $9 to $49 overnight is a completely different move than $9 to $49 across a year of shipping we shipped a lot on Tweet Hunter in those 12 months and I could see the difference in who was signing up 6. do not change the price for old users because for an old user, leaving means losing a rate they can never get back strongest retention lever I know that's lock-in though, not fit. split your churn by old price and new price if you want to know which one you actually got 7. when "too expensive" shows up as the reason for cancellation, that's usually not about price it's the polite version of "I stopped seeing value" if your product adds value to your users at a justified price, they will rarely complain about price and if they do, either your product isn't delivering value or they aren't the right user 8. past a certain price you leave impulse territory and enter budget review the Outrank agency plan is at $1,499. at that price nobody forgets they're paying you it gets looked at every month, on purpose, as an active expense see, all of this is true, but none of it will work if your product doesn't deliver the value you promise a high price on a weak product will just get you a lot of refund requests, nothing else it has played out similarly across all of my SaaS: - Revid: acquired as Typeframes, one-off videos, ~30% churn. rebuilt it as a real subscription at a real price. $00k+/month today - Outrank: $99/month, premium instead of cheap. LTV up 33%, churn down ~20%. $120k mrr last August -> $300k+ today - SuperX: told people last September to lock in $29 before it moved. it's at $49 now so do this today: pull up your cheapest cohort and your most expensive cohort compare retention, engagement, support tickets and even user type you already know what you'll findTiboAug 26615Questions about fundraising needsinsighti genuinely don't understand - guy is solo - users spend their own balance to grow their Polsia company -> why does he need to fundraise? -> what is the money for? for AI to improve Polsia? he is close to $1m per month and from what I understand, with very low cost, so there is plenty of money available what am I missing?TiboMay 26573Pinterest Claude ArcadsguidePinterest + Claude + Arcads That's all you need to build an AI influencer farm to scale your apps. Let me show you how I did it: 1. Go to Pinterest and grab a photo you like (pose, vibe, lighting) 2. Upload it to Claude and ask: “Give me a detailed JSON prompt for this image holding [your product] or reviewing my B2C app or anything” 3. Open NanoBanana Pro and paste the prompt → upload your product image (white background works best) 4. Take the generated image and animate it with Kling 3.0 inside Arcads Done. You’ve just created an AI influencer farm in <5 minutes. No creators. No studio. And no $1k per UGC video. Organic > ads. Scale content, not headcount. PS: Huge thanks to Arcads for sponsoring our efforts 💪Alex NguyenFeb 26557How to get backlinks organicallyguideHow I got 1,700 backlinks in 2 weeks: > no, I didn't submit to any directories > no, I didn't email for backlinks > no, I didn't pay for backlinks What I did was: 1. go viral 2. give links to 'free alternatives' on the site 3. become top traffic source for those alternatives 4. get a backlink as a "thanks" You get what you give, I guess 😄Rob HallamAug 26494The simplest way to create an AI influencerinsightThe simplest way to create an AI influencer using workflow (3 steps): Nano Banana → Veo 3 → Arcads AI Workflow Step 1: Build your character with a JSON prompt (Nano Banana Workflow) → Use a structured JSON prompt instead of writing random text → Define the look clearly: character, outfit, lighting, camera style, background → Add negative constraints like: no logos, no text, no extra fingers, no CGI skin, no warped mirror This makes the output more stable and reusable. You’re not just prompting. You’re building a repeatable image system Step 2: Turn image → video (Veo 3 Workflow) → Connect the Nano Banana output directly into Veo 3 → Add a simple motion prompt: slight body movement, natural head turn, subtle phone movement → Keep it minimal so it feels more real Workflow removes the manual back-and-forth. Step 3: Add script + voice (Arcads AI Workflow) → Feed the generated video into Arcads AI → Add a short script, usually 10–20 seconds → Generate voice + lipsync that matches the character vibe Now the character becomes actual content. Why workflow matters: Prompt → Image → Video → Voice No messy manual process. No repeating the same setup every time. Just a clean pipeline you can scale. Nano Banana + Veo 3 + Arcads AI + workflow feature = simple AI influencer factoryAlex NguyenMar 26468Using AI agents to run a SaaS businessguideI hired 7 AI agents this month & they've taken over my SaaS 😱 here's my actual org chart right now: 🤖 Tai - lead agent (coordinates the AI squad) 🤖 Nina - outreach (sending personalized cold emails every day) 🤖 Jordan - conversion & funnels 🤖 Maya - growth & distribution 🤖 Alex - research & marketing 🤖 Iris - PR & media 🤖 Sam - content & copy and then there's me. I just review their work 🧐 they run 24/7TiboMay 26443guideYou still pay for SaaS? I have officially built the biggest free alternative directory on the internet. 1,832 free alternatives to 422 apps. Live now. https://t.co/4NcjPR5CwzRob HallamAug 26432Why competing in crowded markets worksguideI grew to $1m MRR without inventing a single original idea Revid: AI video tools exist Outrank: SEO tools exist SuperX: X growth tools exist every product I built competes in a market that was already crowded and that's the whole strategy most new founders hunt for new, untapped markets, but I do the opposite I go where competition is brutal, because crowded means the demand is already proven but copying alone gets you nowhere - the real game is knowing which corner of the market to take 👀 tomorrow's newsletter: why copying is smarter than innovating, the man who had 8/10 hit products, and the 3 step framework for finding your corner of business subscribe below👇TiboJun 26432guideI'm shocked that my SaaS can make a $5,000 product video for just $39 here's how you can make one 1. find a cool product video that you like 2. feed it to Revid 3. feed in your logo and landing page 4. get a new motion graphic video about your own product it's just wild that it works and makes such stunning videos still can't believe we're giving this out for $39 what do you think?TiboJul 26381How to find and generate viral videosguidei have built a monster 🤯 sorry for the bait hook, never used it before trust me, this is real we just made it incredibly easy to: ✅ find viral videos, with incredible filtering options ✅ generate similar videos, with any change you like people will create so many viral videos using this PS: the cookie at 2:47 literally killed me 🤣TiboMay 26328How to build a million dollar SaaSinsightI've built $1m+ saas 5 times every time, the math was the same. and it's simpler than people think: $1m valuation at just a 2.5x multiple = ~$400k arr which is about $35k mrr $35k mrr = 350 people paying $100/month you don't need to change the world. you just need 350 people with the same problem willing to pay you to fix it the math isn't hard the actual game is choosing a problem specific enough that 350 people feel it the exact same way, and common enough that at least 350 of them exist tomorrow's newsletter breaks down how to find yours: the process problem, the 10% rule, and how to validate an idea before you build anything subscribe below 👇TiboJun 26310Higgsfield super computer is overhypedinsightgenuinely don't understand the hype for higgsfield their new "Super Computer" seemed incredible, beautiful marketing tried it it created 2 seedance videos I asked it to clip them together got me to subscription screen 🤷‍♂️ it cost me 20% of my $49 subscription, so $10 the raw cost is about $1 so they resell this for x10 the price the value in Revid seems x10 better ✅ prompt it and it's done ✅ you don't have to clip sequences elsewhere ✅ full edit capabilities, a real video editor ✅ no scammy/shady pricing tacticsTiboMay 26302Sponsorships as a media company modelinsightPeople seem confused how this is making money. It's 100% sponsorships. canivibecodeit.com is basically a media company. It brings traffic (by being valuable), and I transfer some of that traffic (value) to sponsors, and they pay me for it. https://t.co/Qf1nA38qOrRob HallamAug 26289insightif you're selling your startup - don't I sold my startups for $8m & I'll never sell again quick context: I sold Tweet Hunter and Taplio for $8m in 2024. $2m upfront, the rest as an earnout based on performance - on paper, a dream exit in reality, 3 things broke me first, I gave up my baby. the products I spent years building, the vision I had in my head all of it went to someone else. and now I sit here watching the new owners ship things I'd never ship, kill features I loved, and just make the product shitty looking at Tweet Hunter like this hurts more than I expected it to 😞 -- second, the earnout was kind of a 2-year prison we wanted a high multiple, so we agreed to performance-based milestones that meant 2 years of waking up every single day knowing the only thing that mattered was hitting aggressive revenue targets I was technically still running the company but I had a boss now: the contract 🥲 hitting milestones used to feel like winning but with an earnout it flips. every win is just dodging a loss and missing one doesn't feel like falling short - it feels like being a loser -- third, the money itself breaks you - nobody warns you about it you have no idea what to do with that kind of money you don't get the time to adjust to it and you start taking bad decisions. you stop identifying as the same person you were before and you go a little crazy, faster than you think and then comes the worst part after all this, when I got back to building, I realized everyone around me already saw me as the "successful guy who exited" and that froze me for months I couldn't ship anything new because I was scared of breaking the perception I've talked to a lot of founders who sold their companies. every single one of them feels this but I got back to it anyway - building is what I love and today I'm building a SaaS portfolio that crossed $1m MRR this year so if you're sitting on a term sheet right now, do me a favor don't read what the buyer is offering read what you'd be giving up and then make a decisionTiboJun 26280Why more founders choose bootstrapping over VCguidemore founders are choosing bootstrapping over VC - liquidity events now take 14 years on average. up from 7. that's your entire 30s waiting for an exit that might never come. - bootstrapped startups are 3x more likely to be profitable within 3 years. VC-backed companies optimize for growth metrics, not money in the bank - preferred shares mean founders often walk away with nothing. even when the company "succeeds," VCs get paid first. sometimes that's all there is - bootstrapped companies spend 1/4 of what VC-backed startups spend on customer acquisition and grow just as fast. capital efficiency wins - VCs can force a sale whenever it suits them. drag-along clauses give them that power. you built it, they decide when to sell it - fundraising takes 4-5 months of full-time work. that's 4-5 months not building your product or talking to customers. most founders who reach traction don't need VCs anymore by then - AI tools let solo founders build what used to require a 10-person team. the capital requirement that made VC necessary is disappearing - 38% of startups now launch without external funding. up from 26% in 2019. the shift is already happening - most VCs are not operators. they can pressure you to grow but can't help you build. the "value add" is often just intros to other portfolio companies - VC money outside of AI has dried up. if you're not building AI, you're fighting for scraps anyway - a $10M business you own 80% of beats a $100M valuation where VCs control the outcome. math is math - the ZIRP era is over. cheap money inflated VC activity for a decade. that's not coming back - founders are getting ousted by their own boards. the company you built becomes a job you can be fired from - VC turns you into a middle manager of your own company. board meetings, investor updates, formal reporting. you didn't quit your job to get another boss - the pressure to hit arbitrary growth targets breaks people. chasing 3x year over year because your investors need it, not because your business needs it - you stop building what customers want and start building what looks good in a pitch deck. that's how products die - VCs funded hundreds of AI startups in the last few years. most are already dead or irrelevant. the foundation model companies just absorbed their use cases - when funding dries up, VC-backed companies panic. bootstrapped companies just keep going. you're already used to operating lean. you started a company for freedom. VC often takes that away if the business feeds your life and you control it, why give that up?TiboApr 26238How to automate a youtube channelguidehere is how I'd automate a YT channel and get thousands of views - disclaimer, this is not cheap, using the highest quality - I went further with Auto-Mode, basically you can now "watch" a YT channel, TT account, or any other video based channel, and simply "generate the same but change XYZ" what will happen: 1. Revid will look the channel every night 2. it will spot a new video published 3. Revid will generate a similar video, and follow your prompt by changing XYZ so easy to run automated channels talking about anything you like - with actually pretty high qualityTiboMay 26237Small teams can beat giants at SEOinsightI analyzed Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy's SEO 😱 Stripe: ~4M organic visits/mo Lemon Squeezy: ~11K/mo Stripe: 94 DA Lemon Squeezy: 91 DA 370x traffic gap but just a 3 point DA difference 🧐 Lemon Squeezy is 82% organic. they've built a pure SEO moat 👀 and they rank for keywords Stripe wouldn't even compete on: - "into design" (33K searches/mo) - "sell digital goods" (5K/mo) - "gtm strategist" (3K/mo) - "selling digital items" (4K/mo) these aren't blog readers. these are buyers searching with intent the tool I used even flagged moves for Stripe. keywords Lemon Squeezy ranks for that Stripe doesn't, with ready-to-go action plans and that's the playbook for small teams beating giants at SEO - find what they're too big to care about - then own it 🎯 found all this in 90 seconds with a free tool we just shipped 💥 drop two URLs, get a full breakdown with a ranked action plan link below 👇TiboMay 26225insightEgypt gets a lot of hate. Fun fact is I started my indie hacking journey in Egypt 🇪🇬 If you visit the right parts, you will be blown away by how developed it is. New Cairo, El-Alamein, El Gouna, etc are all more impressive than 99% of western cities. Amazing people. Amazing food. I ate and lived like a king. Hope to go back again and visit my friends there for a 3rd time soon. p.s. some of the best engineers and bootstrapped founders in the world are Egyptian too like @yasser_elsaid_ there is insane talent density Ta7ya masr om el donia 🇪🇬🇪🇬🇪🇬❤️Rob HallamAug 26223insightok I'll say it sometimes I see companies raising $100m+ and burning cash at insane rates and a small voice in my head goes "should I be doing that instead?" then I look at Revid doing $600k MRR, profitable, no investors breathing down my neck and I remember why I became an indie maker in the first place the goal is the freedomTiboApr 26213guidefirst phase is validated product is good let's start the second phase and open more slots if you're interested in making LLMs mention your products through Reddit marketing, please reply below 👇 we'll open sign up for the next 2 days https://t.co/OoaWxQsgI3TiboJul 26207Deslopifying large AI codebases with subagentsinsightthe deslopification of larger AI projects (think: 100-200k lines of code, a month or two of work) will be studied we can build at the speed of light, especially when you have UI/UX and engineering + architecture experience but the time inevitably comes where you want to spend a few thousand dollars worth of tokens and run things like @cursor_ai's thermo-nuclear skill with 25 subagents on different parts of the app to remove 100k lines of slop typical offenders: - dead code (old/never removed/unreachable) - overcomplification (too many branches) - bandage-style fixes - features you didn't even know existed - outdated and unnecessary documentation and honestly so much more it's very satisfying when you learn how much code you can remove without the app changing it's behavior here's an example prompt if you're token rich: "run a massive deslopification workflow that aims to find DRY violations, remove dead code, overcomplicated code, clunky/fragile code, bandage fixes, or similar. first, learn our code and architecture, then look at leading open source projects in the space and compare our architecture to theirs. run as many subagents as you can. your north star is code simplification and massive removal of code while safely keeping the apps behavior materially the same" you can also point them at specific open source projects that you know do something similar to you. for example, say "[..] open source projects like codex and opencode [...]" if you built AI agents good luck!Robin EbersAug 26200Google confirms basic SEO still worksinsightGoogle just officially proved every 'AEO expert' wrong 🤣 they published a guide about optimizing for AI overviews and it confirms what I've been saying for months 🤷🏻 the guide literally says: "the best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems" no secret "AEO" hacks or tricks, no special AI markup Google even has a mythbusting section where they tell you to ignore: - chunking content for AI - rewriting content just for AI systems - overfocusing on structured data basic SEO worked - still works - and will continue to work ✅ this is exactly what we've been building at Outrank - helping 2,500+ websites rank every day super bullish on it 🚀TiboMay 26196Natter is a dictation app for agentsinsightMonologue has always been my go-to dictation app over Wispr Flow (I'm in the top 100 users with 660,000 total words) There were a few things missing though, so I built Natter, my own version, to add them. Design is nowhere near as good, but it works much better for me https://t.co/sbxsHS4mX5 A few differences: 1. It shows you the transcript as you are talking on the screen. I sometimes lose my train of thought so seeing it keeps me on track 2. It can stream the text into terminal windows so you don't get [Pasted Content 1161 chars] 3. If it makes a mistake I can say "Hey Natter, add a dictionary rule for clawed code to become Claude Code spelled C-L-A-U-D-E in title case" 4. It's faster than Monologue and has the technical rewrites I needed when working with AI agents and giving coding instructions 5. I can type a bit and then decide to switch to dictation and start with "lowercase" for it to continue without a capital letter mid-sentence It's not perfect but I've done 100k words in the first 11 days! Only supports English right now but I have a draft PR for more languages if anybody wants to test it out.Ian NuttallAug 26188Most SaaS moats are execution polishinsightSaaS is not dead. I analyzed 900+ products to prove it. 54% have nothing protecting them but execution polish 💅 Full moat list is live, with notes on every product. Pick one. Build it better. https://t.co/7GPGgKnyAARob HallamAug 26179
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