Hello Huzzler, nice to meet you all! 

I’m the CEO and co-founder of TTP.TODAY, a cyber threat intelligence provider based in the UK.  We are a self-funded operation, rejecting investor interest as we are very passionate about growing the service and company ourselves,

Collectively, our team has over 15 years of experience across cybersecurity fields, including malware research, attack analysis, OSCP-certified penetration testing, and darknet intelligence operations.

We also run a live darknet leak checker at https://leak-check.net, where you can freely see what data sources are available - or sign up for full domain and data access.  

Eight months ago, we launched LeaksAPI, a darknet data checker that provides easy access to a wealth of data (over 1,300 leaked databases and 400 million malware logs) sourced from darknet data brokers and private intelligence networks.  

Today, we support 400+ users and handle over 1 million requests per day, served through geographically distributed AWS load-balancing.  

I’m excited to connect with other founders here. I also wanted to share my top two lessons from the past eight months for anyone on the same journey:  

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1. Verify your value proposition with real users  

Believe in yourself, but be patient - real value sells itself, even if slowly.  

KEEP COSTS LOW UNTIL PEOPLE PAY REAL $. KEEP. COSTS. LOW.

Find a real user to demo their need, even if it’s free. Too many people spend months building an app nobody wants. It should be the opposite: start with the need.  

Our first and only huge client fell through while we were waiting for the invoice to be paid - they had a security breach and froze all new supplier onboarding.

It was disappointing and scary.

After three months of work, bills had to be paid and we were excited to cross the finish line before it all fell through, but we realized they weren’t the only fish in the sea.

We found new traffic sources and clients over time.

Their feedback was still extremely valuable in helping us understand real-world requirements.  Their loss didn't change a thing.

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2. 10% of users will cause 90% of the problems/work - respect yourself and your boundaries  

This includes people begging for discounts, extra features, or credits. Don’t be afraid to set minimum price points and turn down business where appropriate.  

Early on, we had a client sending malformed API requests that ruined our 100% error score.

They ignored three contact attempts across multiple methods, so we blocked their access for the sake of service quality.

This risked losing a $99/month customer, but it was worth it for our long-term reputation. After blocking, they finally reached out and we resolved their issue and saved our reputation score.  

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Thanks if you made it this far!

If you’d like a free trial of the API, drop a comment below and we’ll set it up.