Sāmoan tech leader named Young New Zealander of the Year

PLUS: NZ’s top sales event kicks off, when Zuck blanked John Key, IRD starts knocking, Emerge tackles startup capital, Danny Moses sees warning signs, and Trump’s team leaks war plans by group chat.

Good morning, startup land.

We’re kicking off with our regular Tuesday tool feature today. With so many new products launching, it’s hard to know what’s worth your time. We’ll be testing them out and giving you a quick rundown of our experience so we hope it helps.

Here’s what else is brewing in your daily shot today:

• Sāmoan tech leader Namulau'ulu Nu’uali’i Eteroa Lafaele named Young New Zealander of the Year

• NZ’s Biggest Tech Sales Event Is On Today — Final Spots Available

• When Zuck snubbed Key and Facebook went feral

• IRD targets $800m in unpaid tax as crackdown begins

• Cracking the Code to Capital: Emerge Launches New Founder Series

• The Big Short investor warns Musk-led spending cuts could tip the US economy

• BREAKING: Trump officials accidentally text top-secret war plans to journalist

• What Happens When You Fall at Work? Hopefully This.

Keep your stories and updates coming. Have a great day.

Lauren & the Caffeine team

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Asana: AI-powered Project Management that saves me from drowning

There's a new productivity tool promising to cut hours out of your work week released almost every minute and they range from brilliant to baffling, so each week Caffeine will bring you the tools we’re finding truly useful.

As my former (and probably current boss) can tell you, managing multiple projects with varying deadlines has never been my strength.

I’ve played around with multiple project management apps to try out my inability to work in an orderly fashion but often find they are either overly admin heavy and just waste more time than they save or are feature light enough to be a glorified calendar invite.

Asana is the only I’ve found so far which helps me cut through the to-do list static, visually represent my work flow in a slick and intuitive way and provide features which feel genuinely useful and not just pointless addons.

Of course, as will literally any product these days there is AI functionality built in but this integration feels far less like a gimmick: automating routine tasks and freeing up humans to do the actual important work.

Similar to Grenola AI which I find particularly useful for transcribing and, Asana’s AI does things to provide concise summaries of project status or field questions you have about current workflows. It has that Notebook LM thing of making you feel like you're in conversation with your work, not just drowning in it.

Asana offers a free plan for up to 10 users with basic features. After a two week trial you’ll need to fork out around $15 per user per month to access the AI features.

~Finn