Toptal Blog

It might be hard to imagine or remember, but there was once a time when going on a date with a stranger you met online was a strange concept—frowned upon, even. Today, however, millennials have led the charge on transforming the dating industry and making online dating universally accepted. In fact, a 2018 Statista survey revealed that 12% of 18-29-year-olds admit to being in a relationship with a partner they met online. And, consider that there are now over 1,500 dating apps or websites in existence.

Though matchmaking is one of the oldest industries in existence, online matchmaking is now having a moment of its own. This article explores the business of dating: the market size of dating apps in the U.S., the industry’s biggest players, and how these products actually make money (if they even do!).

A well-thought-out color palette can elevate a design from “good” to “great” while a mediocre palette can detract from a user’s experience and even interfere with their ability to use a site or app.

Continuous integration using nothing but Apple tools used to be tedious and time-consuming. This changed with the launch of Xcode 9.0 last September.

In this article, Toptal iOS Developer Nemanja Stosic explains how you can harness the potential of new Xcode features to streamline iOS development.

Despite initial skepticism, React Native is very much in demand today!

In this article, Toptal Freelance React Native Developer, and former React Native skeptic, Alexander Pataridze talks about why he became a React Native advocate instead and introduces us to the technology by illustrating four use-cases.

Investment due diligence is a necessary process for both buyers and sellers to undertake to ensure the swift execution of their envisaged transaction. Although, with the stakes high, there are certain challenges that can arise throughout the process which, with careful planning and execution, can be mitigated.

Just as there are cause and effect relationships, there are the laws of UX: predictable outcomes and human behaviors in UX a designer can use to design superior products. This infographic explains it all.

As patterns go, REST APIs are so useful and ubiquitous that every web developer, regardless of language or platform, should know how to build one.

In this article, Toptal Freelance JavaScript Developer Marcos Henrique da Silva shows how to create a simple and secure REST API for user management on Node.js.

Designers can brush up on solid fundamentals and be inspired by innovative new ideas by reading the great books and free ebooks about design and creativity on this list.

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) bioinformatics database is the world’s largest repository of experimentally-determined structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies. All data is gathered using experimental methods such as X-ray, spectroscopy, crystallography, NMR, etc. This article explains how to extract, filter, and clean data from the PDB to make it suitable for further analysis.

The field of robotics has seen incredible strides forward in recent years. As a result of improvements in computer vision, dexterity and also overall economics, use of robots has increased in a variety of different fields. However, most of the growth in robotics so far has happened in industrial applications, and thus hidden from the view of the general public. But is this about to change?

In this article, Toptal Finance Expert Francesco Castellano focuses on the commercial robotics market. Thanks to recent breakthroughs in the fields of AI, mechatronics, sensors, and batteries, service and commercial robots are likely to see tremendous growth and adoption, likely heralding a new robotics revolution that could transform our daily lives in countless ways.

CSS is notorious for getting messy quickly as a website scales. While frameworks like Bootstrap can help, SMACSS takes a different approach, as a set of solid organizational guidelines. In this article, Toptal Freelance Front-end Developer Slobodan Gajic gives us a run-down of the idea and benefits behind Jonathan Snook’s architectural wisdom.

Gestalt’s guiding principle, that our minds tend to perceive objects as part of a greater whole, is a very useful and powerful design technique [includes infographic].

UI and UX designers must work in tandem in order to create a finished product that delights users both visually and functionally.

Employing Python to make machine learning predictions can be a daunting task, especially if your goal is to create a real-time solution. However, Tensorflow and Scikit-Learn can significantly speed up implementation.

In this article, Toptal Python Developer Guillaume Ferry outlines a simple architecture that should help you progress from a basic proof of concept to a minimal viable product without much hassle.

Popular rhetoric states that you need a team to found a startup. But what if you don’t have the desire or the right co-founders to start a new venture in a team? Contrary to popular belief, there are many successful solo ventures. This guide presents some tactics for solo entrepreneurs to follow when starting a solo venture.

Many businesses use SharePoint but use it poorly. Restructuring and re-education are the keys to getting the most out of SharePoint. In this article, Toptal Freelance SharePoint Developer Anthony Lucidi explores how features like metadata tags, SharePoint workflows, and PowerApps can make a world of difference.

How does Figma improve the design process and outperform Sketch and other design tools when it comes to designer collaboration? Learn the big differences that every designer should know.

In the life of almost any growing enterprise, there comes a point in time when the existing systems and processes become insufficient. Early-stage businesses tend to grow up with basic and low-cost software systems as well as a heavy reliance upon a few key administrative employees. Eventually, however, the software can’t keep up with the business, and the trusted employees become overtaxed.

For most enterprises at this key inflection point, implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, which integrates all areas of the business, can help to overcome this issue. It’s a hugely consequential decision for the business and must be approached with an uninterrupted focus on risk management. While ERP may not be sexy, it is of utmost importance for growing businesses and should not be ignored. This article provides enterprise leaders with the benefits and risks of ERP, as well as a detailed step-by-step implementation guide.

In product design, the jobs-to-be-done framework is a well-known approach that is designed to deconstruct the “job” a customer is trying to get done.

LTV:CAC analysis is one of the most important exercises startup founders must go through to evaluate their business’ prospects and raise external funding. It is, however, frequently misunderstood and misinterpreted.

In this article, Toptal Finance Expert Ryan Downie runs through a practical tutorial of how to perform LTV:CAC analysis correctly, and how it should be adapted and interpreted depending on the business model or sector in question.

In this article, Toptal Freelance JavaScript Developer Nick Chikovani shows how easy it is to perform web scraping using a headless browser. Specifically, he provides a Puppeteer tutorial, going through a few examples of how to control Google Chrome to take screenshots and gather structured data.