Ashley Smith

Every week there’s a new GTM acronym trending. PLG, CLG, SLG, ELG. Pick the right one and you win. Pick the wrong one and you’re doomed. At pre-seed, none of them are “the one.” You’ll do all of them, usually at the same time. That’s the job. Read the full post in thread 🧵

Just dropped a new Vermilion Cliff Notes with Tori Seidenstein, CEO and Co-founder of Tadata. We talked about why MCP is the 100x connectivity leap, how open source has become the new enterprise wedge, and what modern GTM for dev tools really looks like. Full interview linked in thread 🧵

Open source isn’t about novel code anymore. It’s about execution. @bizza.pizza shares how one OSS team turned community momentum into a sticky product and a standout fundraise. 🎧 Full episode in thread 🧵

“You don’t need permission to start.” On this week’s Vermilion Cliff Notes, I sat down with @bizza.pizza to talk open source, AI agents, and founder momentum. We cover his path from MBA student to devtools founder and what it takes to stand out in this AI-fueled market.

New episode of Vermilion Cliffs Founder Notes: @austinhay & @patrick__thompson went from early @Branch + @Amplitude to founding @clarify together. Why they finally made the leap, how they closed their Series A, and the advice they now ignore. Full episode in first comment 👇

Events Work. Especially Now. In a world of async everything, in-person time is more valuable than ever. We’re seeing a resurgence in technical events but not the vendor-heavy expos of the 2010s. 🧵 👇

GenAI Collective’s SF demo nights pull 200–300 people monthly. Agent Hack Night felt like 2012 again. These work because they feel authentic and devs can smell the difference.

Events Work. Especially Now. In a world of async everything, in-person time is more valuable than ever. We’re seeing a resurgence in technical events but not the vendor-heavy expos of the 2010s. 🧵 👇

Today’s best events are tighter, founder- or user-led gatherings where real knowledge gets traded. No fluff. No salesy keynotes. What’s working: • 20-person dev dinners • Hack nights with hands-on builds • User-led meetups with zero stage, lots of signal

Your message matters more than your metrics In a crowded market, clarity is the killer feature. If you can’t explain why your product exists in one sentence, your AI-generated competitor will outrank you. 🧵

4/ What’s working: • Founder-written “Why we built this” posts • Internal positioning docs shared across GTM + product • Message consistency across site, docs, and channels

Your message matters more than your metrics In a crowded market, clarity is the killer feature. If you can’t explain why your product exists in one sentence, your AI-generated competitor will outrank you. 🧵

2/ Positioning isn’t fluff. It’s the starting point for GTM. Why now? Who’s it for? Why you?

A Developer Tool Is a Developer Experience The line between product and marketing is gone. If onboarding is bad, growth slows. If docs are confusing, retention tanks. 👇 🧵

4/ Docs, changelogs, and support aren’t just support. They’re GTM surface area. They’re often the first thing a developer sees. And they’re indexed by LLMs.

A Developer Tool Is a Developer Experience The line between product and marketing is gone. If onboarding is bad, growth slows. If docs are confusing, retention tanks. 👇 🧵

2/ Teams are now treating onboarding like a product launch What that looks like: • Copy-pasteable examples that just work • Live playgrounds (CodeSandbox, StackBlitz, custom UIs) • “First 5 minutes” metrics that get tracked

Ecosystem and Integration Are the New TOFU Your top-of-funnel isn’t your homepage. It’s where your tool shows up in the developer’s existing flow. 🧵

3/ What’s working: • Starter kits tailored to frameworks • Community integrations that remove setup friction (e.g. Replit, VSCode) • Lightweight plugins that don’t need deep vendor deals

Ecosystem and Integration Are the New TOFU Your top-of-funnel isn’t your homepage. It’s where your tool shows up in the developer’s existing flow. 🧵

Developers Are Still Bypassing Search for Signal If you want developers to find your tool, don’t count on Google. Count on the ecosystems they already trust. 🧵

4/ What’s working right now: • Sponsoring niche, ICP-specific dev newsletters • Founders showing up on Reddit with real answers • OSS-adjacent content that delivers value before a signup

Developers Are Still Bypassing Search for Signal If you want developers to find your tool, don’t count on Google. Count on the ecosystems they already trust. 🧵

2/ That increasingly means: • Newsletters like Console.dev, Pragmatic Engineer, or Bens Bites • GitHub lists, “Show HN,” and high-signal Twitter/Bluesky • Discord servers for LangChain, Supabase, Bun, etc.

Build in public or be forgotten. Product marketing used to move in months. Now it moves in hours. Launches still matter. But what you do between them is what builds brand, affinity, and momentum. 👇

4/ Sid Sijbrandij at GitLab was way ahead of the curve. Launched every month on the 22nd, like clockwork. Bugs, weekends, didn’t matter. That consistency built real trust and real momentum.

Build in public or be forgotten. Product marketing used to move in months. Now it moves in hours. Launches still matter. But what you do between them is what builds brand, affinity, and momentum. 👇

2/ We’re seeing more founders adopt a “no feature left behind” mindset. If it ships, it gets shared. That doesn’t mean every update needs a blog post but if it’s meaningful, show it. Explain it. Ask for feedback.

1/ Technical GTM: A Series Day 2 – The New Influencer: Engineering Founders Are the Face of the Company 🧵

4/ In a world where every dev tool is “AI-powered,” specificity wins. Founder content cuts through because it’s honest: tradeoffs, failures, bugs, and breakthroughs.

1/ Technical GTM: A Series Day 2 – The New Influencer: Engineering Founders Are the Face of the Company 🧵

2/ The best GTM channel is still trust. And trust spreads fastest through founder-led content—especially in devtools. Developers follow people, not brands. Founders who show their face and share what they’re learning build gravity fast.