In most of my calls with early stage founders we talk about the best metrics to track at the earliest stages. Until there is meaningful ARR, what do you measure from day 0?
The KPIs That Actually Matter at Pre-Seed into Series A - read the full post in 🧵
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 🧵
Watch the full episode here: vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/why-mcp-is...
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 🧵
Watch the full episode here -> vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/open-sourc...
“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 👇
In our first episode of Vermilion Cliffs Notes, I talk to Ian Cairns, CEO of Freeplay, about agents, eval loops, and why your best AI workflows might look more like a Slack thread than a sci-fi movie.
🎥 Watch the full interview --> vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/vermilion-...
Mary Meeker Returns: What's Shaping the Next Gen of Technical Products, Founders, and the Market
open.substack.com/pub/vermilio...
Like every shift from web → mobile → APIs → big data, today’s GTM playbooks are evolving fast. Over the past two weeks, I shared daily snapshots of the shifts every technical founder should know.
Get the full deep dive → vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/where-tech...
And in 2025, event content is evergreen:
• Record it
• Transcribe it
• Turn demos into tutorials
One night can fuel weeks of marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing.
Full post → vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/where-tech...
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.
Workshops > booths.
Demos > decks.
The best events feel like extensions of your product.
Partner with tools your ICP already loves.
Debugging tool + agent framework = a joint hack night that converts.
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
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. 🧵 👇
5/ Clear beats clever.
Narrative compounds.
And your message is your moat.
Jump ahead? Full post → vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/where-tech...
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
3/ Great examples:
• Tonic.ai → Owns the narrative on synthetic data
• Astro Web → Defined “content-first dev” as a category
2/ Positioning isn’t fluff.
It’s the starting point for GTM.
Why now? Who’s it for? Why you?
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. 🧵
5/ Underinvest here and you don’t just lose users, you become invisible.
What’s the most important thing in your DevX?
Jump ahead? Full post vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/where-tech...
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.
3/ Railway and Clerk are good examples.
Their products don’t just work. They feel thoughtful. That matters.
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
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/ TOFU isn’t about awareness anymore. It’s about availability. Be where developers are while being useful in-context before they even land on your site.
Follow along—sharing one GTM post like this every day this week
Jump ahead? Full post vermilioncliffs.substack.com/p/where-tech...
