Narrow Positioning and Separate Budgets Beat Industry Giants
My top 5 takeaways from my chat with Gille Berteaux, Livestorm's CEO (nearly $20M ARR, 3,500 customers): 1. Expanding too broadly can kill product-market fit: After COVID, they added meetings and sales demos. Suddenly they looked like a smaller version of Zoom. Customers had no compelling reason to pick them over the incumbent. 2. Narrow positioning wins against giants: Instead of competing feature-for-feature with Zoom, they found three differentiators: European company (security), marketers only (separate budget from IT), and specific industries like banking and pharma. 3. Target the buyer who has a separate budget: By positioning as a marketing tool instead of an IT tool, they avoided budget wars with Zoom and Teams entirely. Marketers control their own spend. No IT approval needed. 4. Enterprise sales requires rebuilding the team, not retraining it: Reps who closed inbound leads couldn't cold-call 10,000-person companies. Gilles had to replace almost the entire original sales team. 5. A failed fundraise can force the right strategic shift: When Series C investors said no in 2022, they had to become profitable. That constraint pushed them toward enterprise customers on annual contracts who pay more and stick longer. Which one resonates most with you?
Direct Bug Reporting to Replit Agent Now Enabled
We’re closing the loop. Your users can now send bugs and feedback directly to Replit Agent.
Student-Built Livestorm Scales to $20M ARR
Gilles Bertaux built Livestorm for a university final exam in 2016. Nearly $20M ARR. 3,500 customers. $35M raised. Last round was 2020. https://t.co/DXieBIwtcs
AI Doctor in Pocket Offers 24/7 Monitoring
.@tryprana is an AI primary doctor in your pocket that monitors you 24/7. Connect your wearables to your medical records to monitor for clinical drift. At any moment, you can instantly bring a Board-Certified MD into the chat to review your...
Run Full OpenClaw Suite in Browser—No Mac Mini Needed
Your hosted OpenClaw, no Mac Mini required 🔥 https://t.co/N8AEGAQquE is a fully dedicated computer in your browser with EVERYTHING pre-installed → Search (Brave) → Scraping (Firecrawl) → Audio (ElevenLabs) → Media (Fal) You don't need accounts. It just works automatically
Originality Beats Safe Copycat Messaging Every Time
Lots of say nothing slop passes as “good messaging” because it parrots to what others are saying Safe doesn’t equal good You’ll never breakthrough by being a copy of the better known original
Narrowing Focus Revives Growth After Overexpansion
Are you justifying 'how our product's different' on every sales call? There’s a reason and a counter-intuitive solution: Gilles Bertaux's company experienced this firsthand. They grew from $2M ARR to $9M ARR in one year during COVID. But then they almost lost...
Start AI Support Early to Scale Customer Experience
A lot of people think Fin is only necessary when you're "at scale" and until that point you should do your own support. I understand the thinking, but it misses out of what your customer's experience is. The reality is...
Bad Tools Drive Talent Loss and Competitor Advantage
Give engineers subpar tools, what could possibly go wrong? a) competitors out-ship AWS (eg Vercel, where Claude Code is used by so many and they are on 🔥) b) frustrated engineers interview elsewhere and take offers at places where Claude Code or...
Run OpenClaw Securely in the Cloud, No Setup
You don't need a Mac Mini to run @OpenClaw. Use https://t.co/jeP0nebHIv instead. With it you can safely run OpenClaw in the cloud. It's always on, so you can finally close your laptop without killing your agent. You can join the OpenClaw revolution...
OpenClaw + GPT5.3 + Opus 4.6 Supercharges Productivity
I'm one of the most advanced users of OpenClaw. OpenClaw + GPT5.3 Codex + Opus 4.6 has been the trifecta that changed everything. I made a video going over everything I'm doing with these tools. Learn these tools, stay ahead. Watch this...
Vercel Sandbox Adds Simple Network Isolation Support
Vercel Sandbox isolation levels: ✅ Compute & memory resource isolation ✅ Filesystem and durability isolation 🆕 Network isolation Wild how easy this is: --𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚍-𝚍𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗 (CLI) or 𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝙿𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚢 in 𝚂𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚋𝚘𝚡.𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎. Try it out: https://t.co/UoWXCW9Ien
Feature Upgrades Cut User Complaints by 78%
Here's a fun example of building features that have a direct customer impact and then measuring the results. We were getting more complaints of people losing their work in @kit when they used multiple computers, lost internet, or their browser had...
Valuation Blends SaaS Metrics with Deal Structuring
Valuation is understandably one of the most top-of-mind topics founders want to cover in our conversations. Something we often emphasize is that there are two sides of valuation: the objective side based on core SaaS metrics, and the subjective side...
Monaco Launches AI-Powered Startup Sales Automation
We're launching Monaco today. Monaco automates customer acquisition and revenue growth for startups. The platform disrupting sales with AI has finally arrived. https://t.co/mH03HIOdx8
Navigating the Gray Zone: Pivot, Growth, AI Adaptation
In this episode of Design Review, @aaron_epstein sits down with @jornvandijk, the CEO and Co-founder of @framer. Together they unpack the brutal “gray zone” between early revenue and real product-market fit, the pivot that reignited their growth, and how to adapt...
Start with Familiar Use Case, Not Lofty Vision
Most founders position their products around their ultimate vision rather than what users can immediately understand. This is why so many brilliant products struggle to gain traction early on. Flo Crivello from Lindy shared a perfect case study with me:...
Instant AI-Powered Resume Personalization with Haiku – Free Testers Wanted
My fellow job seekers, listen up! I've been quietly working on a killer app to make resume personalization as easy as possible. It's called Haiku. Upload your resume and search for jobs. The chrome extension follows you around as you...
SaaS Must Evolve Into AI‑Powered Revenue Workflow Platforms
Is the SaaSpocalypse just a market correction or a crisis of defensibility? The pillars and moats we’ve leaned on for a decade are eroding in real-time: Systems of Action are no longer defensible. When anyone can use LLM + AI...
Fix Activation, Not Features, to End Plateaus
A plateau is not a failure. It means people are paying. Every month. They find enough value to stay. The problem isn't your product. It's your funnel. We found that only 25% of signups ever made their first post. That was the whole leak. Not...
AI Agents Boost Platform Growth by Simplifying Data and Code
When thinking through the future of software, it’s helpful to think through what will we produce more of vs. less of in the future due to agents. And what systems are tied to that production or consumption. Whether it’s a new...
Ship Only What Users Actually Need, Backed by Data
The best teams ship what they can prove users need. User research turns opinions into evidence and protects you from confident guesses. Get the receipts on your users with Seena Labs — seenalabs.io
Self‑Driving Infrastructure Gains New Runtime Log Tools
Full self-driving infrastructure getting closer every day. Today we shipped: 1️⃣ 𝚐𝚎𝚝_𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎_𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚜 in our MCP server¹ 2️⃣ 𝚟𝚌 𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚜 CLI filters² e.g.: --𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚜-𝚌𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝟺𝟶𝟺 --𝚕𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚝 𝟷𝟶 Just ask Claude Code to fix your crashes. Or trigger an agent when an anomaly alert webhook...
Human Conversation Beats AI Emails for Real Resolution
Your AI wrote a perfect email. Their AI wrote a perfect response. Nobody said anything. You know exactly which thread I'm talking about. A customer was crashing out over email. Every message was longer, more detailed, more structured. And more...
Screen‑time App Earns $40K Profit by Stopping Scrolling
$40K profit for helping people stop scrolling. Live on @acquiredotcom: screen time app that automatically boots users out when their timer runs out. > $48K TTM revenue > $40K TTM profit > 500+ paying users Full listing: https://t.co/iTEIt81XrI https://t.co/vb6LdS8811
PE Overvalued Saa
Entrepreneurs: private equity firms OVERVALUED SaaS companies during 2020-21. NOW, those “overvalued” companies are getting marked down 30-60% 🤯 If you’re an investor = BUY distressed assets LOW If you’re a startup founder = CASHFLOW CASHFLOW
Pre‑AI SaaS Loses Appeal as Costs Rise
When was the last time you were excited to buy a pre-AI SaaS tool? When was the last time you felt like you were overpaying on a renewal for a pre-AI SaaS tool, and thought about cancelling? Hence, the markets
Keep Core Systems, Use AI to Reduce Friction
There is a strategic difference between creating advantage and assuming responsibility. Mission-critical systems of record are designed to manage compliance, auditability, and operational consistency across industries. Replacing them with AI-built alternatives transfers that responsibility to internal teams for the life...
Winning Products Focus on the Critical Last 20%
We’re about to be flooded with: – average MVPs – look-alike products – tools with no point of view – software that works but doesn’t matter What actually wins now isn’t speed to “something.” Today, anyone can prompt their way...
Word of Mouth Trumps Paid Ads by 20×
42% of CMOs rank word of mouth #1. 2% rank paid ads #1. That's a 20x gap between what drives consideration and where most budgets go. We asked 101 B2B SaaS CMOs to rank what actually gets a vendor into their consideration set. %...
Stop Chasing Leads: Fix Systemic Blind Spots
Why your lead gen isn’t working: 4 systemic blind spots you’re missing. Most B2B Marketers and Founders think their lead gen is broken because of tactics, but the real causes run deeper. 1. Chasing Volume Over Relevance I’ve seen so...
Prepare Detailed Financials to Impress Acquisition Buyers
I talk with a lot of founders who want to go to market on @acquiredotcom unprepared to save some time and see if it's worth it. The problem with this is how buyers evaluate startup acquisition opportunities. Most will require and expect,...
Ship Imperfectly, Let Users See Your Vision
Flo Crivello , founder of Lindy told me he gave early users a product that was oily, half-broken, and rough around the edges. His no-code AI automation platform wasn't ready. Not by traditional standards. The first people through the door...
Infrastructure Software Set for Multi-Month Rally as App Vendors Falter
Application software vendors are struggling and providing weak guidance, quality infrastructure software firms' revenue is accelerating. Infrastructure software vendors are attractively valued now and their stocks appear poised for a multi-month rally.
AI Agents Double Deal Volume, Close $2.4M Fast
"How we built $4.8M in pipeline from our AI agents, $2.4M closed already - Deal volume has doubled - Win rate has doubled - Agents work 24x7 - Agents have more context to pull from - $100k deal closed on Saturday" https://t.co/JjohuS42oM
AI Agents Deliver 5× Productivity Leap Across Knowledge Work
The effective use of agents is creating one of the widest spreads in output productivity we’ve seen on a per role basis. We didn’t see this with chatbots previously. Chatbots probably sped up work by maybe 10-20% in most cases...
Find Growth Alpha by Spotting AI’s Bad Advice
I’ve found a new favorite way to use LLMs: Checking for bad advice. Whenever I'm riffing on growth with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, and I strongly disagree with a premise, I know I’ve struck gold on both content and execution....
AI‑Powered Slack Cuts Collaboration Time From Months to Days
We saw firsthand the power of AI. 🤖🏈 Slack helped us collaborate w/ MrBeast in just 27 days instead of 6 months. Slackbot became our teammate, a coworker with agentic superpowers to instantly find any information needed and turn it...
2026 AI Agent Deals: Contracts Over Collaboration?
So we added one new AI Agent to our arsenal this week, and it's a great one, even though it's pretty new. Much more to come. And another? In the end, we decided not to deploy it. What happened? It's...
Founders Quitting in AI Era Shows Lack of Resilience
Watching three 3 founder CEOs at $200m+ ARR quit their start-ups the past 2 weeks or so. On the one hand, I get it. Growth way down, no M&A options, it was supposed to get easier at that stage. Now...
Listen First: Buyer‑Centric Sales Beat Product‑Centric Scripts
Most sales processes are built backwards. They are product-centric (inside-out), not buyer-centric (outside-in). And yet, almost every research study shows that top-performing sellers listen more than they talk on the first call. Bottom performers do the opposite. A product-centric sales...
LinkedIn Education and Webinars Drive Warm B
Lara Acosta 's 1-person business is about to cross $200k/mo. 0 outbound. 0 cold emails. Here's the breakdown: 1. Education-focused content on Linkedin (positioning) • 2x specific breakdowns (like this one) • 2x broad education on business tips 2. Lead-magnet...
Write SOPs for AI, Not Your Team
You wrote something important. Your team pasted it into AI and asked what you meant. And that bothers you. Here's why. You're writing for people who don't exist. The ones who sit down, read 20 pages, absorb it, and execute...
Reflecting on the Significance of Today’s Moment
Great post that explores this moment in time...
Founders Can Use 100‑Year Bonds to Preserve Equity
If you're a founder raising debt to grow and keep equity: SMART Google issuing 100 year bond:
Pulse Slashes Research Time From Hours to Minutes
BIG NEWS: I just launched Pulse. The world's first news reader that cuts research from 2 hours to 5 mins👇
Pulse Cuts Tech Research From Hours to Minutes
BIG NEWS: I just launched Pulse. The world's first news reader that cuts research from 2 hours to 5 mins👇 As a founder, I was drowning in information: • Scrolling Twitter for hours • Checking 20+ sites for tech news...
AI Tools Remove Data Barriers, Driving Explosive Growth
I now constantly get questions about the SAAS meltdown, role of AI, system of records etc. I don't have an answer to all these. But I do know that we saw an acceleration in our business in Q2, Q3, and...
