Devtools are Pivoting + Cluely Hype

We have all these dev tools, developer focused companies, and we've had this theme for the last few episodes of secondary products or depth of your product or whatever. And the thing we haven't really talked about is where are all these companies selling to? It's getting confusing. Are they selling to developers still? Are they pivoting? Are they flipping from B2B to more like direct prosumer developers?

So of course today we are gonna talk about Cluely because everybody is talking about Cluely and Hank deeply hates talking about Cluely. But I push so hard I wanna talk about it. But that's gonna be our second topic. We're gonna start with something different today and it's not our hair. I have a new haircut and Hank hates his hair today. I'm flashing my haircut. Anyway, but Hank tells us what are we talking about first.

Okay, so the first thing is we have all these dev tools, developer focused companies, but they're all creating new products. And we've had this theme for the last few episodes of secondary products or depth of your product or whatever. And the thing we haven't really talked about is where are all these companies selling to? It's getting confusing. Are they selling to developers still? Are they pivoting? Are they flipping from B2B to more like direct prosumer developers, et cetera, et cetera. And some of them aren't even selling to developers anymore. They're selling to this new builder persona or the solopreneur. And I just wanna digest this landscape and talk through this. You had some examples of this that brought this up.

I do. And I think there's two level of problems on this specifically. Number one, problem one is what do these main products and with marketplaces do? So this is the question of the V0s, the Bolts, the Lovables, like do they sell to developers or do they sell to solopreneurs that are not developers? Who is our main focus? Do they focus on both? How do they think about it? And then I think it's problem one for these new big type of apps that are starting to be created. But then we have a second order problem, which is what happens with all of the tools that are being used by developers and then also used by these platforms? Like what happens with Supabase? What happens with Clerk? What happens with Neon? What happens with Resend? And I've talked to all of them. I know they are all thinking about, should we still just focus on developers or because we're getting so many signups from tools like Lovable, should we also start thinking of non-developers who are solopreneurs, which is the future and how to think about it? So let's actually talk about both of them separate. On the first one, on these V0s, the Lovables, what's your take? Should we focus on developers? Should we focus on all? Should we have one tool focus on one thing, another one on another? Is the market big enough for all or are they gonna crush and buy each other?

It's something I've thought out a lot and I don't have a clear answer. Here's what I know. If you focus more on the independent movers, the like solopreneur types, that seems to lead to faster, wider adoption. And then your problem becomes, well, how do you hang on to those people? How do you make sure that they're successful? And when you're doing that, you're competing with not so much like a hosting platform, like AWS, you're competing with Wix or Squarespace or Shopify. You're competing with like the places that these users have gone to before when they think I need to start a website or a business. The difference is now that unlike before, they now have the ability to actually create apps with deeper logic and more robust front ends interaction and so on. You couldn't do that as a solo person on just like, oh, I heard a Squarespace ad on my favorite YouTube channel. I can just go build, like you can build a website, but you can't build an app. MrBeast is always pushing Shopify. They're one of his biggest sponsors, but with Shopify, you can't just go in and create an actual application that does real dev stuff. That's where AWS and Vercel, Netlify, Laravel, like all of that comes in. So now there's all this new access. So I don't know, there's just this barrier to entry to building new SaaS is lower than ever. And who are these people doing it?

I think there's a difference between focusing on the present or focusing on the future. Like in the present, I think it's not true that solo entrepreneurs that don't understand any code at all can build a full app that scales, that doesn't have vulnerability issues and stuff like that. Like that's not real right now. And I don't know if it will be in the future, but not right now. So if we think that that's not real right now, I think Vercel with V0 focusing on devs is very smart because we don't know when it's going to happen that there's less devs or something like that. That's to me is point number one. On the other side, I love that they're sort of thinking of the future and what will happen in a couple of years. And I think maybe in a couple of years either, I don't think developers will cease to exist, but I think there's going to be like, you will be able to build your own app, maybe 90%. And then the last 10, which is more something specific on security and vulnerability, something specific on scalability, you will either need a dev or there will be special products for that. So I think building for the future also makes a lot of sense. Like I question, I know that Lovable is at 75 million in ARR. I question how much of that is going to be the same next year, because a lot of based on credits, people building apps and stuff like that. So I don't know, but I love that they are building something that in the future will totally make sense. So I think both spaces in my mind makes sense. Having said that, I think that for the developers, there's going to be one or two winners. I don't think there's going to be that many. And right now I think there's V0, there's Bolt, Replit just shipped a new one. Like there's so many of them. I think one or two will win and the rest will disappear. On the solopreneurs, I think they can build an edge. Like some of them will be just easier to build apps. Some of them, what you prompt will be similar to the outcome. Others, what you prompt will be different to the outcome and will be better UX or UI. So I think there might be more for the different flavors of people, but I think we're going to see more and more focusing on this B2C side. To me, it was fascinating what browser base did on shipping director that basically said B2C products and how they are going now to solopreneurs building on top of what their developer product is.

Well, let me give a different angle on that. Cause I think Browserbase and Builder's new thing, Fusion, they're not very focused on the solopreneur. They're more focused on the coworker of the developer. And actually I think V0 fits into this too. I think V0, Builder Fusion, and Browserbase, these are all focused on helping someone prepare something more, closer to code complete, closer to feature complete before the developer actually takes it and finalizes it and pushes it into production. And it's like the same type of stuff as like, Oh, Figma to code stuff. That's helping the designer prepare things better for the developer and so on. And then there's the other category of bolt and lovable. They're not one shot tools, but they're, you know, through prompts, you can troubleshoot yourself and you can get it all the way to shift. And there definitely is more of a case for like individuals to use those tools, but I think it's actually better for coworkers within larger enterprises. So I'm saying like, for example, with V0, what they ultimately want you to do is deploy it onto your Vercel, onto the Vercel platform where you've been the whole time. And V0, I guess maybe I shouldn't talk too much about this one cause I haven't used it in a while. I think it has become more bolt and lovable like, especially in the initial stages, it was very much like, Hey, let's just get you to a prototype faster but you still have to be a developer to use it. Somewhere with the browser based launch, it's very much, Hey, they've got stagehand, they're open source thing and browser base, they're monetized product. Director is like built to help you ship those things faster.

That I agree. And I think V0 now is more similar to Bolt but it's still focused on developers. And I think Vercel is doing the right call by that because as you said, they're trying to get more people for the infra for Vercel. On the Lovable, I know it's going to be interesting what happens like on the other side, like this past week I talked to Clerk and Neon through my high price advisory. And I talked to Resend and V0 this week as well. And they are all thinking about these. Should we target non-developers? And what I heard from some of them is number one we started to get a lot of signups from lovable and we have so many support tickets. Now we try to help them. They don't know how to fix any of what we said because they don't know how to code. Should we take them or not? Question one, question two, clerk, for example just shipped the feature that I love. I absolutely love, which is every doc and every quick starts that there's a button that says, copy prompt for LLM. But if you copy it and paste it in cursor on lovable it will tell it how to implement the clerk but also what are the typical errors that those tools get and how to fix them. So it actually fixes them from the get go. And that's one step closer, sure to helping solopreneurs but still it has to do with code. So what they're considering and thinking about is should we target these solopreneurs? And my take is yes. Mostly because I think in the future there's probably more and more solopreneurs or people building as I said, maybe 70 or 80 % of the app. We still need developers for the last piece. But if you have more solopreneurs building 60, 70 % of the app, they will make the decisions on what SaaS and platform use. Not a developer that does the final 30 on, oh, let me fix you this vulnerability, let me fix your scale or something like that. And if they make the calls with that, they will want I think a platform that actually works directly on this. So my take is they should implement some type of onboarding and some type of configuration that just works for those. Because I think in the past, meta was the distribution platform for games like Zynga, stuff like that. I think the V0s, the Lovables, the Bolts are gonna be the newest distribution platforms for developer tools in the near future.

I think that's a good take. I mean, we're seeing that. They share their charts on their thing. Everybody's got these spikes from these. And yeah, the normal like onboarding email, you know, or set of emails from say Neon, like it makes no sense to someone who like just signs up for one of these. Next thing they know they're a Neon customer and they don't have a clue what the onboarding is telling them to do. Like, oh, database branching, like what? I don't care about that. Like I just asked Bolt once to make sure that it saves user profiles or something. So I guess we haven't reached a conclusion or an opinion here. Should they have, I mean, my instinct is, yeah, if source equals next gen app builder, then send them down a totally different onboarding path and give them a totally different support experience.

But that means number one, building potentially support that is more AI focused because they're gonna get a lot more people. And number two, they will need to do less features because to build all of that, that new onboarding, that new connection, new setup, that means maybe that for the next six months, nine months, they do less feature for developers. And the question is, is that trade off worthy? My take, yes. Like if I had 10 developers, instead of putting three developers to work on a, I don't know, V0 integration and once they finish to do a Bolt and once they finish, et cetera, and then the other seven to work on features, I'd rather do the 10 entirely focused on integrations, three on V0, three on Lovable, three on Replit. Like just because I think that in the near future and also in the long future, that will bring more revenue than just adding new features. And if they don't start doing it now and they start later, there's gonna be a new Clerk built for Lovable that will kill them.

Yeah, it's true. Well, it's just like any partnership. These are just the differences these partners are bringing in a different user. It's actually very similar to like partnerships with web agencies, because if you have a web agency that's pushing your product, which is very common for dev tools, the reason the web agency exists is because they're outsourced developers and the true end users aren't actually really familiar with your product. And sometimes there is this case where, okay, they're done with the agency, but they're still on your product. So you have to support them and they're a different level. And then there's also just, there are other types of distribution plays and partnerships that bring in swaths of users. It's just traditionally, we're used to seeing all those users coming in be developers. So it's kind of emerging of those two problems.

Exactly. And I can't share exactly the numbers, but what I'll say is probably between 30 to 40 % of the signups of these startups now are non-devs and are coming from Lovable and these type of companies, which is insane.

That's crazy. It's a very strange time. Let's

switch to Cluely. Or do you want to say something more or we can talk about my Cluely topic. Let's talk about Cluely. So do we even need to make a summary? Like, and the question shows what a fantastic marketing job they did. I think that probably there's nobody that listens to our podcast that doesn't know what Cluely, well. There's a

bunch. I bet that's a bunch who didn't see it. Yeah, I know. If you're listening to this, like please leave a comment if you did not know what Cluely was before this. I bet there's a ton, although people don't leave comments. You guys aren't leaving enough comments.

Exactly. Or I don't know, tweet at us. But, well, I don't know what Cluely does, which is part of the problem. But my take is Cluely is the first Gen Z dev tool startup that exists or like startup that exists. Why? Because they did a very Gen Z approach. I don't know if you saw the videos, but there was a video for the launch from Andreessen Horowitz and a video for presenting the marketing team. Like short video, lots of animations, lots of moving parts, controversial, very fast, like very Gen Z TikTok style. But I watched them all and I was like, holy shit, this is really, really good. And they took over Twitter. And I think, I don't know, everybody in tech knew about Cluely at least that they were launching what they were doing. So they were very viral. You didn't wanna talk about them. So what's your take on Cluely? Like, what do you like? What didn't you like about what they did? First

off, what is Cluely? Do we know? I do know, like, but it was a problem. Like it took me some time. Supposedly, right now, Cluely is similar to Limitless or Rewind where it records your computer and with some prompts, it gives you some tips. But that's - It's an undetectable,

yeah, it's an undetectable AI that sees your screen. Okay, so what I saw was a bunch of hype. First off, they did a really cool video showing off, oh, here's our new marketing team. It was so good. Yeah, the editing was cool. It was crisp. It was very attention-grabby. But to me, this was the classic, it's the classic mistake of marketing your marketing rather than marketing your product. And in that video, each of them showing like, oh, here's the team. Like, here's who all the people are. Here's how many followers they are. Like, they're gonna crush it, obviously. But I don't know, it's very self-congratulatory. It's the same to me as like announcing your fundraise and not talking about anything else except we got money from these people. It's patting yourself on the back to no end.

In general, I would agree, but I love this Andreessen Horowitz founder name video because they had a story like, oh, I got kicked out of Columbia and I cheated, but now it's gonna be the future. And I don't know, I really liked it. I liked the kind of story. I liked the vibe and I like everything. Like, I agree with you that there's nothing on the product. It just records your screen. I saw a tweet, I tried to find it. I couldn't find it, I don't remember from who. And what they were saying is, Cluely is doing marketing to catch the attention and continue to catch attention until base AI LLMs can get to a place where you can actually build something that helps you cheat on the computer by understanding what you're saying or something like that or whatever. So that was fascinating to me. Like, what if they are actually doing marketing because their product isn't there and they're just waiting and they wanna catch your attention until something happens on the LLMs? If that's the case, I don't like it because you can't keep the attention forever with no products but it's an interesting thing. The three things that I saw were interesting. Number one, the entire marketing team has the following. They all have more than 50 or 60 ,000 followers. I don't know, it was very interesting. Like, it's a very different type of marketing team. Their marketing team is just influencer team. I would argue that they have an influencer team of five people, not really a marketing team. Or I like how Pedro calls it. Like, Pedro from Raycast, he says that he doesn't lead marketing. He leads hype at Raycast. This is the hype team. Like, the hype team of Cluely is five or six influencers that will hype it up everywhere. And I think we're gonna see more and more of this where maybe not all of the marketing team is gonna be this but I think we're gonna get all startups to have a hype team in the near future.

I would warn against that even. Here's where that makes me nervous. If you hire a bunch of popular people who are popular on their own for their own reasons, their opportunity costs. I'm thinking just as like an employer longevity strategy context here. Their incentive is going to be constantly to be looking outwards for better opportunities. If you look at content creators and influencers, they're always hopping to the next thing. Like, the biggest people on Twitch, they're always getting pulled onto another platform that pays them more or whatever. So to me, I saw that and I saw all their follower accounts and I was like, these people are constantly gonna be distracted with their own side projects, with their own whatever. Wouldn't it be better to just sponsor these people? And maybe that's all it is. If that's all it is, where it's like, hey, they're not actual employees, maybe they all have a stake in the company and they get paid and then they're just promoting it as part of their normal content creator life, that could be really effective. But if they're actually like a team, I don't think it'll last long.

I agree, but I do think we're gonna start seeing hype teams. Not as big, maybe one or two people, but I think every company should have one or two people who have a lot of following, that of course will do side projects and other videos, but that freaks them up to get more following and then use those followers to share the message. But I don't know, I'm a big fan. Like if I would run a marketing team now and we are maybe at, I don't know, 10, five million ARR, I would hire one or two just to give it a try on what happens with a hype team, but at least something different. And I don't know about you, but I thought it was something worth talking from Cluely on that. The other thing that I wanted to chat on this, and I think it's fascinating is there's so much hate and so much love now about Cluely. Like Gary Tan fucking hates them. I don't know if you saw his tweets on, no, this is the worst thing of doing it, et cetera. But I actually think that really good marketing creates haters and lovers. So with that, I think they did a fantastic job as well because haters are talking about them as well. What's your take?

That's true. Well, first off, come on, Gary, you're a boomer. Like you're revealing yourself. Of course you hate it. And yeah, like lots of people are gonna resist the all flash, no substance. Like even me, I wouldn't say I'm a hater cause I love the style of it. I just wish there was more substance and maybe that's just where the company's at. There's no substance,

that's the company now.

Looking at the tweet, the number one thing they link under the video that you sent me is their careers page. So they're trying to build a team more than build up the product. But yeah, any company as it grows and as your message gets more and more honed, it gets more divisive. That's bound to happen, you know, all the way up to Microsoft and Google and Apple.

What I do think they did wrong is that there's no product. And I think for now it's okay. But if they keep for one or two more months with hype marketing, I love the term hype. I'm gonna use it all the time now. Hype marketing, but with no product, I think people are gonna realize that it makes no sense and it's gonna blow up in their face.

Yeah, is it gonna go the same way as, what are all the products that have done this in the last year? Humane, the like AI pin. The word

of this is the Fyre Festival. It was all hype. And I don't know if you saw the documentary, but when people went, it was such a shit show. And I think Fyre Festival, like maybe Cluely is the Fyre Festival of startups. I don't know. We'll see what happens I think in a couple of months.

We'll see, we'll see. Devin's at risk of doing this. We've talked about them before. Yeah, there's all sorts of products that risk this. But if you can do it, better to have it than not. I will say that. Like, don't be scared of going and creating a hype moment. Better to have a hype moment and then try to deliver or struggle to deliver than to not have a hype moment and still struggle to deliver.

I agree. I was actually searching for tweets for the podcast. And I realized that I thought that the name of the company was Cluey, not Cluely. So I didn't even know the name of the company, right? But I did see everything that was going on, which is fascinating. You

thought it was Cluey, like a combination of Blue's Clues and Bluey? Yeah. There you go. Good stuff. I got it, but it was very American

joke.

That is a very American joke. Well, Bluey's very Australian show actually. That's fair. Anyway, anything else on this topic or we can finish Bluey? I think we can finish, which means we're done. We've got a couple of interesting things coming up though. Next week, we'll probably do not a full episode, but we'll break down the Nightwatch launch, the launch that I just did. And we're also gonna interview some CEOs. We have some interesting ideas on how to do this. Every one of these CEOs that we're talking to, we've talked about on the podcast a few times at least. So it'll be interesting. Gonto and I are gonna be in San Francisco. So

figured we'd hook them up. It's gonna be CEO interviews and then three Michelin star dinner. The best day ever. It'll be great. It'll be great. We'll see you next week. Thank you.