Making the web faster at ▲Vercel while bootstrapping SaaS on the side. Currently building tryslater.com ⏰
Tips from MicroConf local
Tips from MicroConf local, the future of the web, and the Bootstrap 1000 challenge.
Three side project tips
This week’s tips are from MicroConf Local speeches by Tropical MBA’s Dan Andrews, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven, and Rob Walling & his wife, Dr. Sherry Walling.
Focus
Dan’s talk hit home for me the most. “Strategies to Go From Side Project to Full Time and Beyond” was entirely focused on getting past the roadblocks that side projects consist of.
Two takeaways:
“Side projects, executed aggressively, turn into full-time projects”
“9 out of 10 small businesses (projects) fail. Launch 10.”
Growth
Asia has advice that waaay more bootstrappers should be following. Her talk was titled “Uncovering Your Best Growth Opportunities”, so here’s your friendly reminder to actually market your products.
Two takeaways:
“We rob our growth all the time by obsessing over KPIs, focusing on lagging indicators, and looking for ‘silver bullets”.
“What was your prospect doing right before they {insert CTA here}?”
Asia does an amazing job of creating approachable marketing advice for founders. She has an amazing podcast for getting started & offers services through DemandMaven if you already have some traction.
Self-reflection Rob and Sherry came up with a list of the habits of successful entrepreneurs they know.
Two takeaways:
“Think in years, not months.”
Focus, avoid shiny object syndrome.
While this list had seven items, these two stuck out most. A reminder to be patient and to focus was exactly what I needed to hear.
Bonus: Microconf just published the recording of this talk as a podcast: MicroConf On Air (microconfpodcast.com).
Two articles
I’d be lying if I said I’ve thought about anything except Next.js Conf this week, so our articles will focus on Next.js. If you’re new to Next.js, consider reading one of my older articles: Why Next.js (update coming soon).
Related: I helped ship the Vercel Edge Functions page, check it out.
One update from me
I’ve been working on a blog post that will impact the next 1000 days of my life, and potentially yours as well.
The speech from Rob and Sherry really hit home and is inspiring me to be more disciplined in my bootstrapping journey.
More details coming soon. For now, here’s the logo:
See you on the other side,
Drew
Drew Bredvick
Making the web faster at ▲Vercel while bootstrapping SaaS on the side. Currently building tryslater.com ⏰
Hey there, Google Chrome shipped WebMCP in early preview this week. It's a W3C standard that lets any website expose structured tools directly to AI agents through a browser API. No MCP server required. Platform shifts build on existing networks. What's more likely — every company builds their own MCP server, or agents get good at using the web that already exists? MCP adoption is growing fast but it's still a tiny fraction of companies. WebMCP bets on the existing network. Always bet on the...
Hey there, Two new posts this week plus a bunch of stuff I've been thinking about. Two Waves of AI — Most people treat AI as one wave. It's actually two. Wave 1 is LLMs as cheap, scalable intelligence (AI added to products). Wave 2 is 10x productivity in verifiable domains like coding (AI added to the creation process). How to Break Into GTM Engineering — We're hiring at Vercel and I wrote up the trends I’m seeing. Four paths in: solutions engineers, former founders, product-obsessed...
Hey there, This week I’m sharing the full breakdown of how we built Vercel’s first GTM agent. The results: 10 inbound SDRs → 1, $2M+ in savings, and a 32x ROI. I joined Alex Lieberman on the Human in the Loop podcast to walk through the whole thing. The blog post is a cleaned-up version of that conversation with everything you need to build something similar. Building Vercel’s First GTM Agent The short version: we turned lead qualification from a slow slog into something that happens in...