I am not going to bore you with a long list of VCs and startups who are attending. You know the list is shaping up to be amazing.
We have secured Ullas Naik, who founded Streamlined Ventures, as a speaker.
Here are the deets:
Location: The AWS Builder Loft in SF
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Format: VC/Founder Mixer and Pitch Competition
If you’re a founder or investor, apply here to attend. I also still have a few sponsorship opportunities open. Reply to this email if interested.
Kashikoi: Simulating Real World AI Interaction
Founder: Tim Michaud
Location: San Francisco
Stage: Pre-Seed
Website: Getkashikoi.com
Social: LinkedIn
💥 The Big Idea:
Most AI systems are tested in clean, artificial conditions. Real users are messy, adversarial, inconsistent, and unpredictable. Kashikoi is built around a simple idea. If AI is going to operate in the real world, it should be tested in a realistic one.
🧠 How It Works
Kashikoi creates simulated environments in which AI systems are stress-tested against realistic user behavior. Instead of relying on static benchmarks or happy path demos, teams can observe how systems behave under pressure.
🔥 Why We Like It
Testing for AI is existential. Kashikoi understands that the hard part is not generating responses, but predicting behavior. By modeling real interactions upfront, they help teams ship AI that is safer and more resilient.
A modern mocktail party soundtrack that stays cool and unexpected because no one drinks real alcohol anymore. Left field disco, jazzy house, alt R&B, and global grooves, with one classic punk jolt and a wildcard twist to keep the room awake. Stylish, conversational, and just a little subversive. Yes, I used this last Saturday.
Social Media is Eating Distribution
This chart surprised me. 84% of U.S. digital media professionals say that social media is their top priority.
Not because social matters. We all know that. What surprised me is how lopsided the consensus has become. There is no debate over channels or tactics. The reality is that distribution has shifted.
It reminded me of a short video clip of Scott Galloway talking about how much he invests in social media. In this clip, he says he has anywhere from three to eight people working on his social media.
Which leads me to a very simple question for you. How many full-time staff members do you have dedicated to social media?
Your answer should be, not enough.
In 2026, if you’re going to move the needle and create economic value for you, your company, your investors, and your family, you need to make a bigger investment in social media.
Most teams treat social as a side quest
Most B2B marketing teams rarely have a full-time person assigned to it. It’s typically handled by a marketing team member in between campaigns. It receives attention during launches and is neglected otherwise.
That setup produces the same outcomes every time. Posts happen on an inconsistent cadence. The content is shallow. It doesn’t resonate with the buyer persona, or worse, the buyer is completely put off by it because the social media person is using a retail playbook, posting updates every holiday and using 20% discount codes, trying to sell B2B SaaS as if it’s a new beauty product.
While there is now a small cohort of newly minted startups inspired by founders like Roy from Cluely, who are making lots of videos and have built huge social-focused teams, this is hardly typical. I talk to early-stage founders all day long. Very few are making the level of investment they should be to build their social media following.
Social is where distribution has moved to
The deeper issue is that founders and execs misunderstand how distribution works now. Let’s review the digital landscape today:
Public Relations: It’s shifted away from traditional media. Substack and Beehiiv newsletters now reach tech audiences at a scale most publications cannot touch. Chasing journalists is no longer the leverage play it once was.
Search: Search is in decline as a traffic engine. Google AI Overviews are suppressing clicks across both SEO and SEM. In many regions, organic and paid search traffic is down 30% or more.
Paid ads: Paid ads still work, but the economics are bonkers. Costs continue to rise, competition keeps intensifying, and the era of cheap user acquisition through social ads is long gone.
Cold email: Cold email is collapsing under its own weight. Spam filters are brutal, and with AI assistants increasingly embedded in email clients, this channel is losing what little edge it had left.
Paid newsletters: Paid newsletters are one of the few bright spots. Arbitrage still exists, especially in niche audiences, but it is not a standalone growth strategy. It requires great content and brand awareness.
Social media: Yes, it is brutally competitive. But it is still a place where you can build a large, organic audience, shape perception at scale, and have direct conversations with buyers through comments and messages.
Every startup needs some mix of these channels. But organic social, powered by content that speaks to your buyer, is the lowest-cost, highest-leverage distribution channel available to B2B startups in 2026.
The bad news is that PR, search, and cold email will continue to decline in effectiveness, which will only push ad prices higher.
The good news is that social still compounds.
If you’re consistent, build a system, and treat social media as a primary distribution channel rather than a side quest, you can still build a massive audience over time. One that understands your narrative, supports demand, attracts talent, and creates leverage long before a sales conversation ever starts.
That is why social media is not just another channel.
It is where distribution now lives.
2026 will reward founders and execs who post (a lot)
Not randomly, and not performatively, but consistently, with real points of view. Attention compounds for people who show up every day with something worth saying. Distribution now belongs to those willing to earn it in public.
And the best part about building an audience and following is that it will follow you throughout your career.
🎙️ Episode 030 - OpenAI Ads, Apple's Gemini Deal & Elon's Dilemma
A fast-paced grab bag episode that starts with OpenAI rolling out ads and a cheaper tier, swings into Apple choosing Gemini over ChatGPT for Siri, then goes deep on the new commerce protocols that could turn AI chat into a checkout layer. The back half is classic Gregory and Paul. Elon Corner with Tesla as a potential mega conglomerate, a quick rant about the metaverse as a dead end, a reality check on economists who bet wrong on Argentina, and a closing riff on AgentCraft as the Starcraft UI for orchestrating agents.
I'm a former creative director, 3x head of marketing, and founder of Vibe Your SaaS. After 20 years in Silicon Valley, devising new ways to get people to click on things, I now help early-stage B2B SaaS companies scale with an AI-first approach to strategy, marketing, and sales.
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