Why Bolt.new Won and Most DevTools AI Pivots Failed - Victoria Melnikova

December 2023, StackBlitz board meeting. Eric Simons walks into the room, knowing that his company is dying. Seven years of building this revolutionary web container technology, millions raised, but the revenue is practically zero and the growth is practically flat.

The board gives him an ultimatum: "You show us real progress by the end of 2024, or we shut this down." Just 2 months later, Bolt.new is showcasing explosive growth: 20 million ARR in just 2 months. And today, 18 months later, we expect to see another update: crossing over 100 million ARR for Bolt.new.

This "overnight" success didn't really happen overnight. It took 7 years in the making. And today, I'm going to tell you exactly how that happened, so you can replicate it for your business. I'm Victoria from Evil Marshals, the go-to agency for developer tools.

We've been StackBlitz's technical partner since 2021, back when nobody believed in browser-based technology, web containers, and investors thought that this was the dead end. We work with 40-plus early-stage developer tools startups each year, and everybody is asking the same question: "How do I bring AI into my product?"

First, let's talk about what doesn't work. The most common mistake I see is, "Let's sprinkle some AI into our UI." And the problem with that is people are very tired of chatbot interfaces at this point. It's very hard to convince yourself to try something new, to test new features, because oftentimes the results are underwhelming.

So if you're just slapping on a chatbot, you're taking a risk. Your customers might just lose interest and never try it again, and the result will be very sad as well: a quietly deprecated feature. The second common trap I see is boiling the ocean.

When you're trying to AI-power everything, you're competing with the big guys like OpenAI and Anthropic, and the reality is you just don't have that big of a team and that big of an investment behind you. Instead, try to think about what you can leverage.

What's your unique domain? What's your unique expertise? What's your unique technology? If we bet on that, the chances that we succeed are much higher. Then there are companies that are waiting for the AI to be perfect. And the reality is we have to build the tooling as we go.

It's up to us. If we get scrappy, if we get creative with our solutions, we will stay ahead of the game. But the biggest killer? Not talking to users. I've seen many companies reinvent the wheel, invest a lot of money, a lot of resources into building beautiful, intricate interfaces that users don't need.

And the reality is: no market, no product. Talk to your users first. While everyone else bolted AI into their existing workflows, StackBlitz did something different. I want to take you through 3 simple steps that you can apply to your business, and try to replicate StackBlitz's success with Bolt.new.

Step 1: identify your unfair advantage. Not product features, but your unique competitive edge. Let's take StackBlitz. They're the only company that can run a full development environment in the browser. They don't need containers. They don't need servers. They don't need local setup.

What's your unique advantage? It could be something like domain expertise, or data distribution, or infrastructure. You name it. Step 2: figure out how AI can amplify your competitive advantage. So instead of thinking, "How do I bring AI into my product?"

think, "What becomes possible when AI meets my unique capability?" For StackBlitz, it was pretty straightforward. Every other vibe coding tool had the same issue: the process is just too complicated for an average user. So instead, you describe your app with words, you see itright there in the browser, and you can share the URL with the public.

Easy. It only became possible because they had this unique competitive advantage. So now it's your turn. What becomes possible when AI meets your unfair advantage? Step 3, last but not the least: create a category. Instead of thinking in existing workflows, think about how your capability can change the flow altogether.

If we take a look at StackBlitz, this is called inventing a category. They reinvented how people vibe code. Why this moment matters? The reality is StackBlitz's secret wasn't "unique AI." Everybody has access to Anthropic. It was their unique competitive advantage.

And once they figured it out, they reinvented the user flow, and they bet everything on it. They went all in. So I want to encourage you to take a look at your product. Be honest. Sometimes it's painful. Take a look at your product and think: what's your unique moat?

What's your competitive advantage? How can AI amplify that advantage? Can you reinvent a workflow? Can you create a category out of this process? If you find answers to all of those questions, you're on theright track. Good luck.