"For the past months I've been working on Wave - an open source, AI-native terminal that knows your context (we know, the hook still needs work). In this time, we've gone from zero daily active users (DAU) and zero GitHub stars at launch in November 2023 to approximately 3000 DAU and 12k GitHub stars today. My biggest lesson: The tried and trusted SaaS go-to-market (GTM) playbook doesn't apply for AI-native products. We're consciously breaking all my cardinal rules, such as:"
"The "viable" bar of MVP for tech people is high - We're bringing an imperfect product in a crowded space, for an audience that traditionally expects perfection Don't scale a leaky bucket - We're thinking about growth before product-market-fit (PMF) Sell / test willingness to pay (WTP) before building - We don't really care about WTP until we have a large enough user base"
"Wave is a terminal, therefore a "devtool." Bringing a devtool to market today kind of sucks. Without a well-integrated AI it just feels silly (prove me wrong). However, building something "AI-native" comes with the great risk of becoming obsolete overnight. You're damned if you don't, and you're damned if you do. So, we're prepared to pivot. We've already evolved from "modern, open source terminal for better developer workflows" to "AI-native terminal that sees your entire workspace." The journey continues, and throughout it our product"
Wave is an open-source, AI-native terminal that captures workspace context and grew from zero DAU and GitHub stars in November 2023 to ~3000 DAU and 12k stars. The team intentionally rejects traditional SaaS GTM orthodoxy by shipping an imperfect product, prioritizing growth over product-market-fit, delaying willingness-to-pay validation, targeting an early customer profile for distribution feedback, and addressing many small usability problems rather than a single urgent pain. AI-native offerings face rapid obsolescence risk, so the product roadmap emphasizes adaptability and pivot readiness. The product evolved from a modern dev terminal to an AI-native terminal that sees the entire workspace.
Read at LogRocket Blog
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