By: Aaron Cort, Operating Partner, Marketing & Growth at Craft Ventures
At Craft, we often take a hands-on approach to supporting our portfolio companies where they need it most. Unlike boardroom advisory roles, these stints as Operators-in-Residence (OIR) are when we embed deeply at a company, roll up our sleeves, and use tried-and-true playbooks to accelerate progress.
Last fall I embedded at Replit as its interim Marketing & Growth executive. Replit already had all the right signals for breakout potential — viral top-of-funnel momentum, a deeply engaged community, and a category-shaping product vision. These were a lot of the same indicators that I saw in my four-year journey at ClickUp, helping the company grow from $4M to $150M+ ARR as the first Head of Marketing and VP of Operations. The ClickUp journey taught me two things that became foundational to my work at Replit:
- Product-led growth is the unlock — if your product resonates, the right systems compound it.
- Speed without systems leaks value — launches and campaigns must be codified to sustain scale.
When I joined Replit as an OIR in September 2024, they had just launched the Replit Agent, a full-stack product for AI coding that pioneered vibe coding and created a brand new category. It was the perfect moment to install the marketing and growth systems that ultimately turned a launch spike into compounding growth.
This week, Replit announced their Agent 3 release, alongside a $3 billion valuation and insane growth numbers — in less than one year, they went from $2.8M to $150M ARR. Lessons learned at ClickUp applied to Replit’s electric product-led growth helped this. Here’s what we did:
Product-Led Marketing is The Unlock
At ClickUp, I learned that marketing only works when it amplifies what people are already doing in the product. Our turning point came when we shifted from promoting features to focusing on jobs to be done — guiding users toward outcomes they already wanted. I applied that same philosophy to Replit.
The Agent wasn’t just another launch; it was a new entry point into the product’s value. Every marketing motion that worked best started with Agent or Assistant inside the product, and then rippled outward — into lifecycle email, website framing, and DevRel distribution. Launches weren’t announcements; they became activation engines.
What we did
- Created usage narratives across Agent, Assistant, Teams, and solo developers; then built segmented email tracks, content flows, and launch comms around them.
- Audited lifecycle and onboarding, producing a dozen quick wins including Agent-specific flows for the first 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days.
- Launched dedicated journeys for Free and Core users, segmented by ICP — solo, Teams, and classroom — so messaging matched context.
Why we did it
At ClickUp, the growth model was built on a free-forever product that let people experience value without friction and then naturally expand into paid plans as usage deepened. Marketing’s role wasn’t to convince — it was to amplify those usage patterns. That philosophy is what led us to invest heavily in attribution and business intelligence, so we could identify the signals that predicted conversion and focus every campaign on guiding users toward them.
I saw the same opportunity at Replit. The Agent was not just a feature, but a new entry point where developers could move from curiosity to habit. To capture that moment, we gave it its own GTM muscle: lifecycle journeys tied to product states, onboarding flows that reinforced early wins, and campaigns designed to accelerate the moment when users realized the product had become indispensable.
Impact on the business
- Segmented lifecycle programs consistently outperformed general nurtures.
- Agent-specific onboarding drove stronger early retention, especially in Week 1.
- Resurrection campaigns re-engaged lapsed prosumer cohorts and funneled them back into new value paths.
Shipping Velocity and Timing = Viral Growth
ClickUp scaled on the back of relentless shipping velocity — we were launching weekly, sometimes daily. But speed alone doesn’t translate into ARR. Without discipline, launches spike and fade. The unlock was connecting every release into lifecycle, monetization, and retention. That’s how we made shipping velocity a driver of unit economics, not just product momentum.
At Replit, the Agent launch in September 2024 was lightning in a bottle: the right product at the right time, paired with a community ready to embrace “vibe coding.” The challenge was to make sure every launch after that wasn’t just an announcement, but a repeatable growth loop that improved activation, retention, and payback.
What we did
- Built a launch framework (product release + comms + email/lifecycle) with narrative templates, asset briefs, QA, and post-launch follow-through.
- Coordinated homepage revamps, ideal customer persona (ICP) landing pages, and lifecycle email campaigns to align launches with activation nudges.
- Wired launches directly into product signals, ensuring we could measure not just sign-ups but downstream monetization and retention.
Why we did it
At ClickUp, the lesson was clear: launches only matter if they connect into lifecycle and monetization. Investors and boards don’t care about vanity spikes — they care about revenue growth, net dollar retention, and CAC payback. Lifecycle is the lever that ties shipping velocity to those unit economics. We applied that same discipline at Replit, treating every launch as both a marketing moment and a lifecycle milestone.
Velocity without lifecycle discipline actually works against you. When you’re releasing daily, user attention fragments and messaging becomes noise unless there’s a system to capture, educate, and convert. Lifecycle makes velocity coherent: it ensures every launch reactivates existing users, accelerates new ones to “aha” moments, and nudges the right cohorts toward monetization. At ClickUp, that discipline was the difference between short-term usage spikes and the sustained run from $4M to $150M+ ARR. At Replit, we used that same lens to transform the Agent launch into a template for every release that followed.
Impact on the business
- Coordinated launches consistently drove higher activation and conversion to paid.
- Agent-specific lifecycle campaigns extended launch impact beyond the announcement window.
- The cadence established during this period set the foundation for repeatable growth loops that scale with shipping velocity.
Community and Brand are Amplifiers
At ClickUp, we leaned heavily on organic engines — founder-led thought leadership, relentless product buzz, and a content/SEO strategy that scaled organic revenue by over 1000% year-over-year. Paid campaigns and billboards came later, but the foundation was already built. The core lesson was clear: organic growth is the backbone, and marketing only compounds once there’s a system around it.
Replit already had that founder-led presence through Amjad, with Michele and Matt, amplifying the message on X, YouTube, and across DevRel. My job was to build scaffolding around that energy and turn individual sparks into a repeatable engine that could scale. That meant aligning Replit’s strengths with the same three growth buckets that drove ClickUp’s trajectory:
- User-led growth through a passionate developer community.
- Product-led growth fueled by constant innovation around the Agent and Assistant.
- Content-led growth built on SEO, tutorials, and review proof.
What we did
- Partnered with DevRel (Matt) to audit YouTube, benchmark against Vercel/LangChain, and double down on creator walkthroughs.
- Ran G2 review campaigns synced with launches, growing reviews from 17 → 116 and placing Replit #4 in the AI Code Generation category.
- Overhauled SEO from “viral” to “educational long-tail,” focusing on tutorials and rebuilding the blog taxonomy around intent-driven topics.
Why we did it
At ClickUp, community buzz was powerful, but it only converted once tied to structured programs like SEO, lifecycle, and review campaigns. The same principle applied here: organic energy needs infrastructure. Without it, momentum fizzles; with it, every founder post, DevRel video, or user shoutout compounds into authority, search visibility, and activation.
Beyond momentum, this is also about unit economics and control. Community reach is unpredictable unless it is converted into measurable, intent-driven surfaces — searchable tutorials, review proof, and lifecycle paths tied to product signals. That’s why we paired founder/DevRel distribution with attribution-backed SEO and G2 social proof: it turns spikes from X or YouTube into durable traffic, qualified signups, and activation cohorts we can actually forecast. It’s the same playbook I ran at ClickUp — organic first, then structure — where paid and performance become multipliers instead of crutches, and every post or video compounds into retention and revenue over time.
Impact on the business
- Amplified launch reach and brand authority in a crowded AI devtools market.
- Solidified Replit’s future category leadership execution to come in “vibe coding.”
- SEO and educational content laid the foundation for scalable, compounding inbound.
Takeaways for Founders
1. Build your own founder-led buzz
Amjad’s authentic presence on X, backed by Michele and Matt, became one of Replit’s strongest channels. Turn launches into simple stories leaders tell in public; tie those posts to landing pages that advance and link to activation campaigns across lifecycle marketing.
2. Focus on organic PMF above all
Replit already had 11.5M+ organic visitors/month before launching the Agent. Marketing worked because the product had deep organic pull via the IDE; we channeled it to Agent/Assistant use cases with content that answers real searches and onboards straight into product tasks.
3. Layer marketing on top of product growth
Lifecycle and content programs were effective because they layered on top of strong usage patterns, not before. Lifecycle is the operating system; content/DevRel are the apps; founder/brand is the distribution. Ship quickly and let data decide where to lean in.
Takeaways for Marketers
1. Lifecycle marketing is foundational
Segmentation by persona/use-case immediately improves performance. Retention lifts come from building infrastructure around first-week value. For Replit, Agent/Assistant education, reactivation of inactive/churned users, and quickstarts for personal vs. business use — all triggered off product truth. Start with cohorts that mirror product states; enrich via Reverse ETL. Make “launch → lifecycle” a standard path, not a one-off.
2. Content is the organic backbone
Homepage revamps, ICP landing pages, and long-tail SEO captured demand and clarified positioning. At ClickUp, as we hit hypergrowth, organic content drove 65% of new ARR (much more in early growth stages when I first joined). I applied the same lens here for Replit: the journey flows from homepage/primary value prop to Agent/Assistant to ICP/use-case pages; a content plan that targets gaps where competitors rank.
3. Community makes marketing better
Campaigns (email, web, SEO) performed better when amplified by DevRel, reviews, and creators. At ClickUp, this meant organic buzz and review programs; at Replit, it meant DevRel channels (YouTube + X) and G2. Plug DevRel into search + lifecycle. When a video matches a high-intent query and an in-product task, shared compounded brand moments become durable traffic and activation. This can also very easily translate to social.
In summary, Replit’s jump from $2.8M to $150M ARR in less than one year wasn’t an accident. It was the convergence of product timing (Agent), community energy, and support by product-led marketing systems. For me, it felt like déjà vu from my ClickUp days — except this time, I could apply the lessons learned to help Replit accelerate even faster. My biggest learning: in PLG, the product gives you the spark, but systems turn sparks into fire.
Inside Replit’s Breakout Growth: Lessons from $2.8M to $150M ARR was originally published in Craft Ventures on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.