--- title: GTM Is You - Victoria Melnikova, Evil Martians | daily.dev description: Victoria Melnikova from Evil Martians argues that personal brand is the most underrated go-to-market advantage for developer tool startups in 2026. Drawing on... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/gtm-is-you---victoria-melnikova-evil-martians-4z1cl9edh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: GTM Is You - Victoria Melnikova, Evil Martians | daily.dev og:description: Victoria Melnikova from Evil Martians argues that personal brand is the most underrated go-to-market advantage for developer tool startups in 2026. Drawing on... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/gtm-is-you---victoria-melnikova-evil-martians-4z1cl9edh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/4Z1cL9EDh.png og:image:alt: GTM Is You - Victoria Melnikova, Evil Martians og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # GTM Is You - Victoria Melnikova, Evil Martians **[AI Engineer](https://daily.dev/sources/aidotengineer)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Victoria Melnikova from Evil Martians argues that personal brand is the most underrated go-to-market advantage for developer tool startups in 2026. Drawing on conversations with founders like PlanetScale's Sam Lambert and Sentry's David Cramer, she outlines six GTM fundamentals: crystallizing your value proposition, understanding where your product fits in a developer's workflow, identifying distribution channels, mapping the ecosystem, and distributing early. She also covers tactics like relocating to San Francisco for network effects, physical advertising for brand signaling, hosting events, and embracing authentic personal quirks as a competitive moat. The core thesis is that as AI floods inboxes with generated content, a genuine founder personal brand becomes increasingly difficult to replicate and is the primary distribution lever for early-stage devtools. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [GTMfund has rewritten the distribution playbook for the AI era](https://daily.dev/posts/gtmfund-has-rewritten-the-distribution-playbook-for-the-ai-era-dl8fc3bfj) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your brand is invisible to the AI that’s choosing your competitor](https://daily.dev/posts/your-brand-is-invisible-to-the-ai-that-s-choosing-your-competitor-dy633u3mk) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why the GTM playbook stopped working for SaaS startups](https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-gtm-playbook-stopped-working-for-saas-startups-q3oexqggr) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [From data to dollars: AI’s role in the modern GTM stack](https://daily.dev/posts/from-data-to-dollars-ai-s-role-in-the-modern-gtm-stack-acsvtmium) · The New Stack · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#devtools](https://daily.dev/tags/devtools), [#personal-branding](https://daily.dev/tags/personal-branding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/gtm-is-you---victoria-melnikova-evil-martians-4z1cl9edh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"GTM Is You - Victoria Melnikova, Evil Martians","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/gtm-is-you---victoria-melnikova-evil-martians-4z1cl9edh","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/gtm-is-you---victoria-melnikova-evil-martians-4z1cl9edh"},"datePublished":"2026-07-07T23:46:40.206Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:28:45.680Z","description":"Victoria Melnikova from Evil Martians argues that personal brand is the most underrated go-to-market advantage for developer tool startups in 2026. 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