Field notes on growth & the funnel
Real stories from B2B SaaS founders running their own acquisition. Paid, organic, activation, attribution, and what the data actually says.
AI Growth Agent: What It Is, and How to Tell If One Is Lying to You
An AI growth agent connects to your analytics, decides on its own what matters, and gives you one action. The hard part is not the prose, it is whether the numbers are true. What the category actually means, the four failure modes that look like confident analysis, and five questions that separate a real agent from a dashboard with a chat box.
The 3 GA4 Bugs Quietly Stealing Your Signup Credit
Seeing accounts.google.com as a referral in GA4? That's the OAuth login bounce erasing the channel that earned your signup — one of three attribution bugs that corrupt exactly the sessions that convert. The 5-minute check, the 60-second fix, and why a third of sessions can be affected without anything looking broken.
A founder blocked ChatGPT’s crawler for two years — and nothing looked wrong
Field note: a SaaS founder’s robots.txt silently blocked GPTBot for two years — Google kept crawling, so nothing looked wrong. The mechanism (exclusive robots.txt groups + pre-2023 allowlists), the 30-second check, and what happened after the fix: docs cited in ChatGPT answers within weeks.
The Best GA4 Cheatsheet 2026
Most Google Analytics 4 (GA4) confusion is channel-attribution confusion. The 2026 cheatsheet: how GA4 computes sessionDefaultChannelGroup, the full ordered default channel grouping rules, and the real difference between Unassigned, Direct, and (not set). Bookmark it.
The Best Cross-Channel Attribution Software for SaaS in 2026
A no-fluff 2026 shortlist of the best cross-channel attribution software for B2B SaaS — GA4, Dreamdata, HockeyStack, Adobe Marketo Measure, Ruler, warehouse builds, and where an AI growth agent fits. With a "best for" on each and how to choose.
Your revenue metrics are lagging indicators — here are the three layers that move them
Board metrics like NRR and Rule of 40 are lagging indicators. Here are the leading B2B SaaS metrics — across three funnel layers — that move them.
How to Set Up Google Analytics 4 for SaaS (2026)
GA4 ships an ecommerce event model that doesn't fit SaaS. A 2026 setup guide: the SaaS event model (sign_up, activated, subscribe), the six day-one settings, BigQuery export, and the new AI assistant traffic channel.
The B2B SaaS Acquisition Playbook for 2026
A practical 2026 playbook for B2B SaaS acquisition. The 3-layer funnel (Discovery, Perceivability, Activation), what to track in each, benchmarks for what good looks like, action steps for this week, plus the watching layer that decides whether any of it actually compounds.
GA4 vs. GSC: Two Tools, One Funnel, Endless Confusion
GA4 and Google Search Console watch your visitors from opposite sides of the door. A plain-English explainer — one shop-on-the-high-street analogy, no jargon — for which tool to trust for which question.
AARRR is still right. Except about acquisition.
AARRR's Acquisition stage was one box because there was one door. In 2026 there are three doors, and one of them is AI citations. Here's the 3-layer reframe for B2B SaaS.
SEO vs. GEO vs. AEO: What Actually Changed (and What Didn't)
GEO and AEO aren't replacing SEO — they're rewriting how visibility works. A row-by-row comparison of what changes, what doesn't, and what to do.
Why Google AI Overviews Aren't Optional Anymore
AI Overviews now appear on a growing share of US queries, eat the click before users scroll, and cite sites that don't even rank top 10. Here's why ignoring them is no longer an option — and what to do.
Stop Using the GA4 API — Use BigQuery Export Instead
The GA4 Data API silently samples, hides, and caps your data. BigQuery Export gives you every event, zero sampling, and full SQL power — for free.
How to Actually Read Your Google Search Console Data
Most founders watch clicks and impressions. The metric that predicts revenue is hiding one layer deeper — and it has a name.
Your Google Ads ROAS Looks Great. Your GA4 Tells a Different Story.
Google Ads and GA4 measure different things, in different ways, at different times. If you're not cross-referencing them with your revenue data, you're making budget decisions with half the picture.