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Vellocity Market Execution Playbook

Date: 2026-04-12 Context: Ties the bolt.new insight (Eric Simons, "prototyping dies in 2026"), the Q1 AWS field data (112 partners, 295 metering prompts), and the portability audit (PARTNER_OUTPUT_PORTABILITY_AUDIT.md) into a concrete what-to-ship / what-to-market / what-to-skip framework.

Strategic anchor: Frances Frei's Uncommon Service model. "Identify your stars and supports. Invest heavily in the stars. Cut back on the supports." The portability audit already did this analysis — this playbook translates it into execution.

Key constraint: Stay on the Market side of Build/Market/Sell. Build only when it directly serves a Market outcome. The competitive positioning doc (aws-3pi-market-analysis.md) correctly frames Vellocity as the Market-phase tool vs. Build-phase tools (Tackle, Feenix, Suger, Clazar). Every build decision here is tested against: "Does this serve the Market positioning?"

The Stars (Double Down)

From the portability audit's Frei analysis, ranked by competitive moat:

# Star Depth Uniqueness What We Shipped (Apr 2026)
1 GTM Content for Partners (GtmContentSchema) 10 10 JSON schema contract for First Call Deck output, structured Bedrock generation
2 Co-Sell Orchestration & Simulation 9 10 (not touched this session — already strong)
3 Marketplace Listing Optimization 9 9 Share preview button + public branded preview for listings
4 First Call Enrichment Pipeline 8 9 Bedrock wiring (real LLM generation), share preview links, schema-agnostic slide renderer
5 Multi-Persona Simulation 8 9 (not touched this session — already strong)
6 AWS Partner Ecosystem Depth 9 8 Metered Billing Diagnostics, AwsMarketplaceErrorCatalog (10 errors + SaaS model guide), AI Diagnose, Retry, shareable diagnostic links

Market Now (features exist, need positioning)

1. Metering Diagnostics — the #1 proof point

The data: Q1 2026 AWS Partner Assist analysis (Alastair Campbell, Apr 1 2026). 112 identified partners submitted 295 prompts about SaaS product configuration and integration. Top themes: metering dimension errors, SaaS contract vs. subscription confusion, fulfillment URL setup, testing integrations before going public.

The one-liner: "112 partners asked AWS Q 295 times about metering errors last quarter. Vellocity's Metered Billing Console answers those questions before partners need to ask — with plain-English explanations, one-click retry for transient errors, AI diagnosis for edge cases, and shareable diagnostic links that let partners send AWS Support the answer, not the question."

Where to position it: - [ ] Demo environment (demo.vell.ai) — seed sample failed batches so prospects see the diagnostics page in action - [ ] Marketplace listing description — already drafted in docs/marketing/MARKETPLACE_LISTING_DESCRIPTION.md with metering diagnostics as Highlight #3 - [ ] docs.vell.ai — publish platform-docs/marketplace/aws-marketplace-metering-errors.md as a public reference page. This is the SEO play: "AWS Marketplace metering errors" is a search query 112 partners are already making - [ ] AWS field team conversations — cite the field insight directly: "Your own Partner Assist data shows 295 prompts about metering. Here's how Vellocity eats that." - [ ] Substack/blog post — "The 10 AWS Marketplace Metering Errors Every Partner Hits (And How to Fix Each One)" — extract from the published docs page

The bolt.new insight (Eric Simons, CEO): "One of the top online travel agencies used bolt.new to build a new rental car flow as a real, runnable application. You could click through it. They could send a link to anyone internally and say 'try this.' That speeds up alignment fast."

How it maps to Vellocity: Every AI-generated artifact — case study, first-call deck, marketplace listing, metering diagnostic — now produces a tokenized public URL that any stakeholder can open without a Vellocity account. The recipient sees: - Clean, branded preview with all content rendered - Footer CTA: "Try it free" + "Request a Demo" + "Request a Private Offer" - View counter so the sender knows it was opened

Why this is PLG: When a partner shares a case study preview with their CRO, the CRO sees Vellocity branding and a "Try it free" button. That's distribution without marketing spend. Every share link is a qualified lead source — the recipient is already in the partner's buying process.

Where to position it: - [ ] Homepage — add a "Share with anyone" section showing the preview link flow (screenshot of a public preview page) - [ ] Demo environment — pre-mint a few share links so prospects can click through in the demo - [ ] Marketplace listing — already in the description as a headline feature

3. The Error Catalog as Content

What it is: platform-docs/marketplace/aws-marketplace-metering-errors.md — 10 error codes with plain-English explanations, likely causes, fix steps, and a SaaS contract vs. subscription explainer. This content doesn't exist this clearly anywhere in AWS's partner portal.

Where to publish: - [ ] docs.vell.ai — primary home, indexed by search engines - [ ] Substack — "The 10 AWS Marketplace Metering Errors Every Partner Hits (And How to Fix Each One)" — SEO-first title, link back to docs.vell.ai for the full guide - [ ] LinkedIn — shorter version as a carousel or article, targeting the #AWSPartner hashtag and tagging relevant partners from the field insight (1NCE, Infoblox, Mimecast, NetApp, etc.)

Build Only If It Directly Serves Market

Item Market justification Priority Status
SaaS contract vs. subscription explainer Directly addresses the 2nd-most-common theme in the field insight. Content feature, not code feature. Done Included in aws-marketplace-metering-errors.md + AwsMarketplaceErrorCatalog::saasModelGuide()
Fulfillment URL setup guidance Addresses pre-onboarding confusion cited in field insight. Content feature. Next Add as a new section in the metering errors doc or a sibling doc
Native exports (Gamma, Webflow, HubSpot) Portability audit rates outputs A/A. Native exports close the last mile. Week 3+ Shareable links already demonstrate portability
First Call Deck schema refinement Locks Claude into predictable output → better share previews → better PLG Done JSON schema example + rules in FirstCallDeckTemplate.php

Don't Build

Item Why not
Metering SDK Competes with Tackle/Suger's core offering. Our edge is the explanation layer, not the API.
Integration testing sandbox AWS provides this. Our edge is diagnosing what went wrong, not replacing the testing tool.
General content generation improvements Commodity. ChatGPT, Jasper, Copy.ai. Dare to be bad here.
Social media publishing upgrades Commodity. Buffer, Hootsuite. Let the GTM schema feed those tools.
Brand monitoring features Commodity. Integrate with a dedicated tool if partners need it.

The Strategic Frame

From the portability audit:

"The best GTM tool for cloud marketplace partners isn't an AI tool — it's a domain intelligence engine that happens to use AI. The moat is the schema, not the model."

From Eric Simons (bolt.new):

"The flow was built using their actual design system components, so the code could be pulled directly into their production codebase."

Synthesis for Vellocity:

Every AI-generated artifact should be (a) instantly shareable via link, (b) editable by stakeholders in place, and (c) exportable into the customer's production system without a copy-paste step.

Status as of April 2026: - (a) Shareable via link: Done for case studies, first-call decks, marketplace listings, metering diagnostics - (b) Editable in place: Done for marketplace listings (AI Assist), case studies (AI Assist). First-call decks have generation but not per-field refinement yet. - (c) Exportable to production system: Done for marketplace listings (Catalog API publish). Not yet done for case studies (needs Partner Central API or Webflow/HubSpot) or first-call decks (needs Gamma API).

Tie-In: Build → Market → Sell

Phase Owner Vellocity's role
Build Tackle, Feenix, Suger, Clazar Listing infrastructure, metering SDKs, private offers
Market Vellocity GTM content, co-sell intelligence, listing optimization, partner assets, metering diagnostics
Sell AWS Marketplace + Partner Central Transactions, procurement, entitlements

Vellocity stays in Market. The metering diagnostics feature looks like Build from the outside, but it's Market from the inside: it's explaining metering to partners so they can market more effectively, not implementing metering infrastructure. The error catalog is content (Market). The shareable diagnostic link is PLG (Market). The retry button is the only Build-adjacent element, and it exists because the Market-facing answer ("here's what went wrong and how to fix it") is incomplete without an action button.

References