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  "description": "April had 8% revenue growth. New focus: Claude Code + Val Town MCP",
  "path": "/2026-april",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-05T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:a2rdzfdxkjwerrfrpbwcipb2/site.standard.publication/3jd443afc2222",
  "textContent": "Dear investors and friends,\n\nVal Town is the delightful place to build and deploy lightweight apps. Our\nmission is spreading the joy of programming.\n\nApril 2026\n\nWe worked our butts of trying to grow Teams ($200/mo) with a hands-on, founder-led\nfunnel. We had a lot of good conversations and learned a ton, but the results\nweren’t where we wanted: we closed 4 Teams plans against a goal of 14.\n\nThe biggest lesson is that we’re spending too\nmuch time manufacturing demand in one off conversations – explaining our offering and brainstorming use-cases with users – and not enough time doing work that compounds: use-cases, templates, and stories that\ncreate warmer inbound.\n\nMay 2026\n\nThe good news: there are real broader market tailwinds. The demand for \nvibe coding internal tools and prototypes is incredible, and they need a\ngreat place to deploy. It seems like original mission of \"end-user programming\" is in sight way sooner than we could've imagined. This is what Val Town is designed for: instantly-deployed endpoints, on the web, collaborative, with built-in SQLite.\n\nOur goal for May is to grow MRR 20% – and we're open minded about if this growth comes from 150 Pro vs 15 Teams subscriptions.\n\nOur focus is Claude Code + Val Town MCP. Claude Code is a phenomenon. Some of our best new users are already using us this way. I spent all day Sunday rebuilding my passion project, Date Me Directory, with Claude Code + Val Town MCP, and it was a delight. We are going to double-down with lots of content, guides, product-updates, tweets, videos, and emails so that our users, and the broader ecosystem knows that Val Town is a great companion for Claude Code. (And other agents.)\n\nKey numbers\n\nTeam: 5 (+1 starting in June)\n\nHiring: 1 (Infra Engineer)\n\nRevenue Growth: 8% (Goal: 20%)\n\n<img src=\"https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/186db8cb-d1bf-4bc0-339c-5ad9214a9500/public\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; border-radius: 2px; padding: 20px\" />\n\nHighlights\n\n- 8% revenue growth (4 new Teams subscriptions)\n- Hired our 6th team member\n- Val layout redesign\n\nLowlights\n\n- Missed 20% revenue growth goal\n\n\nBest,\n\nSteve",
  "title": "Investor Update – April 2026"
}