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fix naming
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Sarina Li
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ _Published on January 16, 2025 by Sarina Li_
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Growing a developer-focused product is hard. Traditional marketing doesn't work. Booth rentals cost thousands. Sponsorships cost tens of thousands.
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So we tried something different at Google DevFest Toronto: show up with backpacks full of cute koala keychains and see what happens.
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So we tried something different at Google DevFest Toronto: show up with backpacks full of cute cua-la keychains and see what happens.
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This is the story of how two new hires—a growth engineer and a designer/artist—guerrilla marketed their way through a major tech conference with $200 worth of merch and a post-event automation pipeline.
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@@ -14,31 +14,31 @@ This is the story of how two new hires—a growth engineer and a designer/artist
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**Sarina** (Growth Engineering): Built the post-event automation pipeline that extracts LinkedIn connections and generates personalized messages while you sleep.
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**Esther** (Design + Art): Hand-crafted every piece of artwork, giving life to CUA through illustrations, branding, and yes, extremely cute koala keychains.
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**Esther** (Design + Art): Hand-crafted every piece of artwork, giving life to CUA through illustrations, branding, and yes, extremely cute cua-la keychains.
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The thesis: what if we could draw people in with irresistible physical merch, then use computer use agents to handle all the tedious follow-up work?
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## The Koala Strategy
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## The cua-la Strategy
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<img src="./assets/cua-at-devfest.JPG" alt="Guerrilla marketing at DevFest Toronto">
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Google DevFest Toronto brought together hundreds of developers and AI enthusiasts. We didn't have a booth. We didn't have demos. We showed up with backpacks full of koala keychains with the cua.ai logo and started handing them out.
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Google DevFest Toronto brought together hundreds of developers and AI enthusiasts. We didn't have a booth. We didn't have demos. We showed up with backpacks full of cua-la keychains with the cua.ai logo and started handing them out.
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That's it. Pure guerrilla marketing.
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The koalas were absurdly effective.
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The cua-las were absurdly effective.
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People would literally crowd around us—not because they were interested in computer use (at first), but because they wanted a koala. We'd pitch CUA while handing out keychains, and suddenly we had an engaged audience. No booth required.
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People would literally crowd around us—not because they were interested in computer use (at first), but because they wanted a cua-la. We'd pitch CUA while handing out keychains, and suddenly we had an engaged audience. No booth required.
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<img src="./assets/devfest-image.JPG" alt="DevFest crowd">
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### The Magic Moment
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A few people stuck the koalas on their bags immediately. Then, throughout the event, we started getting approached:
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A few people stuck the cua-las on their bags immediately. Then, throughout the event, we started getting approached:
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"Wait, are you the CUA girls?"
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They'd seen the koalas on someone's bag, asked about it, and tracked us down. The keychains became walking advertisements.
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They'd seen the cua-las on someone's bag, asked about it, and tracked us down. The keychains became walking advertisements.
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<img src="./assets/htn-at-devfest.JPG" alt="Hack the North recognition at DevFest">
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@@ -90,13 +90,13 @@ Then use that data to craft personalized messages. Sarina wrote unique follow-up
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- Booth rental: $0 (didn't have one)
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- Sponsorship: $0 (didn't buy one)
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- Koala keychains: ~$200
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- cua-la keychains: ~$200
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- Automation: Built by Sarina in a few hours post-event
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- **Total spend: $200**
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**What We Got**
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- People crowding around us for koalas
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- People crowding around us for cua-las
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- Walking advertisements on bags throughout the event
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- Instant brand recognition ("Are you the CUA girls?")
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- Two people who remembered us from Hack the North
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@@ -108,11 +108,11 @@ Traditional event marketing at this scale: $5-10K minimum for booth + sponsorshi
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Our approach: $200 + scrappy execution.
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The automation is reuseable and will save hours of manual work, and the koalas created more organic conversations than any booth could have.
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The automation is reuseable and will save hours of manual work, and the cua-las created more organic conversations than any booth could have.
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## What Didn't Work (Yet)
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**Koala Distribution**
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**cua-la Distribution**
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We ran out faster than expected! Next time: bigger bag, or limit to one per person.
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**Automation Setup**
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@@ -125,13 +125,13 @@ While the extraction was automated, Sarina still wrote each follow-up message ma
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NeurIPS is the biggest AI conference of the year. Thousands of researchers, hundreds of companies, and endless networking opportunities.
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**The good news**: We still have one giant bag of koalas left. They're already packed and ready.
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**The good news**: We still have one giant bag of cua-las left. They're already packed and ready.
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**The better news**: We're upgrading the automation.
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### The Hypothesis
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The koalas get people interested. The automation ensures we actually follow through.
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The cua-las get people interested. The automation ensures we actually follow through.
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Most event marketing fails at the follow-up stage. You collect business cards, connect on LinkedIn, and then... nothing. The moment passes. People forget.
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@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ Our approach: combine two forces that shouldn't work together but do.
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- Actually close the loop before the moment passes
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**Why It Works**
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The koalas get you in the door. The automation ensures you don't waste the opportunity.
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The cua-las get you in the door. The automation ensures you don't waste the opportunity.
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Most companies nail one or the other:
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@@ -178,8 +178,8 @@ We built CUA to build CUA. Every automation we create for growth becomes:
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Esther hand-draws artwork that makes people smile. Sarina builds automations that save time. Together, they're proving that developer tools can be both powerful and delightful.
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See you at NeurIPS 2025. We'll be the ones with the koalas.
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See you at NeurIPS 2025. We'll be the ones with the cua-las.
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---
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_Want to build your own growth hacking automations? Check out [CUA on GitHub](https://github.com/trycua/cua) or join our [Discord](https://discord.gg/cua) to share your experiments. Koalas not included (yet)._
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_Want to build your own growth hacking automations? Check out [CUA on GitHub](https://github.com/trycua/cua) or join our [Discord](https://discord.gg/cua) to share your experiments. cua-las not included (yet)._
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