A Letter From the Founders

Hey 👋

I'm Mike, founder of Layers.

I've been coding since the 90s.

For nearly 30 years, I've built product after product — shipped them, launched them, celebrated them.

And I know that feeling.

It feels like getting punched in the stomach.

The Problem

Developers don't struggle to build.
We struggle to get users.

Whether it's:

• A mobile app finally approved after 5 rejections
• A B2B SaaS solving a real, painful problem
• A side project you know deserves a shot

The pattern is the same:
We ship.
We wait.
Crickets.

And what do we do?
❌ Go build more features (because code is comfortable)
❌ Pivot to something else
❌ Launch again… and repeat the cycle

I've done all three. A lot.

Why This Is Personal

What seems like a lifetime ago, I was a founding engineer at an ad tech startup that served the world's biggest brands. We built an enterprise-focused unified ad management platform across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram. Aside from Facebook, I was the first API integration for all the other platforms, helping guide them to build what we needed to run ads effectively at scale. After we sold the company, I spent over 6 years at Snapchat building their marketing platform from scratch and helping the company transform from IO-based brand takeovers into a programmatic ad powerhouse.

I've built the machinery behind growth at scale.

Then I went back to startup land. This time I wanted to get into consumer mobile apps. It was pre-AI coding tools, so I was still banging out character by character like a caveman. After a bunch of App Store rejections, I finally got my first app approved. Felt that amazing rush, that top-of-the-world feeling. Woke up the next day and got punched in the stomach again by zero users.

That's when it hit me:

Developers don't need more features.
They need marketing — done for them.

So I did what I think any good friend would do. I called Jim. Jim's an amazing engineer and technical leader. He was with me at the startup then at Snap and went on to lead eng teams at Coinbase. I convinced him to build a mobile app. After a bunch of rejections, he finally got approved. The next day, he got punched in the stomach.

I told him, "I know it sucks, but I needed you to feel that feeling again. Let's go solve it once and for all."

We called Steven who had been with us on the previous journey through the startup and Snap. He is one of those extremely special people: 50% Product, 50% Engineering, and 50% Taste. A rare talent. Our pitch landed well. Steven was on board. He'd felt the pain, too, many times over the decades before. Our founding team was in place.

What If Marketing Was a Layer?

So we built Layers.

Layers is the easiest way to turn your code into customers.

The name Layers is deliberate.
Every marketing tactic is a layer:

• Some long-lived (Google Ads, Meta)
• Some opportunistic (UGC waves, Shorts trends)
• Some deeply technical (SDKs, attribution, data loops)

The only constant is that there will always be new layers to try.

Instead of handing you a marketing plan and saying "good luck"…

We act.

How Layers Works 🚀

🔗 Connect your GitHub (optional, but powerful)
We analyze what you built, who it's for, your tone, aesthetic, ICP — automatically.

🎯 We recommend a stack of "Layers"
Not a vague strategy — a set of actions tailored to your product.

⚙️ We execute
With your permission, we:

• Research and generate content
• Distribute to TikTok, Instagram, and soon YouTube Shorts, X, Reddit and more
• Analyze performance & extract insights
• Feed that data back into future content

📈 When content wins, we scale it
Our agent Elle (your CMO) suggests next steps. Stay in the loop as much as you want. As you build trust, you can defer decision making at a granular level, if you choose to. Elle is available on the web and through iMessage/SMS.

Paid
When the time is right, we'll suggest that we launch & optimize ads for you across:

• Meta
• TikTok
• Apple Search Ads
• Google

🎥 Need UGC?
A couple clicks is all it takes.
We source, manage, and optimize creators for you.

🧠 If GitHub is connected, we go deeper

• PRs for ad network SDK integrations
• Attribution tracking setup
• Closed-loop performance optimization

For every layer, you're always in control:

• Post yourself
• Send to drafts
• Or let us schedule and post

Who Is Layers For?

• Indie hackers
• Mobile app builders
• SaaS founders
• Developers who want distribution but hate marketing

If you love building but don't love pulling marketing levers — this is for you.

Why We Built Layers

We want to solve that emotional roller coaster developers face, once and for all.

Not every product will succeed.
But every developer deserves a real shot.

Layers exists to give you that shot.