Shubham and I spent the past two weeks in the US. It was our first time taking RadarKit there, and the main plan was to show the product at brightonSEO San Diego. We added a few days in San Francisco before the event and New York after it. I thought I would write about what actually happened while it is still fresh in my head.
San Francisco
I noticed the AI ads banners almost as soon as we started walking around. ChatGPT, Codex, Vercel, Modal and a lot more. I kept taking photos of them. We work in AI search every day, but seeing those names all over a city made it feel different.
We went to the AWS Builder Loft, met people at Sentry and spent a day in Mountain View visiting Microsoft and Google. At an event hosted at CapitalG, I showed RadarKit to Alex Atallah, co-founder of OpenRouter and OpenSea. I walked him through how we use models to study AI answers, citations and competitors. We have analyzed more than 100 million AI citations, so I could show him some of the data too. He asked good questions and helped us get into the OpenRouter startup program. I already posted about that meeting, but it was a big moment for us.
At Sentry, My good friend Fede brought people together for a meetup for AI Beavers. The room was full. We talked to builders about what they were making and showed RadarKit to everyone on stage. I kept noticing how open people were. They asked good questions, gave feedback and introduced us to other people. For Shubham and me, coming from India with a bootstrapped product, that meant a lot.
Google’s HQ Visit
We visited google’s HQ in mountain View California. I have seen this Address so many times in our adsense payments and google cloud payments. So always wanted to visit their HQ. We went to the backside of MountainView where we enjoyed the most beautiful sunset in US.
There was plenty we did outside meetings too. We rode in a Waymo, walked around to see the street art, caught some fireworks and went to the Golden Gate Bridge. I had wanted to see that bridge for years. It was even better getting to do it on this trip with my brother.
San Diego
This was the reason for the trip. RadarKit sponsored brightonSEO, and we were at booth 58 on September 15 and 16. Before we got there, there were so many small things to sort out. Booth plans, emails, demos, people to meet and the podcast room I had booked.
The two event days went fast. We gave demos, met agencies and in house SEO teams, and had more than 30 people sign up. What helped most was hearing their own examples. Someone would ask where their brand appears in ChatGPT. Someone else wanted to know which websites were being cited. A lot of people wanted to see how the answer changes by city.
We have been building Local Radar for exactly those local questions. It lets teams check what a person in a certain place might see in an AI answer, including which businesses show up and the sources used. When people started asking for that at the booth, I took notes. We also booked follow up calls with people who want to look at their own brands and clients in more detail.
I had a chance to record interviews with Ross from SeigeMedia, Nikki from NP Digital and Martha from SchemaAPP ( We were booth neighbours ). I will share those once the videos are ready. Outside the conference, my friend Anishek Kamal, who works at Microsoft, drove us around and took us to the beach. I was glad we got to see a bit of San Diego beyond the venue.
New York
We ended the trip in New York. We had a few more meetings planned with Marcos From Graphite and Ramie from Petralabs, but the timing did not work out. I had wanted to meet more people there but I guess I should have planned better.
We still walked around a lot, went to Central Park and saw the skyline at night. New York was busy. It felt different from SF, where I found people more ready to stop for a long chat. I am only talking about my few days in each place, but the difference stood out to me.
By then we had been talking about RadarKit for almost two weeks. Even when we were out looking at the city, Shubham and I were discussing a booth conversation or a feature idea. I guess that is what happens when you work on something together.
Lessons Learnt :
Move fast or you will be left behind. That was the feeling I got in SF. People were building, showing their work and asking for feedback all the time. It made me want to get back and ship the ideas we had been discussing.
What I am doing now
I have a lot of work to sort, podcasts to edit and emails to send. We met people we had only known online, showed RadarKit to people who work in search every day, and heard things we can use to make Radarkit better.
I am happy we made the trip. Now I want to use that energy to build RadarKit into a SaaS that SEOs and marketers use every day.
