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AlpacaX in San Francisco: Reflections from TechCrunch Disrupt & GitHub Universe 2025
AlpacaX joined TechCrunch Disrupt and GitHub Universe 2025 in San Francisco to meet developers face-to-face and see whether our secure access platform, Alpacon, would truly connect with developers around the world.
10 November 2025
This October, our team travelled to San Francisco to participate in TechCrunch Disrupt and GitHub Universe 2025. This wasn’t just another conference trip. It was a chance to find out whether our secure access platform, Alpacon, could truly resonate with developers and teams around the world – and to test one big question in person: ‘Can we really change how developers think about SSH and VPNs?’
Through conversations with teams from GitHub, Microsoft, and countless builders, we confirmed that the challenges we tackle are universal, and that our mission to make security seamless and developer-friendly has global relevance.
TechCrunch Disrupt – ‘No SSH? No VPN?’ and the Real Market Reaction
TechCrunch Disrupt brought together hundreds of startups, investors, and founders from around the world. Over the course of three days, more than 100 visitors stopped by our booth – founders, tech leads, and engineers alike – and built connections. And nearly all of them started with the same question: ‘No SSH? No VPN? What do you mean by that?’
There was always a pause after that question – half disbelief, half curiosity. Then we’d show them the demo. And the tone would shift. What started as scepticism turned into genuine technical curiosity. We could feel the market’s readiness – these conversations didn’t need much convincing. They got it straight away.
One visitor, a company tech lead, even signed up on the spot, saying how much he loved what we were building and that he hoped we’d keep going for the long run. Before leaving, he shared a quick idea to make the experience even smoother – a reminder of how engaged developers can be when something truly clicks. He promised to test Alpacon with his team as soon as he got back to the office. Moments like that reminded us why we build the way we do, openly, with developers, not just for them.
The most engaging discussions came from developer-founders. They knew the pain firsthand. One founder shared that his team’s workflow had nearly frozen due to endless VPN configuration files. Another said remote troubleshooting across client sites was a nightmare of keys and tunnels. By the end, several told us: ‘I’ll go back and talk to my CTO – we’ve been waiting for something like this.’ That kind of feedback meant more than any award or investor interest.
One unexpected connection came from a CEO who runs a company that helps SaaS companies achieve SOC2 and ISO certifications. He looked at our demo and said, ‘Sure, you’ll need our help to get certified – but your product could actually help ”our” clients meet those same compliance requirements.’ That’s when we realised Alpacon’s potential went beyond customers – it could become a platform for partnership.
By the end of the event, we had three clear takeaways.
- THE US MARKET IS READY. Developers already know the SSH/VPN problem – and they’re eager for alternatives.
- OUR MESSAGE IS CLEAR. Simplicity and removal resonate more deeply than complexity and addition.
- WORDS MATTER. The way we describe Alpacon changes how people understand it. Messaging isn’t cosmetic – it’s strategy.
When the lights went down on the last day, our original question, ‘Will it work?’, had evolved into something new: ‘How fast can we scale it?’
GitHub Universe – Where Developers Meet, and Ideas Collide
GitHub Universe is exactly what its name suggests: a universe built by and for developers. Thousands of engineers gathered to exchange ideas, learn, and share their latest breakthroughs.
Among the many conversations we had at GitHub Universe, one that stood out came at the very end – during the ‘Dark Mode: AI Demos’ – when we met a partner from GitHub Startups. She saw strong potential for Alpacon within their ecosystem. Later, our exchange with one developer from the Maneva team set the tone for the event, asking what the next generation of secure access might look like. He described our approach as ‘surprising but deeply interesting,’ showing immediate interest in trying Alpacon for their own workflows. It was one of the first clear signs that our vision could find global traction.
In our discussion with the Microsoft Azure team, we discovered strong alignment around Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration. They were already exploring MCP for Azure CloudShell and noted how Alpacon’s direction naturally fits that vision. It was a brief exchange, but it reminded us that we’re not just building another tool – we’re part of a broader movement redefining how infrastructure access will work in the years ahead.
Sessions at GitHub Universe echoed that same theme. Talks like ‘Say Goodbye to Static Credentials with Ephemeral SSH Certificates’ and ‘Data Protection Strategies for MCP’ revealed how deeply developers struggle with key management and secure data handling in modern workflows. For many, SSH keys have become both a necessity and a burden, a source of security debt. Hearing those stories reinforced our conviction: the problem we’re solving isn’t niche – it’s everywhere.
Outside the main sessions, we attended networking events like Render’s Golden Hour and Cloudsmith’s DevOps on Draft, where developers openly shared how they had handled the recent AWS regional outage – exchanging real lessons from real operations.
These conversations naturally led to new connections, including with the Executive Director of the Python Software Foundation, who introduced us to the organising team of the Korea Python Community. It was a reminder that innovation often starts with simple, honest exchanges among builders facing the same challenges.
Reflections and What Comes Next
After leaving San Francisco, the team’s conversations turned reflective. We talked about what we’d seen, what we’d learned, and what we still wanted to do better.
TechCrunch Disrupt felt like dipping our toes into the vast ocean of the US market. We could feel the temperature, warm, curious, and more receptive than we expected. The connections we made there – via LinkedIn, quick chats, and follow-up messages – weren’t just polite conversations. They were genuine opportunities waiting to grow.
GitHub Universe, on the other hand, was more than a conference – it was a reality check and source of motivation. Talking directly with developers who face the same security and access challenges every day reminded us that the problem we’re solving isn’t abstract; it’s immediate and universal. It reignited our passion for building a solution that genuinely serves the developer community.
Now, one thing is clear: we’re not just exploring a new market. We’ve already taken our initial steps.
The conversations and moments we experienced in San Francisco reminded us of something simple but powerful: the future of security isn’t just about protection – it’s about enabling progress. Across every hallway chat, meetup, and booth visit, we saw developers searching for the same thing that we are. Ways to build faster, collaborate freely, and stay secure without friction.
That’s the world we’re working toward at AlpacaX. Our mission remains clear: to make security invisible, something that empowers rather than restricts. Because when teams don’t have to fight their tools, they can focus on what really matters, creating and scaling with confidence.
We left San Francisco not just with feedback or connections, but with conviction and a responsibility to keep building what we promised.
If you share that vision, we’d love to continue the conversation.