Why we renamed Clay Bootcamp to Bootprint
July 28, 2026
The name “Clay Bootcamp” has come to mean something special to me, to our alumni, and to the GTM engineering community at large.
But over the last three years, we’ve gradually outgrown the name.
Many people have asked why we renamed to Bootprint, so I wanted to share a bit more about why.
Clay Bootcamp started out as a little course with maybe five ClickUp cards and some personal back-and-forth feedback with me.
This was way before Clay University (or any other Clay course) existed, and it served a need.
The name was crystal clear, and it served us well in the early days.
The program quickly evolved into much more than I had dreamed of, with a more fleshed-out Clay course, 2x weekly Office Hours with incredible guests, dozens of coaches and mentors who help students build custom projects one-on-one, and an incredible community that at the time of this writing is more than 300 members strong.
It’s become about much, much more than just me.
From the program, students started their own communities — local ones in Pakistan, India, Nigeria, and Brazil, and #GirlsWhoClay — found co-founders and started lucrative agencies, hired from the community, and got life-changing jobs — pulling each other forward, together.
On the education side, for a while we taught only Clay, and relied on 1-on-1 coaching to fill in any gaps.
But when Claude Code appeared, it became obvious that Clay was only one (important) part of the GTM engineering universe. We found ourselves coaching people on other tools, and ways of thinking, as much as — if not more than — Clay.
We started to develop educational programs. We now have four that I’m very proud of — three of which have little to do with Clay itself, but a whole lot to do with helping people become incredible GTM engineers.
These programs aim to help people truly get their hands dirty and learn the tools — but even more importantly, learn how to think — all while building a portfolio and getting noticed by the right people.
Despite all those changes stacking up — obvious from the inside — we found that on admissions calls, people were over-focused on Clay and had a limited idea of what we did.
They were surprised, and delighted, to learn we taught and helped with much more.
It became clear that our identity was being held back by a name we had outgrown, and it was time to change.
However, a rename is very high risk for a company.
You want to choose a name that allows for future growth, loses as little brand equity as possible, and is something we can “tribe” around.
A misstep on even one of these can create a headwind that limits the future growth of the company and community.
On the other side, a good name can be a tailwind, adding a little extra to every single thing you do.
Aiming to think clearly about something so important, I wanted our name to achieve a few things:
1. Free us from any particular category (“Clay”, “GTME”, “Bootcamp”) that would restrict future pivots. Just as Amazon and Google have pivotable names, I want us to have one, too.
2. Be great for “tribing”. In the best case, it would preserve the boot that has come to mean a lot to us.
3. Increase the status of all the members — students, coaches, mentors — associated with it.
After identifying the criteria, the naming process was quite involved, and I’m so grateful to the community for all the help.
And after much ideation, and perhaps more than a touch of agonizing, “Bootprint” ended up checking all our boxes.
At this stage, and with the counsel of many trusted people, I’m confident that this is the right name for us — and I’m so excited to move forward and keep building something great with the community, our partners, and our team.
Onwards,
