My First SaaS Project Just Hit $11K/Month

0:00Hi, I'm Vadim. I'm 19 years old and I built an AI app called VGola that makes me over $10,000 every single month without any coding [music] experience. This is Vim. He's 19 and 5 months ago, he launched his very first app. And today, that app is making over $10,000 per month. But here's what I think is cool. This is not a story about clever growth hacks or tricks. He didn't have a big budget, and he didn't really use any shortcuts. He grew his app by doing one thing every single day that took him

0:28about 45 minutes to do. This is going to sound completely crazy. So, I brought Veem onto the channel to break everything down for us. And in this episode, we're going to dive into the app that he built in 5 months that now makes over $10,000 a month, the 45minute daily routine behind all of his growth, and the biggest mistake every app founder is making when it comes to growing their businesses, and what you should do instead. I'm super excited for this one. Let's dive in. I'm Gus and this is Starter Story. All right, Vadim, welcome to Starter Story. Excited to have you on the channel. Can you tell us

1:01who you are, what you built, and what's your story? Hi, I'm Vadim. I'm 19 years old and I built an AI app called VGola, which is an AI video editing platform that makes me over $10,000 every single month. And I built this app just in 5 months without any coding experience. All right, Vim, I'm excited to talk about Vola, how you built it, [music] how you grew it. So, let's talk about

1:22it. What is VGola? Who are your users? How does it work? And then pull up your Stripe or revenue dashboards to show to the audience that this thing is legit. Yeah, totally. So, VGola is basically an AI video editing agent that can turn any piece of content into like viral edited nice clips. And my target like customer and ICP is basically [music] clippers, content creators, agencies, and long form brands. So, this is VGola. And basically, it's an AI video editing agent that can turn any like long form piece of content to viral clips that look exactly like this. In the last four weeks alone, we have generated about

1:57$11,200 in monthly recurring revenue. And roughly VGola in the past like I don't know four weeks to a few months, we have roughly gotten over like a few 10,000 signups and we have about $400 paying users. Man, I just love everything that Veem is breaking down for us right now. His story is awesome. But it got me thinking. Once you have customers like Veem is getting, they become the most valuable part of your business. It doesn't matter what you built. All that matters is who's paying for it. It's super important that you know your customers, what they need so that you can keep growing your business. But a

2:28lot of founders have this information [music] scattered all over the place. Emails, notes, apps, spreadsheets. And this is exactly why I'm excited to talk to you about HubSpot Smart CRM. With HubSpot Smart CRM, it puts all the information in one place so that you know what's going on with your customers and you can keep building. [music] And the best part, you can get started for free. Just head to the link in the description and check out HubSpot Smart CRM. All right, let's get back to Vim. Cool. Vim, thanks for kind of breaking that all down. How

2:54do you get here? What's your background? What were you doing before you built Bugola? Yeah, totally. So, I started working at like a top marketing like startup in my city back when I was a junior in high school. So, I was like 17 at the time. And then that was going pretty well for me. But ever since I was a little kid, like I was selling lemonade. I was

3:10selling slime at like elementary school. So I always wanted to like make my own dollar. I quit that job to pursue building a web app completely with no coding experience. That's how I got into building my SAS. So like burning all the bridges and that's how I forced myself to start building a startup at just like

3:2518 years old. That's awesome. So then you know how do you come up with this specific idea for Vugola? Yeah. Tell us about that. So the way I got this idea was literally I just like I was doom scrolling one day and I just noticed dude every time I'm scrolling I mean I'm seeing like a podcast clip, a gaming clip, a live streaming clip. So like when I figured out you know what like since there's already a proven market out there video editing clipping I'm like why not me just build another clipping tool like if I can get a tiny percentage of the total TAM of like the market then I can be

3:54making like a ton of money for myself. So I already saw that there's a proven market like short form content is always going to be there. It's going to continue growing. you know what, let me hop on this trend before it even takes off even more and start making like good revenue for myself. So, that's how I got

4:07there. That's cool. I like what you said about kind of you recognizing clipping is sort of huge right now. So, that takes me to, you know, the build. How did you build this? What what was the process like? What was the timeline? How long did it take you? Yeah. So, this this is going to sound completely crazy. Like, I'm literally your vibe coder. So I have like a lovable subscription and I literally was like prompting lovable which is like a cloud rapper if you think about it or like a codeex rapper. I was on that platform for about like 4 months trying to build Vugola. So that's how I started

4:36building and then over time as I was using Lovable I was watching more YouTube videos, more like tutorials and guides. Funny enough, I started asking Claude, "Hey, I want to move off Lovable and like actually learn how to like code and build a product." And then started recommending me tools like GitHub, or Superbase. Basically, all these like all-in-one tools that lovable had. It's like you can do the same thing for way cheaper. So, that's how I kind of got into vibe coding. I went from lovable to then I moved to Claude and now I'm on Codeex and yeah, that's how I kind of

5:03got into it. That's cool. What was the timeline of building like when you first started it to when you kind of had the MVP? Tell us how long that was roughly. Yeah. So I got the initial idea for VGola back in October. I spent four months building it and then I just started marketing it about let's say 5

5:20to 6 months ago. Nice. Cool. And tell us what's the tech stack that you use the tools that you use to build this and know you already mentioned some of them and maybe the tools that you use right now to run the business. Yeah. So all the tools I'm using right now is basically codeex and then I use GitHub I use superbase then I use Verscell then I use Cloudflare Posthog and then I use data fast and then we also use AWS which is like the number one like video rendering like

5:47infrastructure out there as well. Cool. Awesome. Let's talk about the early days. So you said you know you kind of launched it in around March. Talk to us about that kind of first zero to your first couple thousand dollars in revenue. What what did you do? What was that like? kind of how did you get off

6:02the ground? When I first started marketing my app back in March, it was purely on X on Twitter. So, I started building a personal brand on Twitter and then step [music] two, I slowly like when I was in the Twitter space, I started noticing there's a bunch of these like AI tools and AI like trends that just boom and pop up. I'm like, you know what? What if I make like a openclaw plugin or like a video relating vola, which is my AI

6:23video editing tools like OpenClaw? Anything you would reference to OpenCloud would go insanely viral. [music] Basically, I was leveraging already viral proven like formats and like topics and I was basically plugging it in and connecting it to [music] my software Vola. So, that's how I was like marketing it on Twitter. That was our first like zero to like 2,000 $3,000 in monthly recurring revenue. That was purely just off Twitter. So, that's how you get your first, you know, a couple thousand in revenue and but now you're at 11K per month and growing. What did you do differently? Take us through like that next level of finally hitting that

6:55$10,000 per month. What did you do? Yeah. So, this is the secret sauce. And honestly, like I do not see anybody talking about this. Like people just water this down. Like people like I don't know why no one's talking about this. And this is super super simple. And all it takes is going to buy like 45 minutes like a day. So for step one, I got a brand new Instagram account and then I also got a mini chat subscription and I connected those two. Step number two, I basically just analyzed and doom scrolled for like a whole entire day. I was finding my competitors viral formats

7:22and their viral UGC campaigns and their creators. And then when I would scroll down, I would see like their already proven viral formats that their creator is already posting. And then step number three, I just stole everything. So basically, I leverage the same text as them. So I would record like my own face, and then I would just leverage the same exact text that they use, the same audio that they use, the same like transitions, how long, so like is the hook 3 seconds, 4 seconds, how long is their demo, how long is their CTA, and basically I just micro analyzed and copied their entire format to the T. And

7:50I just changed and iterated for my own product. Step number four, I posted three [music] to six times every single day on Instagram. As you can see, this is my brand new UC account. I started posting for a few months ago. We already at 10.8K followers, just a brand new UGC [music] account. And the secret sauce is

8:06it only takes me 45 minutes a day. Because the true thing about these viral UC formats is the only thing that you have to change is your hook and then the sound. Your demo and your CTA can literally be the exactly the same. This video [music] got 132,000 views, 18,000 views, 21,000 views. Like after you already find a viral proven hook and a format, what you're going to do then is you're just going to double down on like the viral formats. You're going to spam that single format every single day until it becomes saturated. And then the last step would basically you're just like continue to scroll and then you

8:37would continue like following these like brands and whatever they're posting. I would probably just copy that cuz they already found a viral format. So just continuously [music] be scrolling, analyzing and finding other new content trends in the tech UGC space. Everyone rides the same trend wave until it becomes super saturated and then a new trend comes up and then everyone's posting that same trend. No one really kind of says like, "Oh, stop copying me." Like they like help each other find

9:00viral formats. Yeah, that's cool. What I want to ask is like, is this just costing you time? Like, you know, I think people worry about like, [music] oh, I got to hire people or spend money before I Yeah. You know, talk a little bit about that. Posting on Instagram cost you nothing. Editing the videos cost you nothing. And the only thing that cost you is this man subscription for $15 a month. This is

9:21all you need to cross $10,000 a month. If you're a B TOC founder, your ICP is like a consumer that's scrolling. Why would you waste all this time trying to spend like money on these other subscriptions and tools when you yourself can like create six pieces of content, post it every single day for free on Instagram and like batch this content three to six times every single day and it only takes you 30 to 45 minutes a day. This is as simple as it gets. You just have to put a little bit

9:49of effort into it. Cool. I love the passion there. I want to see this app that's making $10,000 a month. How does it work? give us kind of the 30 second to 1 minute demo. Yeah. So this is how VGola works. So this is our dashboard right here and it's basically AI video editing tool. So all you would do is like get like a

10:05YouTube link. I would paste it in here. You would get clips. It would pull it up and then you can choose different caption styles, different kind of formats. So for this one, let's just do like no captions. And then you can choose different kind of like ratios. So the most common one is like a 9x6. [music] And then you hit start clipping. And then that video will start getting

10:23clipped and it will upload right here. And then also we're launching a beta version. We have basically have our own agentic video editor as well. So basically you can just edit videos right here fully like end to end. It's like a clipping tool and a AI clipper just combined into one. So for long form video editors, content creators, it's like basically the best tool out there

10:42that they can use to edit their videos. Love it. I love it. Simple. Let's go to the final question that we ask all founders who come onto Starter Story. You know, if you were standing on your shoulders from a year ago or for someone watching who's just getting started, what would be kind of your final advice

10:56to yourself or to them? Simplify everything you're doing. It can be from how you code, how you build a product, how you market your product, everything you're doing. I promise you, you can cut your effort and your time that you're putting into that by at least 50%. Cuz as a solo founder in the age of AI, your biggest asset is your time. So when you can simplify everything in your own workflows in your own life, how you market your marketing channels, building your product, that's the one thing that I would nail down, make it as basic and as easy to understand and I promise you that the

11:26more easier the user can understand your product, the more revenue you will get as well. So that's what I would do. Uh Vim, that's great advice. Thanks for coming on Starter Story. Leave a question or comment in the comment section. Uh thanks for coming on. Maybe we'll have you back on when you're making 50,000 a month or 100,000 a month. Congrats and we'll talk soon,

11:43man. Yeah, thank you for having me. Okay, I wrapped up with Vimm. I had to step away for a second. That's why I changed and I'm wearing something different. But just a couple quick thoughts on the interview with him. One, I think the coolest thing is that these AI coding tools have really changed who is a builder. And so, if you're watching and if you're a marketer or if you've always dreamt of building something or if you have some skill that wasn't technical [music] or involved building software, AI has now made it totally possible to do this. And so, hopefully you watched this and felt [music]

12:12encouraged or inspired by that. The second thing I loved is how he broke down his really simple content strategy. I think he just said like I do three times a day every single day and that's how I've, you know, grown to where [music] I am today. Obviously, lots of factors involved there. Just to put into perspective, I've started doing this for my own apps that I'm building. I'm starting to get thousands [music] and thousands of views on my content, stuff that I had never done before. And I just I kind of was inspired to do it because of Adem. He said, you know, three times a [music] day just from your own

12:40personal account, copying formats that work, etc. And that's kind of what I'm doing and it's just starting to get traction and [music] I think I'm on to something. Which reminds me, at the link in the description, you can download our free short form playbook. It goes over bunch of different app founders [music] and all their different growth tactics they've used to grow their apps and be really successful. All right, hope you enjoyed this one. [music] Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you in the next

13:01one. Peace.