How I Built A $1M Business in 117 Days

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I got a DM on X from this guy named Yasser. We got to chatting and he told me something I couldn't believe. He took his app from 0 to 1 million in just 117 days. And what's even crazier is he did it with zero audience.

"When I launched, I only had 16 followers."

About Yasser & Chatbase

Yasser's Introduction:

Built Chatbase to 7 million in ARR with no funding
Launched 2.5 years ago as a solopreneur
Started with only 16 followers on Twitter
It went viral

The Origin Story

Background

Early Career:

Followed the bootstrapping movement on X (Peter Levels, etc.)
Did internships in FAANG companies
Realized it wasn't for him
Looked at people 5-10 years ahead in their career - not inspiring
Saw people like Peter Levels and Danny Postma, especially in the AI wave
Thought: "I can actually do this"

Finding the Idea

The Discovery:

Saw people doing demos of how to build a ChatGPT for your data
No one was building a product around it
Knew it was a good idea
"I didn't do any validation or anything. I just said if I don't do this someone else will."

The Launch:

Released Chatbase to his 16 followers
It went viral
This was happening in his final year of university
Just a side project initially
Saw the first sale, then kept going
Had 2-3 sales every day
Dropped out of university

The Viral Tweet Strategy

What Made It Work

Three Key Elements:

1. Familiar Interface

Streaming interface where text streams in a chat interface
Very ChatGPT-like, which was going viral at the time
Taking a glance at the demo was just interesting

2. Minimizing Seconds to the "Aha Moment"

Very simple demo
Showed exactly what the product was capable of in the first 20 seconds

3. Mentioning the Tools

2.5 years ago, there were a bunch of new AI companies and tools starting out
No one had any customers because they were all new
Every company was trying to show people real use cases
Mentioned LangChain, Pinecone, etc.
Made sense for those companies to push it too
No one else was building stuff like this on their platforms yet
Those companies picked it up and went viral
Created a viral loop
Most of the initial traction came from that

The Build in Public Playbook

Core Principles

The Basics:

Share what you're doing every day
First 2-3 months: you're practicing what works and what doesn't
Won't get views at first - you're building a brand and story
One tweet won't do it - people need to see your face a lot

Advanced Tactics:

Post videos on X if you can
Not enough people are doing that, so you stand out more
Frame it as: "I'm building something. I'm learning a lot along the way. I'm going to take you on that journey."

Important Tips:

Don't be boring
Be more personal
Share your personal story
Have a personality
Have controversial takes (if you actually believe in them)
That's how you get people to notice you

From 0 to $1M ARR in 117 Days

The Strategy

Continuous Launching:

After the first initial viral moment, kept adding more features
With every new release, framed it as a new launch
Key insight: Don't frame launches as "feature launches"
If someone new is looking, they don't have any context
Frame every single launch to make sense to new people who don't know you or your product

Creative Viral Strategies (Without Spending Money):

1. Subreddit Strategy

Went into subreddits of books
Created a ChatGPT for their book for free
Was losing money on this
Goal: Have domain opened by a lot of people to get more domain authority
Maybe they click and see the landing page
Maybe they see they can actually pay for this
Did this for all kinds of books

2. Influencer Bots

Created bots for Paul Graham, Naval, etc.
Same strategy as books

3. Sponsored Posts

If not launching something, do a sponsored post with a big page
Did one with a page on LinkedIn that day - made $4,000
If you structure them well, they're a very good way to get your product out there

The Numbers

Current Status

Revenue & Growth:

Exactly at 6.8 million ARR (as of recording)
Growing very fast
Only PLG (Product-Led Growth)
Just passed 10,000 customers (2 days ago)
Customers paying between $40 and $500/month
Around 600,000 registered users

What is PLG (Product-Led Growth)?

The Model

Key Characteristics:

Just have a Stripe button on your website
Do most of the marketing outside of your website
Have a good landing page
People can just go in, buy a subscription, put in their credit card

Building a Good PLG Product

Requirements:

Don't have to have a lot of features
Just have one core feature (for Chatbase: upload a PDF and talk with it)
Have a good UI
Don't have any bugs
Have a good MVP and launch it into the universe

The Balance:

Find the balance between launching fast and not launching garbage
Have a good quality tool that you're proud of
People should be excited to use it more
They shouldn't be frustrated using it

Building with AI Agents

How to Learn

Resources:

Go to sources like OpenAI's cookbooks or their documentation
Read about their agents SDK
Check out Vercel's AI SDK (very powerful)
Read documentation and look at examples
Look at who's using them
Learn how those companies tell you how to build AI agents

Strategic Approach

The Forward-Looking Strategy:

Find something you can't build yet
The only bottleneck should be the AI model itself
The intelligence is not there yet
Start building that
Bet that in a year you're going to have GPT-5 which is capable of doing that
You'll have a one full year head start on everyone else

Yasser's Experience:

Started working on Chatbase before the ChatGPT API
Had the product ready and people were using it
Then ChatGPT launched their chat API
Released a tweet saying: "In the last 48 hours I built this cool new product"
Because everyone was talking about the new ChatGPT API and what you can build with it
This also went very viral

Tech Stack

Current Infrastructure

Hosting & AI:

Vercel for hosting
Vercel AI SDK for AI infrastructure
Supabase for the database

AI Models:

OpenAI
Anthropic
Cohere
Google Gemini
Grok
Using all of them - users can choose which model works best

Other Tools:

Stripe for billing
Dub for affiliates
Mentlify for documentation

Key Lessons Learned

What Surprised Him

The Blueprint Myth:

Went in assuming there's a blueprint on how to build a good business
Thought it was just about who's going to work hard
Realized: There are so many different ways to build a good company
- How you work together
- Performance reviews
- In-person or remote
- Company culture
- All of that can change a lot between company to company

The Positive Side:

You don't need a lot of experience to start a company
Advice from people who have done this before is good to listen to but mostly irrelevant
No one knows your situation as much as you
Best practices change so much from situation to situation
People who give good advice will tell you what they think is right
But in the end they'll say: "Trust your gut mostly because you know your situation more than me"

Advice to His Younger Self

Think Bigger

The Mindset Shift:

"I wasn't thinking big enough in the beginning"
Initial goal: Just get to $10K, move to Bali, live the indie hacker lifestyle
Realization: "Why not shoot for the stars? Why not build the first 100 million ARR bootstrap company?"

The Hesitation:

Was too worried because everyone was saying it's just a "ChatGPT wrapper"
It's not going to work
This got into his head because it was true - it was just a ChatGPT wrapper
Wasn't aggressive enough
Was too shy about what he was building
Was too reserved

What He'd Change:

Would have moved a lot faster
Would have put more on the line
"Just aim higher"

Conclusion

Yasser is proof that you don't need a big audience to get started. He started his app when he had 16 followers on Twitter and in less than 3 years he grew it to over 6 million ARR. He got started just by building stuff.

Key Takeaways:

You don't need validation - just build it
Build in public and share your journey
Frame every release as a new launch for new audiences
Get creative with distribution (subreddits, influencer bots, sponsored posts)
Focus on PLG with one core feature done well
Think bigger and move faster
Trust your gut - you know your situation best