Yaser had only 16 followers on X (Twitter) when he posted a demo of Chatbase — a short post showing a screen recording of the product in action. Despite the tiny audience, the post went viral because the idea was well-timed (massive interest in AI tools in early 2023) and the demo was structured clearly and compellingly. He said he "expected something to happen" due to the visible excitement on his timeline about AI, though he admitted it was arguably delusional to think so with 16 followers. The post generated immediate comments, site visits, and signups from that first drop alone. Simultaneously, Yaser was posting on LinkedIn. A single LinkedIn demo post — again just a small screen recording of the product — got 5,000 likes and directly caused a $5,000 MRR spike visible in Stripe. He described this as the clearest causal link he ever saw between a content action and revenue. These early viral posts on X and LinkedIn seeded the first wave of customers without any paid acquisition or outbound sales.
Chatbase
AI chatbot builder that lets businesses create custom ChatGPT-style agents from their data
9 moves, in order
- Pre launch / Day 1Twitter — viral post
Posted a structured demo of Chatbase on X with only 16 followers. The post showed a screen recording of the product and was timed during peak AI interest on social media. Yaser intentionally crafted the demo to be clear and intuitive.
Post went viral, drove immediate site traffic and first signups - First months (2023)Linkedin demo posts
Posted short screen recording demos of Chatbase on LinkedIn repeatedly. One single post received 5,000 likes and was directly correlated with a $5,000 MRR increase visible in Stripe — no other explanation for the spike.
+$5,000 MRR from a single post - 0–117 daysProduct-led growth
Built Chatbase as a fully self-serve PLG product with no sales team. Invested heavily in onboarding flow, intuitive UX, and in-product growth loops so customers could get started and find value without any hand-holding. Used session recordings (PostHog/Amplitude) and customer calls to iteratively improve the product experience.
Reached $1M ARR in 117 daysMRR $83k - Early growth (2023)Influencer marketing
Worked with AI influencers — primarily on LinkedIn and X — to post demos and content about Chatbase during the peak of AI hype in 2023. The space was new enough that AI content was extremely shareable and converted strongly.
Significant MRR spikes correlated with influencer posts; described as 'crazy' effective at the time - Scaling phasePlatform marketplace partnerships
Integrated Chatbase into the Vercel marketplace, allowing Vercel's existing developer customers to find and purchase Chatbase directly from within Vercel's dashboard. This gave access to an entirely new customer segment by convincing one company rather than thousands of individual customers.
Access to Vercel's full customer base; described as a scalable channel partnership model - Scaling phase / 2024Platform marketplace partnerships
Launched a Shopify integration/partnership to penetrate the e-commerce vertical. Used Shopify as the single 'big door' to reach millions of e-commerce merchants rather than selling to each one individually. The product's feature set aligned well with Shopify merchant needs, triggering organic word-of-mouth within the Shopify community post-launch.
Word-of-mouth loop started within Shopify community; ongoing customer growth in e-commerce vertical - Ongoing / post $1M ARRSeo and organic content
Invested in SEO and ongoing content as a compound channel. Organic content (X, LinkedIn, video) drove brand awareness that warmed up cold email and paid ad audiences, increased site dwell time and backlinks, and built domain authority over time. Described as the foundation that makes all other channels more efficient.
SEO and brand credibility compounded over time, improving conversion rates across paid and outbound channels - Post $1M ARRVertical gtm pods
Organized growth into vertical-specific go-to-market pods (e.g., SaaS, hospitality/hotels, e-commerce/retail). Each pod targeted a specific industry. Strategy was to double down on verticals showing traction while simultaneously experimenting with new ones — avoiding over-reliance on any single segment.
Diversified revenue base across multiple verticals; continued growth toward $8M ARR - OngoingChurn reduction via product
Reduced monthly churn from 27% to 8.8% primarily by improving the core product (estimated 60–70% of the impact). Secondary levers included credit card failure recovery, cancellation flow optimization, and revenue recovery emails.
Churn reduced from 27% to 8.8%; next target is 3%
Prior experience building and marketing Rate My Courses (a side project that reached 50,000 monthly organic visitors with no ongoing input), which taught him SEO, funnel optimization, and how to build production-ready products. He also had a tight network of founders on Twitter/X (including direct access to Pieter Levels) and three older brothers to pressure-test decisions. He launched at the peak of AI hype in early 2023, when even a demo post from a no-name account could go viral.
viral_linkedin_and_twitter_demos
Influencer marketing stopped working by late 2023/early 2024 as the AI space became saturated with competitors and AI influencers. It still works but now requires significantly more effort to produce standout content that both gets attention and converts. Working with agencies on critical growth initiatives also failed — most agencies were described as "not good," and Yaser concluded that caring beats experience, so critical growth work should be kept in-house.
I built a $1M Startup in 117 days (I had 16 followers)
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