$100K ARRin 9 months

3 milestones

Current revenue

$330M ARRas of December 2025Source

ElevenLabs closed 2025 at $330M+ ARR (some sources $350M). $120M ARR end-2024.

ElevenLabs: De amigos de secundaria de Polonia a plataforma de voz AI de $1B+

Founder

Mati Staniszewski & Piotr Dąbkowski

Co-Fundadores•Technical•USA

Commitment

Full-time

Experience

First-time

Product

ElevenLabs

Plataforma de generación de voces con AI que crea voces realistas y humanoides para creadores de contenido, editoriales y empresas.

Type

SaaS

Industry

AI / ML

Model

Freemium

Marketing Strategy

How Mati acquired customers

Growth Channel

Comunidades

Also Used

Twitter / XBoca a Boca

Tech Stack

Tools used to build ElevenLabs

Custom AI modelsPythonPyTorchCloud infrastructure

The Full Story

TL;DR

Mati y Piotr, amigos de la infancia de Polonia, construyeron ElevenLabs para corregir las voces de AI robóticas y alcanzaron 1M usuarios en 5 meses después del lanzamiento del beta.

Piotr y yo nos conocimos siendo adolescentes en la Secundaria Copernicus en Varsovia, Polonia. Ambos nos frustrábamos con lo mismo: voces de AI que sonaban obviamente robóticas.

El Problema que Vivimos

Crecer en Polonia nos expuso al terrible doblaje cinematográfico donde una persona hacía la voz de todos los personajes en un tono monótono. Sabíamos que AI podía hacerlo mejor.

Caminos Diferentes, Misma Visión

Después de la secundaria, nuestros caminos se separaron. Yo estudié matemáticas en Imperial College London y trabajé en Palantir. Piotr fue a Oxford y Cambridge, enfocándose en AI y machine learning.

Construyendo Nuestra Propia Investigación

En lugar de usar modelos existentes, realizamos nuestra propia investigación para entender qué hace que las voces humanas suenen humanas. Construimos todo desde cero: capturando pausas naturales, risas, muletillas conversacionales.

El Lanzamiento Beta

En enero de 2023, solo 5 meses después de lanzar nuestro beta, habíamos atraído a más de un millón de usuarios. El mercado validó nuestra visión inmediatamente.

Crecimiento Rápido

Para finales de 2024, habíamos recaudado más de $350M y teníamos una valoración de más de $1 billion. Ahora estamos trabajando con editoriales como HarperCollins para crear audiolibros a escala.

Fundada: abril de 2022
1M usuarios: enero de 2023 (5 meses después del beta)
Total recaudado: $350M+
Valoración: $1B+ (2024)

Key Takeaways

Construye tu propia investigación en lugar de confiar en modelos existentes

Soluciona un problema que experimentas profundamente

Las amistades de la infancia pueden convertirse en relaciones poderosas de cofundadores

Enfócate en lo que hace que la tecnología se sienta humana, no solo funcional

Originally published onContrary Research

Founder proof brief

A one-page proof brief turns Mati's ElevenLabs playbook into your next test.

See what it covers before you sign up: the pattern worth copying, the channel to test, and the risk to avoid when you adapt this story.

Pattern

$100K ARR

Channel

Comunidades

Output

Action checklist

What a proof brief covers

A one-page brief that turns Mati's pattern into a testable plan
Channel bet: start from Comunidades
A risk check before copying the ElevenLabs playbook

See what a proof brief covers

See what it covers first. Create an account only if you choose to unlock.

Inspired by Mati's journey? Generate a business idea in the AI / ML space using AI and real founder data.

Milestone Journey

Mati achieved 3 milestones on the path to $100K ARR

Primer Cliente

1 month

May 2022

70% faster

vs avg 3 months

+7 months to next milestone

$10K MRR

$50,000

8 months

September 2022

62% faster

vs avg 1 year

+1 month to next milestone

$100K ARR

$1,000,000

9 months

January 2023

75% faster

vs avg 3 years

9 months

Total journey time

Milestones achieved

Mati's Path to $100K ARRPremium

The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone

How Mati actually did it

6/7 funnel stages sourced

Reconstructed from Mati's own published sources. Quoted claims are the founder's words, verified verbatim; anything marked as our analysis is exactly that.

Where the idea came from

Personal painPivot from Full AI movie/video dubbing automation (the original grand vision) - pivoted to text-to-speech narration and voice cloning for content creators after early conversations with prospective users showed dubbing wasn't their top problem.

Mati and Piotr grew up in Poland experiencing the country's notoriously bad movie dubbing, where a single monotone narrator voices every character regardless of gender or emotion. That lived frustration, revisited during weekend side projects the pair started around early 2021 (an accent/speech-coaching tool first, then a dubbing concept from mid-to-late 2021), became the seed for ElevenLabs, founded in April 2022.

“ElevenLabs was founded on the back of poor-quality dubbing.”

Mati Staniszewski (@mati) tweet on ElevenLabs' dubbing origin

Validation

Built first, validated after

Talking to usersInvalidated

Mati emailed over 1,000 YouTubers with dubbing demo samples to gauge interest before building the dubbing product out further.

Response was lukewarm (third-party accounts put the reply rate around 15%), and most who did reply were skeptical or flagged technical roadblocks. The conversations revealed creators actually wanted a simpler narration/voiceover tool, not full dubbing.

Per AI-native GTM: Sound strategy, the hybrid playbook fueling ElevenLabs' trajectory to $300M ARR (third-party analysis with quotes from founders and employees)

MvpValidated

Built a first working prototype within the first month of starting in earnest, then ran a closed beta (first batch reportedly 11 people) testing storytelling and publishing use cases ahead of the public launch.

Founders described testing the beta against a range of storytelling and publishing use cases and iterating on infrastructure before opening it more broadly.

“Currently testing Beta with a range of storytelling and publishing use-cases, tackle relevant feedback and make sure the infrastructure supports it.”

Hacker News comments by ElevenLabs co-founders (accounts piotr11 and matisqe) on the Show HN thread for ElevenLabs' voice demo

WaitlistValidated1000 signups

Opened a public waitlist around the January 2023 beta launch, sending audio samples to AI-focused newsletters and posting demos into Discord and Reddit communities.

Multiple accounts describe roughly 1,000 people joining the waiting list in the run-up to and around the public beta.

Per ICONIQ Capital "The Uncommon Path" video interview transcript with Mati Staniszewski (posted by ICONIQ, not ElevenLabs)

First test users

Online community~1000 usersFree testersDiscordRedditHacker News

Founders published a demo blog post with audio samples (described as "the first AI that can laugh") and shared it directly into Discord and Reddit communities; the same demo reached the top of Hacker News, which together drove the first wave of roughly 1,000 waitlist signups.

Per ICONIQ Capital "The Uncommon Path" video interview transcript with Mati Staniszewski (posted by ICONIQ, not ElevenLabs)

Acquisition channels, and whether they worked

Communities · Discord & Reddit (demo post with voice samples)Pre-launchWorked

Posted a demo blog post with audio samples directly into Discord and Reddit communities ahead of the public beta.

Per ICONIQ Capital "The Uncommon Path" video interview transcript with Mati Staniszewski (posted by ICONIQ, not ElevenLabs)

Community audiences picked the demo up and spread it faster than any paid or press channel.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

Communities · Hacker News (Show HN-style thread, Jan 2023)LaunchWorked

The same voice demo reached the top of Hacker News; both co-founders answered technical and pricing questions directly in the comments under their own accounts.

“Hey - developers behind ElevenLabs here. Thank you so much for the constructive and positive feedback - we're taking it onboard!”

Hacker News comments by ElevenLabs co-founders (accounts piotr11 and matisqe) on the Show HN thread for ElevenLabs' voice demo

Other · AI-focused newslettersLaunchWorked

Sent audio samples to AI-focused newsletters around the public beta launch.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

Newsletter audiences of AI early-adopters converted into waitlist signups faster than general or traditional press coverage.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

Other · Traditional press (major publication feature)LaunchDidn't work

Prepared extensively for a feature in a major publication around the beta launch.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

The feature ran but produced no measurable effect on signups or attention, unlike the community channels used at the same time.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

Word of Mouth · Audiobook authors and content creatorsFirst customersWorked

An early audiobook author used the beta's size-limited text box to generate an entire book by pasting the manuscript in repeatedly and stitching the audio together; other book authors followed within days after seeing the result.

Per ICONIQ Capital "The Uncommon Path" video interview transcript with Mati Staniszewski (posted by ICONIQ, not ElevenLabs)

Output quality was good enough that satisfied users evangelized directly to peer creators without any deliberate referral program.

Per ICONIQ Capital "The Uncommon Path" video interview transcript with Mati Staniszewski (posted by ICONIQ, not ElevenLabs)

What didn't work

FundraisingPre-launchCost: time

The 2022 pre-seed fundraise was rejected by roughly 30 to 50 investors before the round closed.

Per Benzinga/Yahoo Finance article reporting Mati Staniszewski's comments on the 20VC podcast

Investors questioned whether a voice AI market existed at all and how two unproven European founders could compete with big tech incumbents.

Per Benzinga/Yahoo Finance article reporting Mati Staniszewski's comments on the 20VC podcast

What they did instead: Kept pitching until finding early believers (reported to include Credo Ventures and Concept Ventures) who backed the vision; closed roughly $2M pre-seed at a $9M valuation.

Product scopeScalingCost: both

ElevenLabs had shared its API components with an enterprise customer; that customer built and launched its own AI dubbing product using those components about two weeks before ElevenLabs' own planned dubbing launch, reportedly in September 2023.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

Handing over the underlying building blocks let a customer beat them to market on the flagship use case they had spent roughly two years building toward, and the customer's launch captured the attention ElevenLabs had been building for its own release.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

What they did instead: Acknowledged the mistake openly with the team, then focused on relentless execution and later shipped their own dubbing product.

How it changed as they grew

At launch: 5 people (2 co-founders plus 3 early hires, at pre-seed stage around the public beta launch.)

Today: 120 people (Grown from 30 to 120 employees in the year before the January 2025 Series C round.)

Today: 250 people (About 250 employees as of September 2025, organized into roughly 20 micro-teams of 5-10 people each, reportedly planned to grow toward about 400 by end of 2025.)

Pre seed · $2,000,000 · 2022-07

Series a plus · $19,000,000 · 2023-06

Series a plus · $80,000,000 · 2023-12

Series a plus · $180,000,000 · 2025-01

Series a plus · $500,000,000 · 2026-02

Pricing restructure: Fixed monthly character-quota SaaS tiers with a usage-based overage option, as described at the January 2023 beta launch. → Credit-based tiered commitments with volume discounts, positioned deliberately against pure consumption-based pricing.

Likely intended to keep enterprise revenue predictable for capacity planning and give large customers cost certainty, rather than a pure usage-based model that is harder to forecast. This is our reading of the company's later pricing structure, not a founder-stated rationale.

Our analysis, not the founder's claim

What broke as they grew

Talent scarcity in voice AI research, combined with research advantages being temporary (an estimated 6-12 month lead) rather than a permanent moat, is described as the binding constraint on how far ahead ElevenLabs can stay of competitors.

Per Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance)

Sources (8 in the founder's own words)

ElevenLabs Announces $19m Series A Round (company blog, quotes attributed to Mati Staniszewski & Piotr Dabkowski) · founder-authored · 2023-06
ElevenLabs raises $180M Series C to be the voice of the digital world (company blog, written by Mati Staniszewski) · founder-authored · 2025-01
ElevenLabs raises $500M Series D at $11B valuation (company blog, written by Mati Staniszewski & Piotr Dabkowski) · founder-authored · 2026-02
Mati Staniszewski (@mati) tweet on ElevenLabs' dubbing origin · founder-authored · 2025-03
Mati Staniszewski (@mati) tweet on co-founder Piotr and the early ElevenLabs days · founder-authored · 2024-09
Mati Staniszewski LinkedIn post announcing the founding of ElevenLabs · founder-authored · 2022-08
Mati Staniszewski LinkedIn post marking two years since the public beta launch · founder-authored · 2025-01
Hacker News comments by ElevenLabs co-founders (accounts piotr11 and matisqe) on the Show HN thread for ElevenLabs' voice demo · founder-authored · 2023-01
Warm Intro #047: Mati Staniszewski (third-party Q&A newsletter, first-person answers from Mati) · third party · 2023-02
Benzinga/Yahoo Finance article reporting Mati Staniszewski's comments on the 20VC podcast · third party · 2025-09
ICONIQ Capital "The Uncommon Path" video interview transcript with Mati Staniszewski (posted by ICONIQ, not ElevenLabs) · third party · 2025-08
Pod Shots: How ElevenLabs Reached £200M ARR (third-party written summary of Mati Staniszewski's 20VC podcast appearance) · third party · 2025-10
AI-native GTM: Sound strategy, the hybrid playbook fueling ElevenLabs' trajectory to $300M ARR (third-party analysis with quotes from founders and employees) · third party · 2025-10
Air Street Press: ElevenLabs and the Voice Frontier (third-party recap of a RAAIS 2025 fireside chat with Mati Staniszewski) · third party · 2025-07

Persistence

Projects attempted before finding success

failed projects before this one worked

Learned from a previous attempt

Launch Strategy

How they introduced the product to the world

Usuarios Beta

Initial go-to-market approach

Validation

How they tested demand before building

MVP

Method used to confirm market interest

Most common approach — build and learn fast

Launch Pricing

Price point when the product first launched

$20-50/mo

Initial pricing strategy

Starting Audience

Whether they had followers before launch

Started from Zero

Built audience alongside the product

63% of founders in our database started from zero

Time Investment

Average weekly hours during building phase

80 hrs

per week on average

Full-time dedication

Initial Investment

Capital required to get started

$50,000

in startup costs

Significant upfront investment

Biggest Challenge

Crear voces de AI que suenen verdaderamente humanas, no robóticas como las soluciones existentes

Unlock Mati's Full Journey

See the complete breakdown: launch strategy, validation methods, startup costs, expert analysis, replication playbook, and more actionable insights.

Upgrade to Premium

Instant access to all founder journeys

Frequently asked questions

How much does ElevenLabs make?

ElevenLabs reports $330M ARR as of December 2025. ElevenLabs closed 2025 at $330M+ ARR (some sources $350M). $120M ARR end-2024. Source: ElevenLabs / Saastr.

What is ElevenLabs?

Plataforma de generación de voces con AI que crea voces realistas y humanoides para creadores de contenido, editoriales y empresas. It operates in AI / ML.

How long did it take ElevenLabs to reach $100k arr?

Mati Staniszewski & Piotr Dąbkowski took 9 months to reach $100k arr with ElevenLabs.

Was Mati Staniszewski & Piotr Dąbkowski a solo founder?

No. Mati Staniszewski & Piotr Dąbkowski built ElevenLabs with co-founders.

What marketing channel did ElevenLabs use to grow?

ElevenLabs grew primarily through Comunidades.

What industry is ElevenLabs in?

ElevenLabs operates in AI / ML.

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Piotr y yo nos conocimos siendo adolescentes en la Secundaria Copernicus en Varsovia, Polonia. Ambos nos frustrábamos con lo mismo: voces de AI que sonaban obviamente robóticas.

El Problema que Vivimos

Crecer en Polonia nos expuso al terrible doblaje cinematográfico donde una persona hacía la voz de todos los personajes en un tono monótono. Sabíamos que AI podía hacerlo mejor.

Caminos Diferentes, Misma Visión

Construyendo Nuestra Propia Investigación

El Lanzamiento Beta

En enero de 2023, solo 5 meses después de lanzar nuestro beta, habíamos atraído a más de un millón de usuarios. El mercado validó nuestra visión inmediatamente.

Crecimiento Rápido

Para finales de 2024, habíamos recaudado más de $350M y teníamos una valoración de más de $1 billion. Ahora estamos trabajando con editoriales como HarperCollins para crear audiolibros a escala.

Fundada: abril de 2022
1M usuarios: enero de 2023 (5 meses después del beta)
Total recaudado: $350M+
Valoración: $1B+ (2024)

ElevenLabs: De amigos de secundaria de Polonia a plataforma de voz AI de $1B+

The Full Story

El Problema que Vivimos

Caminos Diferentes, Misma Visión

Construyendo Nuestra Propia Investigación

El Lanzamiento Beta

Crecimiento Rápido

Key Takeaways

A one-page proof brief turns Mati's ElevenLabs playbook into your next test.

What a proof brief covers

Milestone Journey

Primer Cliente

$10K MRR

$100K ARR

Unlock Mati's Full Journey

Frequently asked questions

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ElevenLabs: De amigos de secundaria de Polonia a plataforma de voz AI de $1B+

The Full Story

El Problema que Vivimos

Caminos Diferentes, Misma Visión

Construyendo Nuestra Propia Investigación

El Lanzamiento Beta

Crecimiento Rápido

Key Takeaways

A one-page proof brief turns Mati's ElevenLabs playbook into your next test.

What a proof brief covers

Milestone Journey

Primer Cliente

$10K MRR

$100K ARR

Unlock Mati's Full Journey

Frequently asked questions

More Stories You Might Like

How I turned a spreadsheet into a $2M+/year business as a solo founder

How I made $22K in 7 days with a ChatGPT UI tool

From Paris waiter to $250K in 5 months selling a code boilerplate

Explore similar stories

Enjoyed this story?

Join founders learning from real success stories