Shahed Khan

Loom

Как 9 месяцев неудачи и 2 поворота привели к выходу на $975 млн

$975M

Sold to Atlassian

Source

3 years

$100K ARR

Сарафанное радио

Канал роста

Сооснователи

Основатель

Shahed Khan

Сооснователи•Технический•USA

Занятость

Полная занятость

Опыт

Впервые

Продукт

Loom

Платформа асинхронного видеосообщения, которая помогает 23M+ пользователям общаться лучше в масштабе

Тип

SaaS

Отрасль

Продуктивность

Модель

Freemium

Маркетинговая стратегия

Как Shahed привлекал клиентов

Канал роста

Сарафанное радио

Также использовал

Product HuntСообщества

Tech Stack

Инструменты, использованные для создания Loom

ReactWebRTCNode.jsAWSChrome Extension APIs

Полная история

TL;DR

Shahed Khan и его сооснователи повернулись дважды перед посадкой на Loom. Платформа асинхронного видео была приобретена Atlassian за $975 миллионов.

«Как 9 месяцев строительства без успеха, 2 сложных поворота и десятки отказов привели к Loom.» Честные размышления Shahed Khan о петляющем пути к почти миллиардному выходу.

Первая неудачная идея

Loom не начинался как Loom. Это началось вокруг доски с Vinay, Joe и Shahed. Они написали шесть идей и выбрали то, что казалось идеальным: рынок тестирования пользователей.

7 месяцев спустя они заработали только $600. Но они выучили важный урок: компании в целом заботились меньше о совете от экспертов (что они продавали). Вместо этого они хотели услышать напрямую от своих собственных пользователей.

Поворот #1: OpenTest

Они повернулись к OpenTest, инструменту для сбора отзывов пользователей через видео. Это было ближе, но все еще не получало тягу. С средствами, подходящими к концу и временем, истекающим, им нужно было принять еще одно сложное решение.

Поворот #2: Loom

Прорыв пришел, когда они поняли, что технология видеозаписи, которую они построили для тестирования пользователей, имела более широкое применение. Что если кто-нибудь мог быстро записать и поделиться видеосообщениями?

Так рассказывается история того, как родилась Loom: идея, которая сработала, после пары, которые не сработали.

Запуск Product Hunt

В день запуска на Product Hunt, Loom увидел больше регистраций, чем за предыдущие 6 месяцев вместе взятых. На следующей неделе тысячи еще подписались. Основатели не спали 36 часов подряд через запуск, работая на парах и возбуждении.

Вирусный цикл

Рост Loom был движим мощным вирусным циклом: каждое общее видео Loom показывало новых потенциальных пользователей продукту. Когда достаточно много сотрудников начинают использовать это «органически», у компаний нет выбора, кроме как принять Loom как инструмент коммуникации по умолчанию.

В 2023 году Atlassian приобрел Loom за $975 миллионов. Предполагаемый доход Shahed составлял около $100 миллионов.

Ключевые выводы

Большинство успешных продуктов приходят после поворотов — Loom была третьей попыткой

Обратите внимание на то, что пользователи действительно хотят, а не что вы думаете, что им нужно

Вирусные циклы (каждое общее видео Loom = новый пользователь, подвергшийся) управляют экспоненциальным ростом

Запуски Product Hunt могут обеспечить массивную валидацию — их запуск превзошел 6 месяцев регистраций

Технология, которую вы создаете для одной проблемы, может быть решением для большей

Изначально опубликовано наShahed Khan Twitter

Founder proof brief

A one-page proof brief turns Shahed's Loom 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

Сарафанное радио

Output

Action checklist

What a proof brief covers

A one-page brief that turns Shahed's pattern into a testable plan
Channel bet: start from Сарафанное радио
A risk check before copying the Loom playbook

See what a proof brief covers

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

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Путь через milestone

Shahed достиг 4 milestone на пути к $100K ARR

Первый клиент

9 months

July 2016

Среднее: 1 month

+3 months до следующего milestone

$1K MRR

$1,000

1 year

October 2016

Среднее: 6 months

+1 year до следующего milestone

$10K MRR

$10,000

2 years

October 2017

Среднее: 1 year

+1 year до следующего milestone

$100K ARR

$100,000

3 years

October 2018

Среднее: 2 years

3 years

Общее время пути

Достигнутые milestone

Against every documented journey

Shahed Khan reached $10K MRR in 2.0 years, faster than 20% of the 295 documented $10K journeys (median 12 months). The amber bar is this journey.

See the full distribution

Путь Shahed к $100K ARRПремиум

История, решения и контекст, стоящие за этим milestone

How Shahed actually did it

6/7 funnel stages sourced

Reconstructed from Shahed'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

Pivot from prior productPivot from A user testing marketplace (the original whiteboard idea, which made only $600 in 7 months), then OpenTest, a SaaS product for companies to collect video feedback directly from their own users

Shahed Khan says Loom began at a whiteboard session with co-founders Vinay Hiremath and Joe Thomas, where the three wrote down six candidate ideas and chose the one they thought was the strongest: a user testing marketplace, the product that became the company's original, unsuccessful first attempt.

“It started around a whiteboard with Vinay, Joe, and myself. We wrote down six ideas, and went with the solution we thought was perfect”

Shahed Khan on X: "How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots...resulted in Loom" (long-form post)

Validation

Built first, validated after

MvpValidated

The team had already built and launched OpenTest (a video-feedback MVP) when a Harvard research team used its Chrome extension in an unintended way, recording a 1-minute video summary instead of sharing individual clips. That accidental use case, not a survey or presale, is the signal Shahed Khan credits with revealing that people wanted a communication tool, not a feedback tool.

Shahed Khan frames the Harvard team's unconventional use of OpenTest's recording extension as the moment that exposed the real opportunity behind Loom.

“This wasn’t how our product was supposed to be used.”

Shahed Khan on X: "How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots...resulted in Loom" (long-form post)

First test users

Online community~3000 usersFree testersProduct Hunt

Shahed Khan says the pivoted product (the screen and video recording extension that became Loom) launched on Product Hunt in June 2016 and picked up 3,000 signups on day one, dwarfing everything the team had accumulated in the prior 9 months.

“launched it on Product Hunt in June 2016, and had 3,000 people sign up on the same day”

Shahed Khan on X: "How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots...resulted in Loom" (long-form post)

Acquisition channels, and whether they worked

Product Hunt · Loom (video recording extension) launch, June 2016LaunchWorked

Shahed Khan's own account: the team took the recording extension built for OpenTest and launched it on Product Hunt in June 2016, generating 3,000 signups the same day.

“launched it on Product Hunt in June 2016, and had 3,000 people sign up on the same day”

Shahed Khan on X: "How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots...resulted in Loom" (long-form post)

Vinay Hiremath, in a third-party as-told-to Business Insider piece (not founder-published, so treated as implied rather than stated), credited the Product Hunt traction partly to staying active and answering questions and comments in real time rather than treating the listing as a one-way announcement.

Per Business Insider as-told-to essay: "How I got my first million users" (Vinay Hiremath, Loom co-founder/CTO, not Shahed Khan)

Word of mouth · single employee to company-wide adoption inside an existing customer (Atlassian)ScalingWorked

Co-founder Joe Thomas (writing for the whole founding team, which includes Shahed Khan) describes one Atlassian employee starting to record and share Looms five days after the June 2016 launch.

“the first @Atlassian employee started recording and sharing looms”

Joe Thomas LinkedIn post: "Today marks a monumental milestone in the Loom story" (Atlassian acquisition announcement)

That single early user's team grew into full company-wide adoption years later, which the founders point to as the viral, bottoms-up mechanism that eventually made Atlassian a customer and then an acquirer.

“Fast forward four years and they became the first organization to purchase thousands of Loom licenses”

Joe Thomas LinkedIn post: "Today marks a monumental milestone in the Loom story" (Atlassian acquisition announcement)

Twitter / X · responding to organic product mentionsScalingWorked

Vinay Hiremath, in the same third-party as-told-to piece (implied, not Shahed Khan's own words), described staying personally active on Twitter and engaging with anyone tweeting about the product as an ongoing practice.

Per Business Insider as-told-to essay: "How I got my first million users" (Vinay Hiremath, Loom co-founder/CTO, not Shahed Khan)

What didn't work

PositioningPre-launchCost: time

The original idea, a user testing marketplace selling expert testing/advice services to companies, generated only $600 in revenue over its first 7 months.

“7 months in, we only made $600”

Shahed Khan on X: "How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots...resulted in Loom" (long-form post)

Shahed Khan says the core mismatch was that customers didn't want paid expert opinions, the thing the team was selling; they wanted feedback straight from their own end users instead.

“Companies generally cared less about advice from experts”

Shahed Khan on X: "How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots...resulted in Loom" (long-form post)

What they did instead: Pivoted to OpenTest, a SaaS product letting companies collect direct video feedback from their own users instead of paid expert testers.

Product scopePre-launch

OpenTest itself (the direct-user-feedback pivot) does not appear, in Shahed Khan's own account, to have produced significant standalone traction before the team moved on again; he moves straight from the OpenTest premise to the Harvard misuse story without citing OpenTest revenue or user numbers.

Our analysis, not the founder's claim

What they did instead: Repurposed OpenTest's recording Chrome extension as a standalone video-messaging product and launched it separately on Product Hunt as Loom.

How it changed as they grew

At launch: 3 people (Vinay Hiremath, Joe Thomas and Shahed Khan, building out of a shared apartment in San Mateo)

Today: 2 people (Vinay Hiremath and Joe Thomas continued day-to-day; Shahed Khan stepped back from Loom's day-to-day operations, remaining a friend and advisor to the company)

Series a plus · $11,000,000 · 2019-02

Series a plus · $30,000,000 · 2019-11

Series a plus · $28,750,000

Series a plus · $130,000,000 · 2021-05

Sources (6 in the founder's own words)

Shahed Khan on X: "How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots...resulted in Loom" (long-form post) · founder-authored · 2024-04
Inside Atlassian blog: "Loom is joining Atlassian" (bylined Joe Thomas and Vinay Hiremath, co-founders) · founder-authored · 2023-10
Inside Atlassian blog: "Loom Raises $11MM Series A Led by Kleiner Perkins" (bylined Shahed Khan, co-founder) · founder-authored · 2019-02
Inside Atlassian blog: "Why we raised a $30M Series B" (bylined Joe Thomas, co-founder) · founder-authored · 2019-11
Joe Thomas LinkedIn post: "Loom Raises $130m Series C to Unlock the Potential of Video for Hybrid Work" · founder-authored · 2021-05
Joe Thomas LinkedIn post: "Today marks a monumental milestone in the Loom story" (Atlassian acquisition announcement) · founder-authored · 2023-10
Business Insider as-told-to essay: "How I got my first million users" (Vinay Hiremath, Loom co-founder/CTO, not Shahed Khan) · third party · 2022-02

Откройте полный путь Shahed

Смотрите полный разбор: стратегия запуска, методы валидации, стартовые затраты, экспертный анализ, replication playbook и другие практические инсайты.

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Frequently asked questions

Who acquired Loom?

Loom was acquired by Atlassian for $975M on November 2023. Acquired by Atlassian for $975M (Nov 2023). 25M+ users at acquisition.

What is Loom?

Платформа асинхронного видеосообщения, которая помогает 23M+ пользователям общаться лучше в масштабе. It operates in Продуктивность.

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

Shahed Khan took 3 years to reach $100k arr with Loom.

Was Shahed Khan a solo founder?

No. Shahed Khan built Loom with co-founders.

What marketing channel did Loom use to grow?

Loom grew primarily through Сарафанное радио.

What industry is Loom in?

Loom operates in Продуктивность.

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