Founder stories
$10K MRRin 2 years
3 milestones
Building a Viral Video Editor with the "Watermark Growth Hack"
Founder
Julia Enthoven & Eric Lu
Co-Founders•Technical•San Francisco, CA
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
First-timeProduct
Online video editor for creating images, videos, and GIFs - collaborative and AI-powered.
Type
SaaSIndustry
Content CreationModel
FreemiumMarketing Strategy
How Julia acquired customers
Primary Channel
SEO / Content
Also Used
Product HuntWord of Mouth
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Kapwing
ReactNode.jsFFmpegAWSStripe
The Full Story
TL;DR
Julia Enthoven and Eric Lu bootstrapped Kapwing to 100,000+ users using SEO and the viral watermark strategy.
Julia Enthoven left her job as a Google Product Manager to start Kapwing with Eric Lu, another ex-Googler, in July 2017.
The Origin
They wanted to build easy, accessible, and collaborative tools so anyone could create what they imagine. Julia's PM experience and Eric's engineering skills let them build and iterate quickly.
The Freemium Model
Kapwing is free to use with a watermark. Users can subscribe to a premium plan (~$20/month) to remove it. This "viral watermark" became their growth engine.
Bootstrapping to 100K Users
"My ability to write helped us kickstart our organic growth from zero to one. My PM experience helped us build a scrappy platform that grows organically."
- SEO for video editing queries
- Product Hunt (Maker of the Year 2018)
- The viral watermark driving brand awareness
- Founded: July 2017
- First 100K users: Bootstrapped organically
- Product Hunt: Maker of the Year 2018
- Forbes: 30 Under 30 (Consumer Tech)
Key Takeaways
1
A viral watermark can be a powerful growth mechanism for creative tools
2
SEO and content marketing can replace paid acquisition
3
Ex-big-tech experience provides useful skills for startups
4
Freemium works when free users spread awareness organically
Originally published onKapwing Company Blog
Inspired by Julia's journey? Generate a business idea in the Content Creation space using AI and real founder data.
Milestone Journey
Julia achieved 3 milestones on the path to $10K MRR
First Customer
1 month
August 2017
69% faster
vs avg 3 months+11 months to next milestone
$1K MRR
1 year
July 2018
Avg: 11 months
+1 year to next milestone
$10K MRR
2 years
July 2019
Avg: 1 year
2 years
Total journey time
3
Milestones achieved
Julia's Path to $10K MRRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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