Miquel Palet had already taken the venture-backed path. He dropped out of university to build Ucademy, a Spanish edtech company that grew to 120+ employees. After three years, he left that route behind and chose a more focused software opportunity: a developer-first API for social-media integrations.

Zernio started with a tight wedge. Instead of trying to cover every social network immediately, the team built an initial product in a weekend around the five biggest integrations, then spent about a month securing required platform scopes, with some approvals taking up to six months. The product let developers add posting, analytics, DMs, and advertising integrations in minutes rather than months.

The business model was self-serve SaaS from the start, with a free plan and paid monthly tiers. Zernio mainly acquired users through bottom-of-funnel SEO and paid ads for searches like social media API, where each visitor was already looking for exactly the product. The company kept doubling MRR month over month and crossed $1M ARR within roughly ten months, while expanding to 20+ platforms and a small team.