Miquel Palet

Zernio

Leaving a VC-Backed Edtech to Bootstrap Zernio to $1M ARR in 10 Months

$1M ARR

Current revenue · as of July 2026

Indie Hackers

10 months

$100K ARR

SEO / Content

Growth channel

Solo founder

Founder

Miquel Palet

Solo founder•Technical

Commitment

Full-time

Experience

Experienced

Product

Zernio

Type

API / developer tool

Industry

Developer tools

Model

Subscription

Marketing strategy

How Miquel acquired customers

Growth channel

SEO / Content

Also used

Paid adsOther

Tech Stack

Tools used to build Zernio

Next.jsMongoDBTinybirdVercelCloudflareAxiomCrispFumadocs

The full story

TL;DR

Miquel Palet left a venture-backed edtech path, built a focused developer API in a weekend, and used bottom-of-funnel SEO plus paid ads to bootstrap Zernio to $1M ARR in about 10 months.

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.

Key Takeaways

Pick a buyer you understand deeply; Miquel chose developers because he could sell to himself.

Start with the few integrations that matter most instead of trying to cover every platform on day one.

Bottom-of-funnel SEO can work even with low search volume when the intent is exact.

Infrastructure shortcuts are cheap early but expensive once an API product scales.

Originally published onIndie Hackers

Founder proof brief

A one-page proof brief turns Miquel's Zernio 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

SEO / Content

Output

Action checklist

What a proof brief covers

A one-page brief that turns Miquel's pattern into a testable plan
Channel bet: start from SEO / Content
A risk check before copying the Zernio playbook

See what a proof brief covers

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Against every documented journey

The median of the 226 documented journeys with this milestone is 2.0 years; this one took 10 months.

This journey

10 months

Median of 226

2.0 years

Benchmark yourself against the dataset

Miquel's Path to $100K ARRPremium

The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone

How Miquel actually did it

7/7 funnel stages sourced

Reconstructed from Miquel'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 Late (rebranded to Zernio in March 2026; same product, API, and team, only the name and domain changed)

Zernio traces back to a side project of Miquel's that needed to post to a few social platforms; every platform's API behaved differently, and the team spent more time fighting those APIs than building their actual product, which pushed them toward one unified API instead. Separately, in the Indie Hackers interview, Miquel frames the same choice as picking developers as the buyer because he understood their problem firsthand.

“We were working on a side project that needed to post to a few social platforms. Should be easy, right? It wasn't.”

Zernio About page

Validation

Built first, validated after

No validationValidated

No separate landing page, presale, or survey phase is described. The team shipped the weekend-built MVP directly and treated real usage as the validation signal.

Miquel decided to build for developers and says the product worked well from day one.

“So I decided to try it, and it worked well from day one.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

First test users

Paid acquisitionFree testers

The founder says Zernio's users have come mainly through SEO and paid search targeting bottom-of-funnel developer keywords, run since day one; he also says overall growth is hard to attribute precisely.

“We mainly acquire users through SEO and paid advertising. For both, we target BOFu keywords, like 'social media API'.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

First paying customer

UnknownFree to paid upgrade

Zernio is self-serve with no sales demos: people sign up, try the free plan, and convert to a paid tier once they hit its limits. The founder says he cannot reliably attribute where users originally come from.

“users just sign up and test the product on the free plan, upgrading if they hit limits”

Indie Hackers founder interview

Acquisition channels, and whether they worked

SEO / Content · bottom-of-funnel keyword pages (e.g. "social media API")First customersWorked

Zernio targets low-volume, high-intent bottom-of-funnel search terms rather than broad keywords.

“We mainly acquire users through SEO and paid advertising. For both, we target BOFu keywords, like 'social media API'.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

Search volume for these terms is low, but conversion is high because visitors already know exactly what they need.

“These don't need many searches because they convert extremely well. Each visitor is looking for our exact solution.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

Paid ads · bottom-of-funnel search adsFirst customersWorked

Zernio targets the same bottom-of-funnel developer search terms with paid ads as it does with SEO.

“We mainly acquire users through SEO and paid advertising. For both, we target BOFu keywords, like 'social media API'.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

The founder's general advice is to start with paid acquisition early if budget allows, to get in front of potential customers right away.

“If you have the budget and it doesn't require a large investment, you need to start appearing in front of your potential clients.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

Other · YouTube (unedited Loom-style demo videos)ScalingWorked

The videos are simple, unedited screen recordings rather than produced content.

“They're just simple Loom recordings, 5 to 10 minutes with no editing.”

Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: YouTube channel MRR

The founder attributes early results to covering topics with real buying intent, leading with the result before the steps, and a clear call to action.

“Topics with real buying intent”

Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: YouTube channel MRR

Product Hunt · Zernio WhatsApp API launchScalingWorked

Zernio launched a new WhatsApp API product on Product Hunt and asked its audience to vote.

“Zernio is today on @ProductHunt”

Miki Palet X post: Product Hunt WhatsApp API launch

The launch reached the number one spot on Product Hunt the same day.

“We're currently in #1”

Miki Palet X post: number one on Product Hunt

What didn't work

PositioningScalingCost: time

The original product name, Late (getlate.dev), was hard for people to find, recommend, and remember, which the founder says hurt organic discovery.

“Your brand name is a distribution channel. If people can't Google it, they can't find you.”

Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: rebranding Late to Zernio

What they did instead: Rebranded Late to Zernio in March 2026; getlate.dev now redirects to zernio.com, with no code changes required for existing users.

Tech choiceScalingCost: time

The team chose simple infrastructure early instead of building for scale from the start, which the founder now says was the wrong call for an infrastructure product.

“Nailing the infrastructure from the start is crucial when scaling an infrastructure product.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

As data volume grew, MongoDB could not keep up with analytics workloads at a reasonable cost.

“MongoDB was too slow and expensive for it.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

What they did instead: Migrated analytics data into Tinybird, and moved parts of the workload that Vercel's serverless functions could not handle onto Cloudflare queues.

How it changed as they grew

First 100k arr: 5 people (Four developers (one focused on customer support) plus one marketer, alongside the founder)

Today: 8 people (Eight people across Spain, spanning development, growth, and design, plus the founder)

Bootstrapped

Pricing restructure

The team simplified an earlier, more complex plan structure into fewer plans with clearer limits.

“We simplified everything: fewer plans, clearer limits.”

Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: first $999/mo client

Pricing restructure: Fixed monthly tiers (Starter, Accelerate, Unlimited) → Usage-based pricing: pay per connected social account, first two accounts free

After months of watching usage patterns, the founder concluded that fixed plans and add-ons created friction as customers scaled up.

“For the last few months we've been seeing how our users use our product. Plans and add-ons add friction when scaling.”

Miki Palet X post: usage-based pricing switch

What broke as they grew

The founder says maintaining month-over-month MRR doubling gets harder as the company grows, even though growth is still fast.

“As we get bigger, keeping that pace becomes more difficult, but we're still growing fast.”

Indie Hackers founder interview

Sources (11 in the founder's own words)

Indie Hackers founder interview · founder-authored · 2026-04
Zernio About page · founder-authored
Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: first $999/mo client · founder-authored · 2025-10
Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: YouTube channel MRR · founder-authored · 2025-08
Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: building Late in 48 hours · founder-authored · 2025-10
Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: rebranding Late to Zernio · founder-authored · 2026-03
Miquel Palet LinkedIn post: Tailride acquired · founder-authored · 2026-04
Miquel Palet LinkedIn profile About section · founder-authored
Miki Palet X post: usage-based pricing switch · founder-authored · 2026-05
Miki Palet X post: Product Hunt WhatsApp API launch · founder-authored · 2026-06
Miki Palet X post: number one on Product Hunt · founder-authored · 2026-06

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Frequently asked questions

How much does Zernio make?

Zernio reports $1M ARR as of July 2026. Founder interview says Zernio crossed $1M ARR within roughly 10 months and was still growing quickly. Source: Indie Hackers.

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

Miquel Palet took 10 months to reach $100k arr with Zernio.

Was Miquel Palet a solo founder?

Yes. Miquel Palet built Zernio as a solo founder.

What marketing channel did Zernio use to grow?

Zernio grew primarily through SEO / Content.

What industry is Zernio in?

Zernio operates in Developer tools.

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The full story

TL;DR

Miquel Palet left a venture-backed edtech path, built a focused developer API in a weekend, and used bottom-of-funnel SEO plus paid ads to bootstrap Zernio to $1M ARR in about 10 months.