"How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots, and dozens of rejections resulted in Loom." Shahed Khan's honest reflection on the winding path to a nearly billion-dollar exit.

The First Failed Idea

Loom didn't begin as Loom. It started around a whiteboard with Vinay, Joe, and Shahed. They wrote down six ideas and went with what they thought was perfect: a user testing marketplace.

7 months in, they had only made $600. But they learned an important lesson: companies generally cared less about advice from experts (what they were selling). Instead, they wanted to hear directly from their own users.

Pivot #1: OpenTest

They pivoted to OpenTest, a tool for gathering user feedback via video. It was closer, but still wasn't gaining traction. With funds running low and time ticking away, they needed to make another difficult decision.

Pivot #2: Loom

The breakthrough came when they realized the video recording technology they'd built for user testing had broader applications. What if anyone could quickly record and share video messages?

That's the story of how Loom was born: an idea that worked, after a couple that didn't.

Product Hunt Launch

The day of their Product Hunt launch, Loom saw more signups than in the past 6 months combined. Over the next week, thousands more signed up. The founders had been up for 36 hours straight through the launch, running on fumes and excitement.

The Viral Loop

Loom's growth was driven by a powerful viral loop: every Loom video shared exposed new potential users to the product. When enough employees start using it "organically," companies have no option but to adopt Loom as a default communication tool.

In 2023, Atlassian acquired Loom for $975 million. Shahed's estimated take-home was around $100 million.