Founder stories
$100K ARRin 1 year
4 milestones
3x Founder Pivots from DevOps AI to Communication Tool, Hits $400K ARR
Founder
Snow Lee
Solo Founder•Technical•USA
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
ExperiencedProduct
AI communication tool for Slack and Teams.
Type
SaaSIndustry
AI / MLModel
SubscriptionMarketing Strategy
How Snow acquired customers
Primary Channel
Communities
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Runbear
OpenAI APIAnthropic APISlack APITeams API
The Full Story
Snow Lee is a 3x founder from South Korea who moved his family to California. He received $660K in pre-seed funding.
The Pivot
First version was an AI copilot for DevOps. They pivoted when they realized they were competing with their own customers.
Finding ICP
Non-technical users were most eager to use the solution. After struggling to find ICP, Snow finally dialed it in.
- Pre-seed: $660K
- Time to $100K ARR: ~1 year
- Current ARR: $400K
Key Takeaways
1
Sometimes you need to pivot away from your initial target customer
2
Non-technical users can be better customers than technical ones
3
Product-led growth works when the product solves a clear pain point
4
Finding your ICP is critical before scaling
Originally published onIndie Hackers
Inspired by Snow's journey? Generate a business idea in the AI / ML space using AI and real founder data.
Milestone Journey
Snow achieved 4 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
First Customer
2 months
March 2022
38% faster
vs avg 3 months+2 months to next milestone
$1K MRR
$1,000
4 months
May 2022
64% faster
vs avg 11 months+4 months to next milestone
$10K MRR
$10,000
8 months
September 2022
63% faster
vs avg 1 year+4 months to next milestone
$100K ARR
$400,000
1 year
January 2023
69% faster
vs avg 3 years1 year
Total journey time
4
Milestones achieved
Snow's Path to $100K ARRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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