Alexandru's 5-figure data startup

Hey - It's Farzan & Guy

It's sweaty hot in Sydney. Just tried on my tacky Christmas party outfit. It's a red matching Santa T-shirt and shorts. Highly flammable. I was jumping around dabbing and pulled my right calf muscle. Kids got it on video. Welcome to this week's newsletter.

Reading time: 7 mins

In the mail today. 3 founder stories, 1 positioning story, 1 tweet

 Founder story 1 

See how Alexandru turned AgainstData into a 5-figure startup helping users protect their data.

See how Alexandru:
- Built a privacy tech startup helping users clean their inboxes & delete personal data
- Grew from 0 to 20,000 newsletter subscribers without traditional marketing
- Turned a TV show rejection into 5,000 new users and valuable PR exposure

Distribution tips from Alexandru:
- Test one new channel every 30-45 days with clear metrics
- Use media appearances and PR to reach mainstream audiences
- Focus on paid channels over "free" social media growth

I love this story because Alexandru took such a different path - skipping social media and instead growing through TV appearances and PR stunts.

Founder story 2

How Marc Lou went from waiter to $1.5M/year

See how Marc:
- Failed 30 startups in 5 years
- Lost $4K/month business to COVID
- Finally succeeded with "Ship Fast" ($80-135K/month)

What worked:
- Building small vs chasing unicorns
- Launching fast vs perfecting
- Solving real problems
- Building in public

Key Lesson:
Success came from solving specific problems quickly rather than chasing unicorn ideas.

 Founder story 3 

You can now build a 100k software product in minutes with AI.

(Farzan summarised this founder story)

That's what Amjad Masad has built with Replit. But this "overnight success" was 14 years in the making.

Amjad…
- Started in 2009, age 21, coding from internet cafes in Jordan
- Worked nights & weekends for years while at Facebook
- Built company to 35M+ users
- Now valued at over $1B

But the fascinating part isn't just the numbers - it's how the vision evolved:
2009: "Why can't I just code in a browser?"
2015: "Let's make programming accessible to everyone"
2020: "Let's create a billion programmers"
2024: "Anyone can be a software creator"

The journey wasn't smooth:
- Rejected 4x by YC
- VCs literally fell asleep during pitches
- Had to fund it with $70k from selling Facebook stock
- Kept pushing for a decade before major success

Then everything changed. Paul Graham (YC founder) discovered them and emailed Sam Altman: "This company is very important."

Today's results:
- 35M+ users
- 100k+ apps hosted
- 2-3M monthly active users
- Companies built on Replit reaching $10M revenue in 3-4 months

Key insight about the future of software:
We're moving from "software engineers" to "software creators" - just like Shopify allowed anyone to create an online store.

The biggest opportunities now?
- Finding inefficient markets
- Understanding specific industry problems
- Using AI to solve them

Real example:
A teacher built an AI education platform on Replit that reached 4M+ users in just over a year.

Why this matters:
The bottleneck in software is shifting from "Can you code?" to "Can you spot the right problem to solve?"

Distribution and domain expertise are becoming more valuable than coding skills.

This is why Amjad believes we'll go from 30M developers to 300M+ software creators in the next few years.

The future isn't just about building AI - it's about using AI to build.

Positioning story

Anthony Pierri: Calling out the market leader to position your b

"Can't we just talk about why WE are great?
Why do we have to mention our competitor?"

We get this question a lot in our positioning projects with clients.

If you JUST talk about why you're great (without showing how you improve on a specific competitive alternative), you're hoping you're audience will...

1) know what you replace
2) know their shortcomings deeply
3) put two and two together to understand your differentiated value

This is asking A LOT... especially if you're an early-stage startup without a ton of brand credibility or recognition.

The entire point of positioning is to help customers know where to place you in their brains — and if you're replacing something else, you need make that explicit.

By calling out your differentiation against the named market leader, you're getting a soundbite that makes you super memorable and shareable.

We recently worked with Nathan Merzvinskis who is building Freckle (freckle.io).

Their initial GTM thesis is to piggyback off of the massive growth (and education) being done by Clay in order to capture the segment of the market that is not technical enough to fully utilize Clay's platform.

They aren't trying to steal away "clay-gencies" or anyone who currently loves Clay. They're looking for people who are underserved and overwhelmed by the flexibility of Clay, which, in turn, creates a steep learning curve.

In our project together, we debated framing this problem in ways that DIDN'T directly mention Clay. We tried hinting at "data enrichment," but the message still wasn't clear enough to create that shareable soundbite.

Eventually, we settled on using the phrase directly in the H1 as a quote, borrowing the tactic from Arc Browser using The Verge's headline: "the Chrome replacement you've been waiting for."

"It's like Clay without the learning curve" is simple enough for anyone to remember and repeat to others.

And the bet so far has paid off. Nathan has forwarded me tons of DMs of new customers essentially parroting back the exact same message he's putting out into the world and saying, "Yes! This is me!"

Don't be afraid to be bold.

Think about it... you've already quit your day job to chase the dream of creating a massively successful startup.

Why back down now??

 A tweet we love

That’s us done for the week.

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See you in 7 days.

Guy + Farzan
Founderoo