Simo's 7 figure CRM

Hey, it’s Guy & Farzan.

Writing this from Nerja in Spain. Small fishing village, big sun. My daughters are travelling in Europe. I was in Scotland seeing family and friends and jumped over. Perfect weather for founder stories.

Reading time: 8 mins

In the mail today. 3 founder stories, 1 founder note, 1 founder tip

 Founder story 1 

From McKinsey to $9M-Funded Founder: How Simo built a seven-figure CRM for 3,500 companies by fixing what everyone hated about CRMs.

The Journey
- Grew up in Morocco in a family of entrepreneurs, always knowing he wanted to create his own business
- Completed intensive Classe préparatoire program and was accepted to both HEC and Polytechnique
- Worked in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and consulting at McKinsey
- Got tired of working on projects he didn't care about and recommendations that stayed on slides
- Enrolled in Le Wagon coding bootcamp to learn technical skills
- Met co-founder Thibaud Elziere after DMing him on Twitter following a podcast

The evolution of vision
- 2021: Started freelancing with 20 different client touchpoints - used Notion to manage relationships but it was a mess
- 2022: Discovered existing CRMs had terrible user experience despite huge market size
- 2023: Partnered with Thibaud to reinvent CRM and take on Salesforce
- 2024: Built product with focus on ease of use, integration, and AI automation
- 2025: Reached seven-figure ARR with 3,500 company clients

Overcoming obstacles
- Spent 18 months building the product while managing a waitlist of 10,000 interested users
- Had to navigate the challenge of competing in a mature category with high user expectations
- Balanced technical product development with go-to-market strategy
- Built credibility in a crowded space dominated by established players
- Maintained focus on product-market fit through rigorous metrics and user feedback

Today's impact
- Seven-figure annual recurring revenue
- 3,500 company clients
- 150,000 website visitors per month
- 18 employees
- $9 million in funding from Accel and 100 angel operators including founders of Webflow, Dropbox, and Behance

Growth strategies that worked
- Multi-Channel Scientific Approach: Tested acquisition channels systematically using metrics like effort, cost, conversion, and average basket size
- Product-Led Growth: Engineered the product for natural sharing and collaboration
- Strategic Launching: Launched repeatedly at every opportunity, including a successful Product Hunt launch
- Affiliate Program: Leveraged partners to drive 50% of new revenue, similar to HubSpot's model
- SEO and Paid Advertising: Combined organic and paid search across Google, Meta, Reddit, and LinkedIn

Key milestones
- Created homepage with 10,000 signups before building the product
- Spent 18 months in development while progressively giving access to waitlist users
- Achieved product-market fit through DAU/MAU and DAU/WAU metrics combined with qualitative feedback
- Secured $9 million in funding from top-tier investors and industry operators
- Built team to 18 employees while scaling to seven figures ARR

The philosophy

"The best growth hack is word of mouth. It's free and scales infinitely. And the only way to engineer word of mouth is to build a great product."

"Fall in love with a problem, not your product."

The vision for 2025
Believes the future of sales will be fundamentally different within 24 months:
- CRMs will capture all data from every touchpoint - communication channels, social media, websites, meetings, calls, and conferences
- Hyper-specialized AI assistants will handle research, lead scoring, email follow-ups, and meeting briefs
- Salespeople will focus on the human element of connecting with people while AI handles operational work
- The job of salespeople will be fundamentally transformed to prioritize relationship-building over administrative tasks

Founder story 2

From 16 followers to $6.8M ARR: The Chatbase story

Yasser built Chatbase from zero to $6.8M ARR in under 3 years as a solo founder with no funding. Starting with just 16 Twitter followers, he went viral with a simple demo tweet that changed everything.

Key Takeaways:
- The Million-Dollar Tweet: His third-ever tweet went viral by showcasing a familiar ChatGPT-like interface, demonstrating clear value in 20 seconds, and mentioning AI tools that wanted exposure (LangChain, Pinecone)
- Growth Hack: Reached $1M ARR in just 117 days by treating every feature release as a "new launch" and creating free chatbots for book communities and influencers
- Build in Public Playbook: Share daily progress, post videos on X, be personal and controversial, frame everything as "taking you on the journey"
|- Product-Led Growth: Simple Stripe button, one core feature (upload PDF and chat), focus on quality MVP over complexity

The Numbers:
10,000+ paying customers ($40-500/month),
600,000+ registered users, pure PLG model.

His biggest regret:
Not thinking big enough initially - aimed for $10K/month lifestyle instead of shooting for $100M ARR.

Perfect example of how timing, execution, and viral marketing can accelerate growth in the AI era.

Founder story 3

John Rush: From VC to $3M ARR No-Code Empirea

"From Venture Capital Burnout to Building 26 Profitable Products: How John Rush Created a Self-Sustaining Business Ecosystem That Generates Millions Without Traditional Funding."

The journey
- Left the high-pressure world of venture-backed startups in 2022
- Bought Unicorn Platform for nearly $1 million as his entry into bootstrapping
- Convinced the founder to stay for a year as mentor to learn bootstrapping
- Transformed from ex-VC executive into prominent indie hacking figure
- Built portfolio of 26 profitable projects with 7 core revenue drivers

The evolution
- 2022: "I want autonomy and users who love what I build"
- 2023: "Every product should solve my own pain points first"
- 2024: "Build a self-reinforcing ecosystem of interconnected tools"
- 2025: "Create 1,000 highly-niched tools through MarsX platform"

Overcoming obstacles
- Unicorn Platform suffered frequent outages and declining retention when acquired
- Spent entire first year rebuilding infrastructure and fixing core problems
- Tested nearly two dozen marketing strategies before finding winning formula
- Failed $40K podcast experiment and early delegation of social media
- Learned that paid ads, partnerships, and Reddit traffic often underperformed

Today's impact
- $3M annual recurring revenue across 26 products
- Over 500,000 users on Unicorn Platform alone
- 200,000 yearly organic visitors through SEO mastery
- 10% of user acquisition through cross-promotion ecosystem
- 50+ SaaS directories featuring his products

Growth strategies that worked
- SEO Mastery: Deep keyword research using Google Keyword Planner for exact-match domains
- Cross-Promotion: Each tool promotes others, creating self-reinforcing traffic network
- Directory Approach: Every product built

Founder note from David Hieatt

I don’t want a typical day.

By 8am I am soaked.
I’ve lit outside fires on the farm.
Unblocked guttering.
Restocked sauna wood.
Made coffees for the legends in the kitchen.
Got a piece of carrot cake in return. Nice.

Now, I’m getting the words on the new Hiut Denim Co website to sound like us.
I love words.

Then, at 2.45pm I have to redo some audio for a TV commercial that will feature Hiut. Nice.

Then later I am off for a weekly massage.
Nice.

You don’t win by getting there.
You win by how alive you felt on the way there.

Note to self.
These are the days, they always were.

 A founder tip we loved

All done. Off out for a hot evening Spanish stroll with my daughters

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See you next week.

Guy + Farzan
Founderoo