$10M/Year Founder Explains How He Would Build a $1M SaaS in 2026

So by the time this podcast comes out, we will have hit 10 million R.

>> This is David Bark and he was right. His

startup reached 10 million a year just few days later. But it wasn't always like this.

>> I was kind of an NPC and I was kind of like a side character and my opinions and my thoughts really didn't seem to matter for a lot of my life.

>> 8 years ago, David was working from his parents' bedroom asking his mom chipotle money while his friend landed highaying job at Microsoft. My parents sacrificed

so much for me and I didn't want to be like a loser carrying my family's last name.

>> He failed nearly for a decade before finding an ID that would change his entire life.

>> Dude, when the $100,000 first hit our company bank account, we had never seen that much money. That was like the craziest day of my entire life.

>> So, what is his secret? While everyone

read the same startup blogs and follows the same playbook, David steals distribution strategies from completely different industries. We were really

different industries. We were really really early to use. There was basically this like really amazing marketing channel that very few SAS founders

really understood or cared about.

>> In this conversation, David reveals what he would do if he had to start from zero in 2026, his experience about raising money versus bootstrapping, and how he kept going when everything collapsed.

>> It was probably the worst time of my entire life. Everything that could have

entire life. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong like about a year ago, a year and a half ago.

>> So David, you were working from your parents' bedroom asking your mom for chipotle money while your friends were getting highaying jobs at companies like Microsoft.

How did you feel at that point?

>> Uh I mean not great. I think it's human nature to always like want to compare yourself to other people, but um just

had to fuel that energy and to try to make my own life better, I guess. But um

yeah, it was it was a trying difficult difficult period of my life, I would say.

>> I'm asking you this question because I'm sure a lot of people who will watch that are in this situation right now. So

>> yeah, >> it's always nice to have the background before talking about all your success, but to come back there like what was your main motivation? What made you want

to actually succeed?

>> I mean it's a it's a holistic thing, you know, it's not just one motivation. Um

obviously my parents sacrificed so much for me and I didn't want to be like a loser uh carrying my family's last name.

So that was a big motivation. Um, you

know, we alluded to it earlier of like I didn't want to be like the odd one out among my friends who just had who wasn't able to accomplish anything. So, that

was definitely a big motivator as well.

Um, just I've only experienced life from my perspective, from my point of view.

So from my perspective, I always felt like a protagonist of my story, but for some reason, uh, life just it seemed like I was kind of an NPC and I was kind

of like a side character and, you know, my opinions and my thoughts really didn't seem to matter for a lot of my life. even now you know a lot of times

life. even now you know a lot of times it doesn't but um you know by putting in the hours and trying to um you know do

some good work try to make a little bit of value uh put out something good in the world something helpful um I think that was something that motivated me as

well so yeah all those things and obviously like money also motivated me wanting to be like slightly more popular to

girls probably also motivated me. Um,

just yeah, I mean it's uh uh it's hard to it's hard to pinpoint one thing, you know. I think everyone is hardwired a

know. I think everyone is hardwired a little bit to want to to dream and to want things. And I'm a human just like

want things. And I'm a human just like everybody. So all those things motivated

everybody. So all those things motivated me. Yeah.

me. Yeah.

>> And I heard that you kept actually dreaming for eight years. During eight

years, you didn't have a lot of success online. And what did you learn during

online. And what did you learn during this time that helped you today to actually build launch Jenny and do

almost 10 million a year?

>> Yeah. I mean, by the time this podcast comes out, I think we're like like 40k AR away from 10 million. So, by the time this podcast comes out, we will have hit

10 million AR R. Um, which is pretty exciting. But yeah, I mean over the

exciting. But yeah, I mean over the years, I mean, um it's it's tough to pinpoint the things you learn. You know,

it's kind of like riding a bicycle.

Like, uh I could tell you like the granular details of like, oh, you want to make sure you're you're shifting your momentum and you're the you're syncopating your like right foot and

your left foot and you're keeping x amount of pressure on the handle. You

know, it's like it's kind of just you get on the bike and you you fall and you fall and you fall and eventually like the things you learn is like how painful it is when you scrape your knee. You you

learn like what gravel kind of tastes like. You learn kind of like what top

like. You learn kind of like what top speed you were able to hit yesterday and what top speed you want to hit the day after. Um, so yeah, I mean I I wish

after. Um, so yeah, I mean I I wish there was like some sexy thing of like, oh, you know, if I could sum up my eight years of learning, it's that you need to do this one kind of secret thing. If I

was probably selling a course, that's probably like what I would what I would want to say. But um there's a lot of things like you like when it comes to how to talk to users like there's so many little things I learned over the

eight years like how to actually make your product delightful how to get them to aha moment kind of faster like uh which distribution channel is best in

which situation um how to actually uh build out you know these these campaigns for each of these channels. Um how to hire the right team. How to incentivize

the team. how to uh raise money, how to

the team. how to uh raise money, how to how to acquire company, you know, all these things like um but you know, it's not like I wouldn't say any one of these

skills is the big thing that um really made the difference. It's kind of like uh you kind of have to be a generalist, I would say, and know a little bit of all these things to succeed.

>> Yeah. Basically, this eight years of experiment built this overnight success that you have right now. Exactly. It's

super easy. It all happened in one night. Um it was uh anyone can do it.

night. Um it was uh anyone can do it.

No, I'm just kidding. It was It was very very difficult. Yeah, it was it was a

very difficult. Yeah, it was it was a tough It was tough journey.

>> Yeah. Click on the link below to buy the course by the way.

>> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's uh $2,000 for the first course and then once you get in that course, there's a $3,000 upsell for the real course and then there's a $100 a month to like stay in the Discord

community.

>> Man, I'm hooked. I will buy it.

>> Well, by the way, there's no course.

>> No, don't go for it.

>> Um, talking about course, actually, let's do a let's do a mini course. You

did um a super thread like a year ago, I think almost two years ago, >> how to go from zero to 3 million a year.

>> And I would like to do it again here. If

you had to start over in 2026, you probably learned a lot of things since January 2024.

>> How would you find an ID, raise money or not, build a product and distribute it?

>> Yeah, I mean, I would I would I mean, the first most important thing is I would just not build anything unless I felt like there was actually uh

something that people are willing to pay for. So, my first probably few weeks

for. So, my first probably few weeks would just be talking to anybody that would talk to me and I would just say, "What's like a role you're trying to hire for?" or like, "Of the people

hire for?" or like, "Of the people you've hired, what's something you wish they did better?" Or like, "What's like a problem

better?" Or like, "What's like a problem in your company?" You know? Um, and then they would tell me some problem and I would say, "Okay, well, if I solved that for you, would you pay me like a few

hundred a month for that?" And probably nine out of 10en times they'll say no because they're just complaining and they don't actually care that much about what what they're talking about. But

eventually you'll come upon some issue that's so painful that you could see kind of like the delight in their eyes and they'll say, "Well, yeah, I'd love to pay you 100, 200, a,000 a month to

get that solved." And and then what I would do is I would kind of figure out at that point do can I just build this myself or like me and like another technical person? Could we just build it

technical person? Could we just build it um you know within a month or do we got to raise a little bit of money or do we need to um is it not as straightforward

as just like um as as some ideas are on the market. So yeah, and then from

the market. So yeah, and then from there, um, I'd start thinking about how to distribute that. So I already have one person that I know kind of wants this that's willing to pay for it. Um, I

I I mean, I would literally make them pay for it before I even built it. Um,

because that that's like the best way to validate something. And then I think,

validate something. And then I think, how can I get in front of as many of the people that's similar to this person as I can? And um, you know, that's that'll

I can? And um, you know, that's that'll maybe take a few uh days or weeks of thinking about it. And then I'll probably try a few things. I mean, it looks different. Like, it could be a Tik

looks different. Like, it could be a Tik Tok campaign. It could be like

Tok campaign. It could be like sponsoring conferences. It could be, you

sponsoring conferences. It could be, you know, sponsoring influencers. It could

be going into like Facebook groups. It

could be doing cold calls. I'm not sure what, you know, it depends on the idea what it is, but um I I' I'd get some hypotheses and then I'd run a few run a

few distribution campaigns and then eventually I hope one will work sooner rather than later. And from there, you know, you're kind of off the races and uh you just make the product better 1%

week over week. You like um get a little better at uh understanding user persona.

So your marketing kind of gets better week over week. And um yeah, eventually you should have a product if if the addressable is if the TAM is big enough,

you should have a tool that is making um a a respectable amount of money, I'd say. Yeah.

say. Yeah.

Because probably a lot of people don't know that Jenny was a service before, right?

>> Yeah. Jenny was a agency before. Yeah.

>> And you started with the agency. So you

were selling the service and then you build the tool that actually kind of removed the service and that's what you would do again.

>> Yeah. I mean I would I would probably try to skip the agency this time around, but an agency is a really quick way to make money. Um, so example, if I if I

make money. Um, so example, if I if I had no money, like the fastest way to make money is to start an agency. It's

like it's it's a terrible life. Like

running an agency is very painful and like I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. But if you need like a,000 or

enemy. But if you need like a,000 or $5,000 a month, um, it is pretty easy to to do that with an agency, I would say.

And I don't say that lightly. Like there

are people that say like, "Oh, you know, this is easy, that's easy, everything's easy." But like an agency, it's actually

easy." But like an agency, it's actually somewhat easy. Uh, of course, you have

somewhat easy. Uh, of course, you have to be willing to get rejected a lot and you have to be willing to do the work that nobody really wants to do. But if

you're willing to do those two things, then you can make money pretty fast with some sort of agency. Um, you just have to like upskill yourself really fast.

Um, and you know, find clients. But

yeah, ideally, ideally you could skip that phase and just go straight to a SAS. But um you know it's uh obviously

SAS. But um you know it's uh obviously the ideal situation often doesn't work out. Um so you have to do what you got

out. Um so you have to do what you got to do.

>> You didn't know how to code when you started Jenny. So you found a co-founder

started Jenny. So you found a co-founder who actually knew how to code.

>> What were your skills?

>> My skills honestly if we're being like totally honest my skills were pretty bad. Uh, I guess my my only two skills

bad. Uh, I guess my my only two skills that were maybe worth mentioning at the start was one, I had like a super high risk tolerance. So, I was able to like I

risk tolerance. So, I was able to like I was totally open to dropping out of college. Whatever money I had in my bank

college. Whatever money I had in my bank account, I would I would be happy to throw it all into whatever product we had. Um and then also uh kind of um

had. Um and then also uh kind of um like being resilient I guess is a is another thing that was kind of I guess

helpful in the early days where um if I needed to I would work odd jobs. Um I

would do the really unglamorous parts of running a company. um which you think which you think is like a bare minimum, but there are many founders these days

that uh are kind of more so in love with like the more glitzy, glamorous parts of the job and not really willing to do like the more um really shitty parts of

the job. Uh but yeah, I mean over time I

the job. Uh but yeah, I mean over time I feel bad for my co-founder in the early days cuz I feel like he was bringing so much to the table because he was like a technical, you know, wizard but and and

I wasn't really um as talented. um in

terms of like running the business side, there's nothing more like kind of obnoxious than like the guy who says, "Oh yeah, you do all the coding, I'll do the business side and like that they don't actually know anything. They don't

actually do anything, you know." And um I would say in the early days I I don't think I was like that caricature, but I was more like that caricature than makes

me than makes me comfortable. But yeah,

eventually over time I learned like the more basic things of being a founder, which is like how to actually um you know talk to users, how to actually get

users to get to your product, how to convert them into uh users and then paid users and then how to retain them, um

how to build teams, you know. So yeah, I think uh it it is a very uh it is a very valuable skill set

obviously uh to be technical. So if

you're a non-technical person, you should really be trying to carry your weight uh on your side, I would say, which is uh usually has to do with the

distribution, usually has to do with like all the uh important tasks that keep the lights on where it's whether it's like fundraising or um you know

like like being the kind of CEO, it's like it's a filtration system of like everybody at the top solves all the problems that they can solve.

So then you get sol you get stuck with when it's all when when it's all filtered down, you get stuck with like the most terrible, craziest, like unsolvable issues. And so um being a

unsolvable issues. And so um being a non-technical founder, you have to be able to kind of solve all these very

difficult almost existential issues. And

obviously that's not easy. Um so yeah, I don't even know remember the question you asked, but yeah, that's my answer.

And that was an amazing answer. Um,

>> would you, if you had the money, would you hire a dev or would you find another co-founder?

>> I don't know. I mean, if I was like money maxing, I would probably hire a dev. Um, if I was like if I felt really

dev. Um, if I was like if I felt really like if I if I felt like I had a really crystallized vision of an exact product

that I knew would do really well, then I would probably hire a dev because um it's just kind of better for all parties

where um you know there's no point bringing on like a technical co-founder and then just like not really allowing them to kind of create this thing with

you um because you have this like you have this kind of like already built idea in your head. Um but then if I have something more kind of amorphous and I don't actually know um the end state but

I just kind of know what market it lives in and um just like more of a highle idea then I would definitely get like a technical co-founder because um I I I

think it's super valuable to have another person to uh kind of help you like tease out the the the correct way to build this thing. Um, and yeah, I

mean typically I don't really like money max.

Like that's not really like my I more so like people max if we look at like anecdotally throughout my life. So, um,

no matter what I build, I would always want to have like a co-founder or at least like a founding people because it's a really lonely I mean, I'm sure you know it's like a really lonely

shitty life like just making things like um I I don't want to just like have a dev and he just has a salary and you know he's happy just like clocking out.

he he doesn't really care about like the well maybe he does maybe he doesn't but it's more likely that like a co-founder would really be uh waking up thinking about the the problems of the company

and then before they go to sleep thinking about like the solutions that they've come up with. So, um, yeah, I mean, if I were to do it again, I would

probably choose a co-founder, but, um, you know, it's a it's a it's a case by case thing. And, um, that's, uh, I would

case thing. And, um, that's, uh, I would never prescribe that to anybody. It's

kind of like up to you, I would say.

>> Yeah. I mean, um, a lot of people are dreaming about being solopreneur, and I tried it myself, and I'm not at all like in love with the concept. I love to work with someone because

>> yeah it's like a mini team and you can have a lot of call like with this person you share all the struggle with this person and you're not this person on the top that is totally lonely and have to

deal with all the outside problem and yeah I totally agree with that >> I mean I think I I have a lot of respect for solarreneurs like I think they're really great but I could never really be

one I don't think cuz that's or maybe I could but Like at least for now, it's like would you would you willingly be like a single parent, you know? Like

would you just want to like raise a kid by yourself? Like that's uh obviously

by yourself? Like that's uh obviously there's a lot of nuances and differences in situations, but like there are also some similarities. Like it's very

some similarities. Like it's very stressful. It's very hard and the

stressful. It's very hard and the journey is like a lot more lonely. So,

um yeah, I I I definitely see where you're coming from.

>> I have another question because this is a question I ask myself a lot. Um I was I started online business

>> basically following Peter Levelvels on Twitter in uh 2017 2016 and he always say like never raise money you know never give a share of your company to

someone you should like be a solopreneur and >> and it stayed in my mind and I never really wanted to have like VC or just like ask money to anyone just to keep

all the share but there is this voice in my mind that tell me that maybe that will be the key for you to actually build the product you want. So you said

I've done the whole world circus of raising money. I've also experienced the

raising money. I've also experienced the slow bootstrap lifestyle lifestyle.

So what is the best and why did you choose to actually not VC funding but sit seat trapping right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

I think that Peter Levelvels has a lot of fair points. I think there are a lot of negatives that come with raising money, but um I guess since you asked, I could also tell you like some of the

benefits of raising money, too, which is um you can you can give up some of your company, but you can in in return like save a lot of your time, you know, like let's say you really you really have

like when I started, I had literally no money, right? So uh and I needed to and

money, right? So uh and I needed to and I was not technical and I had a technical founder but we also needed like maybe one or two engineers to kind of you know back then there was no cloud code so you know you there was it was a

lot harder to get something to the market. Um so u either I could you know

market. Um so u either I could you know do a lot of odd jobs on the side save up money and then kind of use that money to

uh get our product to where it needs to be. But we would move a lot slower and

be. But we would move a lot slower and maybe like my timeline of getting to Jenny to where it is today. It would

have taken me an extra year because it would have been pretty tough to kind of like struggle like and it's just like when you're desperate, when you don't have money in the bank account, you kind

of end up making suboptimal decisions, you know? Like sometimes you need to

you know? Like sometimes you need to burn money in five different paths, but there's one path that will give you 20x return. But if you have no money, if

return. But if you have no money, if you're if you're bootstrapped, you have no money, you can't really burn the money uh in that way and you have to be way more intentional with how you do

things. So yeah, if you if you really

things. So yeah, if you if you really value like your time, like maybe you shave off the upside, you sell maybe like 10 20% of your company. So instead

of making a hundred million, you make like 90 million or $80 million, right?

To me, a h 100red million or 80 million, it's not that big of a difference. But

if I have to spend another 1 to 3 years of my life in my 20s, you know, or my 30s, like that that's a lot of that that's really valuable to me. And I

would rather just kind of like get to the get to the more interesting parts of running a business. Um, and obviously it depends on the idea, too. Like there's

some ideas where it's like a winner take all market. There's some ideas where uh

all market. There's some ideas where uh you need a certain level of growth to get the flywheel started. Um and and those ideas you unfortunately like you

cannot bootstrap those ideas, right?

Like it's like um I mean I I mean I don't want to be too definitive about it. I guess I guess you could bootstrap

it. I guess I guess you could bootstrap any idea in theory like if you're really just like a genius, but um you know it's definitely not advised to do that. So,

um, you know, what I did was was I seedstrapped and I think that that's like, uh, uh, kind of splitting it down the middle where you get some money in

the beginning. So, you could kind of go

the beginning. So, you could kind of go through all the the painful early days.

You don't have to worry too much about money. You can kind of find product

money. You can kind of find product market fit and then once you find product market fit, you can use the revenue that you get from your product to uh, just keep the uh, keep the

machine rolling. So, um yeah, I mean I I

machine rolling. So, um yeah, I mean I I I have a lot of respect for people that uh bootstrap. Um I I think that the

uh bootstrap. Um I I think that the people that raised money on like the indie Twitter get a lot of [ __ ] Uh, and you know, maybe they I think honestly some of them do deserve a little bit of

[ __ ] because uh maybe they raised a little bit too much and maybe they wear that badge of honor of like I raised money um like as though they

accomplished something really crazy cool, which it's cool, but it's not like as cool as some of these announcement videos kind of, you know, make it out to be in my opinion. But um yeah, I would

say that uh the unfortunate kind of like as with all things like the unfortunate boring reality is like it's very nuanced of like there are good things about both sides and so it's hard to kind of say

like this side sucks, this side doesn't suck uh in my opinion. So yeah.

>> Yeah, I can totally understand. So let's

talk first about the good side of it. uh

when you raised money first, >> did your lifestyle change straight away?

>> Yeah, I mean it changes a lot. I mean,

when you have we literally were like we had like $1,000 in our bank account before we raised money, you know, and that is like we would literally have to

beg influencers to to take like a $100, $300 uh uh sponsorship. And if one sponsorship flopped, that was like a

code red for us because that was like 30% of our runway was gone. Then when we raised, you know, 100K angel round

from Jason Calcanis, that was like a really big difference because then we could learn so much faster. we could

make so many more bets and um like we were just able to actually feel like we were getting some

momentum uh behind us and um yeah I mean it's not like a personal difference like it's not like I went and I bought Gucci or I went and like you know I started taking Ubers everywhere or anything like

that. In fact, when we got our first

that. In fact, when we got our first round of funding, uh we immediately flew to Malaysia because we wanted to save as much money as possible. And so, um yeah,

but I mean it would be so much more of an interesting story if I said like, "Oh, I regret taking the money." You know, it's all about being a founder. You don't

need investors. But like to be honest, in the early days, that money was really helpful. And um if if you're in a

helpful. And um if if you're in a situation where you're literally like eating ramen every day and you have these ideas that you know are going to

work or at least like if you tinkered around with these ideas, you know that you could figure it out, but you're limited because of of of capital, then

um you're kind of doing a disservice to yourself. not just yourself like a

yourself. not just yourself like a disservice to like like your team like the people believe in you like everybody. So um yeah

everybody. So um yeah >> I get what you mean. I mean um probably a lot of indie actors on X see raising money as hiring devs to build the

product. While the truth I think you

product. While the truth I think you probably know better than me but in 2025 is more about distribution and actually get the good influencer and spend the good money to actually

>> target your customer and do all these different bet like you said and I think that's the problem sometimes that they think you are raising money to your more

dev and they will probably say with AI you don't need that but distribution you actually need money and if you want to do like you're mainly I think short

form but like also if you do like YouTube uh influencer for example it costs a lot >> right yeah I mean it's yeah if you don't have like you know a

th000 to 10,000 that you're that you can like experiment with I would say it's pretty hard to uh it's pretty hard to get a business off the ground uh I mean

you can do it but you have to be like probably like second time founders can probably do cuz they're scrappy enough.

But if you're just starting out, it's it's really honestly like you could read as many extreads as you want. But you're

not going to hit gold in your first try.

Like it's going to it's going to take some time. It's going to take some

some time. It's going to take some money.

>> Did you have a vision of um not about the product, but about the distribution before raising money?

>> Um >> um yeah, I I don't think so. No, I didn't have like a clear vision. I knew like

there were many different paths we could take and um and and that's almost like another good

reason to raise money too if uh if you if you if you know that there's if you know that your product like has some value but in order to like crack whether's distribution or whether some

product issue, you need a little bit of money, then that's another good uh good time to raise as well. And I also I raised twice, right? So I raised like an

angel round and like a seed preede round. So um when I when I did my angel

round. So um when I when I did my angel round, I would say my vision was a lot mur murkier where I didn't really know exactly how I would be spending the

money, but I just knew that the company was just not able to function with just how poor we were. And so I just knew that it would just be generally generally helpful. And of the few bets

generally helpful. And of the few bets that I had in my head, obviously they weren't fully fleshed out visions, but the things I needed wanted to try. Uh

that that obviously required money. And

then when we got more to our preede with like um when we were at like when we were fully a SAS, we had a bit more of a mature product. We had some revenue

mature product. We had some revenue under our belt. That was when I had a more clear idea of like how we can distribute and stuff.

>> And the first time you got the money and you had to sit and take a decision, how did you manage that?

>> The first time I got the money like how did it feel or >> No, like just the fact that you had this money to spend and now you have to spend it.

>> How did you take the decision of where to spend it? I don't even dude I mean I don't want to like keep bringing this up but like I have I had never seen like

more dude when the $100,000 first hit our company bank account we had never seen that much money in our entire like that was like the craziest day of my entire life. I drove my family came

entire life. I drove my family came together we all got in a car and we drove to my grandparents house and we all just looked at my laptop together cuz it was like the most money we'd ever

it was like the craziest feeling ever.

And yeah, like as you said, the next part obviously you don't raise the money just to look at it. You don't raise the money to just like go to your grandparents house. You raise it to

grandparents house. You raise it to spend it, right? So, you know, we we uh we obviously invested a little bit into expanding our team. We invested a little

bit into marketing. Um but uh yeah, I I because it was just so crazy to get this money. Uh I was very frugal about it.

money. Uh I was very frugal about it.

you know, I didn't immediately spend it in the first like like nowadays like honestly we spend like half a million

dollars per month on all of our all of our costs, right? So, uh $100,000 like it looking at it it from my perspective now, it's still a lot of money, but in

the grand scheme of things of like running a business, it's not that much money. But obviously if we go back to

money. But obviously if we go back to that perspective, like I was so scared of losing this and I was like I felt like it was just like this this could be my one shot of like having this much

money in my bank account that I needed to uh squeeze as much uh like ROI as I could every time I spent it. So yeah, it was a trip. That was that was like that

was probably like the one of the best days of my entire life. Like I I've I've you know I'm just gonna say this as as a matter of fact like I've made way more money

like our our bank we've made we've like had way more money than that 100k but it it pales in comparison to that first day when we got that 100k in bank account.

It was like uh it it was it was insane.

I mean even thinking about it even thinking about it now is just it it just blows my mind. I can totally understand like I mean we I'm also not coming from

a rich family and you know this kind of amount of money is not something you see every day and the day you start to make >> let's say just like yeah five figures on your account already like what is that

like am I even allowed am I going to jail right now like you know is this like there's always this thing that happening in your brain that yeah some will understand and some not but this is a crazy feeling

>> um another question about that like we we often feel like um a VC funded startup it's a big office in San Francisco and you have to hire all these

people and you cannot be a digital nomad anymore you cannot move do you still have the freedom that you had before

>> yeah I mean I I think a lot of it first of all like a VC funded startup it's it's not like a monolith you know of like every VC funded startup is all the

same um sometimes you have like really chill investors. Sometimes you have like

chill investors. Sometimes you have like crazy investors that are always breathing down your neck. Um, lucky for me, I think, um, my investors are um,

they trust that how I run the company, even if it's kind of unorthodox. Um,

I'll I'll bring results. uh you know typically I I mean I I I really admire that they were able to trust me so much because typically if you invest in somebody and

they say I'm going to travel around the world uh while I'm building this company they would probably think that you're kind of taking them for a ride and uh

you know you're not really locked in in an office in SF like you know doing that I don't even know what it's called like 996 or 10107 like you know just only

working whatever ever. But um I think like I think everybody in the founder startup world, they all claim to say that they love contrarian ideas. They

love like counterculture stuff. And then

there's counterculture things that happen like, "Yeah, I'm going to raise money and I'm going to literally travel the world. I'm gonna hire people from

the world. I'm gonna hire people from all around the world and we're just gonna work remotely and once a year we're all gonna meet up somewhere in the world and we'll all work together and

that's all it's going to take to have like a company culture. And I I mean I I don't think it's like the I'm not I'm not going to lie and say this is the

best way of doing it. But we've done somewhat well for ourselves. Like we

we've grow we grow every year. we our

product continues to get more delightful and um from what I can tell I mean I I hope like my the people in my company

are are are happy and they they like working uh with with everybody on the team. So yeah, I mean I I think that I

team. So yeah, I mean I I think that I hope that there's less of like the cookie cutter stuff, you know, like I hope there's more kind of weird startups that emerge like the one person. I hope

there's more solarreneurs and I hope there's more seed strappers. I hope

there's more like raising the craziest round ever trying to create like AGI oneshot startups. I hope there's like,

oneshot startups. I hope there's like, you know, I hope there's like a lot of diversity so that every everyone like I hope there's more clueies. I hope

there's more everything, you know, like um I I think that just makes the world more interesting and it allows for kind

of um you know, every sort of founder to shine versus just the founders that are thrive in like the the SF the Silicon Valley ecosystem. You know, I've never

Valley ecosystem. You know, I've never even been to like SF. Like I I've I I think I was in SF for like a few days before like a flight where I was leaving

SF, but like I I I've I'm I'm not really of that culture at all. Like so um yeah, I'm I'm I'm happy with the choice that I

made. Yeah,

made. Yeah, >> I think it's amazing because as you say royally you you open a new door of this kind of VC funded startup and I love

that and to help other people doing it.

I have a last question about VC or like raising money or whatever.

>> Yeah.

>> You made you raised your first money while with a guy who was sitting next to you in a plane. So that was totally random and

>> like what happened with it?

>> Yeah, it's a crazy story. So I was uh I was on a plane I think from Seattle to San Diego. So it was a three-hour 4-hour

San Diego. So it was a three-hour 4-hour flight I think and I was sitting next to some guy. He had his laptop open. He had

some guy. He had his laptop open. He had

Coinbase open. So at the time this was like 2018 and and Bitcoin was an extremely risky asset. So immediately I was thinking like, okay, this guy's gonna invest in Bitcoin. This guy's

willing to he's he's he's okay with investing risky [ __ ] So I can tell him about my startup. And the best part is once the wheels leave the t the the

runway, uh he's a captive prisoner for three hours. I can just pitch him for

three hours. I can just pitch him for three. He can literally cannot go

three. He can literally cannot go anywhere. He can just I will I will

anywhere. He can just I will I will answer all of his questions and I will like let him know that this is the best investment opportunity of his life, you know. And so that's what I did. I I

know. And so that's what I did. I I

pitched him continuously. He had all these reservations, but um you know, I just honestly I don't even think I did that good of a job pitching, but I think

you could tell that a very strange individ you have to be a very strange or ambitious individual to like pitch to a stranger next to you on a flight for 3

hours. And uh yeah, I think like

hours. And uh yeah, I think like literally 3 days after we landed, he just gave me a cashier's check as an investment into my my company. It was

the first investment I ever did. Um the

the sad I mean the the the happy and sad part is uh at at one point he just wanted his money back. So he just wanted his 10K back. Um, obviously I wasn't

like obligated to give it back to him because it was like an investment, but um, it just seemed like the right thing to do. Um, it's not like I do the right

to do. Um, it's not like I do the right thing all the time, but like I try to do it when I when I you know I I try to do it as often I can. So in this instance, uh, I knew that if I did like a few more

agency [ __ ] on the side, I could I could pay it back. So we ended up paying him the 10K back. And um you know it's a I I hope that he put that into crypto and he

probably had some pretty crazy returns even without the the Jenny shares or whatever. But you know had he kept that

whatever. But you know had he kept that in he would have made a significant amount of money as well. So um yeah that's the story about that that first

investor. And if someone is watching

investor. And if someone is watching this video and he's not in a plane, doesn't take a plane, >> how do you actually raise money? Like

now that you actually did it few times, like if I build a cool product tomorrow, I need money for my distribution.

>> Yeah.

>> How do I do that?

>> Yeah. I mean, it's um I guess I'll start with like the cold water. It's like um it's easier to raise

water. It's like um it's easier to raise money for some people than others. Like

for example, like it depends on your geography. It depends on a little bit

geography. It depends on a little bit like what school you graduated from or what school you dropped out of out of.

Uh probably depends a little bit like if you're ex open AAI, you're probably it's probably easier for you to raise money versus like if you're ex like you know

McDonald's. But um the good news is uh

McDonald's. But um the good news is uh on places like X on places like Reddit like on on Instagram like the world's gotten pretty flat, you know. So if if

you can drum up a little bit of hype on these platforms, the money will come to you, you know. So if if you if you if you make something and you're able to

get like some traction and it's pretty abundantly clear that this thing can get pretty big, um your odds of being able to raise money, I

think become much higher versus of just like sending cold emails saying, you know, I I have this idea. Here's my

pitch deck. Uh would love to pick a time off your calendar, you know, things like that. The problem is like becoming a

that. The problem is like becoming a founder has gotten a little bit too sexy with like I mean there was like the first wave of like the social network and then now there's the second wave of

like it seems like almost every influencer it kind of is becoming a founder like which is a it's like it's this strange convergence of like every

influencer is becoming a founder and every founder is becoming an influencer >> and it's like every everyone's kind of becoming the same thing which is just like >> I guess I Guess that kind of makes sense

because I guess human nature everybody kind of wants to be like rich and powerful I guess and like becoming an influencer founder is kind of like getting both of those things. Uh but

anyways like um yeah the world's pretty flat so you can you can um you can raise money by making a name for yourself and just by doing cool [ __ ] And if you do

cool [ __ ] uh, like all these algorithms, every single social media algorithm, they're all they all kind of have your best interests in mind, which

is they want to promote cool [ __ ] Interesting [ __ ] Every algorithm wants to promote interesting [ __ ] So if you do interesting [ __ ] you know, eventually your day will come where you

are surfaced. And when you are surfaced

are surfaced. And when you are surfaced and you're kind of amplified to the masses, investors, VCs, they are part of the masses and they will see. And uh I would

say that's a pretty good shot of then nurturing those conversations when when they kind of come in.

>> Amazing.

The last time you did an interview, I think you were making $400,000 a month and last week you did a post on Twitter and you make

>> you just eat 821,000 MR. >> What happened in between?

I mean just a lot of uh like scaling stuff, you know, like optimizing pricing,

uh polishing the product, adding some extra features, acquiring some nice companies, hiring some like key

personnel, uh making the distribution channels a bit more robust, like um systemizing things, you know, when it comes to like like once you find

something that's kind of delightful like uh like once you once you have something that you know people like and that people will pay for uh you kind of don't

even want to change it that much right like if if you have like I don't know if you have like a really what's what's like a simple like like I don't know like cali or something like you take a

picture of food and like it shows you calories right like um there's not that many like revolution features you can like in fact you risk by putting

something in you kind of destroy the the the reason people come and so uh when when you get past a certain amount of MR uh it's really less about kind of adding

revolutionary stuff to the products sometimes it is I mean I would like to think we're adding like revolutionary thing revolutionary things still to Jenny but there are also aspects of like

um once you have something that's delightful there's a lot of things that are important around that kind of feature like how do you make it so there's less it's less buggy? How do you make it so it works

buggy? How do you make it so it works across multiple languages? How do you make it so um you know that the the you go from having 10 influencers a week to

100 influencers a week uh with like you know without having to like 10x your your uh influencer team you know things like that. So there's a lot of these

like that. So there's a lot of these kind of um like problems that you have to solve as you scale that um that I think are

important to solve because hopefully these things that we're putting in place won't just take us from 400 800 hopefully it takes us to like 400 to you know millions and millions of MR

hopefully. So um yeah that's those are

hopefully. So um yeah that's those are the main things we did.

you uh no I asked a question yesterday on Twitter. I say that I will interview

on Twitter. I say that I will interview you and if people had question a lot of the question were marketing marketing marketing UGC UGC >> okay

>> what is your secret sauce >> my secret sauce I don't know I mean my secret sauce

I mean I would say my secret sauce maybe is like trying to learn from things outside of my my current n like I

wouldn't say that Jenny made UGC or anything but like we were really really early to UGC like we did UGC like three or four years ago you know like may I

don't know how long maybe maybe three years ago some like three yearsish ago I would say we we were doing UGC and obviously nobody was doing UGC back then

except for like e-commerce like products and so you know what's The learning there is like there was basically this like really amazing marketing channel

that very few SAS founders really understood or cared about, but it was literally public out in the open. This

UGC marketing all you had to do was just implement it from there into this this vertical that you're in. And I think that's like something that I always

something that I always try to do is um like kind of learn not from like every every me and all the Asian kids that look like me that talk like me that like

want to make companies like me. We've

all read the same blogs. We've all read the same like Peter Teal books. We all

read the same Paul Graham essays, right?

the the difference is like all of our training data if it's the same I don't think you know unless like we have insane like a huge difference in like IQ or something like it we should kind of

just pump out the same [ __ ] you know so but when you learn from things outside of your domain like when you learn from like e-commerce or you learn from like you know the you pull from the dark arts

of like how do like course sellers sell their stuff how do like how does stake.com like How do they kind of market their stuff? Like how do you know how how do even like traditional

companies like what were some ways that traditionally people used to market and maybe you take the first principles approach from that and you you try some new things and then you know eventually

you're able to cook up some interesting stuff. Um, and yeah, I mean, right now

stuff. Um, and yeah, I mean, right now our UGC marketing, we have like I don't know, I think like 200 something UGC creators creating content like every

day. Um, we're doing a lot of

day. Um, we're doing a lot of interesting things. um as well when it

interesting things. um as well when it comes to UGC that uh we'll probably reveal maybe in a few months after uh

after we kind of validated and um maybe give ourselves a little bit of time so we don't get completely copycatted from day one, you know. But um yeah, I think that's like something I would encourage

every viewer to kind of think about like you know every every person who's who's listening to this uh they have their own special like training data and they have their own special things that they're

interested in. You know is there

interested in. You know is there something that you could pull from like a different domain that um is a is a unique kind of learning when it comes to marketing that maybe other people don't?

And and it doesn't have to be as crazy as like like UGC from e-commerce to SAS.

Uh, it could be something as simple as like something you see like you're scrolling Tik Tok and maybe you're really into like you're really into like anime edits or something like

you love like watching like anime compilations to like music or something and there's an interesting hook that like you notice like every time you see this hook you just stop scrolling when

it comes to like anime and like you could start asking yourself why is it that that is so captivating to you and maybe there's some coralary of like you can make a similar hook when it comes to

your SAS something like that. I mean

that's just an example right but um there's always things you could kind of pull in from other domains I think.

Yeah, >> I love that because when I >> I digged a bit like into UGC for SAS,

>> I was surprised that it's >> something that looks quite new >> on on X, you know, people are talking about UGC while you're right like in ecom UGC is pretty old and they did that

for a while already >> and you basically yeah implemented it in uh in SAS like do you have any other ideas like that things that you

>> ideas. I mean,

>> ideas. I mean, there's one idea I mean, there's one idea that we're doing right now that I think is

pretty crazy, but if I say it, my boy Matt will probably like yell at me at the office because uh we kind of want to keep it on the down low. Um, let me see

if I can think of something that we're not doing that I think is interesting.

Let me think.

Uh I don't know. I mean, there's I mean, this is also kind of played out, right? But I mean this is another

right? But I mean this is another example of something that's like what is recently being done but there's no reason that this sh couldn't have been done like for many many many years is

like in the past you would you you would give like an influencer some percent equity of your company and then they would just become like the face of the company and it's obvious like in

hindsight it's such an obvious win-win right like this person has a distribution you have like a failing I don't know, like macaroni business or something and like you put this

influencer's face on your macaroni. Now,

this influencer doesn't have to like do like an audible ad every video cuz they now have macaroni they could sell and then now your macaroni is not just sitting in a warehouse. You could

actually sell it. But you could also do this thing for SAS as well too, right?

like you can work with some influencer and give them a a a percent of your company and then they're happy to kind of become like the face of uh whatever

whatever you're whatever you've made and that's a super cost effective way of getting distribution that's now being done. It's in that one's kind of

done. It's in that one's kind of interesting because now I think founders are realizing that because it's so easy to go viral. You could theoretically

skip that step and the founder themselves could become the influencer uh in tandem with their product and and they could kind of do that. But um there was a time like before the Tik

Tokification of everything where influencers were like pretty valuable and there was probably a sweet spot there where where that was obviously pretty good. But yeah, I mean that's

pretty good. But yeah, I mean that's like there's there's just a lot of examples of like things where you know it works in other like uh niches and it

could probably work in SAS. Um and

>> I yeah >> there's probably more there's probably like people listening right now there's smart people listening right now.

They're going to find some cool ways to >> to uh kind of merge do like a crossover episode of like their world and their SAS world and something cool will happen. Yeah, but like what you the

happen. Yeah, but like what you the example you gave, I think it's still something that anyone can do because I've been hanging out with a lot of influencers the the past few months like

and I interviewed them as well and you see that there is um people who have a huge audience and don't make money at all and people who have a really good

product and need distribution and as you say you can just give a share to this uh influencer and it could go really fast and there is so many example right now

the Last one is like Steven Bartlett who launched a podcast sus I think and just like because there is his name now >> podcast.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Wait uh like Steven Bartlet he made like Flightcast with with rocks.

>> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Shout out rocks. He's a he's a good dude >> man. Yeah. That's him. And that that's

>> man. Yeah. That's him. And that that's the biggest example. I mean

>> of course it will work. Stephen Bartlett

is one of the biggest podcast. You build

a podcast platform with this guy it will work. So yeah,

work. So yeah, >> there's plenty of example >> to continue on that. Um, you have now a startup under Jenny Group. Three of them

passed 1 million AR >> and you say that it took 46 months to go from zero to 1 million AR with Jenny and

less than 6 months with your latest tool that you built from scratch. What was

the let's say 8020 that you come from you brought from Jenny to this new tool that made it blew up so fast?

>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean first of all it's a little bit cheating because all of these tools are kind of in edtech. So um you know it's not like I could take any idea

like I can't just take like a random B2B SAS and probably get it from 0 to 1 million because it's not in my wheelhouse. But if it's an edtech tool I

wheelhouse. But if it's an edtech tool I could probably um find the right team, find the right idea and kind of get that going. Um,

going. Um, I don't know. The replicatable stuff is like I don't know. I mean, it's it's another like boring answer. Eventually, you just get like a good nose for it. Like you

just kind of you kind of sniff the ideas that you know are going to convert.

Well, I guess like one of the most valuable things when you're a generalist founder is you can kind of like visualize the the distribution. You could you could almost visualize the Tik Tok that

will go viral and you could visualize like oh how is the product going to look in that Tik Tok? What are the comments going to look like? What's the landing page going to look like? What's like the once they get into product? What's it

going to look like? What's the payw wall look like? What's like and and once you

look like? What's like and and once you kind of do that, you can kind of have a good idea of like what what products are going to be successful. It's not going to be 100%. Right? I mean, I have eight

product. Many of them, I mean, more of

product. Many of them, I mean, more of my products have not made hit a millionaire R than hit a millionaire R.

So, it's not like I'm I'm always going to be um on the money. But the more you kind of are in that world and the more you are experimenting, uh you do get a

little bit better. I think your nose gets a little bit big bit better at sniffing out the ideas that um have a lot of potential. And then just generally like it it it's perceived as

though second- time founders are better at like replicating success because I also think second time founders or third- time founders or whatever like

they just move a lot faster. So I know exactly like what kind of what's the like the smoke test or the AB test I should run right now that will either

validate it or immediately kill it like like within this week. And then that allows me to like churn through, you know, 10 ideas in the same time where one person is always thinking, oh, if I

just add one more feature, you know, then it then it'll work. Or if I if I just if I just uh fix this one kind of problem, if I, you know, get this one

type of like like I have this one, I don't know, like meeting coming up, like that meeting is going to solve everything. and and and like it's a it's

everything. and and and like it's a it's um it's hard to kind of get out of that mindset uh when when you're when you're first starting out, but obviously once

you've kind of uh had as much experience with with multiple products, you're a lot less uh like it's a lot less holy. You know,

these products, they become a lot less um it's a lot less weight, so you're able to move a lot faster as well. So,

um yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I want to be actionable. Like what's like something

actionable. Like what's like something that a viewer could learn, I guess, for like replicating what we did. Um, I

would say uh I would say you you don't want to stick with any idea if you're not able to like monetize it like really early

on. If you're not able to monetize it

on. If you're not able to monetize it really early on, then you should probably just let it go. Um that's

something that's like a hard le it's easy to kind of hear but it's like a hard lesson to actually like implement and um that will save you a lot of time.

Um you should also be thinking about like not just the product itself but how the product lends itself to distribution. Like

distribution. Like these things for me in my mind are kind of like they're they're kind of

they live on kind of the same plane for me. Like for for example like sometimes

me. Like for for example like sometimes a video could go viral uh like this happened for one of our products like um

a video went viral for one of our tools and the video the the feature that was promoted in that video was like one of the really small features in the tool.

Like it was not even the main feature in the tool. And so what we did was a we

the tool. And so what we did was a we immediately re rejigged the entire product and now that small feature became like the main feature and we redid the landing page and everything

and like now we have a Tik Tok video format that we know can continue to go viral and now we have a product that um you know can cater more towards

something that we know that the users resonate with. The users actually like

resonate with. The users actually like they want to see this type of content.

they have this sort of painoint when they see this this uh this solution they're delighted you know so um yeah I would I would encourage if you want to like replicate what we've done I would

encourage you to think about um your product not just from the lens of a product you should think about it in in the lens of like um how how how do people discover the product what parts of the product is shown when they

discover like what's the position of the product and then uh when you kind of think about it holistically like that probably the product itself self will change and how you do your marketing

will change because you're looking at it from you know uh from both sides. So

yeah hopefully that helps.

>> Yeah it does. And uh I think you >> repeat often the same that you basically have to listen. Uh when we started this conversation I ask you how would you find an ID? You say I will listen to the

people around me. I will talk to them and see what they are struggling with and find an ID for a product. And then

now you say that you actually listen the people on Tik Tok or any platform and see how they react to your product to actually shape your product.

>> So it feels like what you're building doesn't happen in the office but it happen outside of like what you get from the people. And I think that's really

the people. And I think that's really valuable.

>> Yeah. I mean I wish I was like the Steve Jobs type of guy where you know I don't I don't need to listen. I know exactly what the users want. I I can just like

I'm a super genius. I'm not really like that, you know? I'm I'm

just like a normal guy. I don't really have like uh um these grandiose kind of visions or these like these like really powerful gut feelings. So, I'm just

relegated to trying to learn as much as I can from the users and just generally from people around me. But the good news is, you know, statistically, if you're listening to this, you're probably also

not Steve Jobs level. So, um, you can also kind of learn how an every man is able to to to build a product. You know,

you you kind of it's kind of like you don't want to take dating advice from like the guy who's like 6'4, super jacked, and just like just like amazing head of hair, you know? Like you don't

want to you don't want to take dating advice from that guy because like obviously like he's just going to say like really weird advice like oh just like be yourself or like say hi right so in the same way like you don't want to

take advice from someone who's just like naturally every single idea they just naturally come up with just like billion dollar idea just like oh like oh you want to raise money oh why don't you just like email the head of Sequoia and

like they would just in like you know I'm I'm so what I'm saying is like I am the not 6'4 jacked equivalent in like the startup space of like I'm like a

normal, you know, somewhat normal guy.

So hopefully um that that resonates with people where like they they don't have to um like like like my my my stuff

should work for you because um it worked despite me not graduating from like the most prestigious university or like having crazy connections or you know

being like 180 IQ stuff like that. Yeah.

Well, you're a normal guy, but you're almost at 10 million a year. When you

see the dashboard, like you open your dashboard and you see this amount of money, knowing where you come from, how do you feel? Like, do you feel like it's normal now or do you feel do you

still have the fear of this disappearing tomorrow?

>> Well, that's a good question. I mean,

I guess it kind of feels just like I kind of to force myself to like feel like how crazy it is sometimes, I guess.

Um, like the humble answer would be like, oh, every day like it's just like so crazy, you know? But the sad truth is like the hyonic treadmill, the speed

always seems to increase on the treadmill, you know? So it's like when I was at a million it was like crazy for like a few weeks and then and then you know it's business as usual and then you

had 2 million and then 5 million 10 million and you know now we're you know we're basically at 10 million and it feels amazing

but my mind's already thinking like how do I get to 20 million? How do I get to 100 million? you know, in the same way

100 million? you know, in the same way as like change is just kind of hard to quantify in general, you know, like

uh whether whether no matter what marketing problem I have, like whether I was at like $0 or $1,000 or a million dollars a year or $10

million a year, like it still consisted of me in the same Slack channel, like talking with the same people, walking to like the same Wei works or whatever.

So on externally it's hard to kind of feel like oh am I getting better as a marketer because like you're kind of it feels like you're doing the same thing

every day and you're kind of having the same amount of pain and struggle every day but what's actually happening is like the problems you're solving are getting more complex every day but so so

you are kind of seeing that change in the same way like to your question like the ARR every number is bigger but It kind of feels the same because it took

the same amount of pain to get to that number and there's still uh a lot of pain that I'm anticipating for the next milestone uh that that I have to go to.

So, um, yeah, I mean, I try to like be intentionally, you know, grateful from time to time and I like to think about like how lucky I am and how if I was if

I was 20 years old and I saw like these numbers in my bank account, I would literally like be in a mental ward cuz I'd be like running around the street naked just like I would just be so

happy. I wouldn't know what to do. But

happy. I wouldn't know what to do. But

um you know it's it's uh it's it's crazy and I do think about sometimes like this could be all taken from me you know some like like stranger things have happened

and um you know that also I think probably adds to a little bit of the anxiety of the higher we go the more people that I don't want to let down the

more kind of uh users I don't want to let down and uh the more kind of this legacy that I hope that I can build not just for myself but for like my family

and like for you know everyone else that's kind of like staked their their own legacy to like Jenny's um you know outcomes like that's a lot of

responsibility so yeah I try to be grateful but it's like it's still I mean being a 10 million it's still like a lot of like it's it's it's there's a lot of problems that come at being this size

and honestly There are some people listening to this podcast thinking like, man, this guy's like talking as though 10 million R is a lot, you know, and they're they're listening and they're they're they're at 100 million, you know, they're like a

billion, right? And so, um, yeah, it's

billion, right? And so, um, yeah, it's it's just all about perspective. I don't

know. I dude, I'm I'm like sorry, I've been up since like 7 a.m. I don't know if what I'm saying is making any [ __ ] sense, but like >> it's been a wild ride. Yeah,

>> honestly I listen to you and it does because like I have my girlfriend next to me and she's always remember me that like >> you know she was with me six years ago

when the number I do today were crazy for me to imagine and now we are there >> and she's remember me like yeah look at what you did like this is like crazy what you do but

>> the problem is that when you grow with your business and you make more money you're also surrounded by people who actually make more money than you and then it becomes the pay is like the normal >> thing to do and then as you say you're

like yeah but this guy that I met at this conference last week make 100 million a year so like 10 million is just like >> not a lot which is crazy

>> right I know I mean that's uh it seems like your girlfriend is a a very positive force in your life and that's like a that's a a keeper for sure just to like keep reminding you about like

how far you've come I think my parents do my my girlfriend does that for me as well. And my parents do that for me as

well. And my parents do that for me as well. And um yeah, I think it's like a

well. And um yeah, I think it's like a super important kind of like just thing to to remember, I guess. Yeah,

>> it is. And I have a question about your personal life. Actually, a year ago, you

personal life. Actually, a year ago, you shared on Twitter your time in New York and you said, "I have enough money now to afford a table for two anywhere in

the world, but it's impossible to fill the other seat."

How is your personal life in December 2025?

>> I mean, my personal life now is like so much better than it was when I wrote that post a year ago. Dude, it was like I it was probably the worst time of my

entire life because one uh my my co-founder and I split up amicably. I still like my co-founder. He

amicably. I still like my co-founder. He

still I hope he still likes me, but like it's still very hard to lose a co-founder. And my girlfriend of three

co-founder. And my girlfriend of three years and I broke up because I was working too hard. My close friend died that year, you know, like my really

close friend. It was a freak accident.

close friend. It was a freak accident.

Um, and there was like other things. I

can't even Oh, my my close family member was going through like a really bad relationship. Like

textbook just like terrible relationship. Anyways, I don't want to

relationship. Anyways, I don't want to turn this into a therapy session, but like it was so terrible and it was I mean I don't want to like do stolen valor and say like I was depressed or

anything cuz I don't think I was like depressed, but like I was very sad. Like

I I was probably I I don't I mean I had to go to like therapy. I went to therapy for many

therapy. I went to therapy for many months because of how terrible that time was. But um yeah, to answer your

was. But um yeah, to answer your question, now it's like way better, dude. Like uh

uh time heals all wounds. I have like a great girlfriend now who's u amazing, kind, warm, just like really way more

understanding about like how I how I much I work and like my dreams and um you know the company that issue was all

settled and um it's totally good now and my co-founder is thriving. he's doing

his new startup and like I invested in his startup and he's um you know the void that he left when he when he left um we were able to fill that and we got

a new kind of CTO and it it all worked out perfectly and um yeah it was it was it was really tough for a long time but

now um you know I I see that I learned a lot from from those experiences and yeah I guess if there's anybody who's like listening who's like feels like they're

in that kind of the the belly of the whale and just like it it literally felt like everything was going wrong. I don't

think there was any vector in my life that was going good. Like every like it was just the worst possible everything that could have gone wrong

went wrong like about a year ago, year and a half ago. But um I'm glad that I was just able to kind of put one foot in

front of the other and now things are obviously much better. So yeah,

>> I'm really super happy for you too.

>> Thank you, bro.

>> Yeah, that it's really cool for you, man.

>> It was a crazy crazy time.

>> You had like the past few years were pretty hectic. I didn't know this part

pretty hectic. I didn't know this part of it, but like you know you drop out of college. You had a lot of failure

college. You had a lot of failure business-wise. You have you beat cancer

business-wise. You have you beat cancer and that's amazing. You had this crazy year in 2024 and now you're

>> I think on a good path making crazy amount of money personal life is going better. What would a young David, let's

better. What would a young David, let's say 16 years old, think about you right now?

Dang. You know what's crazy? 16-year-old

David, I think one of the reasons that I'm, like I said earlier in the interview, like one of the most important things I think for me was that

I have a pretty high risk tolerance. I'm

able to gamble anything if it kind of makes sense. And um the reason that I'm

makes sense. And um the reason that I'm able to do that is because even if I go to absolute zero, even if I go to like half a million dollars in debt, I know

that my mom and dad will always have just like a couch or a bedroom for me. I

can always go back and they will never judge me. They'll be like, "It's fine.

judge me. They'll be like, "It's fine.

You'll work through the debt. the next

business will be even better. You know,

that's like the kind of people that they are. And when I was 16 years old, my

are. And when I was 16 years old, my parents had that same mentality for me.

Like they really believed in me. Ever

since I was 10 years old, my mom would always tell me that I was going to be like the first Asian president in history. She would always tell me that.

history. She would always tell me that.

And she'd always say like, you know, anything I wanted to do, I could do it.

I was the funniest. I was the kindest. I

was the smartest, whatever, you know, whatever I needed to hear that day, my my mom would always like tell me. And I

think there were some years of my life where I was a little too maybe like big-headed because my mom pumped me up with like so much love and support. Some

would argue maybe even to this day, maybe I'm a little bit too big. I try to like I try to be humble, but like, you know, my my mom really instilled that in me. So, anyways, the answer to the

me. So, anyways, the answer to the question is my 16-year-old self would probably be kind of like, okay, I kind of expected to be in that spot. Or maybe

he might even be a little bit disappointed because he expected to be like on his way to being the first Asian president uh of the United States. Um

like by the you know, I'm 29 now. So, by

the time I'm 29, maybe expected that like I was already like getting all the accolades necessary to be like the first president. This is not a joke. Like my

president. This is not a joke. Like my

mom genuinely believed I would be the Asian first Asian president >> and and I think that is like sounds so ridiculous and crazy but

>> you know growing up that was really helpful to me cuz I was never like the smartest kid. I was never like the most

smartest kid. I was never like the most athletic kid. I was never like the most

athletic kid. I was never like the most like good-looking or like whatever kid.

But I was still confident despite having not really anything any like you know quantifiable thing that is tied to

confidence. Because of them like I was

confidence. Because of them like I was really able to you know do the things that I wanted to do which is like make a business which is a you know to some

people a very daunting thing. So, um,

yeah, I've my 16-year-old self will probably be slightly underwhelmed perhaps if you saw how I was doing today.

>> Well, I I love that actually because it's just beautiful to have your parents behind you. And

behind you. And >> I think when people you love believe in you, >> it makes you do really huge thing. And

you know, I was talking about my girlfriend fiance actually like >> Oh, wow. congrats.

>> She is. Thanks. she is for me, you know, like she's like always behind me and always makes me dream even bigger because she believe in me. And I think that having people around you like that

is u is really important.

>> Yeah, I agree. And when are you guys getting married?

>> Well, that's a good question.

>> Yeah.

>> Can't get the can't find time to actually get married.

>> Yeah, exactly. No, we will, but it's just like we have to organize that and do that in Europe. So

>> I see I see.

>> Yeah. But soon. Soon.

>> Cool.

>> Do you have um something to say to someone who is watching now and actually want to follow your path or is inspired by what you've built? A big advice you

would give him or her?

Yeah, I mean my biggest advice would be that uh you kind of have to like be extremely skeptical of like everything, you know,

like for example, when I was younger, I was very easily malleable to like everything. Like uh you know, some guy

everything. Like uh you know, some guy would show up on my Instagram reel saying like your your 20s and 30s are for grinding. you're not supposed to

for grinding. you're not supposed to have any fun. And then I'd be like, oh [ __ ] I guess I'm not supposed to have any fun. And then some other person

any fun. And then some other person would come and be like, life is all about, you know, balance and it's all about like, you know, like like not grinding, you know, the opposite. And

then I' I'd start thinking in that direction. And

direction. And um obviously as you get older, this is so clearly not the right way to live life. But if you're younger, it's kind

life. But if you're younger, it's kind of hard to kind of differentiate between, you know, someone who's actually giving you advice and someone who's low-key giving you advice because they want you to subscribe to their

newsletter or they want you to join their course or because they just want to get followers and they know that this hook that they say just always gets views. And this hook maybe is something

views. And this hook maybe is something old that they don't even really believe anymore, but because they want to keep growing, they need to keep saying the same thing. You don't know the

same thing. You don't know the incentives of why anybody's saying it.

You have no idea what my incentive is to show up on this podcast. You've been

listening to me. If you made it towards the end here, you know, you've listened to me for like 50 minutes, an hour now.

But you you should be very curious why I came on this podcast to like share all these things like why like what what is the reason, you know? And when you start thinking like that, like what is the incentives of this person telling me

these things? um you could be a lot more

these things? um you could be a lot more critical about like what you ingest and like what you actually kind of um uh can

can use to shape your worldview. So

yeah, for anybody who's younger and who kind of hopes to, you know, get to um like some semblance of indie success,

bootstrapping, seedstrapping success, whatever. Um, I would say try not to be

whatever. Um, I would say try not to be easily swayed by um what you see on your timelines. You know, everything's kind

timelines. You know, everything's kind of fake. Like the every everything is is

of fake. Like the every everything is is you you can pay money to pretty much get amplified everywhere. And you you

amplified everywhere. And you you wouldn't even you don't even know what's real and what's fake um on what you see.

And and um that should be uh something that you're always kind of thinking about in the back of your head. And if

you see the world through that lens, it probably reduces like serendipity and a little bit of like your naive kind of happiness a little bit. But I think

it'll make you a bit more of a uh a better learner maybe and it'll it'll help you um see the world for what it actually is. So yeah, it's a it's a long

actually is. So yeah, it's a it's a long little rant I did, but I think it's really important advice because uh had I followed that, it would have saved me a

lot of time. I would have woripped way fewer false idols and I would have gone earlier into the path of like kind of

building my own like model of how I wanted to see the world and what it looks like to be the founder that I wanted to be and build the company that I that I wanted to build. So yeah,

that's my piece of advice.

>> Perfect way to end this podcast, David.

Thank you.

>> All right. Thank you so much for having me and I hope I hope we could do this again, you know, some later sometime later down the line.

>> I would love that, man.

>> All right. Thank you so much.

>> Thank you, man. The back.