Profitable Founder
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Profitable Founder
I Built a SaaS From 0 to $83K MRR in 7 Months
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It was really the first SAS that I did that really went from zero to seven hundred and fifty kmr, 100% bootstrapped.
SPEAKER_00This is Loik. He built and scaled my NER to $750,000 MR after failing for five years in the dark.
SPEAKER_01I didn't see the sun enough. The incubator was really like underground. And so for five years I just like spent five years coding for actually nobody. Like nobody used what I did.
SPEAKER_00Seven months ago he left MyEA to build a new stats and applied the exact same playbook.
SPEAKER_01Today actually is a good day.
SPEAKER_00He just hit 83,000 a month. In this episode, you will discover how to break every plateau from $0 to $750,000 a month with the specific strategy he used for each stage. Why having a creator as a co-founder is the ultimate hack in 2026? And what he would do if he had to start over today. Let's dive. So Loik, you said plateau are just door you don't have the key to yet. All growing SAS it's ceiling and require a specific unlock in order to break through. How did you break your $0 plateau?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the the the first one and the hardest one. The $0 plateau is it's it's um the first one ever when you actually you you build your first SaaS is really struggling. The second and third one is like just uh a number of days, so it's just like way less um emotion, let's say but the first one um it's just like through sheer energy, just like go on social media at the time it was Facebook, okay, and it's just yeah, spread the word, uh try and have like one-on-one conversation that are like super long and not really scalable for sure. Uh but yeah, the the the first one is just yeah, just comments, asking friends and asking like people that you can reach to just test your tool and then get your first sub, your second one, your third one, and then from there just reinvest in your growth and and and you know just see it scale. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00So of course, in in this quote, you are talking about way bigger plateau, 100k, 300k, and we will talk about that later. But first, yeah, I want to know the first one because they are the hardest. If you don't get to the $1, you give up. If you don't get to enough money to survive, you give up. So, what was for you the second plateau after the zero?
SPEAKER_01Um so fortunately, I never had the plateau that was under 10k mm MRR, which I guess this one is pretty hard because under 10k MRR, it's like kind of working, but like not enough to you know give you like a um a really good salary. But the the first real plateau that I hit, I think was like 30k MRR. It was with my first SAS uh Influest Pi, which was basically a SAS that helped uh e-commerce guy to find like creators on on Instagram at the time. Uh, and we hit a plateau with this one. Um, and basically how we avoided this one was to basically meet up with a really big creator uh in France, whose name was uh Yumi Denzel, uh who's like really famous in uh at the time for like e-commerce stuff, and we basically created a new company with him uh named MyA. Um so that's why how how we actually uh broke the first plateau at 30k. Um but yeah, so basically it was just through uh cap table movements and you know integration of a really big creator that just helped to help us scale.
SPEAKER_00Did you struggle a lot before like actually getting to this first SaaS, getting to 30k and everything? Like, did you struggle for a long time or many SAS or app or whatever did you launch before?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. Um yeah, man. I I spent like five, maybe like three years or five years in the cave. Uh like after school, I just like created uh a bunch of SAS. Uh we were in the incubator of like my um my engineering school, and basically I had like um yeah, like issues because I didn't I didn't see the sun enough because I was like the incubator was really like underground. And so for like for five years, I just like spent five years coding for for actually nobody, like nobody used what I did, uh except maybe like you know, like some beta testers uh that I had. And uh yeah, the the the my first startup was uh emotional equity, which was basically like analysis um within the voice uh for call centers. But yeah, I was like 21, 22, so I didn't know uh anything about SaaS making and uh co and entrepreneurial. So I made all the the mistakes possible. Um and then yeah, afterwards, I think the switch was really when I understood it wasn't about the solution, it was really about the problem. Um so I started with the problem. So I didn't like, oh, I can do this, I'm gonna do this. No, uh just start like speaking to people, understanding their problem, their everyday problem, and then finding solutions for these problems. Um so once I understood this, um, so maybe I don't know, like five, six years after when I started, um this is where I got her to like it really worked.
SPEAKER_00How did you get through that? Like, how did you like why did you continue actually?
SPEAKER_01I don't know, I'm done, man. Uh it was really hard. Like, I remember like when I when I got out of uh out of school, like I saw my friends that had like you know regular jobs, and I was like the guy who was still living off like I don't know, like uh I was like a part-time teacher uh to like you know get some to like to just pay the rent. Uh and yeah, for like five years it was like you know, like it's pretty hard to to look at yourself and saying, okay, why why am I doing this? Like I'm really working a lot, I'm sacrificing a lot of stuff, and I'm really not gaining any money from this. Is this liberty like the the freedom I have from this is really worth it? Um yeah, and so yeah, it was really hard. Um but I don't know. I'm I think I'm just yeah, I just yeah at some point I I really knew I really want to do this. Um and to be honest, at some point, I think it's also a matter of luck. Like I I'm trying to be like as much humble as possible, but I tried a lot of stuff, and one of the stuff worked after like six years, and and yeah, but I yeah, I I think it's it's also part of luck.
SPEAKER_00I think you're right, and the more I interview people, the more I see that like luck is a big world because you did the work to get there. But I think at one point you have to be at the good place at a good time, with the good skills, with the good like knowledge, with the experience, yeah, the right people, and then it unlock everything. But at the first, yeah, the first like uh few years or whatever, you had like to go through wall, wall, and wall, and you take them in the face until like one break and you see through it.
SPEAKER_01And you're alone also, like you're 100% alone. Like after like I remember like the first year, my friends were like, Oh yeah, you're gonna do it, yeah, you're gonna be fine, yeah, amazing entrepreneur. And I was like uh back in the days in France, there was like this thing was called the family, which was like a really good incubator, and there was like really like kind of guru style, like, oh yeah, like you just you know, you like just do a landing page, you're gonna be like a millionaire, it's gonna work for you. Like, well, and everyone was like really cheering up. And after like one or two years, like you know, you're like your friends are like, dude, are you sure you want to do this? Like, are you sure? And then after four years, it's your mom, after six years, it's your brother. And and so, yeah, at some point you're just like alone with yourself, which you know it's uh yeah, it's hard.
SPEAKER_00And someone who said that not long ago, I don't remember who. He said that back in the day it wasn't really cool to be an entrepreneur. Like the family was nice, but like I mean, now it's kind of like you know, everyone is an entrepreneur, everyone shares like entrepreneurship stuff, it's cool, like it's like romantized with like all this cool video and everything. But I feel like back in the day it was not loser, but like it wasn't cool at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I remember like especially in my school, like it was the the cool guys were the consultant guys, like the guys that hit like really good consulting firms and and and these, like, yeah, but um yeah, not anymore. I mean kind of shifted now. Because and I think all it's also due to the work of like so back in the days of Guillaume Guillaume Webesh, that was kind of like the the guy that really made it in France, and after you have all these guys like Thibaut Maker and Marc Lelou and um and you as well that are like you know public, and it's it's really cool to to see that those guys like really motivate other guys. Um, so and I hope I I can do that as well. But uh but yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think you're already doing it. So what was Minea? Can you explain?
SPEAKER_01So um after it's funny because after five years of existence, nobody knows if it's Mania or Minea. Uh but uh basically basically it's um Mania is basically a SaaS. So it's a SAS that helps e-commerce guys and dropshippers to find what they call like winning product through ads. So the thesis is okay, just uh we just scan like ads on TikTok, Meta and Pinterest and all this. Uh and we just see okay, this ad has been running for like this amount of days uh with this like uh spending, so it must be working for the owner. So basically, what you need to do is take this ad, spin it for your product, and do the same in I don't know, the same country or another country, etc. So basically, like it's just yeah, we just scrap a lot of ads. Um and at the day, it was really the merging between three entities, um, so several SaaS companies and a really big YouTube creator, so Yumi Denzel. Um and it was really it was really cool. It was really the first SaaS that I did that we really like went from zero to I think we hit like 750k MRR, which is pretty, pretty big. Um, 100% bootstrap with like yeah, just like a co-founding team that was just uh friends, and and we hired of course a lot of of guys, but we are there was also a friend. Um, so it was really like a familiar environment, which was pretty cool. Um and yeah, it was yeah, it was really cool.
SPEAKER_00So I want to know more about it because there is a plateau, we'll talk about that. But you said um you broke the first plateau 30k MRR with the partnership with this YouTuber, um, Yomidenzel. For people who are not French, right uh looking at watching this video, Yomidenzel I think is like probably the biggest online business like influencer in France. I think he is. And back in the day he was also probably. So, how did you end up partnering with him?
SPEAKER_01Oh uh FOMO. Uh actually, I think it was funny because um, so yeah, back in the days there was like two big companies that were uh really big in e-commerce. It was us Infuspy and another one that was really focusing on on uh on uh Facebook. We were focusing on Instagram, they were focusing on Facebook. And Yomi actually started to talk about uh you know merging with the other company. But at the time, uh our company and the Facebook one really talked about like creating a bundle, and and you know, they were also French, so we were like really big in the market, so it was kind of funny. And so we talked about like a at first it was more like a bundle approach, and then Yomi got uh you know word of this, and he was like, okay, so this is becoming like pretty big, they're French. Um, so maybe we can have a discussion, and and from there we kind of merged together and created my Mia. Um so this is and and yeah, basically I think it's to attract the the attention of like really big creators, you just are need to create like you know, like kind of uh of hooks of like, okay, this is happening. Uh are you in or now? Are you in or or out? Uh and you know, there's a deadline, and you need to, you know, it's it's a bit like VCs actually. You just need to keep pressure and and and yeah, just um you show them it's a really big opportunity.
SPEAKER_00And how did you integrate that? Because uh Yomi Denzel has an online course. Uh he was back in the day teaching uh dropshipping e-commerce. How did you integrate the SaaS in the offer? And how did it work to actually also split the two companies?
SPEAKER_01Um, so we we killed the the the two initial SaaS and created this new brand, uh Mania. And so at first, um he so the this creator was so big that we had the stamp of like, okay, this tool is actually created by Yomi. So it must be a good tool. So like I think overnight we captured the French market with just like a uh like an announcement, and no, like it like it really spread like wildfire. Uh and we got like the stamp of like my Nia is really tool by Yomi, so it's it must be really amazing. Um and then so we we so he did like um a live uh explaining you know my Nia, the features, and it was really stressful. Like we are it was yeah, it was really stressful. Uh and then we went from zero to 100k MRR with just his like initial audience. Uh so it was crazy, it was really cool. Um and so from there we hit a plateau actually for almost a year for like 100k MRR because we just we struggled to like break through his audience. Um so and from there we basically uh after a year, we we we got it like really better on marketing and and tried to explore other pockets. Uh so now my Nia is not stamped as Yomi's tool, as this creator's tool, but it's like a brand with like its own like uh mark marketing and his own like brand identity. Um we're international, we're like everywhere across the world. So yeah, at first the first plateau was more like okay, yeah, we're this creator's tool. Um so yeah, it was hard to break through. Let's go to the next one. How did you break 100? Uh so uh the 100 one, I think we started to to just like do partnerships. So it's it's you know, where like it's it was kind of funny because we had like this a lot, like yeah, we had a lot of revenue, it was like we're working well, but we didn't have like a lot of insights on our app. So um, so yeah, for example, like we didn't know really what was the really good distribution channel. We we still like tested a lot of different stuff. Um so and at one point we understood that the one that was really working was uh YouTubers, so YouTube creators especially. Um so we start focusing on this. Um and and yeah, we we got like other um we got other creators, we got and also international creators, especially in the in the United States, uh, where we we booked like with me um two or three really big creators. Um and then from there we we actually got the intention of the uh the US market. So we of course translated uh had like the app translated. Um we had like other features that was more like uh like we have like better for this market. And so from there we went to 100k to 300k MOR. Um yeah, within yeah the next year, I think. Uh so yeah, I think it was more like focusing on the this the distribution channel that was really working uh and and just you know focusing on this one.
SPEAKER_00And let's go to the next one's 200k because I think this one is interesting actually.
SPEAKER_01How did we get to so we yeah, so after we we we had a blocking to 300k, um and this one uh so yeah, I need to remember exactly. So I think this one we broke through with um webinars. So we did really like big webinars with Yumi because again, so this creator is has this aura and he's really good because he has a huge audience. But he's but uh a lot of people don't really understand about Yomi is that he's like one of the best salesmen I ever seen. He's like really, really, really good at salesmanship. Um, so we actually uh put this guy and put like him on a webinar dedicated for my and for my so uh for people who don't who don't know to create a webinar, you can't really sell uh a SaaS with a $50 subscription, it costs too much. So you have to have like uh at least an offer that is like hundred between 150 and 200 bucks for the for the webinar to work. So we actually shifted my strategy and created a um a high-tier offer that was like uh I think it was 400 400 bucks per month and discounted at like 300. Um and we actually put a lot of ads into Yomi webinar and we created like a really big webinar. Uh and at the end we just sold the the high-tier plant plan with like of course bonuses and like you know uh other stuff. Um and so yeah, from this we went from 300 to 500 uh KM MRR uh with like a couple of webinars for like a year. So yeah, we we went to this other plateau.
SPEAKER_00So you did um you you started with organic uh like organic growth through actually his audience. When did you start doing ads? It was pretty early or it was like around 300k or before?
SPEAKER_01Um so ads as like Facebook ads, I think we really started to do it only for uh the webinar. To be honest, we didn't really crack the um maybe after maybe after a while, but the the ads solely on the SAS, like the re retargeting was working, of course, but like really old cold ads, it was kind of hard. So um we did it, of course, but it wasn't it wasn't really like the the the main distribution channel. The like I'm you know there's like the the product channel fit where you have like 80% of your distribution come from one of one channel, which for us was obviously the YouTubers, and for the rest, yeah, we did like SEO, we did ads, but it was more like opportunity uh than really like really focusing on it.
SPEAKER_00So you pushed it to $750,000.
SPEAKER_01We pushed it to $500 uh and then we plateaued again for $500, and then for the next one, the $750. Um, so we basically again like every time you want to hit uh so maybe it's my strategy, I don't I don't but it worked for us. But um every time we hit a plateau, we decided to increase the price. So we're like, okay, um we actually just you know talked to our users and saw that obviously there was like a lot of beginners in our audience. A lot of people just came in my neigh, tested it a f for a few days and then churned. When we asked them, okay, why are you like why are you churning? The the main reason it was not because okay, the I don't know, like bugs or like you know classic SaaS churn. It was more like okay, I'm just quitting the industry because I don't know how to start and I don't know how to do it. Uh even though we had like a free academy and stuff, it was more like it was working okay, but like the essence was like, yeah, I need someone to help to actually help me. Um so basically from there we created uh what we call Mania Coaching, which is it's a it's a it's under the same brand, it's Mania Coaching, but it's really his own entity. Um and it's we we hired like a uh e-commerce coach to really help um like the the like the the guys like with a one-on-one coaching and we invoice uh a bit higher. Um so this is where how we broke from 500 to 750. It's like more like uh like you know, like uh maybe like enterprise plan, we call it uh really like one-on-one custom coaching.
SPEAKER_00I think you did something as well. I don't know when exactly, but you did like um you shipped a new feature, minier magic search, and you did like 60kmr in 24 hours, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um so m actually the magic search. I'm I'm so proud of this thing because in the industry we were the first one that really tried and implemented um AI into our data system. So at one point, obviously, that uh Mania had like a lot of data. Um and Magic Search was really an initiative we we we tried to just you know to add like uh vectorization and really more like AI stuff to like um try and merge the data together. And so we shipped this, and Yomi was the first ambassador, it was really amazing, and people really understood the thing. Um, and then I think like within two months, our entire competitor has like search magic or like magic search, and you're like, okay, like so it was it was it was pretty cool like to see that yeah, we we were really the first mover in this market was who was uh already crowded, so it was really cool. Pretty proud of this.
SPEAKER_00So, what did you learn um working at this huge like startup that was making 750k a month, which is like insane. What were like the key lessons that you had from this experience?
SPEAKER_01Uh so well uh I don't know. So I I think it was it was really amazing because um so as a CEO I understood that my my job really transitioned from at first I was an entrenchist. So at first I was like doing everything, I was doing trying to do marketing, I was doing dev, I was doing pretty much everything. Then at one point it really shifted into okay, my job is to hire people that are like way better than me uh to do like one thing but like really, really good. Um and so at some point my main my main mission become more from shipping to okay, I'm here to just put the vision on paper and make sure everyone understands and that uh I have the best elements in uh in every in like in all this on on in all the key spots and and uh and just to like move forward. So it was it was pretty hard because I'm usually like a I'm a dev, so I I love like developing and I love like shipping stuff because you know this you have this dopamine hits uh that that you don't have when you're just doing notion uh roadmaps. Um so yeah, I think I think the the thing I really learned personally was yeah, transition. from yeah this kind of like maker to like trying the to to do to to have to like to be the guy with the vision um and it's it's not it's not ide that easy actually how did you learn that uh through sweat two three I don't know it was really yeah it was um at some point like you just can't keep up the rhythm uh to to be everywhere and to like to to just yeah you you you you can't actually do everything at some point so I almost burned out uh I think it was like two two or three years like in uh in the in the making of the of my new and then like yeah I was just yeah just conflicting myself between okay I need to ship this I need to actually show them that I'm like the the the leader of that also does stuff and I also need to hire like three other guys and to keep up the rhythm and to so it was yeah at some point I just it was too much um so so yeah so this is where like okay my only choice now is to just only do the management the management part and the vision part.
SPEAKER_00When was it in the scale like was it like a 100k 300k 500 300 I think 300 yeah like the 300 mark and can you just like explain um a bit what was actually the different step team wise um like how many people were you like before hundred at 300 500?
SPEAKER_01So at first uh we were only like the co-founder so only like the yeah so yeah just uh we were like five five co-founders uh we were just splitting into like distribution and and tech uh and initially we hired people from with like from upwork and fiber that were like not really a lot of like didn't cost we were really lucky to hire like really amazing people that were like not uh not really expensive but again I think that was really sheer luck but however like these people how like they were really good um execu like execu execution but didn't help in the vision in long term and like the the hierarchy and and making the the the core product really strong uh it helped us ship features that's for sure but it didn't didn't really help us in the in the larger in the larger um vision uh and after like I think it was 300k uh I really pushed to to hire because again it was was really against the the the company the company culture um I really tried to push and hire like really top tier guys and to have what I call like sea level guys so we actually moved from okay the founders are the C levels no actually now the the C levels are like really experts that are really have our other experience and are like really better than uh than me for example on on dev like I'm pretty good on dev but like I'm really nowhere near the level of the CTO I hire like that's for sure. So I really tried to hire like C levels on like at least like four four different C levels that were like really amazing in their uh spec of work and then after my job was to try and like you know make sure they all connected and they all talk talk together and they're just focusing on one thing and executing the main vision. And I bet 200 and 500k. How do you find this uh talent these people again sheer luck uh so I hired like so two two of them were my friends um so I I so I didn't look far you have smart friends right say what you just have smart friends so it's easy yeah yeah uh yeah and then it's it's yeah I hired like two two or three that were like just amazing and I was like okay if one day I I I uh succeed I I want them to work like with me and again I'm not saying for me I'm saying with me that's really different and and again like I saw them as like my um my my team like it were yeah yeah we're all together in the in the same thing and um anyway it was really amazing and then for the two two others um yeah I hired like a headhunting company uh and paid like a lot I think we pay like 300 uh um uh 30k or 50k to just find the best CTO and the same in the best like CMO uh and it took like yeah four months uh I was really struggling I I saw like a lot of people and made a lot of interviews and uh read a lot a lot of like use cases and uh and stuff but uh it was yeah it's worth it because actually like this guy also one one thing I I I learned from hiring like really top tier C levels is that you're just not hiring a C level a really really good C level he's gonna come with this team as well so for example if you hire a CMO a really good CMO the CMO is gonna come with like his media buyer and his like guy for the content strategy that he knows from his previous experience and so you're really hiring a new like a small team a small squad uh usually it's it's how it works um so and it's it's really different from just like hiring a solo dev um you yeah you hire a team and also you also hire like a a framework like the CMO obviously so I'm um now I understand uh distribution but at first when I hired the CMO I wasn't really good in marketing and the and distribution so this guy really helped me understand way more things about CMO uh about marketing and distribution than I I could have like just reading Twitter or like uh edit post so yeah you basically uh kind of hire a mentor that will push also your company further yeah yeah how did it change for you like were you sitting and were you sit seeing like just the company growing without you of course you are still working but you know in this different part um it's I at first you have to understand yeah yeah you have to let it go like um I'm I'm not a huge believer in microman micromanaging um I hired these guys and I pay them really well and I I in at some point you need to trust them. But um but yeah you have to make sure that they understand where you want to head. That's that's the only thing you you need to do. And and from time to time it's it's um especially so during the summer I love to just go back to the engineering team and help them ship a feature and show them that you know um I also understand what they're doing. So it's it's something that yeah sometimes I really like it. Or I don't know to create a landing page uh for the marketing for the marketing guys they say oh cool the CEO created a landing page it's like you know it's cool or like to create a automation on Zapier or make it it's uh it's yeah it's cool.
SPEAKER_00It's like Elon Musk going in the factory and sleep in a factory too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah that I mean it's also like so I'm I'm not an unmus for sure but I think from time to time you have to understand that it's also a question of um morale. I don't know like you have to like yeah a moral boost morality where um where from what I understand is that you can be like it's really hard to to push a team to be at 100% all the time. It's really hard. Because obviously I don't know yeah sometimes you're tired and sometimes you're just defocused and stuff. So basically what I did um and it worked super well for like four years is that I had I think Shopify is doing this. Every like four months I have like um a release that is public and that is already announced. And we have for example a creator for example Yomi that is explaining new features during a webinar. So it's really a a really big event. So the marketing team is focused on this on this uh on this part where you know we have like I don't know 200k ads going into this and the tech must be ready. And so at some point the marketing team and the the the dev team knows this. They know they have a deadline and so they need to focus and ship it because if it doesn't work or the product crashes during the live I mean you know we all know who's the default. So it's it's really it's a really good point to have like these little markers uh in the timeline saying okay so this is really moment you you have to be ready because otherwise like the entire company is like no like that doesn't work. So so it's more like it's not like a straight line of motivation it's more like high peaks and then obviously like between the peaks as a CEO I was like I was um more okay if there if the pressure was not like 100% because I knew it was coming back just in like one month. So you are in my I would say mine A not now not mine Air 750K MR is going well you step out yeah um so yeah I mean um yeah yeah so the um the thing is um I I talked to uh to a lot of my customers and Mania and so Mania was really good to help people find uh products right um but at some point when they found products they didn't know how to like you know ship it and to sell it to create um like a website or e-commerce site it's not that easy uh you know you have to be either a developer or designer or to understand copywriting and to understand like how to um you know to to make a sell it's pretty hard. So um yeah I decided to just and after again it was like after four or five years of doing my NIA which was amazing but I really want to see other another another like environment. So I decided to just quit and uh like quit my post as CEO and to drag my best friend into creating a new SaaS which uh is called Dropmagic. And the sole thing of Dropmagic is that it creates uh e-commerce stores that converts in five minutes using AI. So the only thing you need to do is just put your the product you want to sell and then we create a uh a product page that converts and you failed no it is one km in five days and then five kmr in 30 days right and then now you're at 60 km r how did you make more uh today as actually is a good day we hit 1 million uh uh rr so it's like 83 I think 83.4 something like that yeah that's the magic number yeah yeah uh um so we're pretty happy with it congrats yeah yeah it's we yeah we're it's really uh it's really cool we hit it in um uh in six seven months so it's pretty cool um and yeah again we we hit a plateau with the these damn plateaus um we hit a plateau I think it like it was 10k yeah 10k and then we hit another plateau at 50k um and basically how the the the playbook was a really similar to to my yeah is that we uh in the co-founding team we we put um uh really really great youtuber uh his name is Batista uh and he has this like yeah he's like what when you when you see him he's like super young he's like 24 I mean now I'm old but yeah he's like super energetic and he knows the market and he brings a lot of value to the product um and uh and so yeah we we took him into a co-founding team and with my best friend we created um DrumMagic so now we're three co-founders and um and yeah yeah it was uh it's pretty cool. So for you having um a creator someone with an audience is like the key to actually well take a shortcut kind of yeah um so two things um the first one is the creator like obviously like the the the creator really brings um value into the product so he's like really in the in the in the loop of like of like product feedbacks he tells us okay this doesn't work this is good this is the the direction like he gives us insight for us the product team to have the best UI and UX experience uh because again um Batista is using Drummagic every day to create stores um I'm not creating uh I'm not an e-commerce expert I I know how it works but like I'm now nowhere near his level of expertise so the thing people sometimes forget is that uh this guy so this YouTube creator is gonna be your your best power user so he's gonna really help make you uh the best decisions um so that's the first point the second point is obviously his audience um so yeah you are assured of having at least so depending on the the his audience but you know it's gonna work you know it's gonna you have at least like 5k or 10k mRR and the mindset is like super different because okay like you have way less stress. The other thing also that um people don't don't understand is that so our distribution uh is really with YouTube creators and having a guy with Batista help us really understand the the economics. So we do a video uh with him and we understand okay how what is the conversion rate how much like how much we can pay with to another creator uh the the one view for example and how much we will get with like the LTV and all the AOV and all these like uh KPIs because without him we'd need we would need to just like you know guess and and hire like creators and we we'd we wouldn't we wouldn't know if it would uh work or not um so with uh a YouTube creator as your co-founding team you have all of these data and all of your economics uh you know like it's uh you understand how it works so for that it's it's really really important. So what is the um how do you break the team is like you are still like you are a dev now or you are like not yeah coding I I came back to uh to the to dev yeah yeah it was it's funny um so I'm so basically um yeah I think I was kind of missing the um the dopamine hits of of developing and back in the days when I created an infusp in my there was no cloud code uh it was like everything you need to type like now people people forgot about this but you like before you need to type every letters right now you're like which which now sounds like super crazy like uh like the every letter of your function you would need to type now it's like obviously you prompt and you have like five a uh cloud code and it's just amazing. So yeah like I I came back to uh to the to the roots and um so now I'm I'm handling uh the the the tech parts which is pretty hard to be honest on Dr.Magic I I I wouldn't thought it was that hard but it's it's really hard even with cloud code. And I also uh handle like the creator's part because I have like this network that it I have from from Mania. And my co-founder uh is um the designer and product guy. So his name is Nicolas uh he's like the genius um designer that and product strategy that I that I know uh and Batista is really for the for he's making us like all the videos he's helping us with other creators and you know he's like he's uh playing with with his audience a lot so and of course each of you have a share of the company sorry what each of you have a share of the company yeah yeah yeah what one thing I I learned also from from entrepreneurial is that the only thing that matters to be honest um is incentives so every piece so even so for for all the co-founders uh obviously they have incentives which are you know they have uh shares and then they have like valuation out of these shares so even from people you hire um it's really like you need to make sure that they have the same incentive as the company so I don't know for example like uh we made our first hire on uh DrawMagic and this guy is like the dev that is only working for the supports so uh at first okay how how do I make sure that he has the same incentive as the company so for example for the support the only thing that we matter is that that that that matters for us is to have like a five star review on Shopify so we have like better ranking and then we have a more organic views right so this guy has a base salary but as a dev which is kind of rare he has you know like objective so he has like uh a bonus for every like five star reviews that that he gets for us so we know so I know he's gonna work for the same incentives as as um as the the company and so that that's thing like once you understand then this that you just need to make sure as a the co-founder that everyone has the good incentive it should be pretty fun.
SPEAKER_00So that's why you say that's what you said before that when you look for someone you say you work with me and you don't work for me. Did you do the same in minia in my did you actually like give a share or give incentive like or did it work?
SPEAKER_01No really so we had so for so for the shares in my it was pretty complicated because again like um it was like we were like a lot of co-founders and the equity was was really locked um so that's one of my uh biggest regrets is not to be able to give more more uh equity so basically what we did is to try and have like revenue sharing with for example like the CEO we hired or the CMO that we hired so and try to make them incentive in the growth of the company. So yeah we we tried to do that. But sometimes it's not like sometimes it's it's actually hard to for example like yeah the CTO it's like it's kind of hard to have like really good incentives for the CTO because it's not usually how they they they they they do like they have a fixed salaries but they are not like sales like they don't have like um um you know like options or stuff let's just go back at the beginning of drop magic you said one KMR in five days how did you do that uh how we did do I think yeah we just we just shipped a video with Betsy and um the thing is also so we we knew how um how it would work for example for Drop Magic the the funnel we created uh to for so for example like you put a a link to the product or you just put an image and then we create a store. The the funnel that we did was like really shareable was really like the UI was like really with a lot of animation it was kind of like the TikTok funnel that you want that you can see like it really was oh damn it it's super cool like I want to test this. So we create really focused on this funnel and and we shipped a video uh with Batista uh and yeah it like it blew uh so obviously like people were talking about this it was kind of the the new the new tool that was in town it was like pretty cool um so so yeah so you have to do a sexy onboarding or sexy feature to actually attract people first um so I think this is the wrapper but the real gift is the wow moments that you need to push so for example like our wow our wow moments was not like the onboarding uh it was the onboarding was more like the hook then the wow moment is that when you arrive on the builder that we created you have like streaming like you you see your store getting built like on live to you uh and then with again animation and stuff and so people are like okay damn like okay I just put like for example link or like AliExpress Inc or our competitors link and it builds the store like live within me so that's the wow moment.
SPEAKER_00The hook was that yeah of course the onboarding it was like really cool and it was yeah captivating but yeah though you have to have like this wow moment that usually is like a really cool feature that's what uh a Jean I think three videos ago said uh he built Outrank to now like more than 200k a month and he said that that you need to build a magic product like something that people like open and are saying exactly what you say wow and the product had to be good. So how long did it take to actually create this magical product?
SPEAKER_01Too too long. I dev it for like six months uh which is the thing you should not do. Uh like obviously you know you're now the the the the key the thesis is build the build the MVP within like two like one month and then try and ship. For us it was a bit different because we knew it was gonna work because we had a creator and I had like this background background with my so I could take the risk. But yeah for us it took like yeah six months to really build the this the product we're like proud of um and then after once once the core like layer was built yeah we're like okay how do how do we make a buzz? Like how do we just you know get the attention and uh and and try and and you know to so free people so people like talk about us.
SPEAKER_00I think it's important what you just say because you knew straight away that you will have eyeballs on your product when you launch exactly the same as a gene you knew that when Towmaker will share the product there will be eyeballs.
SPEAKER_01So you can take the time to build the perfect product while if you don't have an audience ship fast get feedback and then iterate so that's I say actually yeah pretty important to sure like the the the the cheat code of having a a YouTube creator is that you know it's gonna work the the question is how how much you can actually you know like use his audience and and have like the a really big spike on the on the launch and usually it's caused by the magic like you said like the magic wall moments that you have on your product. But yeah.
SPEAKER_00Did you you built in public right this one?
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah yeah I have a Twitter account where I share like my uh my my journey and what I do uh but I'm not I'm not yet uh I'm not yet boomer well go follow Loic right now yeah and what what is actually the um benefits for you to build in public um well the the main one currently so obviously I have like I think for now I have like five point five K so it's pretty pretty low but the main benefit for me personally is to just meet people uh that are like super nice. Like I met I think you you just interviewed so yeah you interviewed Jedi um like a like maybe a few weeks ago and I met him Through like Twitter. We're just like, I don't know, posting on stuff, and we just I DMed him and like, hey dude, like cool. And then we have a coffee on Paris. And I met like three or four really great entrepreneurs through th through uh Twitter. So or X, I don't I don't know how to call it. But yeah, I think for for now the main thing is just to meet really cool people. Then over time, my game plan is when I reach, I don't know, 15 or 20k, is to like maybe do like product launch uh for my audience. But um which it's kind of weird currently because my audience for now is not is they're not my customers. My customers for Mania and DrawMagic and Infusky are e-commerce. My the audience I'm trying to build currently is really for SaaS makers and pandemakers and entrepreneurs. So at some point I'm I'm I'm creating like SaaS for these guys. Um so currently what I'm doing is I'm creating another SaaS. Um it's called Blime. So basically, like the playbook I have on InfoStri, Mania, and DrawMagic is again through YouTube creators. Um so internally I build this tool called Blime that helps my teams to find the best creators and like to contact them and to see if they have like the good ratios and the good KPIs and to keep track of them and etc. Um, so for example, Blime, uh I did a YouTube video for uh Talk to Story and I talked about Blime. And it's yeah, it really helped Blime to grow the initial growth to like 1k MMR MRR. So I think later on, when I have a bigger audience, I'll I'll try to do like T Bomaker and and Marclu to just do product launch on my audience.
SPEAKER_00So you say that after my I'm do I'm saying it right now. After my you kind of use the playbook to launch drop magic, use the same playbook now to launch Blime. And can you just share us the playbook? Like what if you had to start again, which is what you do now, but what if you have to start again right now? What is the playbook from finding the ID, validate it, build it, and distribute it?
SPEAKER_01Um so again, I think it's it's just a matter of speed and execution, of course. So um try and have the initial feedbacks as as much as as fast as possible. Um to just have it tested uh through through people. My playbook is to have a creator on the co-founding team because again, they have like all these good advantages. Um so it secures a baseline of revenue. Um so if you so if yeah, just find a really good creator and secure maybe like five or like yeah, five K or 10 KmR, right? And from there you have like income, you have like cash every month coming in. So depending on where you are, you need to you know test it. You need to test, okay, is it is my uh drive the distribution channel fit, is it on um on YouTube, is it on, for example, Twitter, is it through ads, is it uh SEO, is it whatever? So I think the first month, your job is to make sure to test like stuff and see if it works. See the economics, see if um the the the CAC is is uh lower than your LTV, for example. So you the cut the cost of acquisition is lower than the money that uh the guy uh gives you, right? Um once you find it, so for us it's always been the same, it's always been like YouTube, YouTube creators. Once you find it, just close the all all the other ones uh and focus on this for the like the next uh two, three months. And for YouTube creators, um what works really well for me is to really start with like um guys that like under 10k followers because these guys usually you don't really have to pay upfront or you can like maybe like a you only can really try and negotiate like commission. Um so it's like a win-win scenario. Like, okay, if you give me a like a paying subscription, you get like 30% or 50 or 40% for life, and and and and and that's it. So you don't really take a lot of uh of risk because you're just spreading and you're trying to have like um yeah, just people talking about your product. Once you validate your economics with these guys, so you okay, you you you see that you know the the pattern is uh repeatable, it it's working, and this the the this script works, then this one. Um so once you have more data, you can actually take more bets. So you go and talk to like I don't know, creators I like between uh 10k and 50k um uh followers. These guys will will want to have upfront um because you know it's how how it works. Uh, they have a really a lot of production to do, so it's also a risk on their end. So you need you so you need to take more risk. Um and then you know, again, repeat it, repeat it, see what what works, what doesn't work. And once you find uh someone that is like really good, uh try and lock him for a quarter at least. A quarter, like three months, four months, and to do like several videos with him. Um and and then from there you just try and find what we call like ambassadors, so people that are on your payroll, but like for yeah, just like for for multiple months and are really becoming um your ambassadors, so they talk more and more about your about your product, and they just don't do like affiliation and just like um you know like advertisement. They really like it's embedded into their their like videos and it's really a part of them, and their audience will see okay, so this guy is really working with this tool, so I should be working also with this tool. Um, so so yeah.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Well, I will put the link of this uh playbook in the description. I just want to to add something. You created uh three successful uh startup. You said that the first thing that you understood is that you had to focus on the problem. Yeah, what were the three problems that you were solving with the three startups you built? Like really precisely, to just like give an example of someone who is watching.
SPEAKER_01So I re I really thought about this. Um I think the the thing that always came to my mind is something that Guillaume Webesh did, the guy from Lemness, is that you're the problem you're trying to solve is to make your customers successful. The rest, you don't give a shit, like you don't care about it. So our our thing was really more like okay, how do we make our customers uh successful? And how do we make them you know winning money? Uh that's basically the only thing you need to focus on. So from there you have sub problems. So I don't like for for Drum Magic, it's how to like you know ship a store within like 10 minutes because they they need to test a lot of like uh products and a lot of marketing marketing uh marketing angles, a lot of different personas. So it's really like the speed. For Maigna, it's okay, how do I have uh like on Mania, we have like a 1 million ads per day that we analyze. Uh, how do we just do aggregation on data and have like a clear snapshot of okay, of this is what's going on in this market, and this is hot, this is hot. So it's more like compact of a lot of information. But the main thing you have to really really focus on is okay, how do I make my customers successful and how do I make them money? Because if they win, they're gonna keep your subscription, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00I don't like I don't know, but like if someone is watching that, I feel like you delivered so many golden nuggets in this podcast. Like, honestly, like I learned a lot myself, and I'm sure that a lot of people uh will learn with what you just shared. Uh, if you learn something, what is like the key point that you learn in this podcast and just comment? I never ask you to comment, so please comment this time and tell us what you learned from Loic. Is there one last thing that you want to share to people who are watching? Someone who wants to start with maybe struggling at one of these plateau that you just shared during this podcast. What will you say to this person?
SPEAKER_01Uh it's so this is my recent thinking is um the thing that matters is not really the project, but it's more the team. So for me, now what I'm really focusing on is to have uh a small team that I can trust that are like super like really performant because you can always pivot. Um, you know, uh if the project doesn't work, but you have like a really solid team that is like like uh complementary and uh they're really really uh efficient, you can always like pivot or like switch a bit like the direction. From for Draw Magic, I think we switched like we didn't pivot uh like uh the entire strategy, but we switched directions like a lot. Uh same for my near. Um so and I think it really depends on the on the team because uh you really need to have a really good team to just you know these all the to be fast and do the uh do these like iterations. So my thinking is you can't do the you can't really do everything alone, or it's really hard, or actually it's not really my mindset. Um obviously there's uh a lot of people that are like doing solo stuff and they're like really amazing, but uh from my point of view, you need to focus on the team because the team will get you far. Um and uh and yeah, so focus on on finding the the right co-founders, be really strict with uh the co-founders you want to bet on because it's you know it's your uh it's really complex. Uh it's like basically you're gonna marry to to a guy and need to make sure that you you need you do the right bet. Um so yeah, for for for if I have one advice, I think yeah, just focus on the team.
SPEAKER_00Well, Loick, thank you for your time. Um, I wish you a lot of success for all your next startup, and you will become the next Tibomaker for sure. Thanks, man.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for the invite. It was really cool.