As a creator and entrepreneur, Ash understands the challenges of maintaining multiple social media platforms while growing your brand. Juggling new video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels on top of Twitter was nearly impossible without sacrificing quality or outsourcing for thousands per month.
That's why Ash co-founded Repurpose Pie - an automated content repurposing tool that takes tweets, turns them into high-quality videos, and posts across video platforms so creators can grow effortlessly. In just one week after launching, Ash achieved $75,000 in annual recurring revenue by solving a real pain point for Twitter power users.
This article carries the full story of how Ash identified the problem, built a minimum viable product, validated demand, and scaled the SaaS startup to $75,0000 ARR in 7 days. If you are interested in learning how to grow a SaaS tool fast, this article is ideal for you.
Ash M.
Identifying the problem
As someone with a large Twitter following focused on personal finance and entrepreneurship, Ash struggled to remain active on newer platforms oriented around short-form video like TikTok. Hiring contractors to turn Ash's tweets into shareable videos was too expensive at hundreds per month.
Ash realized she was not alone - many prominent Twitter personalities faced this same challenge. They were frustrated creatives with great content, but no time or affordable way to repurpose it across emerging platforms vital for growing brand awareness and sales.
That's when the idea for Repurpose Pie was born - an automated solution focused specifically on helping Twitter power users expand their reach by effortlessly repurposing existing content as high-quality videos. The market potential was huge if Repurpose Pie could deliver value at scale.
Building the MVP
With the problem validated through their own struggles, Ash and her co-founders got to work on a minimum viable product (MVP). Using Python and React, they built a basic web app that could:
- Take tweets as text input
- Output videos with AI-generated voiceovers
- Allow customization of fonts, colors, and basic overlay graphics
This is what it looked like:
While rough, it functioned well enough to start experimenting and receiving initial user feedback. Within a few weeks, they had a working tool even if far from perfect or fully-featured. At this minimum stage, their goal was validation over aesthetics or polish.
Launching the Early Adopter program
Next, they launched an Early Adopter program to further test demand before full product development. Ash reached out to 100+ influencers and creators within her network, pitching the problem and their simple MVP solution. The response was phenomenal.
Nearly 50% of those contacted paid their introductory founder's rate on the spot, eager for any solution. Another 10% inquired about annual plans. Armed with this initial $1,000 in sales and real user feedback, they had all the validation needed to take Repurpose Pie seriously.
It was clear they had identified a legitimate pain point creators were willing to spend hundreds, if not thousands monthly to solve. The market potential was massive if they delivered an affordable automated system of the highest quality.
Building out the full feature set
Emboldened by overwhelmingly positive initial traction, Ash and her co-founders committed fully to product development over the next several months. Their focus became nailing three key aspects:
Creators cared most about output quality since their brand relied on it. To deliver, they integrated advanced AI text-to-speech models to produce natural-sounding voiceovers in a variety of voices and accents. Advanced editing tools and customizable multilayer video templates were also core.
To maximize time savings and differentiate from outsourcing, automation was paramount. Repurpose Pie had to intelligently detect new tweets, turn them instantly into videos optimized for each platform, and auto-post without any ongoing manual work. Complex backend and parsing algorithms came online gradually.
Users would want flexibility fitting their unique style. They baked in options for adding background images/videos, advanced text effects, reusing or randomizing templates, and even AI voice "cloning" to mimic creators' tones perfectly. Control was king, and they built for complete customizability.
With a fully-featured system and hard months of development complete, it was time for the official launch.
Launch strategy: Leveraging social proof
Now came the marketing. As a SaaS targeting content creators with massive Twitter followings like their own, leveraging their existing network was paramount. Here is the launch strategy:
- Testimonials from early users: Securing glowing written and video reviews from beta users with hundreds of thousands of followers each lent invaluable social proof and credibility.
- Twitter announcements: All co-founders announced Repurpose Pie to their sizable Twitter audiences (500k+ combined) along with a 40% lifetime discount for the first 100 customers. Demand surged immediately.
- Hashtags: Trending hashtags like #RepurposePieLife and #GrowEverywhere brought virality, showing others how the product worked to accelerate growth across platforms.
- Waitlist promotions: A built 1,000+ person waitlist received launch week welcome emails prompting them to try the discounted Founder's Rate. Many converted on the spot.
Within 72 hours, Repurpose Pie crossed $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and continued increasing rapidly thanks to the power of their existing creator network spreading the word. The strategy proved highly successful for achieving fast, organic traction.
Crossing their $75,000 annual revenue goal in 7 days
As they launched, the founders had set a goal of reaching $75,000 in their first year in business. However, within the first month, Repurpose Pie had already scaled to $75,000 in revenue. T
This explosive growth was strange to them but the work they put behind it explains it all. Here are several tactics they used that led to this growth:
- Customer support: Ash and her co-founders maintained 24/7 messaging support to address issues instantly and gather additional feedback for product improvements. This brought about strong loyalty. It also led to some users purchasing annual plans which hiked the revenue earned.
- Email nurturing: A sophisticated ConvertKit email automation sent a steady stream of updates, how-to guides, and additional discount offers to expand average order value over time. Also the pre-launch email funnels helped a lot with this.
- Affiliate program: Early adopters were offered 30% commissions to recommend the software naturally through their own networks. Viral growth exploded as a result.
- Content upgrades: Advanced features like video background uploads, AI voice cloning, and auto playlisting rolled out per user demand to strengthen retention and upgrade rates.
- Paid social advertising: Targeted Twitter/Facebook boosts brought new customers seeking solutions for their platform management issues at high ROIs.
In just a single week post-soft launch, Repurpose Pie had organically achieved the $75,000 ARR goal through an intense focus on solving real problems, leveraging existing relationships, and optimizing the onboarding/retention process. Fast traction validated their product-market fit hypothesis.
Key lessons learned
There were many insights gained throughout building Repurpose Pie from concept to a $75,000 SaaS business in a record period of time. For other entrepreneurs, here are the top lessons learned:
- Solve your own problems first: Identifying pains you and others face lend authenticity and a natural audience to validate ideas quickly.
- MVP first, features later: Validate demand before spending heavily on development. An imperfect prototype is far better than never launching due to chasing "perfection."
- Leverage your network: Existing relationships can exponentially spread the word, saving marketing budgets through organic growth if the solution truly adds value.
- Focus on recurring revenue: Monthly/annual billing provides lasting cash flow stability over one-off transactions prone to churn. Build retention from day one.
- Continually improve UX: User feedback shapes the best product enhancements over assumptions alone. Constant iteration based on real needs sets the stage for lasting dominance.
- Marketing = sales = revenue: Acquisition tactics must constantly point prospects towards buying, not just learning. Strong salesmanship across all channels is core.
It's through these lessons of rapid validation, leveraging existing communities, and relentlessly optimizing based on user behavior that any new startup can achieve similarly fast growth right out of the gates. With Repurpose Pie, Ash looks forward to even greater success ahead, scaling beyond Twitter to all creators.
