How Bolt Hit $40M ARR in 5 Months with This AI Pivot Strategy | Stackblitz(Bolt.new), Eric Simons
Eric Simons turned 7 years of failure into a $700M company in 3 months - here's how he did it. Eric started StackBlitz with a simple mission: eliminate the biggest barrier to coding by letting developers build entirely in the browser, no setup requi
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Intro
- 00:00In the first day, I think we added like
- 00:0260K. I remember one of our engineers was
- 00:04like, "Guys, we added 60K today. Oh my
- 00:06god." And you I jumped in was like,
- 00:07"Yep, it's cool, but like this is, you
- 00:09know, this is like launch day. This is
- 00:10going to go away." And that didn't
- 00:12happen. Every single day, we kept adding
- 00:14more and more ARR. In the first 2
- 00:17months, we went from 0 to 20 million of
- 00:19ARR. Everyone we were talking to had
- 00:21never seen anything like it. We were
- 00:22actually we were going to go out of
- 00:23business last year. You know, we spent
- 00:25seven years building out the core
- 00:27technology of the product. couldn't
- 00:29figure out how to actually effectively
- 00:31monetize it. We had one last experiment
- 00:33that we ran um is it's a product called
- 00:35Bolt. Finding product market fit. It is
- 00:37purely how many people you talk to. It
- 00:40is purely that you people there maybe
- 00:42early in their product career to kind of
- 00:43have lots of cool ideas about things
- 00:45they could build and whatever that are
- 00:47not really attached to the reality of
- 00:49the actual end user customer using the
- 00:52product, what they're trying to do with
- 00:53it, the challenges they're currently
- 00:54running into with it. One of the things
- 00:56we really invested in early on with Bolt
- 00:58was like community. You know, we've
- 01:00hired in a couple of folks who their
- 01:01entire job is just talking to our users.
- 01:03And so I think that's really the only
- 01:04way you can meaningfully scale the full
- 01:06cycle of user feedback is just having
- 01:08great people that are in your community
- 01:10or on your actual core team. That's
- 01:12their entire job and they're all working
- 01:14together. You have to learn how to be
- 01:16intellectually honest with yourself. And
- 01:17it's like, am I not giving up because
- 01:19that's what people say you should do, or
- 01:21am I not giving up because I actually
- 01:23really like I have conviction in this
- 01:25and like I just want to see this I I
- 01:27really want to see this made possible. I
- 01:30I think the only way I learned how to
- 01:32determine when it was time to pivot
- 01:34versus time to iterate was just
- 01:41I'm Eric Simons. I'm the co-founder and
- 01:43CEO of Stack Blitz and we're the
- 01:45creators of Bolt. new. People went to
- 01:47bolt.new, typed in the idea of a website
- 01:49or whatever that they wanted to make,
- 01:51hit enter, and 30 seconds later, they
- 01:53had a a web application ready to go.
- 01:55First two months of launching Bolt, we
- 01:57went from 0 to 20 million of ARR. The 3
- 01:59months since then, we've added another
- 02:0120 million of ARR just about, and we now
- 02:03have almost 4 million registered users
- 02:06and are continuing to grow like a weed.
19-Year-Old Founder Who Secretly Lived in AOL Building
- 02:12I like computers from a pretty early
- 02:14age. I was like building computers like
- 02:16be gaming computers and that sort of
- 02:18thing. That was actually when my
- 02:19co-founder and I met was when we were
- 02:21you I think around 12 or 13. The first
- 02:24product that my co-founder and I built.
- 02:27We basically built a version of Dropbox
- 02:29before Dropbox existed. And this is back
- 02:31in like 2006 or 7. At that time, the way
- 02:34that you kind of bring your digital
- 02:36documents between school and home was
- 02:37like USB flash drives. You're like 12 or
- 02:4013 or whatever. You're going to forget
- 02:41this, right? You're going to leave this
- 02:42at home. Happened all the time. And so
- 02:44we had the idea of like, hey, let's just
- 02:45make a digital storage service that
- 02:47people can upload their homework to or
- 02:48whatever. And it took off like wildfire
- 02:50like the entire many school districts in
- 02:52Illinois and just kind of across the
- 02:54Midwest started using this thing. I
- 02:56think at that time I was I was like 18
- 02:58or 19. I for come out Silicon Valley. We
- 03:00had gone through one of these
- 03:01accelerator program. At that time they
- 03:03would give you like 20K. So we went
- 03:05through that money and then we're out of
- 03:06money but we the product wasn't ready to
- 03:08launch. And so I was like what do you
- 03:10do? We just so happened to had access to
- 03:12the AOL building at that time because
- 03:14one of our investors said was renting
- 03:15office space out of there. So I had a
- 03:17key card to get into the AOL building
- 03:19and so there's couches here, you know, I
- 03:20could sleep on the couch, there's a gym
- 03:22and so they have showers. I was 19.
- 03:25Expectations for quality of of living
- 03:26are pretty low, I think, at that age.
- 03:28And so I I ended up just, you know,
- 03:29starting to live out of out of their
- 03:31headquarters. I I would I was just
- 03:33coding from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
- 03:3712:00 p.m. I did that for like I think
- 03:38like 4 months um until they they
- 03:40eventually someone like someone finally
- 03:42caught on that I was living in their
- 03:43headquarters and they they found me and
- 03:44threw me out at like 5:00 in the
- 03:46morning. I didn't know anyone in Silicon
- 03:47Valley. I'm not from California. I went
- 03:49and like slept on a table at Starbucks
- 03:52until they opened.
- 03:54Thinking was a company that we didn't
- 03:56really intend to be a company.
- 03:57Basically, we had a whole bunch of
- 03:58different startup ideas we were trying
- 04:00on the side. We were building lots of
- 04:02different web applications as a result
- 04:03for each of these startups to stay
- 04:05afloat. We were like, "Okay, you know,
- 04:06we actually know a lot about building
- 04:08web applications cuz we're we're doing
- 04:10it so much. We could probably like teach
- 04:12folks online and, you know, charge for
- 04:14like our courses and and make money to
- 04:16keep us afloat so we can keep trying
- 04:17other ideas." Kind of the funny thing is
- 04:19like of all the things we were working
- 04:20on at that time, Thinkster was the most
- 04:22successful of all of them. We were
- 04:24teaching a lot of people. We had like I
- 04:26think it's at like 100,000 something
- 04:27people that were you know using this
- 04:28site uh to learn how to do web
- 04:30development. And the biggest problem the
- 04:32people learning were having. I mean this
- 04:34is common with anyone that's learning
- 04:35how to program is not even like learning
- 04:37how to write the code but it's actually
- 04:39setting up your development environment
- 04:41which is basically mean setting up your
- 04:42computer to be able to even like run
- 04:44code. That is a huge huge huge challenge
- 04:47whether you're like a beginner or you're
- 04:48an advanced developer. We were running
- 04:50into this problem with the people using
- 04:51Thinkster of they they just couldn't get
- 04:53the stuff set up in their environment to
- 04:54even learn how to write the code. And we
- 04:56had the realization like okay actually
- 04:58it should be possible theoretically to
- 05:00just kind of like run an entire dev
- 05:03environment inside of the browser
- 05:04itself. You know not using servers, not
- 05:06install anything locally like we can
- 05:08actually run it in a web page, you know,
- 05:09inside of a browser tab. And we were
- 05:11looking at all these different
- 05:12technologies that have released in
- 05:13browsers and we were like someone must
- 05:15have done this already, right? Like cuz
- 05:16we we were just trying to solve our own
- 05:17problem. We weren't trying to start a
- 05:19company like we were just trying to
- 05:20teach people on Thinkster. We looked
- 05:22around and there was just nothing. There
- 05:24is nothing that could actually do it. I
- 05:26kind of knew that this is like something
- 05:27very different at that point because it,
- 05:29you know, it's like I'd never run it
- 05:31across something like this where I kind
- 05:32of technically knew the underpinnings
- 05:34that this should be possible, but yet no
- 05:36one had gone and done it. That key
- 05:37insight was really what led us to start
- 05:39stacks cuz we were like, "Okay, well
- 05:41that would be huge for people learning
- 05:43how to code to not have to set up
- 05:44environments. It would make it way more
- 05:46accessible. people could just use this
- 05:47as an environment to just keep building
- 05:50in like why would you even need to set
- 05:51up a local environment necessarily. So
- 05:53that was kind of the origin story of
- 05:54stacks and it came out of thankster
The 2-Month Miracle That Took 7 Years
- 05:56directly.
- 06:00We had spent half a decade building
- 06:03building out this technology. The the
- 06:05problem is that anyone that really
- 06:07understands how to write software
- 06:09already knows how to get stuff set up on
- 06:10their local computer and will tend to
- 06:13actually just gravitate towards that
- 06:15because they are super familiar with it.
- 06:17The issue is if you're going to build
- 06:18something that's web- based that is
- 06:20getting people to actually leave their
- 06:21their environment is a huge challenge.
- 06:24We tried out a whole bunch of different
- 06:25experiments um over the course of the
- 06:27past, you know, 2 years or whatever. All
- 06:28of them were very cool. generally like
- 06:30the people that that try these things
- 06:31out thought they were really awesome but
- 06:32it didn't move the needle from like a a
- 06:34monetization standpoint. My co-ounder
- 06:36and I have like talked about you know do
- 06:38should we pack it in shut down the
- 06:40company and so that was you know like
- 06:41last year we made the decision my
- 06:43co-founder and I um with our with our
- 06:44board and stuff of like okay we're going
- 06:46to spend the rest of this year going and
- 06:47trying everything that we think is cool
- 06:50idea and and if that doesn't work out
- 06:52we'll have left no stone unturned and
- 06:54we'll go and kind of prepare to kind of
- 06:56start spinning things down. How would I
- 06:58walk away from this knowing that I I
- 07:00gave it everything I had? Like last year
- 07:02when as this was kind of going on with
- 07:03the company, I also had my first child
- 07:05and if you talk to anyone that has a
- 07:07kid, you don't get a lot of sleep. It's
- 07:08pretty high stress. So, I had a lot of
- 07:10challenges kind of going on just from
- 07:11the personal side, the work side. I woke
- 07:13up one morning last April after my
- 07:15daughter was born and I was like, I'm
- 07:16going to do an iron man, like a full
- 07:18iron man. And and I and it was like 6
- 07:20months from that. I never ran a marathon
- 07:22or whatever. the six months um you know
- 07:25of last year I was kind of bringing full
- 07:27intensity to every part of my life like
- 07:29physically going and training for this
- 07:31thing mentally with with my job uh going
- 07:33and you know really figuring out leaving
- 07:35no stone unturned and just trying a lots
- 07:37of different experiments etc and so kind
- 07:39of bringing full intensity to those
- 07:40things and and I got to tell you I've
- 07:42never been happier in my life um I've
- 07:43never been happier in my life really
- 07:45investing in in myself my co-workers and
- 07:47my products and my family and my
- 07:49business with just such uh intense
- 07:51dedication and I is okay with whatever
- 07:54the outcome was. If we end the year and,
- 07:56you know, our destiny is the same, so be
- 08:00it. Let the the universe, you know, let
- 08:02the universe decide, right? Um, I've
- 08:04done everything that I possibly can do.
- 08:06And Bolt was like the last the last
- 08:08experiment we had before we're going to
- 08:10kind of start winding things down. Uh,
- 08:12what Bolt allows you to do is like to
- 08:14actually, you know, using just text, you
- 08:16can type in an idea of an app or a
- 08:18website you want, it'll build it. The
- 08:20launch strategy for Bolt was like we put
- 08:22out a tweet. Like that was it. There was
- 08:23no blog post. There's no press release.
- 08:25So there's just like a tweet and and
- 08:26that tweet ended up going viral. So what
- 08:28ended up happening is people they saw
- 08:29our tweet, they went to bolt.new, typed
- 08:32in the idea of a website or whatever
- 08:34that they wanted to make, hit enter, and
- 08:3630 seconds later they had a a web
- 08:38application ready to go. In the first
- 08:40day, I think we added like 60K. I
- 08:43remember one of our engineers was like,
- 08:44"Guys, we added 60K today. Oh my god."
- 08:46And you I jumped in was like, "Yep, it's
- 08:47cool, but like this is, you know, this
- 08:49is like launch day. This is going to go
- 08:50away." And that didn't happen. Every
- 08:52single day, we kept adding more and more
- 08:55ARR. In the first 2 months, we went from
- 08:570 to 20 million of ARR. Everyone we were
- 09:00talking to had never seen anything like
- 09:02it. It was, I mean, just an unbelievable
- 09:04shift in the destiny of of our company.
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The 4 Keys to $20M ARR in 2 Months
Don't Rush Into AI Without Purpose
- 10:15So I'd actually had the idea for Bolt
- 10:17about a year ago, February of 24. At
- 10:19that time, the Frontier models like
- 10:21OpenAI or whatever have you. You we had
- 10:23actually tried to build a prototype with
- 10:25Bolt. We spent a couple of weeks doing
- 10:26that. What we ended up finding was the
- 10:28output just was not good enough. Like
- 10:30you would tell it to build an app and it
- 10:31just oftent times it would be broken or
- 10:33it wouldn't look good. it wouldn't
- 10:34function properly, which kind of like
- 10:35ruins the experience. So, we we put that
- 10:37project on the shelf and we're like,
- 10:38"Okay, maybe we'll come back to this at
- 10:40some point in the future when when these
- 10:42AI models get better." Back in May, we
- 10:44just so happened to kind of get a sneak
- 10:46preview of the new stuff that was coming
- 10:50from Enthropic with Sonnet 3.5 coding
- 10:53model that has changed software
- 10:55development period. You we got a kind of
- 10:57sneak peek of it and we were like, "This
- 10:58is good. I mean, this is going to change
- 10:59everything we think." And so we kind of
- 11:01pulled the pulled bull off the shelf and
- 11:03yeah took the the latest APIs from
- 11:05Enthropic pulled them together and
- 11:07launched it within 90 days of that back
- 11:09after chatbt had launched a lot of
- 11:12companies were just kind of like adding
- 11:13AI stuff to their products and not even
- 11:16in a very thoughtful way but it was kind
- 11:17of like people just wanted to be like
- 11:19relevant and kind of you know show that
- 11:20they were had an AI strategy and we
- 11:22didn't cuz we were just like we don't
- 11:23see the value of this. it's not clear
- 11:25how this is actually going to make the
- 11:27experience that much better, right? And
- 11:30all of our competitors went were you
- 11:32churning on AI ideas. We held off u
- 11:35because we just didn't see we didn't
- 11:36have conviction on it. I think in in
- 11:38retrospect the right move and when we
- 11:40did find the right thing, we went all
- 11:42in. And you kind of look at like the
- 11:44competitors that we were going up
- 11:45against then versus now it's like a lot
- 11:47of them have either shut down some of
- 11:49them have kind of started to pivot to AI
- 11:51but like from like a user and revenue
- 11:54perspective it's like bolt is the number
Stop Asking, Start Building a Community
- 11:56one thing
- 12:01you know we get thousands of emails and
- 12:04tickets and tweets and etc per day
- 12:07sorting the the signal from the noise is
- 12:09is you know very difficult challenge But
- 12:12one of the things we really invested in
- 12:14early on with Bolt was like community.
- 12:16Like we have a very great community
- 12:18around Bolt where you know folks really
- 12:20love the product and there's these
- 12:22people that that are really smart,
- 12:24genuine, awesome folks that have stepped
- 12:26up and really became like kind of
- 12:27leaders in this community. Yeah. So
- 12:29that's really how we've been able to
- 12:30scale the both the support but also the
- 12:32product feedback function because these
- 12:34are folks that are like in our Discord
- 12:35or Reddit or Twitter or whatever and
- 12:37they're hearing what people are running
- 12:39into. then they themselves might be
- 12:41running into it and they'll and they'll
- 12:42be like, "Hey, this is something we're
- 12:43hearing a lot of. Here's maybe how you
- 12:45you guys go about fixing it, etc." And
- 12:47we also have people on our team who, you
- 12:49know, we've hired in a couple of folks
- 12:50who their entire job is just talking to
- 12:52our users, helping them get unstuck with
- 12:54stuff, hearing their feedback, etc. And
- 12:56so, I think that's really the only way
- 12:57you can meaningfully scale, you know,
- 12:59uh, support and and the the full cycle
- 13:01of user feedback is just having great
Open Your Code, Own Your Market
- 13:04people that are in your community or,
- 13:05you know, on your uh, actual core team.
- 13:07That's their entire job and they're all
- 13:09working together. You know, just bring
- 13:10in all the data points, make good
- 13:12decisions, and get the proper things
- 13:14prioritized in the product. We like to
- 13:16work on things that users have
- 13:19specifically either like really asked
- 13:21for where it's a big a big pain point or
- 13:23alternatively, it's something that we've
- 13:25validated that people want. I think it's
- 13:28very easy for entrepreneurs and yeah,
- 13:30people that are maybe early in their
- 13:31product career to kind of have lots of
- 13:33cool ideas about things they could build
- 13:35and whatever that are not really
- 13:36attached to the reality of the actual
- 13:39end user customer using the product,
- 13:41what they're trying to do with it, the
- 13:43challenges they're currently running
- 13:44into with it. And so a lot of this comes
- 13:46down to just experience and like
- 13:47fortunately we've been doing this for a
- 13:48long time. Like my co-founder and I have
- 13:50been building stuff for almost 20 years.
- 13:51You know, having a good sense of these
- 13:53are cool ideas, but we should probably
- 13:55get to them later. These are really
- 13:56important ideas. We should do them now.
- 13:58These are really important high priority
- 13:59things. They need to be fixed and you
- 14:01know uh sorting accordingly
- 14:07and and one of the interesting things
- 14:08too actually about what we did is we
- 14:10actually open sourced the core version
- 14:12of bullet when we launched and like even
- 14:14today it's like I think it's like the
- 14:15most popular AI product you know by
- 14:17users of revenue that actually has an
- 14:19open source version. Like there's
- 14:20nothing else out there that really has
- 14:23that other than us. But it was clear to
- 14:25us was like this is this is knowledge
- 14:26that someone's going to open source this
- 14:28at some point and we think it'll just be
- 14:30actually a lot better for us and the AI
- 14:32model providers etc. if this is
- 14:34available for people to try out and fork
- 14:36and improve and whatever have you which
- 14:38ended up being a really key decision cuz
- 14:40a lot of people use Bolt because they
- 14:42can play around with the open source
- 14:43version and fork fork it and make it
- 14:46better and you know whatever have you.
- 14:48We've invested a ton in the open- source
- 14:50world in large part because like our
- 14:52product really wouldn't work without
- 14:54amazing open source software that's been
- 14:57built for web development and and
- 14:58otherwise. For us, it's you it's also
- 15:00really important that that those people
- 15:02building different web development tool
- 15:04chains like Vit or whatever have you
- 15:06also care about us and they want to make
- 15:08sure that their these open source
- 15:09projects work well in our technology and
- 15:11our environment. And that's been really
- 15:13key for us. Yeah, we became the largest
- 15:14backer of Vit back in 2021. We have
- 15:17multiple people on our team that all
- 15:19they do is work on open source full-time
- 15:21you. So I think uh developers love our
- 15:23products. I think in some part because
- 15:25we genuinely care about open source and
- 15:27ensuring that folks uh working on open
- 15:30source get compensated and have a way to
- 15:31actually continue working on it in a
- 15:33sustainable way.
When to Pivot, When to Push Forward
- 15:38I I think the only way I learned how to
- 15:40determine when it was time to pivot
- 15:42versus time to iterate was just trying a
- 15:44lot of startup ideas. like that was you
- 15:47over the course of like a decade through
- 15:48that I kind of I I ended up building a
- 15:50good gut instinct of when when we were
- 15:52kind of at the end of the line on a
- 15:54certain idea and it was like okay we
- 15:56need to like pivot and try something
- 15:57else instead. So my recommendation would
- 16:00be to to if you think you need to go
- 16:02deep on something and go along, do it.
- 16:04And typically you're gonna you're you're
- 16:06eventually going to find out one way or
- 16:07the other if you were right or wrong and
- 16:08then you learn from that. And and then
- 16:09then if you were wrong, if you're like,
- 16:11"Hey, we went really deep and it didn't
- 16:13pan out." You have to just take that as
- 16:14a lesson as part of the journey. When I
- 16:17was younger and heard people give the
- 16:18advice that I'm giving right now, the
- 16:20takeaway that I would take then was
- 16:22okay, so just don't give up like like no
- 16:25matter what, just kind of like hold on
- 16:26to this idea and don't give up, which is
- 16:28like like I think generally
- 16:29directionally good advice. But there's
- 16:31actually like kind of a line where you
- 16:33have to learn how to be intellectually
- 16:35honest with yourself and it's like am I
- 16:38am I not giving up because because
- 16:40that's what people say you should do or
- 16:42am I not giving up because I actually
- 16:44really like I have conviction in this
- 16:46and like I just want to see this I I
- 16:49really want to see this made possible
- 16:51and then seeing it all the way through
- 16:52right cuz I think when you're when
- 16:53you're starting and you're trying to
- 16:54find that passion in that's kind of one
- 16:56challenge and then the other side of is
- 16:57you know we saw which is okay we built
- 16:59this amazing thing Now, how do you
- 17:01actually turn into a business? The
- 17:02important part there is, you know, when
- 17:04you're driving through hell, don't stop.
- 17:05If you're going to go and and build a
- 17:07business, go and try all the way through
- 17:10and don't leave any stones unturned
- 17:12because what you don't want then is to
- 17:14look back and go, "Ah, man, we had this
- 17:17really cool thing. I think it could have
- 17:18been really, really important, but we
- 17:20didn't actually we didn't do a full core
- 17:22press and really make sure that we
- 17:24exhausted all options before, you know,
You're Underestimating AI
- 17:26spinning down or whatever.
- 17:32AI's impact on software development is
- 17:35uh I mean huge like I think I think it's
- 17:37it's clear at this point that software
- 17:39development is going to be probably the
- 17:41number one application of AI that as far
- 17:44as like a high leverage uh high impact
- 17:46high revenue sort of thing. All the
- 17:48world's software I think is going to be
- 17:50meaningfully written by AI in years. I
- 17:53think I think probably you know
- 17:54singledigit sort of years. That doesn't
- 17:56mean that software developers are going
- 17:57away. There's a lot of things in
- 17:59software development that are just
- 18:00monotonous and not intellectually
- 18:02challenging, right? It's just common
- 18:04stuff that you're having to do to build
- 18:06an application and AI just kind of
- 18:08obliterates all that. Can just take care
- 18:09of all that stuff for you so you can
- 18:11actually work on like more complicated
- 18:12high high value intellectually
- 18:14challenging sort of tasks. And so I
- 18:16think we're continue to see more and
- 18:17more of that, right? We're see more and
- 18:19more software built and it's also it's
- 18:20enabling people to that are not software
- 18:23developers to actually go and build
- 18:24software, right? Whether you have an
- 18:26idea for a website or an app like you
- 18:28can go to Bolt today and do that. The
- 18:29next 5 years of Bolt I think is it's
- 18:32it's going to be something that from the
- 18:34Fortune 100 to 10year-olds people are
- 18:37building the future of how you you know
- 18:39stream movies online, how you check your
- 18:42bank account using a mobile app to a
- 18:44game that a 10-year-old had the idea of,
- 18:46right? All these things and some of that
- 18:47stuff you can even do now with Folk,
- 18:49right? But the the quality and the scale
- 18:51of which you're going to be able to do
- 18:52this stuff is going to be giant, right?
- 18:54compared to to what you can do now.
- 18:56Yeah.