| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01kt2ksn81ytkczmhf6gfqmk8f |
|---|---|
| Readwise ID | 01kt2ksn81ytkczmhf6gfqmk8f |
| Date | 2026-01-11 |
| Author | youtube.com |
| Category | video |
\n\nSource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XifgHi9R5Rc
Our sauce made 30,000 MR in 4 days. Now, I know whatyou’re thinking. And you’reright. Obviously, they didn’t build andlaunch this product in 4 days, but theydid go from 0 to $30,000 MR in just afew days thanks to a very differentapproach to launching a SaaS. Here’s whateverybody gets wrong about launchingSaaS.
I asked Lara to come on to the channelto break down her entire launch strategyfor me, including the unexpectedmarketing channel that got thousands ofpeople on their waitlist, the exactemail sequence they used to converthundreds of paying customers overnightand their step-by-step playbook that youcan use to launch your SaaS in 2026. Thisis one that you cannot miss. I’m PatWalls and this is Starter Story. Welcometo the channel, Lara. Tell me about whoyou are, what SaaS you built, and what’syour story.
So, hi, my name is Lara Costa, and myco-founders and I built a B2B SaaS thatmade 60,000 amonth in less than 2 months. And the waywe did all of this was by using the Cleolaunch playbook. So, I’m so excited totalk about it today.
Real quick, our audience watching this,we really want to make sure that this islegit. This is real. Would yoube able to pull up your dashboard andshow some of your revenue metrics, proveyou’re building this, and show me alittle bit about what happened when youdid this waitlist?
Yeah, of course. So, this is our Polar.This is where we literally launchedeverything. Yeah. As you can see here,we’re already at 62K MR and we have over932 active subscriptions, over 1,000 intotal. And you can see the clear spikehere on active users from October 1st.The reason why we were able to do thisso fast within day one of launch wasbecause we built a waitlist.
What we did was have many launches whichwere for our waitlist only. So even ifyou go to our landing page right now,which I can show you here, you cannotphysically buy the product. You need tojoin a waitlist. The reason we did this wasto build scarcity, FOMO, and also to softsell it to our audience. So it didn’tfeel like we were pushing a productbecause it was a secret. No one knewunless you were in the know. That’s why we sawtwo different spikes. The first one waswhen we launched to our original waitlist,and the second one was when werelaunched.
All right. Well, this waitliststrategy is amazing. But before we getinto all that, which we are going to do,I want to understand a little bit moreabout your background. How did you evencome up with the idea to start Cleo? Howdid it get started?
Well, it all starts with LinkedIn. Istarted posting on LinkedIn around threeyears ago because what I realized, andwhat most people realize when they joinLinkedIn, is that all decision makers areon that platform. And so you can build abusiness off the back of creatingcontent. So I started posting onLinkedIn. I built two businesses off theback of it. And then in that journey, Imet my co-founder Jake, who was also in avery similar situation to mine. So, mybackground encompasses both agency and theinfo product businesses. I took themarketing concepts from that businessand understood the idea of FOMO, building awaitlist using emails and webinars,and we took it to SaaS. I love info, butwe wanted to do something different andbuild a software tool. So, knowingwhat I knew and our co-foundersknowing what they knew, we combined ourefforts and created this insane launch strategyin under two months.
All right, Laura, let’s talk about thislaunch strategy, which I think isamazing and unlike anything I’veever seen before. So, I really want todig into that and talk all aboutit. Can you explain exactly how thisworks? High level, how were you able tolaunch and hit like 30k MR in basicallya day? Can you explain it? How does itwork? Yeah. So, the way Cleo was able togo from zero to 30K MR in its firstmonth was simple. We used the Cleoplaybook, and it’s three parts: content,waitlist, and webinars.
We hadn’t even launched to the public yet. Thefirst and second launches werebeta launches straight to our waitlist. The thing is, no one is doingit like this. Everybody’s doing it theopposite way, where they launch somethingand they promote it. We did it theopposite way, which was the mostimportant part for us: creating thatscarcity, curiosity, and demand for aproduct people hadn’t even seen yet. Ourcustomers and my clients have been ableto hit 50K, 60K, and 70K following theexact same playbook. It can work foranyone, no matter how big or small yourfollowing is.
That’s amazing. I think this isa totally different way of thinkingabout how to build SaaS. I think it’sactually genius. I want you to divein a little bit deeper though on how youguys did this. What was the first thingyou did? I know you said building await list. How do you build a waitlist and how do you drive interest orattention to that wait list? Could youshare with me exactly how to do that?
Yeah, so the approach that we took wasobviously educating on LinkedIn fastbecause we’re all LinkedIn native.
Creators, we had multiple posts thatdrove demand to this waitlist. This is one of the posts not from me andnot from Jake, but from our other accountcalled the LinkedIn creator. You can seethat there is no call to action. Thereis no direct plug; it’s simplyeducating. This is something that Jaycalled edu selling, where you’rebasically telling people what they needto know. You’re answering their biggestproblems. For example, here is howto write the best LinkedIn tips I found.
We’re telling them what they want toknow, and then at the end, we show themwhere they can actually get more resultsusing our tool. This leads them to signup to our waitlist. A different post,for example, by Jake, is stating aproblem here, and then he’s literallyjust talking about the typical problemsthat every founder, entrepreneur, andcreator have when they’re creatingcontent on the platform. Again, youcan’t see ACTA; it’s simply creatingthis awareness and taking mind share ofCleo. That’s how we’ve done it overtime.
Okay, so $30,000 in a few days isinsane. If you stick around to the end,In this video, you’re going to seeexactly how they did it. But here’s whatI really love about their story: Larafigured out how to build hype around herproduct. And she did it all throughcreating content. This is the secret tobuilding a SaaS or any app or anybusiness online in 2026: distribution.
If you can crack distribution, then yougive yourself the opportunity to win.
And the number one way to create yourown distribution for free is to simplystart creating content and building anaudience. This is so important that Idecided to put together our playbook tohelp you get your first 1,000 followers.Which might not sound like a lot, but1,000 followers is where real productsget created and real distributionchannels get started. Almost everyfounder that I talk to on this channelhas some sort of personal brand. It isessential in 2026 to be creating contentonline about your product and sharing itwith the world. This playbook that Icreated for you will go over a bunch ofreal data and examples from actuallysuccessful founders that I’ve talked to
on this channel and what’s working rightnow to create actual businesses thatGenerate revenue. We’ll go over whattype of content to create, how to getyour first thousand followers, and howto create content that drives customersto your business. Just click the link inthe description to get it, but it won’tbe free forever. All right, let’s getback to the interview. Okay, so you guysover the course of 6 months to a year,it doesn’t happen overnight, but youbuilt up trust. You built up this waitlist to thousands of people. Whathappens next? How do you actually getyour product in front of those people?
How do you turn those into payingcustomers?
Again, another typical mistake that mostfounders make is that they build thiswait list and they never nurture it.Nurturing your list is one of the mainthings that you need to do as a founderor someone who wants to build a productand ship it to the public. Four weeksbefore we launched the actual productlive to our wait list, we warmed up thelist, showing people why they needed ourtool without actually directly sellingit to them. And so, you can see our firstemail that we ever sent pre-launch wasthe problem with AI content and whyWe’re different. What we did is weemphasized the problem that people werethinking about. So the problem with AIcontent is that everybody can write with AI. Sowe knew that the number oneobjection was how is this better thanChatGPT or Claw that is free for us. So wegot there, we kind of like testeddifferent headlines and said why most AIcontent fails before it even starts.
Then we laid out exactly what theproblem was. But it isn’t an AI problem.It’s a differentiation problemwhich then makes people agree with us.
That then led to them being engaged inthe waitlist. You can see herethere’s no CTA. There’s no, “Oh, we’recoming soon.” Nothing. Simplyeducating people on the problem thatthey have so we can build trust ratherthan just sell them. So now, as you cansee, we did over 10 emails before thedrop. So then the actual email when wewent live, we actually told them, “Hey,Cleo 2.0 is live. Try it now.” And thereason why we were able to do thatsuccessfully was because we had builtthat urgency, scarcity, and desire for aproduct that we told them was going tofix every single one of the problems.
That they have with writing, building apersonal brand, LinkedIn algorithms, andusing AI. And then we told them, “Hey,Cleo is live. Try it here.” Weimmediately, within the first line,because we wanted to drive as muchattention as fast as possible, because wehad pre-built that trust. So the emailsthat I was showing were literally thereason why we were able to get to 30K MRand then 60K MR. It wasn’t just viralcontent; it was emails. And this issomething most people are sleeping on.Everybody’s expecting viral content towork and convert, but it’s actuallyemails where the customers are and areactually buying from because you’re notcompeting with an algorithm.
Amazing. This strategy is awesome. Youguys executed so well. That brings me tomy next question. For anyone watchingthis, maybe they built a SaaS, maybe theybuilt an app; maybe they’re juststarting to create content. If you wereto start over today, imagine you didn’thave any audience. What would be thestep-by-step playbook to launch a SaaS in2026?>> So, where I would start, obviously, isbuilding a personal brand on LinkedIn.
And it doesn’t have to be the mostviral. You don’t have to be an expert.You just have to be useful. So, ifyou’re a beginner that wants to startposting on LinkedIn, the thing that youneed to understand is what yourunfair advantage is and what you caneducate people on, right? Your unfairadvantages could be your story or thetactical subject that you have expertisein. You can actually create educationalcontent just about that. And that wouldliterally give you the following thatyou need to then launch something else.And then if you’re wondering about thestep-by-step playbook on how to build apersonal brand, I have a frameworkcalled the 4-3-2-1. So ideally, you wantto post four times a week. That’s it.Not five, not six, not seven. Don’toverwhelm yourself. Focus on the qualityrather than the quantity. Then, threecontent pillars that you need to beusing: educational storytelling andsales-generating content. Thiscould be lead magnets. And the secondthing, the two in that 4-3-2-1, is thetwo types of audiences you want to bemarketing to. You have your ICP, your
ideal client persona and you have yourIFP, and that is your ideal followerpersona. So when you’re creating contentfor these two types of personas, you canget leads and demand or weightlesssignups, but you also get a communitythat pushes you, likes your content,engages with you every single day, andeventually, over time, can also buy fromyou. So the last part of the 4321 waslead magnets. And now how you build themis super simple. You literally only haveto create a Google document explainingsomething, or a loom, or something elsethat you already have. Maybe it’s a partof your process, and then you give it outto people for free, and the only thingthat you ask for is their email. Yousend them the lead magnet. They sign upto your email newsletter to get thatlead magnet, and all the time, you justnurture them. And so, while you’rebuilding in public, creating all of thiscontent, you know, taking hours of yourtime writing this amazing content thatpotentially will go viral. The way toguarantee your success is to have thatwaitlist in the background building.
So when you want to launch something,when you want to offer something, youcan.
My favorite is webinars. You can do twotypes of live events: a LinkedIn Live or youcan do a Zoom webinar. For launch numberone, we just did one LinkedIn Live,which is literally on LinkedIn. You’regoing live like you would on Instagramor X. You tell people that you’re goingto do it. You create a simple post aboutit, just highlighting what it is goingto be about. Then whoever signs upgets a notification directly on LinkedInthat you’re going live. All you need isone topic to educate on for the first 20minutes. Then the next 20 minutes isgoing to be a walkthrough or a demo. Andthen the third bit is you’re going to be
pitching the product, sending the link,and telling them where to buy. When you’re ableto show up as a human, people actuallyconnect with you: with your mannerisms,with how you look, with where you live,and with how you sound. That’s whatallowed us to literally hit 30K in 4days. Once you have your first coupleof users, even before you launch, or whenyou’re doing better launches like we didourselves, the thing that you need tofocus on to make sure that your productis perfect is to hop on calls or DMcustomers directly to ask them for feedback.
Direct support. What we did was we weregoing on VIP white glove onboardingcalls where we literally took peoplethrough the product so they could use itcorrectly. Because the reason why mostpeople stop using software is becausethey don’t understand it. It’s notbecause it doesn’t work. So we triedour best to make sure that every singleone of our customers at the start wasable to use that product correctly. So,then they could stay on for longer. Theygave us an amazing testimonial, and thenthey became Cleo evangelists. But also inthe background, we were recording thosecalls to make sure that we spotted
patterns in thinking, in problems, in bugsand issues that people were having so wecould actually fix them immediately. So,it was also an iteration play for us, sowe could have the best product availableas fast as possible. So then, step numberfive, what you need to also do is thinkabout how you can get the most demand asfast as possible. You build your waitlist, and then to incentivize customersto buy, you offer them a lifetimediscount or something that feelsexclusive. You’re trying to push someoneto buy. And there are many ways to do it.
Psychology can be leveraged through curiosity, scarcity, or FOMO. We tried all of them, butthe one that worked best at the start was scarcity. We told people we onlyhad 500 spots available, which madepeople want to take action faster. Whensomething’s available so easily, peopledon’t want to buy it immediately. So,you need to add that incentive forpeople to go in and buy and also feelexclusive. Additionally, if you want to addsomething else, you can offer them alifetime discount, which is what we did. We told themthis is 50% off for alifetime. If you buy now, you will neverhave to pay the newer price ever again.
And then number six, you need to notshare your customers. Most people justlaunch things and forget about them,and then just celebrate the MR. What we’re doing actively atCleo is we’re keeping in touch closelywith every single one of our customers.One of our co-founders, Rob, hasliterally given his personal number toevery single one of our users so theycan ensure they’re using thetool correctly and feel supported.
Most people don’t do that. But the thingis, you need to be doing the things thatdon’t scale if you want to scale faster.So, if I was starting over all over fromscratch, that’s exactly what I would do.
All right. Well, thank you for sharingthat playbook, Laura. I think it’samazing. I think a lot of people aregoing to really enjoy that and shouldimplement it, especially if they’rebuilding a SaaS. Changing topics realquick, I want to understand the tech stackbehind Cleo. How did you guys build theapp? How did you build the SaaS? What doyou use day-to-day to run the businessto build Cleo?
Actually, we use Claude and Claude code. Then we use Nex.js forthe TypeScript for the code. Then Vaseland Vasel chat. Then Vasel again forhosting and then Clerk forauthentication. For the operations andmonetization, we use Slack forcommunication. We use loops for emails.Currently for onboarding calls and thenFernandan for managing those emails forsupport, and then to monetize we usedPolar and Polo’s native landing page.
Beautiful. Well, thank you for sharingthat. Last question that we ask everyonewho comes on to Starter Story if youCould you go back in time before you launchthe SaaS that had this amazing launch?
What would be your advice to young Laraor anyone watching this who wantsto launch a SaaS in 2026?I would say two things. Number one isbuild a personal brand on LinkedIn. Nomatter how much you think it’s cringe,if you want to make money, LinkedIn isyour best shot. Twitter is cool,Instagram is cool, but LinkedIn is somuch better. There’s just nocompetition at all. So, that’s onething: build your personal brand.
Educate on an important topic that youalready know. If you don’t know itvery well, you’ll learn it throughwriting about it consistently. Thesecond thing: build an email list. Younever know when you’re going to loseaccess to your social media platforms.You never know when you’ll need toactually promote something. So, it’sbetter to actually build and thennurture that list instead of trying todo it once. You have to do it before youneed to.Beautiful. Well, thank you for thatamazing advice. I think a lot of peoplewatching this are going to love this.
Strategy. I think it’s a totallydifferent way of thinking about how tolaunch a SaaS from a marketer’sperspective. A lot of people watchingthis video may be very focused onbuilding features and doing things theold way, but this is amazing.So, thanks for coming on, Laura. Thankyou for having me. People have ourentire playbook, so I hope they see it.>> All right. Thank you to Laura for comingon to the channel. I’ll bring ourproducer Gus on right now. Gus, what didyou think about that one?>> What I really loved about that was just howstrategic everything was. For myself,personally, I’m just kind of creatingstuff online, just posting whateverI’m thinking about. This was very strategic,like the waitlist andthe type of content they created and thesignups and the emails that you saw. So,I thought that was pretty interesting.
Yeah. I mean, sometimes you can justlook at the math of things, right? Like>> the goal is maybe a fraction, like 1% ormaybe even less actually show up andsign up for your waitlist, and thenyou kind of know at that point, okay, ifI have a waitlist of 10,000 people,And I can convert 1% of them; that’s 100paying customers. It’s a numbers game,right? I’m sure if you did the mathon what their conversion was, maybe theyconverted 1% of people on their waitlist to that. I mean, that means 99% ofpeople are rejecting them, right? Morepeople that watch this channel that arebuilders should go learn from marketerslike Lara and people who are in otherniches on how they convert customersand how they get paying customers.
That’s really the sauce here. Idon’t know what you think about that.
And the last thing is just, you know,what they said about LinkedIn. I feellike I don’t know if you’ll catch memaking content on LinkedIn, but like shesaid, there are so fewpeople doing it that it’s likeprobably a huge opportunity if you canget over that.
If there are more creators thanconsumers, it’s bad for you because it’sharder to stand out. But if there aremore consumers than creators, like onLinkedIn, I think that’s very true.There aren’t that many peoplecreating because they’re worried aboutfeeling cringe or whatever their boss isOn there, whatever, that’s where themoney is, the sauce is, right? And Ithink you can build a great business. Onthat note, if you’re looking to buildsomething, it’s all about distribution.
It’s about doing launch, but you got tobuild something. You got to havesomething that people can use.Definitely check out Starter StoryBuild. It is our program where you willcome up with an idea, you’ll build it,and you’ll launch it to actual peoplelike they did at Cleo. If you are readyto get off the sidelines and actuallybuild something, look, it may not be amillion-dollar idea, but get somethingout there, get feedback, and get it into themarket. That’s what Starter Story Buildis all about. I’ll put a link in thedescription for you to sign up, getstarted. More cohorts are launching thisweek. If you’re ready to get startedright now, definitely check it out. Allright, that’s it for this one. Thank youguys for watching. We’ll see you in thenext one. Peace.