The Rise of Influencer-Led SaaS Ventures

Influencers have their own distribution, and SaaS is the best business model. Combining the two results in a cashflowing recurring business.

This trend will explode as building a SaaS becomes easier.

Just as TikTok made creating videos easy, leading to more content creators, AI makes creating software easy, which will lead to more software creators.

1. Mr.Beast - YouTube Analytics SaaS

Mr.Beast, the #1 YouTuber with 318k subscribers, has a SaaS called View Stats. It provides in-depth YouTube Channel Statistics, allowing users to search any creator, compare performance, see growth trajectories, and more.

It's perfect for Mr.Beast's audience of YouTubers.

According to Eric Siu, who hangs out with massively successful entrepreneurs, Viewstats is likely doing $6M ARR.

However, the numbers might be much higher due to Mr.Beast's strong influence on YouTubers.

2. Jason Levin - Meme Maker SaaS

Jason Levin, a meme marketing influencer, launched a SaaS called Memelord Tech that creates memes and offers a daily meme newsletter.

His audience follows him for his memes, so this SaaS is a perfect fit.

The price is a meme in itself at $6.9/month. Nice.

3. Sabrina Ramonov - AI Repurposing SaaS

Sabrina Ramonov, an AI Educator who grew to almost 200k followers in 4 months using AI and automations by producing 100+ pieces of content per week, is building a SaaS called Blotato to make her content creation workflow easier.

She's solving her own problem and making it available to everyone.

She already has a massive Prompts Library but copy-pasting prompts is a cumbersome process. People just want to get their thing done for as little effort as possible.

Blotato lets users create content faster by remixing multiple pieces of content into social media posts.

You can also repurpose YouTube videos into well-formatted LinkedIn posts with just 1 click using Blotato.

This is very easy to do as we've covered it in the essay "Write Viral LinkedIn & X Posts using Claude 3.5 Sonnet" previously but people are willing to pay for a 1-click solution.

4. Riley Brown

Riley Brown, another AI educator with over 1 million combined followers, is building a similar SaaS to Sabrina Ramonov called yapthread.

He has a very advanced workflow and has made a full-blown video showcasing its features.

5. Tommy Clark

Tommy Clark, a founder-led ghostwriting agency owner who recently went from $0 to $1m in under a year, is launching a SaaS despite being a micro-influencer with 30k LinkedIn followers.

He knows how to go viral on social media, as he has successfully done for other founders and an E-Commerce SaaS called Triple Whale.

Even a poorly made wallpaper app can trend to the Top 10 of the App Store and make $2-$3m because it was made by an influential tech YouTuber, Marques Brownlee (MKBHD).

Influencers know that distribution is king, and pairing that with good software creates a cash-printing machine. This allows them to move away from irregular brand deals and shady brand collaborations.

A good SaaS simply prints cash.

A tool to Find How Many Users Are Online On A Particular Subreddit

Subreddit Traffic Tracker is a useful tool for Reddit users who want to maximize their post visibility. It shows you the number of active users on any subreddit in real-time.

This is valuable because posts made when more users are online tend to get more comments. More comments increase the chances of your post going viral and hitting the homepage of people scrolling the feed.

One recommended video on NotebookLM Guide for Faster Research

This video breaks down the AI Study Hack to research faster using NotebookLM.

NotebookLM is game-changer for scientists, researchers, and content creators who need to connect information between a few different sources.

For example, when writing the Consumer Brand essay, I had to search through 3 different podcast transcripts to find specific information. NotebookLM would have made this process easier by finding discussions on a single topic across all 3 transcripts.

Now imagine you wanted to find best sales advice to train your sales team. You would simply upload the best sales books and videos to NotebookLM and get the best sales advice.

Humans form connections in brain but its a long process that most people can't recreate at will. Only few people can do it through writing, walking, or sleeping after thinking hard on a problem. NotebookLM makes this task easier and replicable. Remember, your results are as good as your sources.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Riding an AI Wave is like being strapped to a rocket while others are slowly climbing a ladder to reach the top of the mountain.

2/

The owner of the app called out the artificial marketing numbers influencers post.

You have to try 100s of marketing strategies before a single one converts. And sometimes even though you get views, they don't get you conversions.

Reverse-engineering tools like SensorTower, Similarweb, and SEMRush are approximations. Real numbers are either 2-3x lower or 2-3x higher. Only the actual owners know them.

3/

If you want to reach your goals faster, work 2-3x harder than usual. There are no rules to how hard you can work.

Rabbit Holes

1. NotebookLM: The Poor Man's Gemini 1.5 - Only guide you need to read to understand how to use NotebookLM with actual examples and reason why its a game-changer. Expect alternatives by OpenAI and Claude soon.

2. Start With No - Everyone has ideas but it is important to work on the ideas than starting new ideas. This simple mindshift makes the ideas work hard for you.

3. Andrej Karpathy on NotebookLM - NotebookLM is one of the best ways to learn and delve into a new subject. NotebookLM existed as an internal tool Soundstorm but until they shipped it for everyone to use, it wasn't talked about everywhere.

Until next time!

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More Startup Spells 🪄

1. Reverse-Engineering AI Apps Demand (by Usage) (LINK)

2. YouTube Chapter SEO: Timestamping for Better Search Rankings (LINK)

3. Service-Based Lead Magnet (LINK)