How My App Hit $60K/Month in Just 2 Months

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How My App Hit $60K/Month in Just 2 Months

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Jan 12, 2026

Lara just launched an AI writing tool for LinkedIn. They made $30K in 4 days, and went from $0 to $60K/month in less than 2 months. The secret? The Kleo Launch Playbook. This video breaks down exactly how they built up hype for their app, launched to a private beta, and hit $30K MRR in just a few days.

Grab the personal brand playbook → https://build.starterstory.com/build/playbook-personal-brand?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=larakleo

Join an upcoming Starter Story Build Bootcamp → https://build.starterstory.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=kleo

Follow Lara: https://x.com/Laraacostar

Check out Kleo: https://kleo.so/

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This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.

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Our SaaS made 30 000 in four days

This is Lara

She's the co founder of Clio which launched last month and did 30 000 MRR in four days

Now I know what you're thinking

Bullshit

And you're right

Obviously they didn't build and launch this product in four days

but they did go from zero to 30 000 MRR in just a few days

thanks to a very different approach to launching a SaaS

Here's what everybody gets wrong about launching a SaaS

I asked Lara to come onto the channel to break down her entire launch strategy for me

including the unexpected marketing channel that got thousands of people on their wait list

the exact email sequence they used to convert hundreds of paying customers overnight

and their step by step playbook that you can use to launch your SaaS in 2026

This is one that you cannot miss

I'm Pat Walls and this is Starter Story

Welcome to the channel Lara

Tell me about who you are what SaaS you built and what's your story

So hi my name is Lara Costa and me and my co founders built a B2B SaaS that made 30 000

000 in four days

So this is Clio and what it does is basically it's a ghostwriter put in your pocket

So for every founder that is trying to grow in LinkedIn we solve that very specific problem

It's powered by AI

It thinks like you it writes like you and it creates content better than you

We literally launched it in October of 2025 and we've gone from zero to 60 000 a month

in less than two months

And the way we did all of this was by using the Clio launch playbook

So I'm so excited to talk about it today

Real quick our audience watching this we really want to make sure that this is legit

this is real

Would you be able to pull up your dashboard and show some of your revenue metrics

prove you're building this and show me a little bit about what happened

when you did this wait list

Yeah of course

So there's our poller

This is where we literally launched everything

Yes you can see here we're already at 62K MRR and we have over 932 active subscriptions

over 1 000 in total

And you can see the clear spike here on active users from October 1st

The reason why we were able to do this so fast within day one of launch was because

we built a wait list

The way we did it was we had mini launches which were to our wait list only

So even if you go to our landing page right now which I can show you here

you cannot physically buy the product

You need to join a wait list

Why we did this was to build scarcity FOMO and also soft sell it to our audience

So it didn't feel like we were pushing product because it was a secret

No one knew unless you knew

So that's why we saw two different spikes

The first one was when we launched our original wait list

and the second one was when we relaunched

All right well this wait list strategy is amazing

But before we get into all that which we are going to do

I want to understand a little bit more about your background

How do you even come up with the idea to start Clio

How does it get started

Well it all starts with LinkedIn

I started posting on LinkedIn around three years ago because what I realized

and most people realize when they join LinkedIn

is that all decision makers are on that platform

And so you can build the business off the back of creating content

So I started posting on LinkedIn

I built two businesses off the back of it

And then in that journey I met my co founder Jake

who was also in a very similar situation like me

So my background is both in agency and the info product businesses

I took the marketing concepts from that business

and understood the idea of FOMO

building wait lists using emails and webinars

and we took it to SaaS

I love info but we wanted to do something different and build a software tool

So me knowing what I knew

and then our co founders knowing what they knew

we combined it and created this insane launch strategy in under two months

All right Laura let's talk about this launch strategy

which I think is amazing

and it's unlike anything I've ever seen before

So I really really want to dig into that and talk all about that

Can you explain exactly how this works high level

how you were able to launch and hit like 30k MRR in basically a day

Can you explain that How does it work

Yeah so the way Clio was able to go from zero to 30k MRR

in its first month was simple

We use the Clio Payback and it's three parts

content wait list and webinars

We haven't even launched to the public yet

The first launch and second launches were beta launches straight to our wait list

And the thing is no one is doing it like this

Everybody's doing it the opposite way

where they launch something and they promote it

We did it the opposite way which was the most important part for us

creating that scarcity curiosity and demand for a product people hadn't even seen yet

Our customers and my clients have been able to hit 50k 60k and 70k

following the exact same playbook

It can work for anyone no matter how big or small your following is

That's amazing

And I think that this is a totally different way of thinking about how to build SaaS

I think it's actually genius

And I want you to dive in a little bit deeper though on how you guys did this

What was the first thing you did

I know you said building a wait list

How do you build a wait list

And how do you drive interest or attention to that wait list

Could you share with me exactly how to do that

Yeah so the approach that we took was obviously educating on LinkedIn fast

because we're all LinkedIn native creators

So we had multiple posts that drove demand to this wait list

So this is one of the posts not from me and not from Jake

from our other account called The LinkedIn Creator

You can see that there is no call to action

There is no direct plug

It's simply educating

This is something that Jake called edu selling

where you're basically telling people what they need to know

You're answering their biggest problems

So for example here is how to write the best LinkedIn tips I found

We're telling them what they want to know

And then at the end we show them

where they can actually get more results using our tool

This leads them to sign up to our wait list

A different post for example by Jake is he's stating a problem here

And then he's literally just talking about the typical problems

that every founder entrepreneur and creator has

when they're creating content on the platform

Again you can't see ACTA

It's simply creating this awareness and taking mindshare of Clio

Clio So that's how we've done it over time

Okay so 30 000 in a few days is insane

If you stick around to the end of the video

you're going to see exactly how they did it

But here's what I really love about their story

Lara figured out how to build hype around her product

and she did it all through grading content

This is the secret to building a SaaS or any app

or any business online in 2026

Distribution

If you can crack distribution

then you give yourself the opportunity to win

And the number one way to create your own distribution for free

is to simply start creating content and building an audience

This is so important that I decided to put together

our playbook to help you get your first thousand followers

which might not sound like a lot

but 1 000 followers is where real products get created

and real distribution channels get started

Almost every founder that I talked to on this channel

has some sort of personal brand

It is essential in 2026 to be creating content online

about your product and sharing it with the world

This playbook that I created for you

will go over a bunch of real data and examples

from actually successful founders

that I've talked to on this channel

and what's working right now

to create actual businesses that generate revenue

We'll go over what type of content to create

how to get your first thousand followers

and how to create content

that drives customers to your business

Just click the link in the description to get it

but it won't be free forever

All right let's get back to the interview

Okay so you guys over the course of six months to a year

year it doesn't happen overnight

but you built up trust

you built up this wait list to thousands of people

What happens next

How do you actually get your product

in front of those people

How do you turn those into paying customers

Again another typical mistake that most founders do

is that they built this wait list

and they never nurture it

Nurturing your list is one of the main things

that you need to do as a founder

founder or as someone that wants to build a product

product and ship it to the public

Four weeks before we launched the actual product

live to our wait list

we warmed up the lists showing people

why they needed our tool

without actually directly selling it to them

And so you can see our first email

that we ever sent pre launch

launch was the problem with AI content

and why we're different

What we did is we emphasized the problem

that people were thinking about

So the problem with AI content

everybody can write with AI

So we knew that

We knew that the number one objection was

how is this better than ChargeBT or Claude

that is free for us

So we got there

we kind of like tested different headlines

and said why most AI content fails

before it even starts

Then we laid out exactly what the problem was

but it isn't an AI problem

It's a differentiation problem

which then makes people agree with us

That then led to them being engaged

into their wait list

You can see here there's no CTA

There's no oh it's coming soon

Nothing

Simply educating people on the problem

that they have so we can build trust

rather than just sell them

So now as you can see

we did over 10 emails before the drop

So then the actual email

when we went live

we actually told them

hey Clio 2 0 is live

Try it now

And the reason why we were able

to do that successfully

was because we had built that urgency

scarcity and desire for a product

product that we told them was going to fix

every single one of the problems

that they have with writing

building a personal brand

LinkedIn algorithms and using AI

And then we told them

hey Clio is live

Try it here

Immediately within the first line

because we wanted to drive

as much attention as fast as possible

because we had pre built that trust

So the emails that I was showing

were literally the reason

why we were able to get to 30k MRR

and then 60k MRR

It wasn't just viral content

It was emails

And this is something

most people are sleeping on

Everybody's expecting viral content

to work and convert

but it's actually emails

where the customers are

and are actually buying from

because you're not competing

with an algorithm

This strategy is awesome

You guys executed so well

That brings me to my next question

For anyone watching this

maybe they built a SaaS

maybe they built an app

maybe they're just starting

to create content

If you were to start over today

imagine you didn't have any audience

what would be the step by step playbook

to launch a SaaS in 2026

So where I would start

obviously

is building a personal brand on LinkedIn

And it doesn't have to be the most viral

You don't have to be an expert

You just have to be useful

So if you're a beginner

beginner that wants to start posting on LinkedIn

the thing that you need to understand

is what is your unfair advantage

and what can you educate people on right

Your unfair advantages could be your story

or the tactical subject

that you have expertise on

You can actually create educational content

just about that

And that would literally give you

the following that you need

to then launch something else

And then if you're wondering

about the step by step playbook

on how to build a personal brand

I have a framework called the 4 3 2 1

So ideally

you want to post four times a week

That's it

Not five not six not seven

Don't overwhelm yourself

Focus on the quality

rather than the quantity

Then three content pillars

that you need to be using

So educational storytelling

and then sales generating content

This could be lead magnets

And the second thing

the two in that 4 3 2 1 is

is the two types of audiences

you want to be marketing to

You have your ICP

your ideal client persona

and you have your IFP

And that is your ideal follower persona

So when you're creating content

for these two types of personas

you can get leads and demand

or waitlist signups

But you also get a community

that pushes you

likes your content

engages with you every single day

and eventually over time

time can also buy from you

So the last part of the 4 3 2 1

was lead magnets

And now how you build them

is super simple

You literally only have

to create a Google document

explaining something or a loom

loom or something else

that you already have

Maybe it's a part of your process

and then you give it out

to people for free

And the only thing that you ask for

is their email

You send them the lead magnet

they sign up to your email newsletter

to get that lead magnet

and over time

you just nurture them

And so while you're building in public

creating all of this content

you know taking hours of your time

writing this amazing content

that potentially will go viral

the way to guarantee your success

is to have that waitlist

in the background building

So when you want to launch something

when you want to offer something

you can

Step number three

which is my favorite

is webinars

You can do two types of lives

a LinkedIn Live

or you can do a Zoom webinar

For launch number one

we just did one LinkedIn Live

which is literally on LinkedIn

You're going live like you would

on Instagram or X

You tell people that

you're going to do it

You create a simple post about it

just highlighting

what it is going to be about

And then whoever signs up

gets a notification directly

on LinkedIn that you're going live

All you need is one topic

to educate on for the first 20 minutes

Then the next 20 minutes

is going to be a walkthrough or a demo

And then the third bit

is you're going to be pitching the product

sending the link

tell them where to buy

When you're able to show up as a human

people actually connect with you

with your mannerisms

with how you look

with where you live

with how you sound

So that's what allowed us

to literally hit the 30K in four days

Once you have your first couple users

or even before you launch

or when you're doing better launches

like we did ourselves

the thing that you need to focus on

to make sure that the product is perfect

is pop on calls or DM customers directly

to ask them for direct support

What we did was we were going on VIP

white glove onboarding calls

where we literally took people

through the product

product so they could use it correctly

Because the reason why most people

stop using software

is because they don't understand it

It's not because it doesn't work

So we tried our best to make sure

that every single one of our customers

at the start was able

to use that product correctly

so then they could stay on for longer

They gave us an amazing testimonial

and then they became Clio evangelists

But also in the background

we were recording those calls

to make sure that we spotted patterns

in thinking in problems in bugs

in issues that people were having

so we could actually fix them immediately

So it was also an iteration play for us

so we could have the best product available

as fast as possible

So then step number five

what you need to also do

is think about how can you get

the most demand as fast as possible

You build your waitlist

and then to incentivize customers to buy

you offer them a lifetime discount

or something that feels exclusive

You're trying to push someone to buy

and there's many ways to do it

With psychology you can do it through curiosity

you can do it through scarcity

or you can do it through promo

We tried all of them

but the one that worked best at the start

was scarcity

We told people we only have 500 spots available

which made people want to take action faster

When something's available so easily

people don't want to buy it immediately

So you need to add that incentive

for people to go in and buy

and also feel exclusive

And also if you want to add something else

you can offer them a lifetime discount

which is what we did

We told them this is 50 off for a lifetime

If you buy now

you will never have to pay the newer price ever again

And then number six

you need to not share your customers

Most people just launch things

and they forget about them

and then just go celebrate the MRR

What we're doing actively at Clio

Clio is we're keeping in touch closely

with every single one of our customers

One of our co founders Rob

he's literally given his personal number

to every single one of our users

so they can make sure that they're using the tool right

that they feel supported

Most people don't do that

But the thing is

you need to be doing the things that don't scale

if you want to scale faster

So if I was starting over all over from scratch

that's exactly what I would do

All right

right Well thank you for sharing that playbook Lara

I think it's amazing

I think a lot of people are going to really enjoy that

and should implement it

especially if they're building a SaaS

Changing topics real quick

I want to understand tech stack behind Clio

How did you guys build the app

How'd you build the SaaS

What do you use day to day to run the business

To build Clio actually

we use Claude and Claude code

Then we use Next js for the TypeScript for the code

Then Vassal and Vassal chat

Then Vassal again for hosting

and then Claude for authentication

For the operations and monetization

we use Slack for communication

We use Loops for emails

Calendly for onboarding calls

and then Fernand for managing those emails for support

And then to monetize

we use Poylar and Poylar's native landing page

Well thank you for sharing that

Last question that we ask everyone

who comes on to Starter Story

If you could go back in time

before you launched the SaaS

I had this amazing launch

What would be your advice to young Lara

or for anyone watching this

that wants to launch a SaaS in 2026

I would say two things

Number one is build a personal brand on LinkedIn

No matter how much you think it's cringe

if you want to make money

LinkedIn is your best shot

Twitter is cool Instagram is cool

but LinkedIn is so much better

There's just no competition at all

So that's one thing

Build your personal brand

educate on an important topic that you already know

And if you don't know it very well

you'll learn it through writing about it consistently

The second thing build an email list

You never know when you're going to lose access

to your social media platforms

You never know when you'll need

to actually promote something

So it's better to actually build

and then nurture that list

instead of trying to do it once you have to

Do it before you need to

Beautiful

Well thank you for that amazing advice

I think a lot of people watching this

are going to love this strategy

I think it's a totally different way

of thinking about how to launch a SaaS

From a marketer's perspective

a lot of people watching this video

may be very focused on building features

and doing things the old way

but this is amazing

So thanks for coming on Laura

Thank you for having me

People have our entire playbook

so I hope they see that

All right thank you to Laura

Laura for coming onto the channel

I'll bring our producer Gus on right now

Gus what did you think about that one

What I really loved about that

just how strategic everything was

For myself personally

I'm just kind of creating stuff online

and just posting whatever I'm thinking about

And this was very strategic

with the waitlist

and the type of content they created

and the signups and the emails that you saw

So I thought that was pretty interesting

Yeah I mean sometimes you can just

look at the math of things right

The goal is maybe a fraction

like 1 or maybe even less

actually show up and sign up for your waitlist

And then you kind of know at that point

if I have a waitlist of 10 000 people

and I can convert 1 of them

that's 100 paying customers

It's a numbers game right

I'm sure if you did the math

math on what their conversion was

maybe they converted 1 of people

on their waitlist to that

I mean that means 99 of people

are rejecting them right

More people that watch this channel

that are builders

should go learn from marketers like Laura

and people that are in other niches

on how they convert customers

and how they get paying customers

That's really the sauce here

I don't know what you think about that

And the last thing is just

what they said about LinkedIn

I feel like I don't know if you'll catch me

making content on LinkedIn

but like she said there's so many

there's so few people doing it on there

that it's like probably a huge opportunity

if you can get over that

If there are more creators than consumers

it's bad for you

because it's harder to stand out

But if there are more consumers than creators

like on LinkedIn I think that's very true

There's just not that many people creating

because they're worried about feeling cringe

or whatever their boss is on there or whatever

That's where the money is the sauce is right

And I think you can build a great business

On that note if you're looking to build something

it's all about distribution

It's about doing launch

but you gotta build something

You gotta have something that people can use

Definitely check out Starter Story Build

It is our program where you will come up with an idea

You'll build it and you'll launch it to actual people

like they did at Clio

If you're ready to get off the sidelines

and actually build something

look it may not be a million dollar idea

but get something out there get feedback

get it into the market

That's what Starter Story Build is all about

I'll put a link in the description for you to sign up

get started

More cohorts are launching this week

If you're ready to get started right now

definitely check it out

All right that's it for this one

Thank you guys for watching

We'll see you in the next one

Peace

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