I’m 19 and I Built This $11K/Month SaaS

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I’m 19 and I Built This $11K/Month SaaS

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Oct 11, 2026

Vadim is 19 years old and, before this year, had never shipped an app in his life. In March, he quit his marketing job to build apps… 5 months later, he hit $10K/month with over 20K users.

His process has been 100% building with AI and posting content on IG shamelessly. This video is proof that you do NOT need to be technical or have a clever growth hack to build an app business that makes real money.

Get HubSpot's free CRM, the one that updates itself: https://clickhubspot.com/qy9n

Say hi to Vadim: https://x.com/VadimStrizheus
Check out Vugola: https://www.vugolaai.com/

🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs

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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Transcript

Chapters

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Stripe (link)
Claude Vision (link)
OpenAI Codex (link)
Postiz (link)

Hi I'm Vadim I'm 19 years old and I built an AI app called Vugola that makes me over 10 000

every single month without any coding experience This is Vadim He's 19 and five months ago

he launched his very first app And today that app is making over 10 000 per month

But here's what I think is cool This is not a story about clever growth hacks or tricks

He didn't have a big budget and he didn't really use any shortcuts He grew his app

by doing one thing every single day that took him about 45 minutes to do

This is going to sound completely crazy So I brought Vadim onto the channel to break

everything down for us And in this episode we're going to dive into the app that he built

in five months that now makes over 10 000 a month the 45 minute daily routine behind all

of his growth and the biggest mistake every app founder is making when it comes to growing their

businesses and what you should do instead Super excited for this one Let's dive in

I'm Gus and this is Starter Story All right Vadim welcome to Starter Story

Excited to have you on the channel Can you tell us who you are what you built

and what's your story Hi I'm Vadim I'm 19 years old

and I built an AI app called Vugola which is an AI video editing platform that makes me over

10 000 every single month And I built this app just in five months without any coding experience

All right Vadim I'm excited to talk about Vugola how you built it how you grew it

So let's talk about it What is Vugola Who are your users How does it work And then pull up

your Stripe or revenue dashboards to show to the audience that this thing is legit

Yeah totally So Vugola is basically an AI video editing agent that can turn any piece of content

into viral edited nice clips And my target customer and ICP is basically clippers

content creators agencies and long form brands So this is Vugola and basically it's an AI video

agent that can turn any long form piece of content to viral clips that look exactly like this

In the last four weeks alone we have generated about 11 200 in monthly recurring revenue

In roughly Vugola in the past I don't know four weeks to a few months we have roughly

gone over a few 10 000 signups and we have about 400 paying users

Man I just love everything that Vadim is breaking down for us right now His story is awesome But

it got me thinking once you have customers like Vadim is getting they become the most valuable

part of your business It doesn't matter what you built all that matters is who's paying for it

It's super important that you know your customers what they need so that you can keep growing your

business But a lot of founders have this information scattered all over the place

Emails notes apps spreadsheets And this is exactly why I'm excited to talk to you about

HubSpot Smart CRM With HubSpot Smart CRM it puts all the information in one place so that

you know what's going on with your customers and you can keep building And the best part

you can get started for free Just head to the link in the description and check out HubSpot

Smart CRM All right let's get back to Vadim Cool Vadim Thanks for breaking that all down

How do you get here What's your background What were you doing before you built Vugola

Yeah totally So I started working at a top marketing startup in my city back when I was a junior

junior in high school So I was 17 at the time And then that was going pretty well for me But

ever since I was a little kid I was selling lemonade I was selling slime in elementary

school So I always wanted to like make my own dollar I quit that job to pursue building a web

app completely with no coding experience That's how I got into building my SaaS So like burning

all the bridges And that's how I forced myself to start building a startup I just like 18 years

old That's awesome So then you know how do you come up with this specific idea for Vugola

Yeah tell us about that So the way I got this idea was literally I just like I was doing

scrolling one day I just noticed dude every time I'm scrolling I mean I'm seeing like

podcast clip a gaming clip a live streaming clip So like when I figured out you know what

like since there's already a proven market out there video editing clipping I'm like

why not me just build another clipping tool Like if I can get a tiny percentage of a total

tam of like the market then I can be making like a ton of money for myself So I already saw like

there's a proven market like show from content is always going to be there It's going to continue

growing You know what let me hop on this trend before even takes off even more and start making

like good revenue for myself So that's how I got there That's cool I like what you said about

kind of you recognizing clipping is sort of huge right now So that takes me to you know

the build How did you build this What was the process like What was the timeline How long

did it take you Yeah so this is gonna sound completely crazy Like I'm literally your vibe

coder So I have like a lovable subscription And I literally was like prompting lovable

which is like a cloud wrapper If you think about it like a codex wrapper I was on that platform

for about like four months trying to build Vugola So that's how I started building And then over

time as I was using lovable I was watching more YouTube videos more like tutorials and guides

Funny enough I started asking Claude hey I want to move off lovable And I actually learned

how to like code and build a product And then started recommending me tools like GitHub or

sell super base Basically all these like all in one tools that lovable had it's like you can do

the same thing for way cheaper So that's how I kind of got into vibe coding I went from lovable

then I moved to Claude And now I'm on codex And yeah that's how I kind of got into it

That's cool What was the timeline of building Vugola Like when you first started to when you

kind of had the MVP Tell us how long that was roughly Yeah So I got the initial idea for

Vugola back in October I spent four months building it And then I just started marketing

it about let's say five to six months ago Nice Cool And tell us what's the tech stack that you

use the tools that you use to build this and you already mentioned some of them and maybe the

tools that you use right now to run the business Yeah So all the tools I'm using right now is

Codex Then I use GitHub I use Superbase Then I use Vercel Then I use Cloudflare

PostHog and then I use DataFast And then we also use AWS which is like the number one

video rendering infrastructure out there as well Cool Awesome Let's talk about the early days

So you said you kind of launched it in around March Talk to us about that kind of first zero

to your first couple thousand dollars in revenue What did you do What was that like How did you

get off the ground When I first started marketing my app back in March it was purely on X

on Twitter So I started building a personal brand on Twitter And then step two I slowly

like when I was in the Twitter space I started noticing there's a bunch of these like AI tools

and AI like trends that just boom and pop up I'm like you know what what if I make like an

OpenClaw plugin or like a video relating Vugola which is my AI video editing tools like OpenClaw

Anything you would reference to OpenClaw would go insanely viral Basically I was leveraging

already viral proven like formats and like topics And I was basically plugging it in and connecting

it to my software Vugola So that's how I was like marketing it on Twitter That was our first

like zero to like two thousand three thousand dollars in monthly recurring revenue that was

purely just off Twitter So that's how you get your first you know a couple thousand dollars

in revenue But now you're at eleven K per month and growing What did you do differently Take us

through like that next level of finally hitting that ten thousand dollars per month What did you

Yeah so this is the secret sauce And honestly like I do not see anybody talking about it People

just water this down or like people like I don't know why no one's talking about this And this is

super super simple And all it takes is going to buy like forty five minutes like a day So for

step one I got a brand new Instagram account and then I also got a mini chat subscription

and I connected those two Step number two I basically analyze and doom scroll for like a

whole entire day I was finding my competitors viral formats and their viral UGC campaigns

and their creators And then when I would scroll down I would see like they're already proven

viral formats that their creators already posting And then step number three I just stole everything

So I basically I leverage the same text because them So I record like my own face and then I

would leverage the same exact text that they use the same audio that they use the same like

transitions How long So like is the hook three seconds four seconds How long is their demo

How long is their CTA And basically I just micro analyzed and copied their entire format to the T

and I just changed and iterated for my own product Step number four I posted three to six

times every single day on Instagram As you can see this is my brand new account I started

posting for a few months ago We're at 10 8K followers just a brand new account And the

secret sauce is it only takes me forty five minutes a day because the true thing about these

viral UGC formats is the only thing that you have to change is your hook and then the sound Your

000 views like after you already find a viral proven hook in a format what you're going to do

then is you're going to double down on like the viral formats You're going to spam that single

format every single day until it becomes saturated And then the last step would basically

you just like continue to scroll and then you continue like following these like brands and

whatever they're posting I would probably just copy that because they already found a viral

format So just continuously be scrolling analyzing and finding other new content trends

in the tech UGC space Everyone rides the same trend wave until it becomes super saturated and

then a new trend comes up and then everyone's posting the same trend No one really kind of

of says like oh stop copying me like they like help each other find viral formats Yeah that's cool

What I want to ask is like is this just costing you time Like you know I think people worry

about like oh I got to hire people or spend money before I you know talk a little bit about

that Posting on Instagram costs you nothing Editing the videos cost you nothing The only

thing that costs you this ManyChap subscription for 15 a month This is all you need to cross

10 000 a month If you're a B2C founder your ICP is like a consumer that's scrolling Why would

you waste all this time trying to spend like money on these other subscriptions and tools

when you yourself can like create six pieces of content post it every single day for free

on Instagram and like batch this content three to six times every single day And it only takes

you 30 to 45 minutes a day This is as simple as it gets You just have to put a little bit of

effort into it Cool I love the passion there I want to see this app that's making 10 000 a month

How does it work Give us kind of the 30 second to one minute demo Yeah so this is how Vogola

works So this is our dashboard right here And it's basically a video editing tool So all you

will do is like get like a YouTube link I would paste it in here you'll get clips it'll pull it

up And then you can choose different caption styles different kind of formats So for this

one let's just do like no captions And then you can choose different kind of like ratios So the

most common one is like a nine by 16 And then you should start clipping And then that video will

start getting clipped and it'll upload right here And then also we're launching a beta version we

basically have our own agentic video editor as well So basically you can just edit videos

right here fully like end to end It's like a clipping tool and an AI clipper just combining

into one So for long form video editors content creators it's like basically the best tool out

there that they can use to edit their videos Love it I love it It's simple Let's go to the

final question that we ask all founders who come onto Starter Story If you were standing on your

shoulders from a year ago or for someone watching who's just getting started what would be kind of

of your final advice to yourself or to them Simplify everything you're doing It can be from how you

code how you build a product how you market your product Everything you're doing I promise you

you can cut your effort and your time that you're putting into that by at least 50 Because as a

founder in the age of AI your biggest asset is your time So when you can simplify everything in

your own workflows in your own life how you market your marketing channels building your

product that's the one thing that would nail down make it as basic and as easy to understand

And I promise you that the more easier the user can understand your product the more revenue you

will get as well So that's what I would do Vadim that's great advice Thanks for coming on

Starter Story Leave a question or comment in the comment section Thanks for coming on Maybe we'll

have you back on when you're making 50 000 a month or 100 000 a month Congrats and we'll talk soon man

Yeah thank you for having me Okay I wrapped up with Vadim I had to step away for a second That's

why I changed and I'm wearing something different But just a couple of quick thoughts on the interview

with him One I think the coolest thing is that these AI coding tools have really changed who is

a builder And so if you're watching and if you're a marketer if you've always dreamt of building

something or if you have some skill that wasn't technical or involved building software AI has

made it totally possible to do this And so hopefully you watched this and felt encouraged

or inspired by that The second thing I loved is how he broke down his really simple content

strategy I think he just said like I do three times a day every single day And that's how I've

grown to where I am today Obviously lots of factors involved there Just to put into perspective

I've started doing this for my own apps that I'm building I'm starting to get thousands and thousands

thousands of views on my content stuff that I had never done before And I just I kind of was

inspired to do it because of Vadim He said you know three times a day just from your own

personal account copying formats at work et cetera And that's kind of what I'm doing And

it's just starting to get traction And I think I'm onto something which reminds me at the link in

the description you can download our free short form playbook It goes over a bunch of different

app founders and all their different growth tactics they've used to grow their apps and

be really successful All right Hope you enjoyed this one Thanks so much for watching We'll see

you in the next one Peace

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