I Built a $1M SaaS Using YouTube
Starter Story
Oct 4, 2025
Vasco and his co-founder (Afonso) grew Arvow from 0 to $79K/month. All through YouTube. This video covers the full playbook.
🛠️ Want to build your own app with AI? Check out Starter Story Build → https://build.starterstory.com/build/ai-build-accelerator?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=arvow
Vasco's app: https://arvow.com/
Follow Vasco: https://x.com/vascoabm
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:53 - Who is Vasco
1:11 - What is Arvow
1:44 - Story behind Arvow
2:39 - The biggest growth channel: YouTube
3:23 - $1M YouTube Playbook
7:15 - Build your product with AI
7:59 - The video that changed everything
8:54 - Beginner YouTube strategy
9:57 - Tech stack
10:34 - Work hard
11:31 - The final word
This video is an educational case study of one 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.
Chapters
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Transcript
Chapters
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No tools listed for this business.
If
any
viewer
is
watching
this
and
does
a
video
on
YouTube
for
45
days
if
they
don't
make
at
least
5
000
I'll
just
PayPal
you
500
This
is
Vasco
He
built
an
AI
app
that
in
just
two
years
went
from
zero
to
70
000
a
month
Most
our
users
come
from
YouTube
But
here's
what's
crazy
about
his
story
He
did
it
all
with
YouTube
One
video
a
day
nothing
fancy
no
crazy
tools
and
it
worked
The
way
in
which
you
get
people
to
buy
from
you
is
if
they
know
like
and
trust
you
Using
a
simple
strategy
Vasco
turned
YouTube
videos
into
a
million
dollar
business
and
I
brought
him
onto
the
channel
to
break
it
all
down
In
this
video
we'll
dive
into
his
YouTube
strategy
that
generates
70
000
a
month
how
you
can
create
money
making
assets
that
sell
your
product
while
you
sleep
and
why
YouTube
beats
every
other
platform
for
building
trust
and
getting
conversions
All
right
this
one's
gonna
be
fun
Let's
dive
in
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
All
right
welcome
Vasco
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
Hey
my
name
is
Vasco
I
built
a
software
company
called
Arvo
We
scaled
it
from
zero
to
around
70
000
in
MRR
fully
organic
And
I
think
the
most
interesting
part
about
this
is
that
we
leveraged
just
one
platform
which
was
YouTube
Before
we
get
into
this
YouTube
playbook
which
I
think
is
amazing
I
think
people
watching
this
are
gonna
love
it
I
just
want
to
understand
what
your
product
does
What
is
Arvo
What
does
it
do
Who
are
the
customers
So
Arvo
helps
marketing
agencies
business
owners
do
SEO
a
bit
faster
leveraging
AI
SEO
tends
to
be
a
tedious
process
takes
a
lot
of
time
We
try
to
shorten
the
time
until
where
you
can
see
results
It
starts
from
around
99
a
month
It
goes
all
the
way
to
almost
700
a
month
We
do
of
course
as
a
SaaS
have
churns
So
along
the
way
we
have
a
lot
of
clients
But
at
the
moment
we
have
around
600
paying
clients
That's
amazing
This
business
is
doing
basically
a
million
dollars
a
year
How
do
you
find
the
idea
for
Arvo
How
do
you
get
to
this
point
It
was
2016
or
2015
I
was
just
browsing
YouTube
and
I
came
across
this
guy
called
Alex
Becker
And
I
saw
a
video
from
him
where
he
was
making
supposedly
10K
a
month
doing
rank
and
rent
SEO
And
so
I
started
doing
that
Bought
my
first
domain
started
doing
local
SEO
with
rank
and
rent
Got
a
couple
of
clients
then
got
a
bit
tired
of
dealing
with
clients
So
I
just
took
my
SEO
services
and
started
selling
them
on
Fiverr
Upwork
and
other
marketplaces
But
then
I
noticed
that
these
marketplaces
they
were
missing
a
lot
of
things
that
I
wanted
to
see
in
my
own
marketplace
And
so
I
built
my
own
SEO
marketplace
called
Vetted
We
sold
it
last
year
and
the
AI
bubble
was
just
coming
When
I
sold
Vetted
I
knew
that
I
wanted
to
still
build
something
in
the
SEO
space
but
now
applying
AI
to
it
And
so
we
thought
an
AI
writer
could
be
a
good
idea
So
we
built
it
That's
basically
the
whole
story
of
how
Arvo
came
about
Okay
Well
what
I'm
really
excited
and
why
I
really
want
to
have
you
on
the
channel
Vasco
is
what
you
told
me
about
how
you
grew
this
business
I
think
a
lot
of
people
watching
might
be
wondering
how
you
built
it
what
the
product
does
I
think
one
of
the
coolest
things
about
what
you
did
is
how
you
grew
this
business
So
can
you
give
me
a
breakdown
of
what
the
main
growth
channel
is
for
your
SaaS
Most
of
our
users
come
from
YouTube
The
way
in
which
you
get
people
to
buy
from
you
is
if
they
know
like
and
trust
you
right
And
I
think
the
best
way
to
have
someone
know
like
and
trust
you
is
if
they
see
your
face
and
hear
your
voice
for
long
periods
of
time
All
in
all
I
think
YouTube
has
everything
you
need
to
have
someone
know
like
and
trust
you
and
then
buy
from
you
TikTok
doesn't
work
Blogging
doesn't
work
Clearly
LinkedIn
doesn't
work
But
I
think
in
terms
of
a
ratio
to
effort
results
I
think
YouTube
is
the
best
one
Okay
That's
amazing
This
business
was
grown
purely
with
YouTube
But
what
I
really
want
to
get
from
you
Vasco
is
the
full
playbook
Tell
me
exactly
how
you
went
from
zero
to
a
million
dollar
business
purely
with
YouTube
So
this
was
basically
our
playbook
in
three
core
steps
First
one
is
you
have
to
focus
on
producing
money
making
assets
I
just
produce
a
bunch
of
long
form
content
in
basically
three
buckets
First
bucket
again
is
evergreen
So
a
video
that
I
know
that
if
I
post
today
it
will
still
keep
on
getting
views
a
year
two
years
from
now
And
we
do
have
those
videos
I'll
give
you
an
example
We
have
a
video
on
the
best
AI
SEO
writer
The
second
bucket
is
news
relevant
type
videos
that
get
a
lot
of
views
in
the
first
two
or
three
days
and
then
die
out
These
are
basically
a
new
Google
update
comes
out
This
is
good
to
get
a
bunch
of
subs
and
a
bunch
of
new
eyeballs
onto
your
channel
which
then
you
can
funnel
into
your
product
or
services
Then
the
third
is
just
sort
of
viral
like
MrBeast
like
videos
but
applied
to
software
which
is
quite
hard
to
do
Then
we
just
do
that
over
and
over
again
The
issue
with
that
is
that
I'm
just
one
So
I'm
sort
of
capped
as
to
how
many
videos
I
can
do
And
so
I
say
this
to
say
that
this
goes
into
the
second
part
of
the
strategy
which
was
how
can
I
multiply
myself
And
so
what
I
did
then
was
I
created
a
bunch
of
YouTube
channels
Vasco's
SEO
Tips
Tim
SEO
Guru
SEO
News
whatever
And
all
these
channels
we
owned
And
so
then
I
had
to
find
creators
because
my
goal
was
to
have
all
channels
and
post
a
creator
in
each
one
of
those
channels
The
wrong
way
to
go
about
finding
creators
is
going
and
finding
creators
because
they're
very
expensive
and
they
have
a
big
ego
And
so
what
I
did
was
let
me
find
people
who
I
think
can
become
creators
So
I
had
an
Upwork
and
I
skimmed
through
people's
profiles
who
for
example
had
a
video
Having
a
video
on
your
Upwork
profile
tells
me
that
you're
sort
of
comfortable
in
front
front
of
the
camera
So
I
went
and
went
after
those
guys
And
so
all
in
all
I
had
all
these
channels
and
I
paid
people
per
performance
and
I
paid
paid
people
per
video
On
top
of
that
why
not
expand
to
other
languages
So
we
found
Portuguese
creators
We
found
Spanish
ones
just
like
MrBeast
does
with
these
channels
After
we've
done
step
one
and
two
we
want
to
focus
on
the
third
step
which
is
scaling
and
expanding
with
paid
ads
Most
of
your
videos
graphs
will
look
like
this
They
go
up
get
views
and
then
they
stagnate
and
get
no
more
views
And
so
what
I've
noticed
was
that
when
we
were
getting
views
we
were
getting
sales
And
then
when
the
views
stagnated
we
stopped
getting
sales
I
didn't
feel
like
recording
the
same
video
over
and
over
again
just
to
get
those
initial
views
And
I
think
that's
where
paid
ads
come
in
So
on
YouTube
you
can
run
what's
called
in
feed
ads
These
ads
appear
in
two
places
First
one
is
on
your
YouTube
homepage
And
then
when
you're
watching
a
video
it
shows
up
on
the
right
hand
sidebar
So
they
look
like
organic
pieces
of
content
I
took
the
videos
who
performed
well
who
got
views
got
sales
and
then
stagnated
And
I
paid
YouTube
for
in
feed
ads
The
issue
with
YouTube
and
YouTube
ads
as
well
is
that
it's
very
hard
to
track
To
track
YouTube
organic
what
we've
done
is
three
things
First
one
again
is
have
a
dedicated
UTM
in
each
video
If
maybe
1
of
people
click
the
links
in
the
description
you
know
that
they
came
from
that
video
Something
else
we
did
to
increase
the
tracking
accuracy
was
have
a
dedicated
coupon
in
each
video
I
would
say
something
like
hey
guys
if
you
want
to
check
out
Arvo
go
to
arvo
com
And
by
the
way
if
you
want
a
coupon
code
just
click
the
little
chat
bubble
at
the
bottom
bottom
and
ask
the
guys
from
support
saying
hey
Vasco
told
me
I
can
get
a
coupon
code
I
came
from
this
video
Give
me
a
coupon
code
Third
thing
if
you
go
on
Arvo
right
now
if
you
sign
up
we
have
a
welcome
questionnaire
where
if
you
select
you
came
from
YouTube
a
bunch
of
our
channels
faces
pop
up
so
you
can
choose
which
creator
you
came
from
When
I
mentioned
about
scaling
with
paid
ads
you
have
to
be
careful
because
you
never
know
if
you're
promoting
a
video
that's
not
bringing
in
many
sales
Two
extra
tips
on
CTAs
Before
I
was
doing
the
call
to
action
at
the
end
of
the
video
And
that
doesn't
make
any
sense
because
most
people
don't
watch
all
the
way
through
So
just
the
simple
fact
of
moving
the
CTA
towards
the
beginning
and
the
middle
of
the
just
increased
our
numbers
of
signups
by
a
lot
Second
thing
is
don't
just
make
generic
call
to
actions
like
yeah
just
go
check
out
the
website
What
we've
been
doing
is
we
create
specific
call
to
actions
So
we
make
them
sort
of
interactive
not
just
a
generic
one
and
prompting
them
to
do
an
action
inside
of
the
site
That's
it
I
think
your
strategy
is
really
smart
You
built
this
awesome
tool
and
then
you
use
YouTube
to
grow
the
business
business
But
it
still
reminds
me
you
can't
make
YouTube
videos
about
a
product
that
doesn't
exist
If
you're
watching
this
don't
have
something
built
yet
All
the
content
strategy
in
the
world
won't
help
you
And
this
is
exactly
why
we
launched
Starter
Story
Build
It's
our
flagship
program
where
you
will
learn
how
to
build
and
launch
your
project
using
AI
coding
tools
in
just
a
couple
weeks
You'll
get
access
to
our
build
experts
You'll
join
thousands
of
other
builders
and
you'll
learn
our
complete
framework
for
building
and
shipping
apps
Once
you
have
something
built
then
you
can
go
start
creating
YouTube
videos
just
like
Basco
did
So
if
you're
ready
to
build
just
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
to
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
All
right
Basco
let's
get
to
the
next
question
I
would
love
if
you
could
actually
show
me
a
real
example
from
your
YouTube
channels
for
your
business
Can
you
show
me
a
YouTube
video
that
kind
of
changed
your
business
Yeah
sure
I
guess
this
is
the
very
first
one
where
I
realized
the
power
of
YouTube
which
again
again
this
was
posted
I
think
two
years
ago
It's
a
video
on
how
to
make
a
Wikipedia
page
It's
a
very
bad
tutorial
but
still
to
this
day
it
got
1
2
million
impressions
I
think
around
300
views
every
single
day
65
of
the
traffic
comes
from
YouTube
search
how
to
create
a
Wikipedia
page
how
to
make
a
Wikipedia
page
20
of
the
traffic
comes
from
Google
search
Not
only
does
the
video
rank
on
YouTube
it
also
ranks
on
Google
And
I
can
go
on
to
the
LLM
type
of
things
because
nowadays
we
see
a
bunch
of
our
videos
being
recommended
in
these
LLMs
So
if
I
could
give
any
tips
it's
to
yes
build
out
these
evergreen
videos
Granted
though
it's
very
important
to
know
that
mix
up
these
evergreen
ones
with
sharing
case
studies
sharing
news
just
produce
valuable
content
and
know
that
there's
some
chance
that
those
videos
can
become
evergreen
in
the
long
run
Okay
thanks
for
sharing
those
real
examples
My
next
question
for
you
for
anyone
watching
this
that
wants
to
do
this
YouTube
thing
to
build
a
business
through
YouTube
content
what
would
be
your
advice
on
how
to
get
started
if
you're
getting
started
right
now
in
2025
I
think
as
cliche
as
it
sounds
like
with
anything
you
have
to
be
consistent
and
do
a
lot
of
volume
I
think
Alex
Ramos
said
this
It's
very
difficult
that
you
do
something
a
lot
of
times
for
a
long
period
of
time
and
you
don't
see
success
So
for
YouTube
what
I
advise
is
okay
just
post
a
video
every
single
day
for
45
days
Most
people
will
watch
this
and
won't
do
it
The
rest
of
the
people
will
try
to
do
it
and
will
stop
after
a
week
Maybe
like
one
or
two
people
out
of
all
those
will
actually
do
it
And
those
who
do
it
will
actually
see
success
If
any
viewers
watching
this
and
does
a
video
on
YouTube
for
45
days
if
they
don't
make
at
least
5
000
I'll
just
PayPal
you
500
By
the
way
don't
think
that
you
need
to
have
these
very
polished
videos
right
All
our
videos
that
got
this
from
literally
zero
to
70K
MRR
just
myself
in
my
basement
recording
just
a
Miro
board
like
a
whiteboard
going
over
valuable
stuff
Well
on
that
note
I
think
that's
cool
You
know
starting
small
just
using
Loom
What
are
the
tools
that
you
use
and
would
recommend
other
people
to
use
if
they
want
to
be
recording
every
day
creating
lots
of
content
on
YouTube
You
don't
need
much
You
need
Loom
get
the
premium
version
so
you
can
record
in
HD
You
need
Miro
that's
the
whiteboard
I
use
Then
you
need
some
sort
of
way
to
edit
the
videos
I
use
Camtasia
I
think
you
should
put
more
work
and
more
effort
into
the
hardware
than
the
software
Have
a
good
mic
have
a
good
camera
and
have
good
lighting
So
a
regular
running
light
or
mic
I
use
Shure
SM7B
That's
it
Don't
overcomplicate
it
I
think
the
hardest
part
is
getting
going
Okay
cool
I
mean
that's
a
nice
stack
Last
question
that
we
have
for
everyone
who
comes
on
Starter
Story
If
you
could
go
back
in
time
stand
on
young
Vasco's
shoulder
when
you
were
just
getting
started
out
or
for
anyone
who's
watching
this
that
wants
to
do
what
you
did
build
a
million
dollar
SaaS
what
would
be
your
advice
I
think
it's
very
important
to
know
that
this
is
very
hard
This
is
very
difficult
The
best
piece
of
advice
I
can
give
you
is
that
to
increase
your
chances
of
succeeding
is
you
have
to
work
very
hard
I
did
20
to
30
minute
videos
every
single
day
for
almost
a
year
Who's
willing
to
do
that
To
be
in
the
1
you
have
to
be
willing
to
do
what
the
other
99
people
aren't
willing
to
do
There
are
no
shortcuts
I
believe
that
Thanks
for
coming
on
Vasco
I
love
the
business
that
you
built
Thanks
for
sharing
this
whole
YouTube
thing
sharing
those
YouTube
videos
that
you've
created
I
think
people
are
going
to
love
this
If
you
enjoyed
this
video
and
you're
watching
this
let
me
know
if
you
want
to
have
Vasco
back
on
and
we
can
go
deeper
into
the
YouTube
playbook
So
put
a
comment
down
there
If
you
want
to
see
that
we
can
do
it
Otherwise
thanks
for
coming
on
Vasco
and
we'll
see
you
soon
Cheers
All
right
I
want
to
thank
Vasco
again
for
coming
onto
the
channel
I'm
a
huge
fan
of
YouTube
obviously
and
I
think
his
YouTube
strategy
is
genius
So
congrats
on
the
success
Vasco
But
I
do
have
to
remind
you
if
you're
watching
this
that
all
of
this
still
starts
by
building
something
Without
a
product
you'll
have
nothing
to
promote
and
that's
why
we
launched
Starter
Story
Build
We'll
help
you
build
and
ship
your
idea
faster
than
ever
before
and
in
just
a
few
weeks
you'll
have
a
full
working
app
ready
to
share
with
the
world
So
if
you're
interested
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
to
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
All
right
right
That's
it
for
this
episode
Thank
you
guys
for
watching
We'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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