Using custom infrastructure as a competitive advantage and hitting $31k MRR

Nic Mauro saw the power of short-form video and built a tool to harness it. Then, when agencies showed demand, he narrowed his focus. Now, Virlo is bringing in $31k MRR.

Here's Nic on how he did it. 👇

Sparking interest

I’m Nic Mauro, cofounder and CEO of Virlo. My background includes finance and early-stage startups, including time at Neuberger Berman and as the 6th employee at a startup Gary Vaynerchuk ran.

My time at the VX corporation (Gary's holding company) sparked my interest in three things:

1. Short-form video's power

2. How larger enterprises adopt new technologies (our consulting team directly onboarded F500 enterprises to crypto and AI)

3. The future's direction

I planted Virlo's early seeds during those two years. Virlo is the “Bloomberg for short-form video.” We combine data from TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts to help people understand what gains traction, which creators matter in their category, and what content performs. Our strongest traction has been with agencies, where account managers and strategists use Virlo to research clients’ markets, develop content ideas, and build reports. We also offer an API so that teams can build our data into their own tools and workflows. Other startups have shown great adoption there.

We’ve grown to roughly $31k in monthly recurring revenue, up from about $1k in March 2025, and growing at 35% MoM. The expansion of adoption from individuals to entire teams is especially encouraging. Agencies are making Virlo part of their research process, and API customers are building internal products on top of our data. This gives us a clear direction: Become the research infrastructure businesses rely on to understand short-form video.

Technical challenges

Building Virlo's initial version meant tackling two connected problems: collecting short-form video data and turning it into something people could use. A large dataset alone wasn’t enough. We needed to help users find relevant trends, creators, and high-performing content without spending hours scrolling through different platforms.

The technical foundation was the hardest part — delivering fresh, real-time data sustainably. Short-form video moves quickly, and collecting and refreshing that information at scale is technically demanding. And the economics matter just as much as the engineering. We invested in building our own infrastructure to better control costs, coverage, and freshness. It was hard, but it became our “secret sauce.” It gives us a competitive advantage over products that depend on general-purpose providers like Apify.

As far as our stack, it's built on AWS, Vercel, and Next.js.

Focusing on the right customers

Another big challenge was narrowing our focus. Short-form video data has applications for creators, agencies, brands, and researchers, which makes it tempting to build and market to everyone. We focused on who was paying, how they used Virlo, and how it integrated into their recurring workflow.

Agencies stood out because their teams need to research multiple clients, develop ideas, and report on performance consistently. That led us to sharpen our messaging, offer hands-on onboarding, and work directly with teams to shape the product around their needs.

Expansion and churn

Virlo makes money through platform subscriptions, API access, and additional usage credit purchases. Our enterprise plans give us room to grow within an organization. We can start with one team, prove the value in their workflow, and expand as they add seats across more account managers, strategists, or departments. Credit-based purchases create another expansion path: when customers exhaust their included credits, they can purchase more to continue their research or data usage.

We made one of our biggest changes by moving from a paywall-first approach to a free trial. Previously, we asked people to pay before they could truly experience the product. The trial lets them explore the data, research their own market, and understand how Virlo fits into their work before committing. That’s particularly valuable for a product like ours, where researching something relevant to your business is much more compelling than watching a generic demo.

Churn is a constant battle, but it has improved significantly since we introduced the free-trial model. Customers have a better understanding of what they’re buying and a chance to establish a useful workflow before becoming paid subscribers. We also support team adoption through hands-on onboarding and training, helping customers make Virlo part of their recurring research process.

As far as costs, collecting and refreshing data is expensive, but as I said, building our own infrastructure gives us more control over those economics as usage grows.

My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to pay as much attention to why customers stay as to why they sign up. For us, revenue expansion comes from customers finding enough ongoing value to add teammates, use more data, and bring Virlo into more of their work.

Search, paid social, and direct outreach

We attract users through organic search, paid social, and direct outreach. Organic search brings in customers looking for short-form video research and API access, including teams that started building on our data without speaking to us. On Meta, we test different creative and messaging, then put more budget behind ads that generate trials.

As we learn who gets the most value from Virlo, we focus more on agencies. Our outreach starts with an offer to provide research relevant to their clients, giving them a concrete example of what the product can do. We pair that with a free trial and hands-on onboarding so teams can experience the value in their own workflows.

Invest in custom-built software

If I had to start over today, I would most likely use more custom-built, low-cost software.

Managing costs is the most important thing in business, and we've become "in the ecosystem" of a few providers that I wish we weren't. I won't name names because they are great products, but these providers are a bit of a trap if you build critical infra around them!

Resources and habits

Founders podcast by David Senra is amazing. We are a fully remote team, and I don't have many "mentors" I can speak to daily, so my mentors are those in books and podcasts. Made in America by Sam Walton, The Gambler about Kirk Kerkorian, and Gambling Man about Masa are extremely inspiring books.

I live in NYC, so I always offer to get coffee with people when I can. And I try to go to customers' offices as much as possible. It's good to get out!

Start general, watch costs, and have fun

My advice?

1. Start as general as possible. Then, if signups provide any signal, follow the scent like a bloodhound. Don't make a "business plan"; the market will guide you.

2. Watch costs like a hawk. Most tools are BS. Nothing is a silver bullet.

3. Have fun building, or you'll burn out!

What's next?

$300K MRR is my current goal.

You can follow along on X. And check out Virlo.ai!