Hitting $100M ARR in eight months with an AI software
builder
Anton Osika built an AI software builder in a weekend and got a huge response from the developer community. So he rebuilt, rebranded, and relaunched it as Lovable.
Eight months later, it's bringing in $100M ARR.
Here's Anton on how he did it. 👇
$100M ARR in eight months
My background is in physics, which I studied at university and spent time at CERN before working as an engineer at some of Sweden's most exciting tech companies. I was a founding engineer at Sana and CTO of Depict before starting Lovable.
I've always felt that the ability to create and build things is the highest form of having a positive impact on the world. And in the modern world, building software is the best way of doing that.
However, the biggest barrier to building businesses is coding. 99% of people have great ideas and can execute on a business, but they don't know how to write code.
I realized that AI could change that. AI allows us to unlock the potential of ideas for everyone. So I put together this command-line interface called GPT-Engineer in one weekend to prove it and the reaction from the developer community was immediate and overwhelming. Since then, GPT-Engineer has evolved into Lovable and the customer love has been immense.
Lovable is an AI software builder that turns ideas into software in minutes. Anyone from non-technical users to experienced developers and enterprise teams can build with our platform — we think of it as the last piece of software anyone will ever need.
We launched at the end of 2024 and within eight months, we’ve reached 2M users and $100M ARR.
We're shipping new products and features all the time and we're just at the beginning of realizing what the world looks like when everyone can turn their idea into a business in minutes.
Scaling problems
In a short amount of time, Lovable has become one of the most talked about, and fastest growing, tech companies in the world. The scaling pains have been many.
One example is that one month after launch, GitHub suspended our app without warning, taking down our entire platform for 500,000 users. They thought our rapid repository creation was suspicious activity, but it was actually a sign of our explosive growth.
After a lot of back-and-forth and conversations with confused GitHub personnel, we finally got in touch with their CEO. We were then able to get back online, keep everyone’s data and honor all of our users’ credits.
Drivers of explosive growth
Lovable now has 2.3M active users in 190+ countries and territories around the world - with more than 10 million projects created on Lovable in total, at a current pace of more than 100,000 per day.
The growth has been driven by our focus on builders turning ideas into income streams: solopreneurs, solo founders, and indie hackers who need to move fast without traditional development constraints.
We do marketing across a number of channels, but our two biggest priorities are:
1. Making our community successful
We have a vibrant community of Lovable lovers who are building amazing apps, beta-testing our product, contributing feature requests, engaging in our Discord, and telling all their friends about the power of Lovable.
Word-of-mouth has been one of our biggest drivers. We've just completed a 6-week deep dive "Shipped" cohort where more than 6,000 people participated in learning, collaboration, and accountability to build their businesses on Lovable. Our Demo Day, where the top 10 are competing for $100k, is coming up August 6th.
2. Social
I am very active across social media platforms, sharing thoughts, insights, and engaging with our customers and influencers. And our company's social media reach and engagement is a strong distribution channel for us to share news, great customer stories, and thoughts on his vision for the future of AI and the world.
Honorable mentions
Launch: As I mentioned, we had an early version of Lovable called GPT-Engineer. We launched that in 2024 and the response was very positive. But things changed when we rebranded and launched Lovable at Slush in November 2024.
A free weekend: Our biggest traffic day ever came when we made Lovable free for a weekend, letting users battle the major LLM providers' codegen models head-to-head. We hit 134k users building projects simultaneously that Sunday — our highest number ever.
Timing: The speed at which AI capabilities have been advancing means we couldn’t have launched Lovable a couple of years ago. So we have benefited from good timing in an ecosystem that is changing at lightning speed all the time.
Reduce plan complexity
We’re a SaaS company with a subscription model. Most revenue comes from self‑serve monthly plans, topped up by a light, sales‑assisted motion for larger teams that need security, admin, or procurement.
We experimented a lot early on, but our north star has been “make it easy to try, obvious to buy.” That’s why collaboration is now free — usage is the best lead — and why we’ve reduced plan complexity over time.
Not every pricing move was painless: When we made collaboration free and moved all Team plan users to the cheaper Pro plan, we lost $1.5M ARR in a single day. It hurt in the short term, but it simplified our story, boosted activation, and reduced friction in the funnel.
The broader lesson: Pricing is product — optimize for adoption and clarity, and let revenue follow engaged users. Our current focus is growth and retention
The advantage of location
I had been through the YC experience with my previous company and it teaches you a lot about building, scaling and fundraising. But it also takes you out of your home country.
I think Lovable’s strong roots into the Stockholm ecosystem have been a massive advantage. We have focused on building in a capital efficient way that is very common to Europe but doesn’t fit with the traditional US startup playbook.
And we launched Lovable at a unique time in the Swedish ecosystem. When you look at the former employers of our team in Stockholm, you can see the quality of the tech talent here. They come from the likes of Spotify, Miro, Stripe, and Google and very few other cities in the world have that concentration and density of talent.
Your team is everything
Nothing is more important than the team.
If I had to define my founder ‘superpower’, it is getting the very best talent in the world to work for me. We have achieved so much with a team that still only numbers about 40 people. And that’s because of two reasons:
They are the best at what they do.
They believe in what we’re building.
The best founders I’ve seen strike the right balance between knowing where they need to be deep in the details, and where they have to trust their team. Knowing you are surrounded by great people makes that a lot easier.
What's next?
This is just the beginning of what I think Lovable can achieve. We have big ambitions around user numbers, growth targets, and ARR. We see a big opportunity in expanding further into the US.
We have a clear and realistic roadmap that I think will make Lovable the most important company that has ever been created in Europe.
Our mission is to create a world where everyone can turn an idea into a business in minutes. Imagine what that means for students, or people who spend decades hating their jobs whilst harbouring secret entrepreneurial dreams, or really great founders who can build and scale game-changing businesses in months, not years.
I am relentlessly positive about the impact AI is going to have on the world and want to play a leading role in shaping a future where everyone is a builder.
You can check us out at lovable.dev, X, and LinkedIn.
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I really like Lovable. For basic websites it great. Makes proof of concept stuff super easy and gives it a nice polished look as well
Great story, It's wild seeing how many opportunities came for smaller creators/developers to make a lot of money and build success fast with AI, it's like a gold rush all over again.
Lovable + warp + cursor and you can get production ready in a week.
Wow, that’s an impressive track record! It sounds like you’ve had a front-row seat to a lot of the ups and downs of the startup world. I’m curious, what have been some of the most surprising or unexpected lessons you’ve learned through all those interviews with founders? And with your ventures like dbrief and LoomFlows, how have those experiences shaped your perspective on the industry?
the product is actually Loveable
Anton, this is rocketship execution. From CERN to GPT-Engineer to Lovable—your clarity on unlocking software creation for non-technical builders is inspiring. I’m building White Waters Sentinel, a civic tech platform for pipeline security in Nigeria. Bootstrapped, live, and mission-driven. Your story reminds me that when you solve a real barrier, scale isn’t a dream—it’s a consequence. Respect
Lovable's journey was really lovable. Whatecer you said about having the right team is absolutely right.
Really loved reading about Lovable’s journey — making software creation more intuitive is such a game-changer. It’s always fascinating to see how founders simplify what’s usually complex. From an analyst’s perspective, I’d be curious which use cases people adopt first, since that often shapes the growth curve. Excited to see where this goes!
Define 2.3M active users. What I've seen with 95% of AI apps is that people create an account, log in and try it once to see the output in the hopes that it actually does what it claims (disclaimer, almost no AI app does what it claims). That's not an active user. Personally I think the key question with all these AI apps is not how many users, or how much content its generated, but how much value its generated. How many of the millions of projects created actually do something useful and generate revenue? That's a statistic I would love to see. AI can spit out garbage content and code at record speeds, but the amount of software developed that actually generates value is plummeting incredibly fast.
I know it's not aligned with the business model, but the pattern I see commonly for serious product creation is (1) start with a Lovable mockup, (2) get Lovable to build out the frontend Figma-like (functional but not connected to the back end) and (3) hook it up to a GitHub repo ASAP so you can port it over to Cursor and build out the backend from there. Agreed with others who commented on its front-end-only-really functionality. Unlike a lot of companies, it seems like Lovable is really heavily leaning on the "forecasted ARR by taking MRR * 12" when churn is likely very high.
i love using lovable for ui mock ups
Lovable is great for front-end code and quick UIs, but it struggles on the backend. I tried building with custom databases and APIs, but the output was buggy and often needed rewriting. It feels more like a front-end builder than a full software platform. $100M ARR is impressive, but for serious backend work, it’s not there yet.
“Totally feel this — losing track of convos or tasks kills momentum. I’ve been working on an AI memory engine (Elcan) that tackles exactly this. Curious, what’s your biggest challenge with keeping track of tasks from email/Slack/etc?”
This is really inspiring — the way you turned GPT-Engineer into Lovable and scaled to $100M ARR in just 8 months shows what’s possible when you solve a real barrier for people. I agree with you that the biggest hurdle for most entrepreneurs is not the idea, but the execution (especially coding).
At our company , we’ve seen the same thing with businesses in Australia — most of them have great ideas but lack resources or the right systems in place. Outsourcing and the right tech tools often make all the difference.
Excited to see how Lovable continues to shape the future of software building! 🚀
Sounds super inspiring 🚀—love how you turned years of client work into the foundation for LaunchFastPro. The stack looks solid, and the mindset of “motivation follows action” really resonates 👏 Excited to see where you take this next!
Great work brother
Thats wild. it just shows the significance of AI in market, it can built and destroy companies growth in a matter of time. it clearly show the potential of the project . i myself work on a startup in providing tech services and now moving towards AI integration. i would love to know your view as it will help us grow at nasky. com
Wildly impressive scale and love the clarity on simplifying pricing and product.
When the team becomes the strategic edge (and you’ve got 40+ all-stars), protecting that edge with smart, lean HR systems isn’t optional. I work with founders at your stage to make sure the talent piece stays as strong as the tech.
Using an AI software builder to achieve $100M in annual revenue in eight months highlights rapid scalability, product-market fit, automation-driven growth, and strategic execution.
This is what a real success story looks like
Love the product-led + community-first approach. Curious how you handled churn early on? With that fast growth, retention must’ve been wild to manage.
Very cool, congratulations on the successful launch of the project.
“This is the definition of rocketship execution 🚀. The $1.5M ARR hit to simplify plans — bold but brilliant. Also really resonates with me how you put community success first.
On a related note: I help founders at fast-growth startups take back 10+ hours a week by streamlining inbox, calendar, and workflows (often with Notion + AI). Would love to offer support if it could be useful as you scale further.”
Impressive growth. Curious — what was the biggest change between your first version and the relaunch that actually took off?
hitting $100M ARR in 8 months is incredible — but what stands out most is how you paired community-led growth with a radically simplified pricing model.
Your “make it easy to try, obvious to buy” mindset is a lesson every SaaS founder should copy — because in today’s market, activation beats acquisition every time.
#SaaSScaling #CommunityLedGrowth #PricingStrategy #FounderLessons
This is extremely inspirational. I am working on trying to scale my own nutritional API service I just developed myself!
I’m planning to make ClearFind, an AI tool that helps people quickly find the best, most reliable resources online so they can skip all the fluff and bad advice. One thing I’m worried about, though: what if the site is already live and an issue happens, but I can’t shut it down or put it in maintenance mode fast enough? I’m still figuring out the technical side, and I don’t want a bug or downtime to ruin the early user experience. What do you think about the idea overall?
In just eight months, James Fleischmann achieved $100M ARR with an AI software builder by leveraging rapid innovation, market demand, scalable technology, and strategic execution.
I never thought about pricing as a product! But after reading it makes a lot of sense.
Waouh amazing, I will be the next who believe in me???
so it confirm there is still market for AI vibe coding tools
This is an impressive story, but my personal experience doesn't quite match the hype. I was excited to use Lovable for a full-stack project, hoping to accelerate development as promised. While it's fantastic for generating front-end code and simple UIs, the platform really struggles when it comes to the backend. I tried to build an application with a custom database and some specific API logic, but the generated code was often buggy, inefficient, and required a complete rewrite. It feels more like a "front-end builder" than a true "software builder" right now. The $100M ARR is astounding, but for experienced developers looking to build robust backends, it's not there yet.
i am selling a fully working AI architecture very much modular which you can modify or make more advanced this project is also appreciated by OPENAI its ON 80% OFF sale if interested i can provide proofs and demo's there on the mail after connecting through it "sonidevendra316@gmail-com add dot before com as it doesn't allow links here" you should not miss this out currently its for 80% OFF in real it cost s 10,000$.
What really hits home for me is how you leaned into community first and let that drive all your momentum. Simplifying pricing even at the cost of $1.5M in ARR? Yikes.
If you had to do it again today, would you still rely so much on GitHub?
Huge congrats to you and the team, Anton, for pulling it off and sticking through the scaling headaches. Curious to see what’s next for Lovable!
Great Share1
This is insane growth, Anton — $100M ARR in 8 months is something most SaaS founders can only dream of.
What stood out to me was how you leaned on community first, then layered social media for amplification. Too many builders reverse that and end up shouting into the void.
Also, the GitHub suspension story is a reminder of how “good problems” (like explosive adoption) can still be major roadblocks. Curious — if you had to start from scratch today, would you still launch first in a developer-heavy channel like GitHub, or diversify your initial traction sources?
Congrats again on the incredible milestone. 🚀
Absolutely incredible journey, Anton from a weekend project to $100M ARR in under a year is nothing short of extraordinary.
What stands out is how clearly you identified and solved a deep pain point: unlocking software creation for non-technical builders. The focus on reducing friction both in product and pricing and staying deeply connected to the community are huge differentiators.
Love the bold vision of “the last piece of software anyone will ever need” and seeing it backed up by real traction, not just hype, is inspiring.
Excited to see what’s next for Lovable and the wave of builders it’s enabling around the world.
One question: you talk about the European and American ecosystems, but what do you think about the Latin American ecosystem? Is there room for improvement? I'm Colombian, and I'm starting my solopreneur journey
I think this line "Nothing is more important than the team." is the main idea of your success story.
Just came across this article yesterday. I was discussing over lunch with colleagues a simple idea in the area of taxation and was planning to engage one of my friend to develop the proto type. In the night after I came across lovable, just written a paragraph of what I want to see in the website, what I want to offer, and what features to be given to the potential buyers, and I got what exactly I wanted. I was blown away by this. All along I get good ideas but was getting blocked as I do not possess any tech skills. Thanks for this article, I will be further exploring lovable more in the coming days.
Lovable’s — a masterclass in AI-driven, product-led growth and good information
nb
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Three things really stand out:
Speed & Focus: Launching fast and iterating based on real user feedback. That lean approach is the heart of modern startup success.
Simplicity at Scale: Lovable’s “vibe coding” strategy—letting non-technical users build apps via natural language—strips away complexity and unlocks massive demand.
Smart Design & Team: Keeping the team small and the product elegant clearly amplified impact—proof that agility beats scale in the early innings.
I would love to impliment of rmy company https://247realestatemarketing.com/
Funny how I have never seen anyone I know use lovable. But great job tho
simply superb.
This is a masterclass in product-market fit. Note to self: stop perfecting pixels, start shipping magic.
➡️ Incredible growth story — Lovable’s journey is a playbook every SaaS founder should study.
Prioritize Product-Market Fit early. Before scaling, validate that your solution delivers transformational value to a specific audience. (#PMFAdvisor)
Simplify your Go-to-Market Strategy. Clarity in messaging, pricing, and onboarding removes friction and accelerates adoption. (#GoToMarketStrategy)
Build a community, not just a user base. Word-of-mouth growth is the most powerful lever in modern SaaS Scaling. (#SaaSCoaching #ScalingExpert)
💡This is how you scale from idea to $100M ARR with precision and purpose.
The ability to think about the trend and make it possible to "turn ideas into real applications quickly" has a diverse growing story, it's not about the learnings always since the learner never tried the skill as per market demands and make that none of the makers know about it, or if even know but never tried to deploy the project.
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