Leaving his VC-backed company to bootstrap a product to $1M ARR in 10 months
Miquel Palet left his successful, VC-backed company to build a product focused on developers. Now, Zernio is making $1M ARR.
Here's Miquel on how he did it. 👇
Leaving a successful business
I've been building companies since I was 18. I dropped out of university in my final year to build a Spanish edtech company called Ucademy (now 120+ employees) via the VC route. I left after three years to build another company, this time in the software space.
That was ten months ago. Zernio is a social media API for developers to build social integrations in minutes instead of months. It covers everything from posting to analytics to DMs to advertising.
I wanted to build a product focused on developers because I could more easily sell to myself than to a profile I didn't understand. It seemed like everyone built on social media, but nobody focused on developers — they focused on end users. So I decided to try it, and it worked well from day one.
We have been doubling our MRR MoM since we started. As we get bigger, keeping that pace becomes more difficult, but we're still growing fast. We just crossed 1M ARR a month ago.
Building v1.0 in a weekend
We built the initial product in a weekend. Building the basic integrations was easy. Securing all required approved scopes then took around a month, with some taking up to six months.
For the first version, we decided to include only the five biggest social media integrations instead of covering everything. Currently, we have 20+ platforms.
Zernio runs on Next.js 14 (App Router) with MongoDB and Tinybird for data, deployed on Vercel. We use Axiom for logs, Crisp for support, and Fumadocs for documentation. Cloudflare hosts some infrastructure components.
Nailing the infrastructure from the start is crucial when scaling an infrastructure product. We didn't do this — we opted for simplicity. If I were starting over, I'd do it differently.
As we scaled, we had to migrate some key things into Tinybird for analytics data because we handled a huge amount of data, and MongoDB was too slow and expensive for it. The same applied to Vercel; we had to migrate some parts to Cloudflare queues that Vercel couldn't handle using its serverless functions.
A SaaS model
We offer three monthly plans: Starter ($19), Accelerate ($49), and Unlimited ($999). Developers typically begin with a lower plan and scale as they require more capability.
Each plan allows connecting more social accounts; the Unlimited plan offers unlimited account connections. Unlimited plans typically serve SaaS companies with many users, and Build plans are for people testing or trying out integrations.
Our product is fully self-serve, and we do not have demos, so users just sign up and test the product on the free plan, upgrading if they hit limits.
SEO and paid advertising
We mainly acquire users through SEO and paid advertising. For both, we target BOFu keywords, like 'social media API'. These don't need many searches because they convert extremely well. Each visitor is looking for our exact solution. We've been running this strategy since day one.
Nowadays, we also acquire users through feature launches, YouTube videos, and creator partnerships.
Still, we find it difficult to attribute much of our growth, so we never know exactly where our users come from.
Build a team early
Building a team was the best single decision I've made — and it's uncommon in the indie space. Relying on people better than you, I think, is a big advantage in the long run.
We currently have a team of four developers and one marketer. One developer focuses on customer support. Great customer support is a huge advantage, as we can iterate much faster on customer feedback and give excellent service.
Focus on customers and acquisition
Here's my advice: Ignore most of the noise on social media and focus on your customers and acquisition.
Personally, I always start with paid acquisition — ads — from the beginning. If you have the budget and it doesn't require a large investment, you need to start appearing in front of your potential clients.
What's next?
From here, I want to keep growing our team, adding new products, and doubling down on what's already working.
To learn more about Zernio, check out zernio.com. To learn how we're building it and what we're learning, follow me on LinkedIn and X.
Leave a Comment
Cool!
Really inspiring journey by Miquel. What stood out to me most was the focus on solving a developer-first problem instead of chasing trends. Building v1 in a weekend, validating quickly, and then scaling through BOFu SEO + paid acquisition is a great reminder that distribution matters just as much as the product itself.
Also loved the point about building a team early — many founders underestimate how much strong support and fast iteration impact growth. Going from simple infrastructure choices to scaling challenges with Tinybird and Cloudflare is a very relatable SaaS journey.
Congrats on hitting $1M ARR with Zernio 🚀
Built in a weekend. Crossed $1M ARR. Doubling MoM. That's insane momentum.
Quick question — you said you target BOFU keywords like 'social media API' because they convert well even with low search volume. How did you find those keywords initially? Just gut feel? Or did you use a specific tool/process?
Also curious — you mentioned building a team early is uncommon in indie space. At what MRR did you hire your first person? And what role?
I'm building Bexra — Helping entrepreneurs find, build & grow. Still pre-launch. Your 'sell to yourself' point resonates. I'm building for people like me (confused aspiring founders).
Thanks for sharing. This is one of the most impressive launch stories I've read here.
The VC-to-bootstrap reversal is pretty rare - most people go the other direction. Curious what made him confident that path would work better for this particular product?
INSPIRING STORY!! 10 months from zero to $1M ARR while bootstrapping is genuinely rare. Curious what the hardest part was finding the first customers or keeping momentum once it started working?
this is actually niche. i wish you include how you got the idea
"Amazing story! Very inspiring. I'm also building my first SaaS product."
Nice execution.
building for devs you actually understand + shipping in a weekend already puts you ahead of most people
but honestly the bigger thing here is distribution
going after BOFU keywords + running ads from day one is what most devs skip
a lot of people build APIs and just wait for users… you didn’t
infra issues later is kinda expected when you move this fast tbh, probably a fair trade for hitting revenue early
Looks very interesting
building v1 in a weekend and still hitting $1M ARR shows how much speed and focus matter early
also like the point about selling to yourself - makes everything clearer from day one
The “built v1 in a weekend, then spent months on approvals” part really stood out.
It feels like a lot of modern products are like this now: the first version can be built fast, but the real moat is in the boring operational layers — permissions, compliance, reliability, support, and distribution.
Also liked the BOFu keyword point. Low-volume, high-intent traffic is underrated, especially when the user already knows the pain.
Great breakdown.
An inspiring journey. Relying on people better than you - hit me hard. The toughest job - building a team
Strong execution comes from clarity: he built for a user he understands (developers), targeted high-intent demand (BOFu keywords), and removed friction with a self-serve SaaS.
Fast MVP + early team helped them scale quickly, but weak attribution and scrappy infra could become challenges later.
Big takeaway: tight ICP + focused distribution + speed wins.
it is very useful info. thanks
impressive work man.
The detail about social media platforms taking 1-6 months for scope approvals is the kind of friction that gets glossed over in growth stories, but it's the actual moat. A weekend build is replicable. Sitting through six months of TikTok review queues is not. Curious whether you front-loaded all 5 integrations through approval in parallel or staggered them based on which platforms responded fastest. Also fascinating that the dev-only ICP worked from day one when most early-stage founders try to broaden their ICP too quickly.
Solid breakdown, especially the part about BOFu keywords and self-serve.
One thing that stood out is how fast you shipped vs how messy infra got later. Feels like that tradeoff is becoming the default now, especially with AI speeding up builds.
Curious, looking back, do you think getting infra right early would’ve slowed you down enough to hurt growth, or was the migration pain later actually worse?
Also interesting how you leaned into paid from day one. Most indie builders avoid it, but your point about showing up where intent already exists makes a lot of sense.
Great execution overall, this is a clean example of picking a clear ICP and going deep on it.
As someone who runs a marketing agency that posts to 6+ platforms daily for multiple clients, unified social media APIs are something I think about constantly. The platform fragmentation is brutal. Every few months another API breaks, another scope gets deprecated, another rate limit changes without warning.
The fact that securing approved scopes took months for some platforms is the underrated moat here. Anyone can build the posting layer. Almost nobody has the patience to navigate Meta's app review process, LinkedIn's partnership program, or TikTok's developer portal. That compliance barrier is probably worth more than the code itself long-term.
The "sell to yourself" principle is underrated advice for picking what to build. I see so many founders build products for audiences they don't understand and then wonder why their marketing doesn't resonate. Miquel understood developers because he is one. That shortens every feedback loop from product to positioning to distribution.
The SEO plus paid advertising growth combo at this stage is interesting too. Most developer tools rely almost entirely on community and word of mouth. Paid acquisition for dev tools is notoriously hard because the intent signals are diffuse. Would be curious what the CAC looks like compared to PLG-driven growth.
That's really informative.
Amazing story, you write very understandably along with the priority on speed.
enjoyed the read and wishing you the best.
Really interesting breakdown — the part about building v1 in a weekend and then spending months on approvals hits hard. It’s a good reminder that speed gets you started, but the real bottlenecks show up later at scale. Also liked the focus on BOFu keywords instead of chasing traffic — low volume but high intent is clearly working here. Curious how sustainable paid acquisition stays as costs rise, though.
“This is really helpful”
nicw
Super inspiring story. What really stood out is how quickly you validated the idea — building v1 in a weekend and focusing on real customer demand instead of overbuilding. Also love the emphasis on SEO + paid acquisition from day one. A great reminder that distribution matters just as much as the product.
I still can’t believe this is real, but I actually won the lottery jackpot! It feels like a dream come true. For years, I would occasionally play without expecting much, just hoping that one day luck would finally be on my side—and it finally happened when I came across a testimony on how Dr Benjamin the great spell caster had helped alot of people win, so I reached out to him, he told me what to do and I followed his instructions, after 48 hours he gave some numbers to play, I did played the numbers as instructed.
The moment I checked my numbers and realized they all matched, my heart started racing. I had to double-check multiple times because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Winning the Powerball jackpot of $107,000,000,00. This has completely changed my life. It’s given me financial freedom, peace of mind, and the opportunity to support my family and invest in my future. Here are his contact information.
Whatsapp: +18588585788
This appears to be a misleading and potentially harmful claim. Lottery outcomes are purely random, and there is no such thing as a “spell caster” who can influence results. Stories like this are often used to promote scams and exploit people’s hopes. Readers should stay cautious, avoid contacting such individuals, and rely only on legitimate and verifiable sources.
Looks simple, but this is really about clarity and execution. Small MVP, high-intent users, early monetization no fluff.
Also interesting to see bootstrapping beat the VC route here.
Good reminder: fundamentals still win.
Really impressive execution—especially going from a weekend MVP to $1M ARR in under a year. The focus on BOFu keywords and self-serve onboarding stands out.
Curious—early on, what gave you confidence that developers would convert without demos? Was it usage signals, specific feedback, or just testing pricing early?
The thing nobody talks about with this kind of bootstrapped run: paid ads from day one only works because BOFu queries convert. "social media API" searcher knows exactly what they want. Most founders pick top-of-funnel keywords, burn cash, and conclude paid doesn't work for them.
Congrats for the project, do you offer any free trial? Thanks
Great question — honestly, starting simple was 100% worth it.
It helped validate demand fast and get real users in early. The bottlenecks (MongoDB/Vercel) only showed up once growth kicked in, which was actually a good problem to have.
ghgghgh
sometimes taking a risk is worth it
Really inspiring journey. Leaving a VC-backed path to bootstrap and hitting $1M ARR in just 10 months is impressive. Shows that focus, speed, and solving a real problem matter more than funding.
impressive work man
great carry on buddy
wow, interesting
Solid project!
Super interesting story — especially the part about going from “built v1 in a weekend” to handling infra limitations pretty quickly. What stood out to me is that you intentionally didn’t over-engineer at the start, even though you’re building an infrastructure product. A lot of devs (myself included) tend to do the opposite and get stuck before launch.
Curious how you think about that trade-off now:
– you mentioned MongoDB and Vercel becoming bottlenecks
– and later moving parts to Tinybird and Cloudflare queues
Do you feel that starting simple actually accelerated your growth enough to justify the later migrations?
Or do you think a slightly more “scalable by design” v1 would have saved meaningful pain?
Also +1 on BOFu SEO — going after “social media API” type queries from day one is a very underrated move. Feels obvious in hindsight, but most people avoid it because of low volume.
Great breakdown overall
Great question — honestly, starting simple was 100% worth it.
It helped validate demand fast and get real users in early. The bottlenecks (MongoDB/Vercel) only showed up once growth kicked in, which was actually a good problem to have.
If I had over-engineered from day one, I probably would’ve delayed launch and missed that early momentum. The migrations were painful at times, but they were guided by real usage, not assumptions — and that made a big difference.
So in hindsight, I’d still choose speed over scalability early on.
I actually heard about Zernio before reading this.
What was your first hire?
Guessing it is the engineer. He did mention he has 4 developers.