David Zitoun bootstrapped Submagic from zero to $1M ARR in just 90 days—then scaled to $8M ARR with a 14-person remote team. No VC money. No sales team. Just TikTok videos and an army of affiliates. In this episode, bootstrapped SaaS founders will learn how to go viral with zero followers and build a scalable affiliate program.
David breaks down exactly how he recruited 50+ affiliates paying 30% lifetime commissions, why he went viral on TikTok from day one with zero followers, and the bootstrap-friendly growth playbook that took Submagic from idea to $8M ARR in two years.
In this episode, David also shares why lowering prices—not raising them—broke through a $5M plateau that stalled growth for seven months, and how WhatsApp groups with early customers turned them into free product managers.
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🔑 Key Lessons
- 🚀 Bootstrapped Growth Engine: How David went from $0 to $1M ARR in 90 days using TikTok and affiliates—with zero ad spend.
- 💰 The Bootstrap-Friendly Affiliate Playbook: Why paying 30% lifetime commissions to young creators built an "army" posting daily content for free.
- 📱 Go Viral With Zero Followers: How one TikTok video hit 100K views in 10 days from a brand new account.
- 📉 Breaking the $5M Plateau: Why lowering prices—not raising them—restarted growth after seven months of stagnation.
- 🤝 Customer-Led Product Development: How WhatsApp groups with early customers turned paying users into free product managers.
Chapters
- Introduction and the "Opportunity" Quote
- What Submagic does and who it helps
- Revenue ($8M ARR) and bootstrapping to $1M in 90 days
- Origin: Solving the "Alex Hormozi caption" problem
- Finding a co-founder through YC Co-Founder Match
- The 12-month MVP experiment pact
- Building the first ugly MVP (one feature only)
- Selling on TikTok with zero followers
- The first viral video: 100K views in 10 days
- Building WhatsApp groups with early customers
- Scaling with 50-70 TikTok affiliates at 30% lifetime commission
- Why timing and product-market fit matter more than tactics
- Advice: Talk to your customers, not acquisition channels
- What "iterating a lot" means in practice
- Gut feelings: How to know when to stop iterating
- Scaling from $1M to $5M ARR (SEO, influencers, word of mouth)
- Hitting the $5M plateau for 7 months
- Breaking through: Lowering prices and launching Magic Clips
- How David thinks about competition
- Lightning round: Advice, podcasts, habits, and passions
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