Two people. $1M ARR. $19/year pricing. AJ built Carrd from a side project he hoped would pay for lattes into a bootstrapped SaaS hosting over 4 million websites. In this episode, founders will learn how to stay lean while scaling and when to raise funding for expertise, not capital.
AJ shares how he bootstrapped Carrd to $30K MRR before raising $2M (not because he needed money, but because he needed advisors), why freemium pricing at $19/year drove massive conversion, and how a 2-person team supported $1M ARR by focusing ruthlessly on product over marketing.
Carrd's growth was powered by viral "Made with Carrd" links on every free site and building in public on Twitter—no marketing budget required.
🔑 Key Lessons
- 🎯 Bootstrapped SaaS pricing for volume over margin: Carrd's $19/year pricing made upgrading a no-brainer, driving massive conversion especially during Black Friday sales at 40-50% off.
- 💰 Stay lean to preserve profitability: AJ and co-founder Doni supported $1M ARR with just 2 people by ruthlessly focusing on product, not marketing or premature hiring.
- 🚀 Freemium virality compounds over time: "Made with Carrd" links on every free site created a network effect that drove growth from 0 to 4 million sites without marketing spend.
- 🤝 Raise funding for expertise, not capital: AJ raised $2M while Carrd was already profitable to access AWS engineers and advisors who had scaled platforms before.
- 🧠 Generalize feature requests: AJ implemented "virtual pages" in a way that preserved Carrd's one-page philosophy while solving problems for a wider audience.
Chapters
- How AJ bootstrapped Carrd from $0 to $30K MRR with freemium pricing
- Why he raised $2M despite being profitable
- The bootstrapped SaaS mindset shift from side project to real responsibility
- How Twitter and building in public drove early growth
- Why the "Made with Carrd" link created a viral loop
- Product-first approach over marketing
- The virtual pages feature that changed everything
- How to prioritize feature requests without wasting time
- Why investor alignment on hiring philosophy matters
- Choosing the right investors
- Transition from side project to business
- Balancing free vs. paid users in a freemium model
- Pricing strategy: Why $19/year works better than $19/month
- Migrating 2.5M sites to AWS without downtime
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