Why freemium and giveaways beat paid ads

Elena Verna is the head of growth at Lovable, the leading AI-powered app builder that hit $200 million in annual recurring revenue in under a year with just 100 employees. In this record fourth appearance on the podcast, Elena shares how the traditional growth playbook has been completely rewritten for AI companies. She explains why Lovable focuses on innovation over optimization, how they’ve shifted from activation to building new features, and why giving away their product for free has become their most powerful growth strategy.

We discuss:

1. Why 60% to 70% of traditional growth tactics no longer apply in AI

2. Why you have to re-find product-market fit every 3 months

3. The specific growth tactics driving Lovable’s unprecedented growth

4. Why giving away product is a growth strategy that beats paid ads

5. “Minimum lovable product” as the new standard (not minimum viable product)

6. Why activation now belongs to product teams, not growth teams

7. Whether you should join an AI startup (honest tradeoffs)

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Transcript: ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-new-ai-growth-playbook-for-2026-elena-verna⁠

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My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181207556/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation⁠

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Where to find Elena Verna:

• X: https://x.com/elenaverna

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna

• Newsletter: https://www.elenaverna.com

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Elena Verna

(05:19) The scale and growth of Lovable

(08:55) Confidence in Lovable as a business

(12:17) Retention at Lovable

(15:02) Lovable’s unique growth levers

(28:13) The role of marketing in Lovable’s success

(38:09) Launching new features

(40:59) Hiring and team dynamics

(43:17) The value of vibe coding

(49:46) The importance of community

(51:47) Giving away your product for free

(56:26) Tripling their company size

(01:00:23) Product-market-fit challenges

(01:08:50) Advice for joining AI companies

(01:12:00) Work-life balance

(01:15:20) What it’s like to work at Lovable

(01:19:45) Women in tech

(01:25:29) Final thoughts and lightning round

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Referenced:

• Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company

• The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led

• 10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-growth-tactics-that-never-work-elena-verna

• Lovable: https://lovable.dev

• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika

• Stripe: https://stripe.com

• What differentiates the highest-performing product teams | John Cutler (Amplitude, The Beautiful Mess): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing

• How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can’t copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra

• “Dumbest idea I’ve heard” to $100M ARR: Inside the rise of Gamma | Grant Lee (CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-50-people-built-a-profitable-ai-unicorn

• Eric Ries on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries

• Elena’s post on LinkedIn about Lovable Missions: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elenaverna_everythingispossible-lovableway-activity-7401627519646474242-hn6e

• SheBuilds: https://shebuilds.lovable.app

• Shopify + Lovable: https://lovable.dev/shopify

• The Product-Market Fit Treadmill: Why every AI company is sprinting just to stay in place: https://www.elenaverna.com/p/the-product-market-fit-treadmill

• Cursor: https://cursor.com

• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell

• Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/frameworks-for-growing-your-career-bangaly-kaba

• The adjacent user: https://brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/the-adjacent-user

• Granola: https://www.granola.ai

• Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai

• I’m worried about women in tech: https://www.elenaverna.com/p/im-worried-about-women-in-tech

• Slack founder: Mental models for building products people love ft. Stewart Butterfield: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/slack-founder-stewart-butterfield

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.