I make $1M/year selling access to APIs I don't own

About this episode

👉 Try Distribb for Free: https://distribb.io?utm_source=yt-miki Miki previously built a VC-backed company with hundreds of employees, then quit to start over bootstrapped. He launched Zernio, a social media API that lets SaaS companies plug into Meta, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube without dealing with the bureaucracy themselves. In 10 months, he scaled it to $1M ARR using Google Ads from day one, even when his acquisition cost was double his lifetime value. Find Miki on X: https://x.com/paletmiki Try Zernio: https://zernio.link/florian-darroman 👋 Apply to join Profitable Founder Community: https://tally.so/r/dWZ5Jz Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 0:53 - Zero to $1M ARR in 10 months 1:19 - Running ads from day one 1:46 - From VC-backed to bootstrapped 2:51 - Why he quit the VC path 4:22 - The two projects before Zernio 5:19 - How he finds startup ideas 7:15 - What Zernio actually does 8:22 - Real use case breakdown 9:26 - The full growth timeline 11:14 - Google Ads and SEO strategy 14:03 - Balancing growth and churn 15:36 - Building the team 16:43 - The month MRR doubled 18:28 - Managing ad spend without going broke 20:11 - What VC taught him about bootstrapping 21:16 - The Google Ads funnel explained 22:50 - How he built V1 in a weekend 25:30 - First keywords and first campaigns 25:54 - Why he ignored acquisition cost 28:02 - Combining ads with SEO 29:56 - Other distribution channels 31:26 - Talking to customers daily 32:25 - 150 support tickets a day 34:12 - Why he rebranded 35:41 - The real cost of rebranding 37:02 - Building from Europe 39:20 - Vision and next steps 40:58 - Biggest lessons from 7 years of building 43:38 - How much time he wastes on Twitter 44:26 - The playbook to do it again from zero 46:08 - Advice for founders who are struggling