The Story
Jure is a 26-year-old developer who runs 4 different businesses making $60K/month combined. He grew up watching The Social Network and always dreamed of entrepreneurship. After working at Microsoft for 1.5 years, he realized the corporate structure limited him - no matter if you put in 2x, 5x, or 10x effort, you get the same salary and wait the same time for promotions.
His breakthrough insight: most programmers know how to build but don't know how to market. The marketing side is just as big and complex as building the product itself.
The Four Businesses
1. Rummer ($300K revenue, 200M views)
- •A device that plugs into your car's OBD2 port
- •Generates fake engine sounds through speakers
- •Launched 2 years ago, sold 6,000 units last year
- •All growth from organic short-form content (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube)
2. Parakeet AI ($35K/month)
- •Real-time AI interview assistant for job interviews
- •Transcribes what's happening and generates answers with ChatGPT
- •Launched 6 months ago
- •Credit-based pricing (not subscription) - big differentiator
3. Optivase ($6.5K MRR)
- •B2B SaaS - A/B testing tool for Webflow
- •Launched 1 year ago
- •Growth from Webflow app store, Google, word of mouth
4. Parakeet AI Apply Agent ($1K in first 2 weeks)
- •AI agent that applies to jobs for you
- •Just launched
Finding Ideas
The Rummer Origin Story
- •Was building Shopify stores, amazed by how much money e-commerce makes
- •Simultaneously buying a used car, purchased a car diagnostics device
- •Discovered it could read live RPMs
- •Idea: generate fake engine sounds through speakers
- •Perfect for short-form content: cheap device, funny concept, controversial, easy to package into a story
What Makes a Good Idea for Short-Form
- •Must spark interest in a 10-second video
- •Boring products won't work on TikTok
- •Needs to be a compulsive buy (not something requiring lots of consideration)
Validation Strategy
Evaluate Competition
- •Someone has probably done your idea before
- •Ask: Can I make a better product OR do marketing better?
- •If yes to either, there's opportunity
Why Organic Short-Form
- •Most marketing channels are saturated
- •Organic short-form is the great equalizer
- •Only constrained by willingness to work hard
- •A phone + good content = million views = thousands in revenue
Building Fast
MVP Philosophy
- •MVP = Minimum VIABLE Product (viable = can make first sale)
- •If you can build zero to first sale in 2 weeks vs. 6 months, you have 12x more chances to succeed
- •Speed is a competitive advantage
Parakeet AI Build Timeline
- •Proof of concept: web app that transcribes in real-time + generates ChatGPT answers
- •Turning POC into product: 2 weeks
- •Landing page, marketing, digestible for end customer
The 200 Million Views Marketing Strategy
Content Creation Process
- •Co-founder (Urban) creates batches of content
- •Write 5-10 ideas for hooks, main parts, and endings
- •Example: 3 hooks × 5 main parts × 3 endings = 45 video combinations
- •When a concept works, keep remaking it
Finding Urban (Content Co-Founder)
- •Sent hundreds of emails to TikTok content creators
- •Pitched the product idea
- •Urban believed in it, second video went viral
- •Work on revenue split (aligned incentives)
Results for Rummer
- •200 million organic views in one year
- •600,000 page visits
- •6,000+ orders
- •$300,000 revenue
- •$0 ad spend
Marketing Channel Selection
The Framework
- •Write down 10 possible marketing channels
- •Evaluate which has highest chance of success
- •Pick ONE and dedicate full attention for 2 months
- •Double down on what works
What Jure Tested
- •Facebook ads: didn't work
- •Google ads: didn't work
- •Organic short-form: worked incredibly well
Monetization Insights
Fit Pricing to Product Usage
- •Big tendency to make everything a subscription
- •Parakeet AI uses credit-based pricing (one-time payment)
- •"No subscription" is a selling point vs. competitors
- •Make sure monetization fits the nature of the product
Retention Strategy
- •For Rummer (physical product): consistency in marketing, always chasing next sale
- •For Parakeet AI (SaaS): just have a good product
- •No amount of retargeting beats a product people are happy with
Tech Stack
- •Next.js + React (web apps)
- •Speechmatics (transcription) - ~$1/hour, $2-3K/month
- •ChatGPT API - $1-2K/month
Day in the Life
- •Wake up, think: "What's the most effective thing to push business forward?"
- •Last week: revamped landing page (identified as bottleneck)
- •Varies day to day - that's the charm of entrepreneurship
Key Lessons
Context Switching is Hard
- •Morning: fixing super niche technical issue
- •Evening: deciding which stupid TikTok hook to use
- •The range of contexts in a short period is a big challenge
Believe in Yourself
- •Long journey from nothing to making money
- •Biggest hurdle: giving up because of how long and hard it is
- •Lots of random advice from well-meaning people who don't know what they're talking about
- •Unlike school (clear path), entrepreneurship is unknown
- •"There's a chance you're going to hustle for 10 years and get nothing"
Resources
- •Follow Jure: https://x.com/JureSotosek