Built Algrow, his first SaaS, after spending years online testing different ways to make money.
Started with affiliate marketing alongside two friends and generated over $10,000 promoting an app with faceless texting stories.
Moved into YouTube automation, where his friend Mason pointed out the need for a better way to find shorts channels and niches.
Built the first MVP with no coding background by copying AI-generated code into Notepad, then VS Code, and later Cursor.
Shipped a broken early version on Heroku that showed an application error for the first user, but still solved the core problem well enough to validate demand.
Algrow
Helps creators research and replicate viral content formats.
Shows trending formats, subscriber counts, average views, and channels that are working in real time.
Lets users save channels, generate videos from viral formats, download them, optimize them, and post them to other platforms.
Started as a tool for faceless YouTubers, then expanded to influencers, dropshippers, and other creator use cases.
Metrics And Business Model
Reached over 10,000 users in about six months.
Made over GBP 10,000 in the last four weeks, roughly $13,000 to $14,000.
Added 480 new customers in the month shown.
Offers plans at $25, $45, and $80 per month.
Discord Growth Strategy
Found niche communities on discboard.org by searching keywords related to his target users.
Joined the MoneyMind Discord server and searched for repeated pain points such as how to find a niche or replicate a niche.
Validated demand by joining voice chats, muting his mic, sharing his screen, and letting people ask what tool he was using.
Built rapport by helping people find channels with the tool instead of directly pitching it.
Attracted enough attention that the server owner made a long-form YouTube promotional video without Sam asking or paying.
Collected early interest through a waitlist shared in Discord communities.
Turned early users into advocates by giving them free access so they could show skeptical friends how the product worked.
Discord Playbook
Find where the ICP already spends time and join relevant Discord servers.
Listen before building by reviewing chat history and using ChatGPT to identify repeated pain points.
Validate ideas through real conversations and quick screen recordings before committing.
Build with the community by creating a waitlist or private Discord server for future users.
Avoid spam by respecting server rules, contributing value, and letting the product create word of mouth.
Tech Stack And Costs
Uses Cursor, upgraded from the $20 plan to the $200 plan.
Uses Nano Banana for AI image generation at about $100 per month.
Uses AI video models such as Sora 2 at about $200 per month.
Hosts on Heroku for about $100 per month.
Uses MailerLite for email marketing at about $80 per month.
Pays roughly $300 to $500 per month for Gemini and other AI compute.
Lessons And Advice
Build the tool to accommodate scale from the beginning.
Bet on yourself by asking AI coding tools to think as if the product will reach 100,000 users.
Solve a specific pain in a specific community before trying broader marketing channels.
