V (Veed.io)

Saba and Tim built basic browser-based video editing tools (trim, crop, add text) and drove early traffic almost entirely through brute-force SEO. Saba researched ~500 search terms people actually used — things like "trim video," "crop video" — and hand-built a dedicated landing page for every single one of those terms. Despite being dyslexic, he wrote all the copy himself, resulting in what he described as "terribly worded, misspelled landing pages." This was purely a volume and intent-matching play with no budget. To support each landing page, Saba recorded a YouTube video for every single one, creating a paired video-SEO content loop. There was no paid acquisition, no social strategy, no influencer outreach — just relentless production of SEO pages and YouTube videos tied to high-intent search queries. He described it plainly as "brute force, absolutely brute force." The result was rapid user growth from zero to 30,000 monthly users over roughly 8–9 months while he and Tim both held down day jobs and reinvested half their salaries back into the company. These users were initially unpaid, but the traction gave them the confidence and data to begin monetizing — which they did after a YC rejection explicitly called out the lack of revenue.

Saba had a strong design and video editing background from years of self-taught experience, giving him deep domain intuition for what users actually needed. However, no pre-existing audience, investor network, or capital advantage existed — the playbook is largely replicable, built on grit and SEO execution.

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VC fundraising — rejected many times. Y Combinator application — rejected twice (once formally, once after implementing their feedback and getting 20 paid users over a weekend). Hiring interns — both quit on the same day. Early office/co-working arrangements collapsed. Multiple early product ideas over ~2 years failed to gain traction.