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Elena Verna (Head of Growth)18 December 2025

The new AI growth playbook for 2026: How Lovable hit $200M ARR in one year

7Frameworks
16Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Strategy3 steps

Capability-Value-Scale Software Maturity

New software passes through three stages — what's possible, then what's valuable, then what scales

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Marketing4 steps

Give-It-Away Growth Engine

Reclassify free product and AI costs as marketing spend, then give the product away to your best distributors

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Leadership4 steps

Hire for Clarity-from-Chaos

Screen for fire-in-the-belly, high agency, and the ability to create clarity out of chaos — proven by work trials

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Marketing4 steps

Maintain Noise in the Market

Ship every day and talk about it constantly so the product feels alive — with tiered big launches on top

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Innovation4 steps

Minimum Lovable Product

Viability is no longer enough — the bar is a product people love and want to talk about

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Marketing4 steps

The 95/5 Growth Inversion

In fast-moving AI markets, spend 95% inventing new growth loops and 5% optimizing existing ones

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Strategy4 steps

The Product-Market Fit Treadmill

In AI, you must recapture product-market fit every three months as both product and market shift under you

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 1

Myth Buster29:30

Organic marketing is now social, not SEO

Five years ago Elena would have equated organic marketing with SEO. Now she says organic is all about social: what the CEO and team post, LinkedIn, the creator economy, and what users share. Even for deeply B2B products, marketing has been pushed into consumerization territory because that's where the eyeballs are. X and LinkedIn work best for founder and employee socials; Instagram and TikTok for consumer.

  • Five years ago organic = SEO / Google search
  • Now organic = social: CEO posts, team posts, LinkedIn, influencer and creator economy
  • Even B2B has shifted into consumerization because that's where eyeballs are
  • X and LinkedIn are strongest for B2B founder/employee socials
  • Copy must show personality and humanity, not ChatGPT-generated posts

“If you ask me what's the organic (30:00) marketing strategy right now, to me, it's all about social, which is what is my CEO posting?”

Elena Verna · 29:30
#marketing#social#seo#organic

Hot Take· 4

Hot Take07:30

Don't set Lovable's growth as your benchmark

Elena repeatedly warns founders not to treat Lovable's trajectory as a realistic target. Much of the growth comes from being in an exploding new category at the right time, not something reproducible in most businesses. Setting a once-in-a-lifetime company as a success benchmark is discouraging and misleading.

  • Lovable is a 'once in a lifetime' company, not a standard to expect from a new business
  • Part of the growth is the market and category, not just execution
  • Founders are discouraged when they compare to $200M-in-a-year stories
  • A million ARR in one year is still 'doing pretty well'

“This is uh this is one of the once in a lifetime type of companies and the category the way that it's evolving.”

Elena Verna · 07:30
#benchmarking#founder-advice#growth
Hot Take14:00

Lovable doesn't optimize for revenue at all

In a counterintuitive move, Lovable internally debates how to give more product away and reduce its own revenue growth rate to capture more of the market. Revenue is treated as an output of getting more people through the door, not a lever to grow directly. By focusing on the inputs, the good output follows.

  • Internal discussions center on giving more product away, not raising ARPU
  • Willing to reduce revenue growth rate to get more paid subscribers and users
  • Revenue is an outcome of getting more people through the door
  • Focus on inputs translates to good output without targeting the output

“we don't optimize for revenue at all. In fact internally we have a lot of discussions about how can we give more products away.”

Elena Verna · 14:00
#monetization#growth-strategy#counterintuitive
Hot Take18:00

Only 30-40% of a 15-year growth playbook still applies

Elena says in past roles she felt confident in about 80% of the patterns she could bring to a growth job. At Lovable, only 30-40% of what she learned over 15-20 years transfers. Paid marketing, some habitual retention, and free-to-paid monetization still stand, but the rest doesn't matter because the job is now about bigger bets and new growth loops, not optimization.

  • In prior roles she was confident in ~80% of applicable patterns
  • Only 30-40% of 15-20 years of growth learning transfers to Lovable
  • Still standing: paid marketing, some habitual retention, free-to-paid monetization
  • The rest 'doesn't feel like it even matters anymore'
  • New emerging category in fast-moving waters breaks the usual frameworks

“I feel like only 30 to 40% of what I've learned in the last 15 to 20 years of being in growth transfers here.”

Elena Verna · 18:00
#growth#playbook#ai-startups
Hot Take43:30

It's the minimum lovable product now, not MVP

Elena argues viability as a bar belongs to the 2010s. The new standard is the 'minimum lovable product' - something that blows people's socks off in a market people will actually pay for. AI collapses the feedback cycle so you can go from idea to a functioning product to user feedback within a day, replacing lengthy research, design sprints, and testing cycles.

  • 'Minimum viable product' is replaced by 'minimum lovable product'
  • Lovable must also be in a growing market people pay for, with a tide behind it
  • AI collapses the feedback cycle: idea to functioning product to feedback in a day
  • Replaces user research, design sprints, roadmap prioritization, long testing
  • A polished-looking LinkedIn 'product launch' may just be a prototype

“I call it minimum lovable product. Like it shouldn't be minimum viable product anymore.”

Elena Verna · 43:30
#mvp#product#ai#prototyping

Explainer· 5

Explainer09:30

Who actually pays for Lovable: founders, employees, and hobbyists

Elena breaks down where the revenue comes from. A large 'founder use case' of non-technical people building apps from scratch, employees inside companies building internal tools and prototypes, and everyday people building personal apps. Lovable monetizes on the act of building itself, and much of the demand is fueled by discovery in the 'capability stage' of vibe coding.

  • Founder use case: non-technical people building and monetizing apps from scratch
  • Employees building internal tools, prototypes, and landing pages
  • Personal projects: tutoring apps, portfolios, even a marriage proposal built on Lovable
  • Lovable monetizes on the act of building, not a finished product
  • Vibe coding is in the 'capability stage' where what's possible changes every 1-3 months

“we monetize on the act”

Elena Verna · 09:30
#use-cases#monetization#vibe-coding
Explainer12:30

Why Lovable prioritizes engagement retention over paid retention

Elena distinguishes subscriber retention, net dollar retention (NDR), and engagement retention. She says Lovable's paid retention is on par with strong B2B SaaS benchmarks (Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, Amplitude) and NDR is strong because building users buy more credits. But the team is deliberately more focused on engagement retention, since usage is the north star and monetization can be tuned later.

  • Three lenses: subscriber retention, net dollar retention (NDR), engagement retention
  • NDR over 100% is a 'superpower' for a bigger valuation multiple
  • Paid retention is on par with benchmarks from Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, Netlify, Amplitude
  • Engagement retention is the leading indicator and the bigger current priority
  • North star is maximum usage; monetization model gets tuned afterward

“but we're honestly more focused right now on engagement retention than even paid retention because our northstar is just to get as much usage as…”

Elena Verna · 13:30
#retention#ndr#metrics#saas
Explainer21:30

Activation is now core product, owned by the agent team

Traditionally the growth team obsesses over activation. At Lovable, the core agent team owns it because the whole experience is a prompt-and-generate loop, so making the agent better at understanding intent improves the entire lifecycle at once. This frees Elena's growth team from activation, and pushes them deeper into product, doing agentic workflows and codifying agent instructions.

  • Activation used to consume most of a growth leader's time
  • At Lovable the agent team owns activation because it IS the core product
  • A better agent improves the whole lifecycle, not just the first experience
  • Growth team now writes agentic workflows and codifies agent instructions
  • Growth work has gotten deeper into actual core product functionality

“So all of a sudden growth team is not just doing product surfaces now we're doing agentic workflows um and codifying agent instructions in order…”

Elena Verna · 22:00
#activation#agents#product#growth
Explainer54:00

AI margins are ~40%, so shift spend rather than lose it

Elena is candid that AI companies can't hit the 80-90% margins of classic software; most sit around 40%. The key is to not treat AI costs as a cost center. By avoiding heavy paid marketing and large sales teams and instead giving product away, Lovable shifts where it spends, gets a lower cost per eyeball than competing on Google, and doesn't deteriorate its margin profile.

  • AI companies with 80-90% margins are 'absolutely impossible'; most sit around 40%
  • Treating AI costs as a cost center is where you get in trouble
  • Lovable spends little on paid marketing and has only a couple of salespeople
  • Money shifts into product/giveaways instead of AdWords bidding wars
  • Cost per eyeball is lower than competing on Google; margin profile isn't hurt
  • This is product-led growth 'to the max, supercharged'

“We to find an AI company with 80 90% margin profile is absolutely impossible. Let's be real. We're all sitting somewhere in the 40% uh…”

Elena Verna · 54:00

“it actually does not deteriorate margin profile. We're just shifting of where we're spending it.”

Elena Verna · 58:00
#margins#unit-economics#plg#spend
Explainer1:03:30

The product-market-fit treadmill: recapture PMF every 3 months

Elena argues PMF is no longer a one-time achievement. What used to evolve over years now shifts every three months, driven by two forces: rapid LLM capability jumps with each model release, and consumer expectations changing faster than ever. Companies must bet ahead of the technology so functionality is ready when a model ships. Even OpenAI faced a 'code red' when Gemini 3 dipped its share, proving no one's future is bulletproof.

  • PMF used to evolve over years; now it shifts roughly every 3 months
  • Driver one: each new LLM release is a step-function change in what's possible
  • You must build ahead of the model so functionality is ready when it ships
  • Driver two: consumer expectations change faster than ever before
  • The team that finds PMF differs from the team that scales; you now need both
  • Even OpenAI hit a 'code red' as Gemini 3 dipped its share ~6% in a week

“every single AI LLM provider creates a step function change on what is possible with that LLM.”

Elena Verna · 1:02:00

“nobody's nobody's future is bulletproof yet.”

Elena Verna · 1:05:30
#product-market-fit#llms#competition#ai-strategy

Story· 2

Story06:00

Lovable hit $200M ARR in under a year with ~100 people

Lovable officially launched in November 2024 and passed $200M in annual recurring revenue before its first birthday, one of the fastest ramps in history. Growth is compounding: it took ~8 months to reach $100M, then only 4 more months to double to $200M. The company has over 8 million users who've tried the product and hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers.

  • Launched officially in the third week of November 2024 (previously existed as GPT engineer)
  • $200M ARR before hitting the one-year milestone
  • $100M by end of July, $200M just four months later
  • Over 8 million users have tried Lovable; hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers
  • ~100 employees at the time of recording

“So uh for us, we've hit over $200 million in annual recurring revenue before we even hit our one-year uh milestone since being launched, which…”

Elena Verna · 06:00

“we had our 100 million in end of July and just four months later we were”

Elena Verna · 06:30
#lovable#arr#growth#ai-startups
Story1:20:00

The AI adoption gender gap and Lovable's 'She Builds'

Elena is worried women are being left behind in the AI wave. Reports show a large gap between men and women adopting AI, and those adopting are getting the pay and opportunities. Even at Lovable, a pink-and-purple, heart-branded product, third-party data suggests women are at most ~20% of users. Lovable runs 'She Builds,' a women-only hackathon with 48 hours of unlimited access, where participants build hyper-local, hyper-relevant solutions for their families, communities, and groups.

  • Reports show a massive gap between women and men adopting AI
  • Whoever adopts AI now gets the most pay and opportunities (e.g. acqui-hires)
  • Even at heart-branded Lovable, women are estimated at most ~20% of users
  • Software should be built by a representative sample of people
  • 'She Builds' is a women-only hackathon with 48 hours of unlimited Lovable access
  • Participants build hyper-local solutions for elderly parents, kids, church groups, teams

“just like through third party um uh autofill, we saw it's like 20% at most.”

Elena Verna · 1:21:30

“We have this initiative uh she builds where we have collect we have create a hackathon for women only and we give them unlimited access…”

Elena Verna · 1:23:00
#women-in-tech#diversity#ai-adoption#community

Tool· 1

Tool45:30

The new 'full-time vibe coder' job role

Elena has a full-time vibe coder, Lazar, on her team - a former chief of staff who is not technical but was early to the vibe coding wave and self-taught. He builds full apps and templates (including Shopify-Lovable templates) that accelerate her team's velocity like an engineer would. She sees vibe coding becoming a skill added to designer, PM, and marketer job descriptions.

  • New job role popping up: the full-time vibe coder
  • Lazar was previously a chief of staff, non-technical, self-taught in vibe coding
  • Builds full-blown apps and Shopify-Lovable templates for the growth team
  • Acts like an engineer on the team, accelerating velocity
  • Vibe coding is becoming a resume skill for designers, PMs, and marketers

“This is a new job role that is actually popping up here and there.”

Elena Verna · 45:30

“he actually was chief of staff in his previous role. So he's not technical at all.”

Elena Verna · 46:00
#vibe-coding#hiring#roles#tools

Takeaway· 3

Takeaway19:30

95% innovating on growth, 5% optimizing

In previous scale-stage roles Elena spent ~5-10% of time innovating and the rest optimizing existing user journeys. At Lovable that inverts: 95% on innovation, 5% on optimization. The team stands up new features and new growth loops one after another because the perishable, competitive market demands reinvention of the solution, not optimization of the problem.

  • Previously ~5-10% innovating, mostly optimizing existing journeys
  • Now 95% innovating on growth, 5% optimizing
  • Growth team ships new features and stands up new growth loops constantly
  • Frameworks are hard for innovation because innovation is undefined by nature
  • Being ahead of competitors requires reinvention, not optimization

“Right now I'm spending 95% innovating on growth and only 5% on optimization.”

Elena Verna · 20:00

“to be ahead of them is not optimization of the problem. It's reinvention of the solution.”

Elena Verna · 20:00
#innovation#growth-loops#competition
Takeaway25:30

Ship daily to keep noise in the market alive

One of Lovable's biggest strategies is building in public, coupled with employee and founder socials. Beyond tiered big launches, the team maintains constant 'noise in the market' by shipping every day and talking about it. This doubles as a resurrection and re-engagement strategy: users log into social to see what Lovable shipped, making the product feel alive.

  • Building in public plus employee and founder socials is a top strategy
  • Big launches are tiered (tier one to tier three) as rallying step-function moments
  • Between launches, maintain noise by shipping every day and talking constantly
  • Shipping velocity works as a resurrection and re-engagement strategy
  • Velocity of shipping is the number one core value of the development team

“what's really important to us is to maintain noise in the market. And that noise in the market happens by us shipping every day, every…”

Elena Verna · 25:30

“Velocity of shipping is our number one”

Elena Verna · 27:00
#building-in-public#shipping-velocity#marketing
Takeaway51:30

Give the product away as your growth secret sauce

Elena calls giving product away 'part of our growth secret sauce.' For AI products this feels counterintuitive because every interaction has an LLM pass-through cost, and traditional companies gate AI behind paywalls to protect margins. But in a new category you must remove the barrier of entry, hand out credits 'as candy' to hackathons and events, and track that spend as marketing, not a cost to reduce. The more mind-blowing the product, the more you should give it away.

  • Giving product away is treated as core growth strategy, not a leak
  • Removing the barrier of entry matters most in a brand-new category
  • Free-to-explore triggers a 'wow moment' (not just an aha moment)
  • Credits given away to every event/hackathon and tracked as marketing cost
  • The more mind-blowing and competitive the market, the more you give away

“Another one is uh giving your product away a lot.”

Elena Verna · 51:30

“why would we prevent a person who wants to do all of the marketing and activating job for us in their company from using us?”

Elena Verna · 55:00
#free#plg#growth-strategy#hackathons