SUMMARY

In an interview, host Brett questions Cameron Zoub, Whop's co-founder and CGO, on starting and scaling a SaaS to $100 million, from ideation and partnerships to user acquisition, funding, habits, and intuitive business mindset.

STATEMENTS

Cameron Zoub made his first $100,000 around age 13 or early 14, dropped out of high school at 16, and Whop's last valuation was $800 million after 13 years in business.
To start a new software company alone, begin by identifying personal annoyances in daily life, journaling them for a month to find solvable problems others might pay for.
The formula for idea selection is annoyance level (1-10) multiplied by excitement level (1-10); pursue balanced high scores rather than extremes.
Cameron lacks programming skills, so he never starts tech companies without a technical co-founder, having seen outsourced development fail repeatedly.
Finding partners involves posting in online communities like Facebook groups, even unrelated ones, treating it like dating to connect with like-minded people.
Build the MVP as fast as possible, stripping features until removing any more breaks functionality, then launch to get immediate user feedback.
While building, line up potential customers in advance, messaging them about upcoming availability to create momentum.
Validate the MVP by getting specific users—identify exact personas and locations like Discord servers—then pay or incentivize calls to observe usage.
During feedback calls, have users share screens, give them tasks like completing a sale, stay silent to watch sticking points, and probe pauses or confusions.
Iterate based on feedback from one user before moving to the next; solve issues immediately to improve subsequent experiences without wasting time.
Unique outreach methods include sending Uber drivers to homes, edible arrangements, iMessage via email, or buying the product to spark surprise and build rapport.
Whop's new app store enables developers to distribute web apps to creators' communities, providing instant access to thousands of users with built-in payments and APIs.
Once validated, ensure power users engage daily; if not, address barriers like customer acquisition before scaling.
Acquire initial users with no budget by making the product free, grinding 20-30 sales calls daily, and leveraging referrals from satisfied early adopters.
Keep products free longer to plant seeds and build a large user base before monetizing, avoiding premature revenue that caps growth.
Pitch sales by focusing on customer pain points discovered in feedback, reading messages aloud to ensure they sound human, and using video or voice memos for personalization.
Whop raised early after an acquisition offer from Hyper, prioritizing strategic investors like those from Zfellows for advice over just capital.
Raising provides runway for acquisitions, like buying Freddy Dashboard cheaply, and investor pressure to execute aggressively.
Bootstrapping is viable and cooler if self-reliant, but raising suits high-growth ambitions if it accelerates scaling without lifestyle dilution.
Scale to $100M by duplicating the playbook: target markets, define customer segments, win small users first, then whales, iterating per category like bot rentals to Discord groups.
Prioritize markets by size and feasibility; start small to validate, then expand, avoiding 100% capture but aiming for dominance.
Whop's growth focused on sales-led acquisition of influencers in niches like crypto and sports betting, making it the norm without broad marketing.
The "ring of fire" analogy warns against leaky user retention; acquire engaged users who grow over time, not just top-of-funnel volume that burns out.
Lean into personal strengths: Cameron excels at sales and intuition, leading to a sales-heavy strategy over marketing.
Daily routine starts with 8 hours sleep, tracked by Eight Sleep and Whoop; wake to bed vibration, make bed, open windows, chug water until full.
Morning includes 10-minute stretch, workout (run or gym) six days weekly, 5-minute vibration meditation, cold shower, 20-minute meditation, and journaling goals.
Meals are one or two daily, plant-based like egg-mushroom-broccoli burrito, soups, salmon, shrimp, tofu, smoothie; tested for no crashes via blood sugar monitor.
Evening features cold plunge and 20-minute sauna with journaling, nighttime stretch, meditation, and reading to sleep.
Rate daily happiness 1-10 on a whiteboard; prioritize feeling good for peak performance over 50 years.
Mindset views wins as brief excitements before reality checks; celebrate relatively to long-term goals like billions of users on Whop.
Life alternates planting seeds (long-term growth) versus eating fruits (short-term gains); favor planting to compound future value.
Drive stems from gratitude for opportunities, duty to humanity via Montessori schools, and empowering others to financial freedom through Whop.
Early user acquisition for bots involved DMing sellers in Discords as fake buyers, listing own bots first, and making rentals free with coupons.
Poach competitors' users by monitoring suggestion channels, promising immediate feature builds, and getting closer than incumbents.
Contact influencers via paid introductions ($500-1,000), offering 100% revenue share initially to secure partnerships that attract followers.
Intuition guides decisions without formal education; it's knowing likes/dislikes specifically, strengthened by context, over pure data.
Set goals via meditation and excitement; follow intuitive paths, facing pain willingly, as anyone can achieve if believing and committing.
Scale operations by assigning market owners with targets, weekly plans of tangible outcomes, clear ownership ("who will do what by when"), and all-hands reviews.
Targets balance aspiration (scary but exciting) with realism; work backwards from total opportunity, sprinting quarterly on subsets.

IDEAS

Journal daily annoyances without bias toward software or physical products, focusing on personal pain points as universal opportunities.
Balance annoyance and excitement scores to select ideas, ensuring motivation aligns with problem-solving urgency.
Treat co-founder search like dating in serendipitous communities, even non-technical ones, to find complementary skills.
Launch MVPs aggressively minimal, cutting features 20% beyond bare essentials, to accelerate feedback loops.
Pre-sell by lining up users before build completion, treating processes as parallel factory lines for speed.
Use screen-sharing tasks on feedback calls to reveal intuitive user behaviors, probing pauses for unbiased insights.
Surprise prospects with unconventional outreach like Uber doorstep visits or product purchases to create memorable connections.
Whop's app store democratizes distribution, turning one creator install into thousands of users via integrated payments.
Test daily usage as the litmus for product-market fit, pivoting acquisition if retention lags.
Grind 20-30 personalized sales calls daily, evolving pitches from feedback to value propositions via human-sounding voice memos.
Delay monetization to maximize free user compounding, only charging when the base yields exponential fruits.
Raise strategically for networks and acquisitions, not necessity, ensuring it fuels aggression without equity dilution for lifestyle.
Duplicate validated playbooks across markets, winning niches via small-to-whale progression and influencer capture.
Employ the "ring of fire" to prioritize retention growth over acquisition volume, avoiding market burnout.
Tailor growth to strengths: sales-led for relationship builders, marketing for others, avoiding one-size-fits-all.
Optimize routines via personal A/B testing, prioritizing feel-good inputs like sleep and meditation for sustained output.
Celebrate wins briefly within long horizons, using excitement as fuel without complacency.
View life as seed-planting cycles, delaying gratification for compounded future abundance.
Derive purpose from privilege, channeling success into education like Montessori expansions for global impact.
Broker early marketplace liquidity manually, faking demand to normalize platform usage.
Infiltrate competitors' communities by over-delivering on suggestions, stealing loyalty through proximity.
Build for influencers first, as perfect fits cascade to audiences, offering free access to lower barriers.
Trust intuition as a context-fed muscle, balancing it with data for non-linear decisions.
Set beliefs as self-fulfilling; intuitive excitement guides paths amid challenges.
Operationalize scaling via market owners with weekly outcome commitments, enforcing accountability through scheduled reviews.
Frame targets as aspirational stretches, reverse-engineering from total addressable markets for directional sprints.

INSIGHTS

Personal annoyances, when journaled systematically, reveal high-potential ideas by tapping into shared human frustrations without market research bias.
Co-founder complementarity accelerates execution, turning individual limitations into collective strengths through serendipitous community outreach.
Rapid MVP launches with minimal features enable quick validation, transforming assumptions into market-driven realities via observed user behaviors.
Feedback loops from screen-shared tasks uncover subconscious user intuitions, refining products beyond founder biases.
Unconventional outreach sparks surprise, forging emotional bonds that outperform generic cold messaging in building trust.
Free early access maximizes compounding user growth, shifting from seed-planting to fruit-harvesting at optimal scale.
Strategic funding prioritizes advisory networks and opportunistic moves like acquisitions, amplifying speed without bootstrapping constraints.
Playbook duplication across niches creates compounding dominance, starting with micro-wins to attract macro-influencers.
Retention as engagement growth prevents "ring of fire" depletion, ensuring sustainable expansion over fleeting acquisition highs.
Strength-aligned strategies, like sales-led versus marketing-heavy, unlock unique paths to scale by leveraging innate talents.
Personal optimization through feel-based A/B testing sustains long-term performance, viewing the body as a performance instrument.
Relative celebration maintains momentum, framing wins as steps toward infinite horizons rather than endpoints.
Gratitude-fueled purpose transforms privilege into duty, directing success toward societal tools like financial empowerment platforms.
Intuitive decision-making, nourished by context, navigates complexity where data alone falters, fostering innovation.
Belief-driven goal-setting manifests outcomes, with pain tolerance as the differentiator in achieving the improbable.
Weekly ownership frameworks with timed commitments cultivate extreme accountability, scaling teams through micro-sprints.
Aspirational targets, balanced with realism, rally alignment by reverse-engineering opportunities into actionable directives.

QUOTES

"The first question to myself would be like, what annoys me? Like what don't I like about the world?"
"The formula is probably level of annoyance 1 through 10 times level of excitement on the idea 1 through 10."
"I would personally never start a software business... without a technical co-founder."
"Build it fast... bring your product to market as fast as humanly possible."
"Get on the phone with people... pay them to get on the phone. Do whatever."
"Memories are sparked from things that surprise people."
"Are they using it every single day is kind of like my litmus test."
"Make it free and let them use it... there's no reason not to use your product."
"If it sounds weird don't send... pretend like you met your customer at a bar."
"When you start charging, you're literally eating the fruits off your trees."
"It's nothing. It never changes... who is the customer in that market? Why are they not using your product?"
"You acquire user and they become more engaged... that's where you want to be."
"Lean into what you're uniquely good at... I love talking to people and I love selling."
"How do I position myself to create the greatest work for the next 50 years."
"I'm a product of like how I feel. So like if I feel really good I'll create the best work possible."
"At all points in life, you're either planting trees or you're eating the fruits off your trees."
"I almost have like a duty to humanity to pay... to do good work because I was fortunate."
"I want hundreds of millions if not billions of people to be making money on Whop."
"Data is important... but your intuition... is a muscle that you develop over time."
"Anyone can just take their path... as long as you're willing to do that work and grow and face it head on."

HABITS

Journal every annoyance encountered during daily routines for at least a month to identify business ideas.
Score ideas on annoyance and excitement levels before pursuing to ensure balanced motivation.
Post in online communities regularly, treating co-founder searches like casual dating interactions.
Strip MVP features ruthlessly, aiming 20% beyond minimal viability, then launch immediately.
Line up potential users via pre-launch messages, coordinating parallel efforts for speed.
Conduct 20-30 sales or feedback calls daily, personalizing with voice memos or videos.
Offer products free initially, using coupons or zero fees to remove adoption barriers.
Read outreach copy aloud to ensure it sounds conversational and human.
Track sleep with devices like Eight Sleep mattress and Whoop band, ensuring minimum eight hours nightly.
Wake to bed vibration, making bed and opening windows within 60 seconds to build momentum.
Chug water until feeling full immediately after waking, followed by teeth brushing.
Stretch for 10 minutes each morning and evening to maintain physical readiness.
Workout six days weekly, alternating runs and gym sessions for consistent energy.
Meditate 20 minutes morning and night, supplemented by 5-minute vibration sessions pre-workout.
Consume one or two large plant-based meals daily, avoiding sugar and carbs to prevent crashes.
Cold plunge and sauna 20 minutes nightly, journaling reflections during sauna time.
Rate daily happiness 1-10 on a whiteboard, simplifying from multiple metrics for focus.
Fall asleep reading after turning off phone, avoiding screens before bed.
Celebrate wins with brief excitement, like jumping, then pivot to next priorities.
Set weekly plans Sunday nights, committing to tangible outcomes with deadlines and owners.

FACTS

Whop's valuation reached $800 million in a raise over a year ago, built over 13 years.
Cameron made $100,000 by age 13-14 through early ventures like bot sales.
Dropped out of high school at 16 after earning more than parents by 15.
Early Whop generated $2,000 daily from 30 bots sold at $50 each via manual spreadsheets.
Whop iterated its core product a thousand times since inception.
Acquisition offer from Hyper came 3-4 months in, for millions after prior business failures.
Whop's first raise involved live commitments from Tinder founder Justin Mateen via Zfellows.
Early revenue hit $75,000 monthly with just three founders before raising.
Acquired Freddy Dashboard cheaply, serving 40 major bot users with minimal recurring fees.
Sneaker bot rental market peaked at $300,000-$500,000 monthly volume.
Whop processes coaching/courses at $100 million monthly, eyeing $2.5 billion opportunity.
Over 100,000 creators on Whop, including figures like Arak, Druski, and Imongi.
Cameron reads one book monthly, focusing on curiosity-driven topics like surrender experiments.
Tested blood sugar with wearable tracker for weeks to optimize diet impacts.
Whop team exceeds 60-70 employees, focusing on five business models: coaching, groups, software, agencies, platforms.
Early bot rentals took 25% fees; Discord access started 100% free for 18 months.
Paid $500-$1,000 for introductions to influencers in early growth phases.
Targets infinity-scale, aiming billions of users for global monetization impact.
Weekly sprints outperform monthly ones, as Parkinson's Law compresses effort to deadlines.
Ownership principle: every task needs one accountable person for "choking at the neck" on metrics.

REFERENCES

Whop platform and docs: https://docs.whop.com/apps/introduction (for building apps).
Whop sell page: https://whop.com/sell/?a=thebrettway (for launching businesses).
Cameron Zoub Twitter: https://x.com/czoob3.
Cameron Zoub Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camzoub/?hl=en.
Uber app for quick transport innovation example.
Automatic toothbrush idea as mouth guard concept.
Eve bot: early $50/day rental product.
Discord servers for sneaker reselling and bot communities.
Cyber Soul, Easy Cop: specific sneaker bots mentioned.
CleanShot X: screenshot tool example for product designers.
Figma: tool followed by product designers on Twitter.
Photoshop: used for screenshot annotations.
Loom videos: for product demos in outreach.
Zfellows program: better than Y Combinator, run by Cory Levy.
Tinder: built by investor Justin Mateen.
Peter Thiel: met through investors for advice.
Hyper: competitor with $100M raised, $17M in bank.
Freddy Dashboard: acquired white-label tool for bot management.
Arak, Druski, Imongi: mainstream creators on Whop.
Whop API/SDK: for payments, memberships, authorization in apps.
Eight Sleep mattress: for sleep tracking and alarms.
Whoop wristband: for vibration alerts and biometrics.
Shift Wave chair: vibration meditation device.
Brian Johnson longevity mix: supplement with creatine and others.
Blood sugar tracker: wearable for diet testing.
Rick Rubin clip: on intuition in music production.
Surrender Experiment book: by Michael Singer on meditation and accidental business success.
Truman Show analogy: for self-control in perceptions.
Airbnb Craigslist scraping: early marketplace tactic.
Amazon, Uber UI evolutions: as scaling examples.
Counter-Strike team goal: personal aspiration leading to moves.

HOW TO APPLY

Identify daily annoyances by journaling every frustration for a month, rating annoyance and excitement levels.
Select the idea with highest annoyance-excitement product score, ignoring format biases like software versus physical.
Post in relevant or serendipitous online groups seeking co-founders with complementary skills, like technical expertise.
Build MVP minimally: list essential features, cut 20% more, ensuring removal of any breaks core function.
Launch MVP fastest possible, ideally same day, to users for immediate feedback via screen shares.
Pre-line up customers by messaging sellers or targets about imminent availability, creating parallel momentum.
Locate exact user personas in communities like Discords or Twitter followers, DMing for paid feedback calls.
On calls, assign tasks like completing a purchase, observe silently, probe pauses and confusions post-session.
Iterate fixes from one user's feedback before next call, aiming for crystal-clear experiences progressively.
Outreach uniquely: send gifts, buy products, or use iMessage hacks to surprise and secure meetings.
Validate retention by checking daily power user engagement; fix acquisition gaps if usage isn't habitual.
Make product free with low fees only, grinding 20-30 personalized calls daily for initial adoption.
Evolve pitches to highlight validated pains, using voice memos read aloud for natural tone.
Seek strategic raises post-validation for networks, only if accelerating growth via advice or runway.
Duplicate playbook: pick market, win small users, capture whales through whatever-it-takes closes.
Monitor competitors' suggestion channels, promising and building features to poach loyal users.
Pay for influencer introductions, offering full revenue share to secure early adopters and cascades.
Align team to strengths, building sales-led if relational, marketing if creative.
Optimize personal routine: secure 8 hours sleep, morning hydration-stretch-workout-meditation sequence.
Set weekly outcome plans Sunday, with "who will do what by when" ownership and review calls.
Rate daily happiness, journaling wins/fails in sauna to maintain grounded high energy.
Plant seeds long-term: delay monetization, celebrate briefly, target infinity-scale impacts.
Meditate intuitively each morning, following excitement for decisions amid challenges.
Assign market owners with quarterly sprints from total opportunity breakdowns.
Enforce accountability via all-hands showcases and single ownership per task.
Frame targets as exciting stretches, working backwards for directional weekly micro-wins.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Build SaaS by solving personal annoyances with co-founders, rapid MVPs, free acquisition, and intuitive scaling to empower global creators.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Journal annoyances daily to uncover ideas blending high personal pain and excitement.
Seek technical co-founders in unexpected communities for balanced team dynamics.
Launch MVPs stripped to essentials, prioritizing speed over perfection for quick feedback.
Line up users pre-launch to synchronize build and adoption timelines.
Use screen-shared tasks in feedback calls, staying silent to reveal true user frictions.
Employ surprise tactics like gifts or product buys to secure high-value meetings.
Offer free access initially, removing all barriers to foster viral user compounding.
Personalize outreach with voice memos, ensuring conversational authenticity.
Delay charging until user base yields exponential growth potential.
Raise only for strategic acceleration, like networks enabling key acquisitions.
Duplicate niche playbooks, progressing from small users to influential whales.
Infiltrate competitor spaces by over-delivering on user suggestions rapidly.
Pay generously for introductions to unlock influencer-led audience expansion.
Tailor growth to innate strengths, whether sales, marketing, or product intuition.
Test routines personally for optimal feel, tracking sleep and diet impacts.
Celebrate wins relatively, maintaining focus on infinite long-term horizons.
Channel success into societal duties, like education tools for underprivileged.
Strengthen intuition with contextual data, trusting gut for bold decisions.
Set belief-driven goals, enduring pain through meditative excitement alignment.
Implement weekly ownership sprints with timed commitments for team scaling.

MEMO

Cameron Zoub, the 26-year-old co-founder and chief growth officer of Whop—a social commerce platform empowering creators to monetize online communities—has built an $800 million empire from teenage hustles. In a candid interview, Zoub recounts earning his first $100,000 by 14 through selling Discord bots, dropping out of high school at 16, and iterating through failures to launch Whop. His philosophy starts simple: scan daily life for annoyances, like manual key resets in bot rentals that once chained him to spreadsheets. Journaling frustrations for a month, he rates them on annoyance and excitement scales, pursuing only those with balanced highs. No bias toward software; if it solves a real itch worth paying for, others will follow. Zoub's early success stemmed from building Whop for himself, automating pains that generated $2,000 daily in manual sales.

Securing a co-founder proved serendipitous—Zoub posted in a sneaker reselling Facebook group, unwittingly attracting technical partner Stephen, with whom he's collaborated since age 13. He likens the hunt to dating: join Discords, attend meetups, post openly in any like-minded space. With partners aligned, the mantra is speed: craft a minimal viable product (MVP) by slashing features until one more cut breaks functionality, then launch overnight for feedback. Zoub preps users in parallel, messaging sellers about impending listings. Validation demands precision—pinpoint personas, like CyberSoul bot owners in specific Discords, and bribe calls with cash or incentives. Screen-sharing tasks reveal truths: assign a goal like listing a bot, mute yourself, watch hesitations. Probe why a button was ignored or a page stalled; iterate before the next user. Unconventional outreach amplifies this: Zoub once dispatched an Uber driver to knock on a prospect's door mid-nap, or sent edible arrangements, sparking surprise that cold emails lack.

Whop's ascent hinged on free access, grinding 20-30 daily calls without budget. Early on, rentals were gratis to lure buyers, while sellers got automated payouts—no more Venmo chases or Friday-night key resets. Pitches evolved from feedback pleas to pain-point spotlights, voiced in memos sounding like bar chats. Retention is the litmus: daily power users signal fit; if not, fix acquisition leaks. Zoub delayed monetization for 18 months, planting seeds for a wildfire base before harvesting. Funding came reactively—an acquisition bid from rival Hyper prompted a Zfellows raise, netting not just capital but mentors like Tinder's Justin Mateen and Peter Thiel. It fueled moves like snapping up Freddy Dashboard cheaply, onboarding 40 major clients. Bootstrapping suits independents, but Zoub warns against raising without acceleration—equity dilution demands purpose beyond vanity.

Scaling to $100 million GMV replicated the playbook across niches: from sneaker bots to Discord paid groups, crypto trading, sports betting. Target a market, segment customers, win small fries first for referrals, then whale-hunt with relentless closes. Infiltrate incumbents like Hyper by haunting suggestion channels, building features overnight to poach. Whop captured influencers—paying $500-$1,000 for intros, offering 100% revenue shares—knowing one Arak or Druski install cascades thousands. No broad marketing; sales-led grit, leaning on Zoub's relational edge, monopolized micro-markets before expanding. The "ring of fire" cautions against acquisition without retention—grow engagement rings outward, or burn the field empty. Now with 70 employees, operations bucket into models like coaching ($100 million monthly, eyeing $2.5 billion TAM), assigning owners weekly sprints: "Who will do what by when?" All-hands showcase outcomes, enforcing ownership where one choke-point guardian per metric drives accountability.

Zoub's edge lies in intuitive grit, blending non-technical intuition with contextual data. Dropping out young, he trusts gut likes over intellect—Rick Rubin's producer ethos resonates: know what sings specifically. Meditation sharpens this muscle; mornings vibrate awake to eight hours sleep via Whoop and Eight Sleep, chugging water, stretching, running six days weekly. One massive plant-based meal fuels sans crashes, tested via blood sugar wearables; evenings plunge cold, sauna-journal, rate happiness 1-10. Life's binary: plant trees for future orchards or eat fruits now—Zoub plants, celebrating wins briefly against infinity goals. Drive? Gratitude for American birth amid global inequities; duty to Montessori schools, empowering billions via Whop's tools. Pain? A game of self-mastery—set beliefs as prophecies, face challenges head-on. "Anyone can achieve if willing," he insists, surrendering to life's unfoldings while sprinting weekly toward massive, directionally infinite impact.

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