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EO StudioHow I Got Half a Million Users in Just 16 Weeks | Rocket.new, Vishal Virani
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CHAPTERS
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Building from anywhere: rejecting excuses about pedigree, place, or resources
Vishal opens by dismantling the idea that you need an elite school, the right zip code, or a privileged background to build a successful startup. He frames resilience and resourcefulness as the real differentiators when you’re starting with constraints.
- •No Ivy League/IIT pedigree: learn and build anyway
- •Stop building “walls of excuses”; turn constraints into advantages
- •Use the internet aggressively to self-educate and move fast
- •Location and background aren’t excuses for lack of execution
From Surat to first engineer: farming principles and curiosity as unfair advantages
He shares his upbringing in Surat (diamond/textile hub) and being the first engineer in his family, with limited financial support. He connects farming lessons—like accepting what you can’t control—to startup grit and iteration.
- •Surat context: industrial hub, but not a typical startup ecosystem
- •First engineer in the family; family pride but limited money
- •Farming mindset: you can’t control weather—focus on controllables
- •Curiosity + self-learning as the foundation for entrepreneurship
Choosing startups over a master’s: a two-year learning-first bet
Vishal describes deciding (with his co-founder Rahul) to skip a master’s degree and instead treat entrepreneurship as an intensive learning path. The plan was to accept high risk, prioritize learning over income, and survive on minimal earnings.
- •Skipping higher education to learn directly from the market
- •Time-boxed risk: “two years” focused on learning
- •Low burn mindset: survival money as a milestone
- •Early alignment with co-founder on values and pace
Devise (Figma-to-code): attacking repetitive developer work before LLMs
They identify the demand for developers and the frustration with repetitive work, then build Devise in the pre-LLM era. The product scales significantly, processing massive volumes of Figma screens and building a “comfortable” business.
- •Observation: hiring boom + developers stuck doing mundane work
- •Thesis: remove repetitive work from software building
- •Product direction: upload Figma → convert designs into code
- •Scale proof: 350K users and ~10M screens processed
GPT-3 as the inflection point: expanding conviction beyond a single feature
GPT-3’s launch changes their mental model: what was once “unbelievable” becomes possible with prompting and rapid iteration. Vishal argues founders should think beyond today’s models and anticipate much more capable future versions.
- •Hands-on discovery: long hours experimenting with prompts
- •“World before GPT-3 vs after GPT-3” shift in opportunity
- •Think forward: GPT ‘v15’ mindset vs current limitations
- •Figma-to-code becomes a feature; bigger vision emerges
Pivoting to Rocket: automating the software development lifecycle from a prompt
With strengthened conviction, they choose to leave the comfort of Devise and pivot into Rocket. The new promise: users can input an idea/prompt and receive a launch-ready product, aiming to automate much more of the SDLC.
- •Principle: conviction over comfort zone
- •Strategic pivot: point solution → end-to-end automation
- •Rocket positioning: prompt/idea → complete product output
- •Vision refresh: automate the full SDLC, not just code conversion
User-led validation: why production-ready output beats “prototype” competitors
They continuously speak with a wide range of users—from Fortune 100 CTOs to solopreneurs—to understand real pain. Feedback suggests many “vibe coding” tools create brittle prototypes, reinforcing Rocket’s focus on scalable, production-ready results.
- •Relentless user conversations across segments
- •Market noise: many daily launches, similar claims
- •Key differentiation: scalable/production-ready vs fragile prototypes
- •Using user truth to confirm they’re building the right thing
Early trust flywheel: solopreneur success stories and hands-on support loops
A detailed customer story illustrates value: a solopreneur completes multiple projects rapidly, upgrades from $25/month to $4K/month without a sales push. Vishal emphasizes direct communication and support as a growth engine in early days.
- •Case study: New York solopreneur ships 7 projects in ~20 days
- •Expansion revenue without sales pressure: $25 → $4K/month
- •High-volume inbound feedback: “hundreds of emails” daily
- •Founder-driven support as a trust and retention lever
40+ VC rejections and near-zero runway: surviving bias and fundraising pressure
Vishal recounts repeated VC rejections during a period when many ideas were being funded, attributing part of the challenge to pedigree and background expectations. With only days/weeks of runway left, persistence finally yields a term sheet.
- •40+ rejections; founders judged on pedigree and prior logos
- •“They don’t say it upfront” but pattern is clear
- •Runway crisis: last months/weeks and intense stress
- •Persistence through bias leads to first term sheet
Pain as a debugging signal: spending the last penny while improving the pitch
He reframes founder pain as feedback to diagnose mistakes rather than a reason to quit. He commits to fighting until the last penny, iterating daily on messaging, numbers, and articulation to become fundable.
- •Personal commitment: don’t quit before the last penny
- •Use pain to inspect mistakes, not to spiral emotionally
- •Daily iteration: words, numbers, and narrative in the pitch
- •Process focus: systematic self-improvement under pressure
Filtering advice vs noise: product wins even against giants (Copilot vs Cursor)
Vishal warns that not all advice is meaningful; founders must separate signal from noise, especially online. He argues product quality can beat incumbents, using Cursor’s rise despite GitHub Copilot’s distribution advantages.
- •“Every advice is not signal”—develop judgment
- •Avoid building a marketing-only company; product must be defensible
- •Example: Cursor winning mindshare vs Copilot’s head start
- •Core rule: stay away from noise; prioritize product execution
Prove, don’t persuade: traction-first fundraising and Rocket’s $15M seed in 15 weeks
He explains that as a non-native English speaker, demonstrating results can matter more than perfect pitching. Rocket’s product and traction attract top investors (Salesforce Ventures, Accel), culminating in a rapid, large seed round.
- •Non-native communication challenge: “Don’t speak. Just prove.”
- •Build product/traction before polishing decks
- •Investor discovery through X and hands-on product trial
- •Outcome: ~$15M seed round within ~15 weeks
The roadmap: removing repetitive work everywhere and imagining “Jarvis for apps”
Vishal closes with a future vision where anyone can speak an idea and receive a complete application by the time they arrive at work. The broader mission is eliminating clerical work and modernizing legacy systems through Rocket.
- •5-year goal: remove mundane, repetitive work from users’ lives
- •Idea-to-app: speak or prompt → launch-ready product
- •“Jarvis” analogy: apps built while you commute
- •Modernization ambition: replace legacy systems with new workflows
