How I Got Half a Million Users in Just 16 Weeks | Rocket.new, Vishal Virani

1. 0:00 – 1:50

   Intro

   1. VVVishal Virani0:00

      I didn't went for any Ivy League college. We got forty plus rejections from the VCs. You needs to be from Stanford or IIT or some good colleges. They don't say it upfront, but I know how they judge, what they judge. That was like last three months. After three months we are going to die. It was like hardest time. But I never give up. If you have a will, you can build it from anywhere. I'm the first engineer of my family. I grew up in Surat, the largest diamond manufacturing hub, where out of ten diamonds, nine diamonds get manufactured in my city. If you start just creating the wall of excuse around you, you will not able to move each. Just use all the resources for your advantage instead of just complaining about that. I'm sitting in India, what I can do? But instead of that, what we think is like, "Okay, we are in India. What advantage we can use?" Keep your learning mode on. I just read everything on internet without complaining about my Ivy League background or a startup background. Location does not matter. Don't worry about your location. Don't worry about your zip code. [instrumental music plays] I'm Vishal Virani, co-founder and CEO at Rocket. I'm growing up in a environment where no one was a engineer. Right after the college, I started my first venture. Devise was a Figma to code platform. Devise, we scale our user base from zero to three hundred and fifty K users. When GPT 3 launched, we realized like, okay, this world is going to be changed faster than our imagination. That was the pivotal moment and then after like I started my second and third venture, which is Rocket. If you have a idea, just put it in Rocket platform. You will have your entire product ready, which you can just launch without worrying about anything. In just like first sixteen weeks, we had like a multi-million applications on our platform. Rocket is funded by Salesforce Ventures and Accel. In just fifteen weeks of our inception, we got like a fifteen million dollars of seed round. So in next five year, my entire goal is removing the entire mundane, clerical, and repetitive work from every user's

2. 1:50 – 2:57

   The First Engineer from a Farming Family

   1. VVVishal Virani1:50

      life. [instrumental music plays] I grew up in Surat. I did my schooling and my college in Surat. If I describe about the Surat, everyone of interacted with the product of Surat because Surat is the largest diamond manufacturing hub, where out of ten diamonds, nine diamonds get manufactured in my city, and one of the largest, uh, textile manufacturing as well. A kind of without resources, without a kind of an environment where I can grow. I was a quite curious guy, and I'm the first engineer of my family. They don't know anything about the education, so I said like, "Okay, I want to pursue the engineering." They said, "You have my blessings, but y- we cannot support you because we don't have a money." But also they feel proud because like someone from our family is able to do this thing, able to cross these barriers and achieve this next status. I'm just using my principles which I learned from my surroundings of a farming. In a farming, you cannot control the rain. You can not control the weather. I just read everything on internet without complaining about my Ivy League background or a startup background. I started building. I just give a wings to my curiosity and, and build a startup.

3. 2:57 – 5:01

   You SHOULD Be Ready to KILL Your Success

   1. VVVishal Virani2:58

      [instrumental music plays] Rahul and I have a very similar thoughts. Instead of doing master's, can we learn it from the world? And that's how right after the graduation we started our first business. Instead of doing master's and our goal was like, okay, for two years we'll take all risk of our life. We'll not focus on earning the money, but we'll focus on learning. And if we just get the money to survive ourselves, it's like one of the biggest achievement. In 2021, we realized everyone is just hiring the developers. LinkedIn was flooded with like, "We are hiring developers." And we realized they are not even enjoying their own work. So the thought was like, okay, how we can remove the mundane and repetitive work from users life? It's a pre-LLM era. We started doing our research. Ultimately, we focus on building the Figma to code solution where user just need to upload the Figma designs and we can convert into code. And with that thought, we started Devise. Devise, we scale our user base from zero to three hundred and fifty K users. We process ten million screens, which is like highest in this entire space. Our users convert ten million Figma screens into code, and it was like quite comfortable business for me. When GPT 3 launched, we realized like, okay, this world is going to be changed faster than our imagination. And I still remember I spent almost a sixty hours of time sitting straight forward to write my prompt to create something which is unbelievable at that time. And this is a time to add up the new things. We have the conviction like, okay, now LLM is enough powerful where we can create a very big impact in our users life. There is a world before GPT 3 and there is a world after GPT 3. This is just iPhone version 3. We need to think about iPhone version 15, how powerful it's going to be. So don't worry about the current version of GPT. Think about GPT 15, how powerful it's going to be. That was the pivotal moment. Figma to code is going to be just a small feature in future. Let's think bigger. And that's where we again relook at our vision of like automating the entire software development life cycle. Prefer conviction over a comfort zone. And with that, we decided to pivot like, okay, f- Figma to code product to a complete software development automation where user can just put the prompt and we can deliver the entire results. And when we got the conviction, we decided to pivot from like Devise to Rocket.

4. 5:01 – 6:31

   How to Know Your Conviction is Right

   1. VVVishal Virani5:03

      [instrumental music plays] We always listen to our users. Whenever I interact with like any founder, any right person, I always listen them. We actually talk to a CTOs of a Fortune hundred companies to, uh, solopreneurs, everyone. So right now, every day three new web coding platforms launch themselves on, on the product hunt, and everyone had the same answer, like these are the prototypes which is not scalable, which is not even a production-ready code, just trying to replace our Figma designs with these prototypes, but it breaks. And that's where we realized like, okay, we are building the right product. We got the email from a New York user and he emailed us like a long email where he was just showing a kind of an gratitude, "Without your product, I can never imagine this kind of an thing." He's a solopreneur. He don't know about product management. He don't know about product marketing. He don't know about anything. He just had a idea. He was using like multiple web coding platform and delivering the results, and when he got to know about Rocket, he tried the platform. He wrote to us, like, "In my life, I never able to close, uh, seven projects in just like, uh, twenty days of time." He started his journey with a twenty-five dollars of subscription and now he's paying a four thousand dollars per month without any sales pitch. Just think about your users Till now, like we got like hundreds emails every day. I send a email personally to all the users. Definitely it's in auto mode, but when they replied, I read it personally, and then we provide the required support to our users, and that motion really works well for us. And that's how we gained the trust from our users in the very

5. 6:31 – 8:27

   You Haven't Failed Until You've Spent the Last Penny

   1. VVVishal Virani6:31

      early days. [gentle music] As I still remember, it was a 2021 time. We got 40 plus rejections from the VCs. When every small and big ideas were getting funded, we were like getting one after one rejections. After 40 rejection, we got the first term sheet. Just fifteen days of money left in our account, we got the term sheet. That was like a last three month when we know like after three months we are going to die, it was like hardest time. Every time you need to have a background. You needs to be from Stanford or IIT or some good colleges. It can be like ex-Google or ex-Microsoft will get easily funded. I was not from the product. I always introduce myself as a ex of my ex. The reason is like after college, I started my first venture, and then I started Device. They don't say it upfront, but I know how they judge, what they judge, and they are right at that place because they need to trust on their parameters. They have some thesis and all. So definitely we are not fit there, but we didn't give up. Don't worry about your location. Don't worry about your zip code. We always try. We learn new things. We try this language of this world. I decided like till a last penny in my account, I will not give up. I will fight for the term sheet. I will fight for that funding, which can help me to survive. For the founder, those are the most important moment. When you are in pain, don't think about the pain. Think about the mistakes that you are making, because of that you are having that pain. So for me, at that time, why, what was wrong in my pitch? Why I'm not getting the fund when everyone else is getting? So I start analyzing my own pitch, the word that I'm saying, the kind of and like numbers that I'm presenting, how I can articulate it better. Instead of like getting into a kind of a depression or something else, I just started thinking of where I'm making a mistake every day, and every day I try to improve myself and, and that's how we got the first term sheet of our city. Before that, like no one else got the venture capital funds. We got it. I only say like that will never give up attitude helped me a lot.

6. 8:27 – 10:52

   Don't Take Any Advice Before You Know THIS

   1. VVVishal Virani8:30

      [gentle music] Every advice is not signal, and as a founder, you need to understand. If you build the right product, you will able to capture the market, but if you just build the marketing company, someone will come and capture your market. Just focus on product, product, product. Stay away from noise. Identify the signals because nowadays you will get like hundreds of advice, hundreds of new things on X, but from all the noise, you need to identify which signal will work for you. Let me give you an example. GitHub Copilot was the first product who started like code generation. They have the power of Microsoft. And Satya Nadella in all keynotes started with GitHub Copilot. They have the power of OpenAI and everything. But still, after one and a half year, Cursor came and captured the entire market. GitHub has, has everything. In that case, like Cursor has no space, but still with the right product, Cursor capture the market. If you are not a native English speaker, you will have a hard time to convince someone. Don't speak. Just prove. That's why instead of creating the pitch deck, we created the product. We created the traction, and that's why Rocket is funded by Salesforce Venture and Accel. Salesforce Venture got to know about Rocket Platform on X because someone shared the story. They give a try to a product first. They actually already see-- tried the product, which is already at series A, B level in the vibe coding space, and when they tried our product, they think like this is the best product they ever seen in this particular space, and that's how they reach out to us. And in just fifteen weeks of our inception, we got like a fifteen million dollars of seed round, which is like one of the highest round in India. So build the right product. In the early days, focus should be like 60%, 80% on product, 20% on marketing. It should not be other way around where you are just focusing 20% on product and 80% on the marketing. That's kind of in learning that I got in last like four years of my Device and Rocket journey. In next five years, I just want to create a world where if you have a idea, just put it in Rocket Platform. At the end of day, you will have your entire product ready, which you can just launch without worrying about anything. Future is going to be looks like, just consider like Jarvis when you are traveling from Palol to, uh, downtown. Just talk to Rocket or, uh, with Siri or with your CarPlay, and by the time you will reach at office, like you will have your application ready. How we can remove legacy systems from the world and we can create the new system, that's what I think about every day. [gentle music]

Episode duration: 10:52