How a non-technical founder built a $100K ARR meme company | Jason Levin (Memelord CEO)

Jason Levin is the CEO and founder of Memelord, an AI-powered meme creation platform that helps brands and individuals create contextual, trending memes. He started Memelord as a $6.90-per-month newsletter sending subscribers to a Google Slides deck, grew it to $100K ARR on Bubble without hiring engineers, then raised $3M to build it into an API-first product. *What you’ll learn:* 1. How Jason grew Memelord from a $6.90/month newsletter to $100K ARR without writing a single line of code 2. Why “no UX is the best UX” and how agents are becoming Memelord’s primary users 3. The mandatory vibe-coding rule for his marketing team and how it unlocks unprecedented creativity 4. Why free tools are the new PDF downloads and how they’ve generated hundreds of thousands of emails 5. Jason’s hardware hacking projects, including a bedside keyboard that creates Linear tickets without waking his wife 6. Why AI can be funny (but humans are still funnier) and which model is the funniest 7. The philosophy of building hyper-personalized software just for yourself *Brought to you by:* WorkOS—Make your app enterprise-ready today: https://workos.com?utm_source=lennys_howiai&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=q22025 Persona—Trusted identity verification for any use case: https://withpersona.com/lp/howiai *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Introduction to Jason Levin and Memelord (04:28) Demo: Agentic meme creation with OpenClaw (06:55) “No UX is the best UX”—building for an agent-first future (08:35) How Memelord started as a $6.90 newsletter with Google Slides (12:35) Building to $100K ARR on Bubble with 395 workflows (15:20) Demo: Free tools section that generates hundreds of thousands of emails (17:59) Why Cursor is perfect for non-technical founders (20:20) Let your marketers cook—or watch them leave (24:19) Commit graph that shows the vibe-coding inflection point (25:25) Tools: Claude, Gemini, Linear, PostHog (28:19) Build weird stuff in the real world (33:24) Creative AI use cases (39:56) Using OpenClaw for calendar analysis (43:37) Can AI be funny? Which model is funniest? (45:26) Memes are not slop (46:45) What Jason doesn’t use AI for (48:12) Final thoughts *Blog & detailed workflow walkthroughs from this episode:* How I AI: Jason Levin’s Workflows for Agentic Memes, Vibe Coding, and Hardware Hacking: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/jason-levins-workflows-for-agentic-memes-vibe-coding-and-hardware-hacking ↳ Build a Custom Bedside Keyboard for Idea Capture with Raspberry Pi and ChatGPT: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/build-a-custom-bedside-keyboard-for-idea-capture-with-raspberry-pi-and-chatgpt ↳ Build Free Marketing Tools as Lead Magnets Using AI Code Assistants: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/build-free-marketing-tools-as-lead-magnets-using-ai-code-assistants ↳ Automate Meme Marketing with an AI Agent and OpenClaw: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/automate-meme-marketing-with-an-ai-agent-and-openclaw *Tools referenced:* • Memelord API: https://memelord.com/api • Cursor: https://cursor.com/ • Bubble: https://bubble.io/ • OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ • Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ • Grok: https://grok.x.ai/ • Linear: https://linear.app/ • PostHog: https://posthog.com/ • Zapier: https://zapier.com/ *Other references:* • Diego Zaks—“The best UX is no UX”: https://x.com/diegozaks/status/1966526522136649980 • Sam Lessin: https://wlessin.com/ • “Stop giving me advice”: https://stopgivingmeadvice.com • Memelord free tools: https://memelord.com/tools *Where to find Jason Levin:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamjasonlevin Instagram: https://instagram.com/iamjasonlevin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamjasonlevin/ Memelord: https://memelord.com *Where to find Claire Vo:* ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co._