In this week's episode, we sit down with David Zitoun, Co-founder and CEO of Submagic. You'll hear about aggressive pricing experimentation strategies, building a lean 10-person team to $8M in revenue, why hiring customers as your first 5 employees changes everything, and the radical self-serve model that eliminates the need for a sales team entirely.
About David Zitoun:
David Zitoun is the Co-founder and CEO of Submagic, the AI-powered video editing platform that helps content creators generate viral shorts in seconds. Starting from his own frustration editing YouTube content, David bootstrapped Submagic to over $8M in revenue with an ultra-lean team of just 10 people—no sales team, fully self-serve, and 100% remote. Known for his obsessive focus on pricing experimentation, distribution-first strategy, and profitability over growth-at-all-costs, David represents a new breed of bootstrapped SaaS founder winning in the AI era.
About Submagic:
Submagic is an AI-powered video editing platform built for content creators who need to produce viral short-form content quickly. Born from David's personal pain point with editing video content, Submagic's radical approach combines cutting-edge AI with an entirely self-serve business model. The company has achieved remarkable capital efficiency, reaching $8M in revenue with just 10 team members while maintaining profitability and sustainable growth.
Show Notes:
00:00 Inside Submagic's pricing page
04:04 From frustrated creator to founder
09:59 Building a lean, distributed team
15:01 Managing hyper-growth with minimal headcount
17:34 Building team culture through retreats
19:59 The hidden challenges of managing remote teams
21:09 Effective communication in remote work: Loom, World Time Buddy, and Sup Bot
24:01 Metrics and success measurement
32:14 Hiring the right people for growth
33:27 Choosing profitability and sustainability over venture-backed hyper-growth
