Jun 22, 2025
From Bankruptcy to $40M ARR: How Bolt.new Broke SaaS Growth Records
An interview with Eric Simons, Founder of Stackblitz(Bolt.new)
Founder Focused
"In the first day, I think we added like 60K. Every single day, we kept adding more and more ARR. In the first two months, we went from 0 to 20 million of ARR. Everyone we were talking to had never seen anything like it."
This isn't just another Silicon Valley success story—it's the tale of Eric Simons and StackBlitz, who were literally 90 days away from shutting down when they launched their "last experiment" called Bolt.new. What happened next defied every growth metric in SaaS history.
In this raw, unfiltered conversation, Eric reveals how a company on the brink of bankruptcy pivoted to $40M ARR in 5 months, the brutal reality of finding product-market fit after 7 years of building, and why their open-source strategy became their secret weapon in the AI-powered development revolution.
Watch the full interview now on EO's YouTube channel! Below is the complete transcription of the interview. Minor edits have been made for clarity and readability.
Key Highlights:
"In the first day, I think we added like 60K. I remember one of our engineers was like, guys, we added 60K today, oh my God, and you know, I jumped in and I was like, yep, it's cool, but like this is, you know, this is like launch day, this is gonna go away, and that didn't happen. Every single day, we kept adding more and more ARR. In the first two months, we went from 0 to 20 million of ARR. Everyone we were talking to had never seen anything like it."
"We were actually, we were gonna go out of business. Last year, you know, we spent 7 years building out the core technology of the product, couldn't figure out how to actually effectively monetize it. We had one last experiment that we ran, um, it's, it's a product called Bolt, finding product market fit."
"It is purely how many people you talk to. It is purely that, you know, I mean people that are maybe early in their product career to kind of have lots of cool ideas about things they could build and whatever that are not really attached. The reality of the actual end user customer using the product, what they're trying to do with it, the challenges they're currently running into with it."
"We were actually, we were gonna go out of business. Last year, you know, we spent 7 years building out the core technology of the product, couldn't figure out how to actually effectively monetize it. We had one last experiment that we ran, um, it's, it's a product called Bolt, finding product market fit."
"It is purely how many people you talk to. It is purely that, you know, I mean people that are maybe early in their product career to kind of have lots of cool ideas about things they could build and whatever that are not really attached. The reality of the actual end user customer using the product, what they're trying to do with it, the challenges they're currently running into with it."
From Childhood Hackers to Silicon Valley Survivors
Can you tell us about yourself and what StackBlitz does?
Eric Simons: I'm Eric Simons. I'm the co-founder and CEO of StackBlitz, and we're the creators of Bolt.new. People went to Bolt.new, typed in the idea of a website or whatever that they wanted to make, hit enter, and 30 seconds later they had a web application ready to go. First two months of launching Bolt, we went from 0 to 20 million of ARR. The 3 months since then, we've added another 20 million of ARR just about, and we now have almost 4 million registered users and are continuing to grow like crazy.
I liked computers from a pretty early age. I was like building computers, like gaming computers and that sort of thing. That was actually when my co-founder and I met was when we were, you know, I think around 12 or 13. The first product that my co-founder and I built, we basically built a version of Dropbox before Dropbox existed, and this is back in like 2006 or 2007.
I liked computers from a pretty early age. I was like building computers, like gaming computers and that sort of thing. That was actually when my co-founder and I met was when we were, you know, I think around 12 or 13. The first product that my co-founder and I built, we basically built a version of Dropbox before Dropbox existed, and this is back in like 2006 or 2007.
What was that early product like and how did it perform?
Eric Simons: At that time, the way that you would kind of bring your digital documents between school and home was like USB flash drives. You're like 12 or 13 or whatever, you're gonna forget this, right? You're gonna leave this at home. It happened all the time. And so we had the idea of like, hey, let's just make a digital storage service that people can upload their homework to or whatever, and it took off like wildfire and like the entire many school districts in Illinois and just kind of across the Midwest started using this thing.
Sleeping on Couches, Coding Through the Night
What happened when you came out to Silicon Valley?
Eric Simons: I think at that time I was, I was like 18 or 19, I'd come out to Silicon Valley. We had gone through one of these accelerator programs at that time they would give you like $200K. So we went through that money and then we're out of money, but the product wasn't ready to launch and so I was like, what do you do?
We just so happened to have access to the AOL building at that time because one of our investors was renting office space out of there. So I had a key card to get into the AOL building and so there's couches here, you know, I could sleep on the couch, there's a gym, and so they have showers. I was 19. Expectations for quality of living are pretty low, I think at that age. And so I ended up just, you know, starting to live out of their headquarters.
We just so happened to have access to the AOL building at that time because one of our investors was renting office space out of there. So I had a key card to get into the AOL building and so there's couches here, you know, I could sleep on the couch, there's a gym, and so they have showers. I was 19. Expectations for quality of living are pretty low, I think at that age. And so I ended up just, you know, starting to live out of their headquarters.
How long did you live in the AOL building?
Eric Simons: I was just coding from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., 12 p.m. I did that for like, I think like 4 months, until they eventually someone like someone finally caught on that I was living in their headquarters and they found me and threw me out at like 5 in the morning. I didn't know anyone in Silicon Valley. I'm not from California. I went and like slept on a table at Starbucks until they opened.
The Birth of StackBlitz: When Teaching Code Revealed a Massive Gap
How did StackBlitz actually start?
Eric Simons: Thingster was a company that we didn't really intend to be a company. Basically we had a whole bunch of different startup ideas we were trying on the side. We were building lots of different web applications as a result for each of these startups to stay afloat, we were like, OK, you know, we actually know a lot about building web applications because we're doing it so much, we could probably like teach folks online and, you know, charge for like our courses and make money to keep us afloat so we can keep trying other ideas.
The thing is, like, of all the things we were working on at that time, Thingster was the most successful of all of them. We were teaching a lot of people, so we had like, I think it's like 100,000 and something people that were using this site to learn how to do web development.
The thing is, like, of all the things we were working on at that time, Thingster was the most successful of all of them. We were teaching a lot of people, so we had like, I think it's like 100,000 and something people that were using this site to learn how to do web development.
What problem did you discover while teaching people to code?
Eric Simons: The biggest problem that people learning were having, I mean this is common with anyone that's learning how to program, is not even like learning how to write the code, but it's actually setting up your development environment, which basically means setting up your computer to be able to even run code. That is a huge, huge, huge challenge, whether you're like a beginner or you're an advanced developer.
We were running into this problem with the people using Thingster, they just couldn't get the stuff set up in their environment to even learn how to write the code. And we had the realization like, OK, actually it should be possible theoretically to just kind of like run an entire dev environment inside of the browser itself. You're not using servers, not having to install anything locally like. You can actually run it in a web page, you know, inside of a browser tab.
We were running into this problem with the people using Thingster, they just couldn't get the stuff set up in their environment to even learn how to write the code. And we had the realization like, OK, actually it should be possible theoretically to just kind of like run an entire dev environment inside of the browser itself. You're not using servers, not having to install anything locally like. You can actually run it in a web page, you know, inside of a browser tab.
Did anyone else have this solution already?
Eric Simons: We're looking at all these different technologies that have released in browsers, and we're like, someone must have done this already, right? Like, because we were just trying to solve our own problem. We weren't trying to start a company. Like we were just trying to teach people on Thingster. We looked around and there was just nothing. There was nothing that could actually do it.
I kind of knew that this is like something very different at that point because it, you know, I was like I'd never run across something like this where I kind of technically knew the underpinnings that this should be possible, but yet no one had gone and done it. That key insight was really what led us to start StackBlitz.
I kind of knew that this is like something very different at that point because it, you know, I was like I'd never run across something like this where I kind of technically knew the underpinnings that this should be possible, but yet no one had gone and done it. That key insight was really what led us to start StackBlitz.
Seven Years of Building, Zero Revenue: The Monetization Desert
How did the monetization challenge play out over the years?
Eric Simons: We had spent half a decade building out this technology. The problem is that anyone that really understands how to write software already knows how to get stuff set up on their local computer and will tend to actually just gravitate towards that because they're super familiar with that. The issue is if you're gonna build something that's web-based, that is getting people to actually leave their environment is a huge challenge.
We tried out a whole bunch of different experiments over the course of the past, you know, 2 years or whatever. All of them were very cool, generally like the people that try these things out thought they were really awesome, but it didn't move the needle from like a monetization standpoint.
We tried out a whole bunch of different experiments over the course of the past, you know, 2 years or whatever. All of them were very cool, generally like the people that try these things out thought they were really awesome, but it didn't move the needle from like a monetization standpoint.
How close did you come to shutting down?
Eric Simons: My co-founder and I have like talked about, you know, should we pack it in, shut down the company, and so that was, you know, like last year we made the decision, my co-founder and I, with our board and stuff of like, OK, we're gonna spend the rest of this year going and trying everything that we think is a cool idea, and if that doesn't work out, we'll have left no stone unturned. And we'll go and kind of prepare to kind of start spinning things down.
How would I walk away from this knowing that I gave it everything I had? Like last year as this was kind of going on with the company, I also had my first child, and if you talk to anyone that has a kid, you don't get a lot of sleep. It's pretty high stress. So I had a lot of challenges kind of going on just from the personal side, the work side.
How would I walk away from this knowing that I gave it everything I had? Like last year as this was kind of going on with the company, I also had my first child, and if you talk to anyone that has a kid, you don't get a lot of sleep. It's pretty high stress. So I had a lot of challenges kind of going on just from the personal side, the work side.
The Ironman Mindset: Full Intensity Before the Final Experiment
How did you handle that intense period of uncertainty?
Eric Simons: I woke up one morning last April after my daughter was born, and I was like, I'm gonna do an Ironman, like a full Ironman, and it was like 6 months from then. I never ran a marathon or whatever. The 6 months of last year, I was kind of bringing full intensity to every part of my life, like physically going and training for this thing, mentally with my job, going and really figuring out, leaving no stone unturned and just trying out lots of different experiments, etc.
And to kind of bring full intensity to those things, and I gotta tell you, I've never been happier in my life. I've never been happier in my life, really investing in myself, my co-workers and my products and my family and my business with just such intense dedication, and I was OK with whatever the outcome was. If we end the year and our destiny is the same, so be it. Let the universe decide, right? I've done everything that I possibly can do, and Bolt was like the last experiment we had before we're gonna kind of start winding things down.
And to kind of bring full intensity to those things, and I gotta tell you, I've never been happier in my life. I've never been happier in my life, really investing in myself, my co-workers and my products and my family and my business with just such intense dedication, and I was OK with whatever the outcome was. If we end the year and our destiny is the same, so be it. Let the universe decide, right? I've done everything that I possibly can do, and Bolt was like the last experiment we had before we're gonna kind of start winding things down.
The Bolt.new Launch: From One Tweet to Viral Explosion
What is Bolt and how did you launch it?
Eric Simons: What Bolt allows you to do is like to actually, you know, using just text, you can type in an idea of an app or a website you want and it'll build it. The launch strategy for Bolt was like we put out a tweet, like that was it. There's no blog posts, there's no press release, so it's just like a tweet, and that tweet ended up going viral.
So what ended up happening is people, they saw our tweet, they went to bolt.new, typed in the idea of a website or whatever that they wanted to make, hit enter. And 30 seconds later they had a web application ready to go.
So what ended up happening is people, they saw our tweet, they went to bolt.new, typed in the idea of a website or whatever that they wanted to make, hit enter. And 30 seconds later they had a web application ready to go.
What happened on that first day?
Eric Simons: In the first day, I think we added like 60K. I remember one of our engineers was like, guys, we added 60K today, oh my God, and you know, I jumped in and I was like, yep, it's cool, but like this is, you know, this is like launch day, this is gonna go away, and that didn't happen. Every single day we kept adding more and more ARR. In the first two months we went from 0 to 20 million of ARR. Everyone we were talking to had never seen anything like it. It was, I mean, just an unbelievable shift in the destiny of our company.
The AI Timing Game: Why They Waited While Competitors Rushed
When did you first have the idea for Bolt?
Eric Simons: So I'd actually had the idea for Bolt about a year ago, February of 2024. At that time, the frontier models like OpenAI or whatever have you, we'd actually tried to build a prototype of Bolt, we spent a couple of weeks doing that. What we ended up finding was that the output just was not good enough, like you would tell it to build an app and it just oftentimes it would be broken or it wouldn't look good, it wouldn't function properly, which kind of like ruins the experience.
So we put that project on the shelf and we're like, OK, maybe we'll come back to this at some point in the future when these AI models get better.
So we put that project on the shelf and we're like, OK, maybe we'll come back to this at some point in the future when these AI models get better.
What changed your mind about revisiting the project?
Eric Simons: Back in May, we just so happened to kind of get a sneak preview of the new stuff that was coming from Anthropic with Sonnet 3.5, coding model that has changed software development, period. You know, we got a kind of sneak peek of it and we're like this. It is good. I mean this is gonna change everything we think. And so we kind of pulled Bolt off the shelf and took the latest APIs from Anthropic and pulled them together and launched it within 90 days of that.
How did you approach AI differently than your competitors?
Eric Simons: Back after ChatGPT had launched, a lot of companies were just kind of like adding AI stuff to their products, and not even a very thoughtful way, but it was kind of like people just wanted to be like relevant and kind of show that they had an AI strategy, and we didn't cause we're just like, we don't see the value of this. It's not clear how this is actually gonna make the experience that much better, right?
And all of our competitors were churning on AI ideas. We held off because we just didn't see, we didn't have conviction on it. I think in retrospect the right move, and when we did find the right thing, we went all in, and you kind of look at like the competitors that we were going up against then versus now, it's like a lot of them have either shut down, some of them have kind of started to pivot to AI, but like from like a user and revenue perspective, it's like bolt is the number one thing.
And all of our competitors were churning on AI ideas. We held off because we just didn't see, we didn't have conviction on it. I think in retrospect the right move, and when we did find the right thing, we went all in, and you kind of look at like the competitors that we were going up against then versus now, it's like a lot of them have either shut down, some of them have kind of started to pivot to AI, but like from like a user and revenue perspective, it's like bolt is the number one thing.
Scaling User Feedback: The Community-Driven Growth Engine
How do you handle thousands of user requests and feedback daily?
Eric Simons: You know, we get thousands of emails and tickets and tweets and etc. per day. Sorting the signal from the noise is a very difficult challenge, but one of the things we really invested in early on with Bolt was like community, like we have a very great community around Bolt where folks really love the product and there's these people that are just really smart, genuine, awesome folks that have stepped up and really became like kind of leaders in this community.
Yeah, so that's really how we've been able to scale the both the support but also the product feedback function because these are folks that are like in our Discord or our Reddit or Twitter or whatever and they're hearing what people are running into, then they themselves might be running into it and they'll be like, hey, this is something we're hearing a lot of. Here's maybe how you guys go about fixing it, etc.
Yeah, so that's really how we've been able to scale the both the support but also the product feedback function because these are folks that are like in our Discord or our Reddit or Twitter or whatever and they're hearing what people are running into, then they themselves might be running into it and they'll be like, hey, this is something we're hearing a lot of. Here's maybe how you guys go about fixing it, etc.
How do you prioritize what to build?
Eric Simons: We also have people on our team who, you know, we've hired a couple of folks who their entire job is just talking to our users, helping them get unstuck with stuff, hearing their feedback, etc. And so I think that's really the only way you can meaningfully scale support and the full cycle of user feedback is just having great people that are in your community or on your actual core team. That's their entire job and they're all working together, just bringing all the data points, make good decisions, and get the proper things prioritized in the product.
We like to work on things that users have specifically either like really asked for where it's a big pain point, or alternatively, it's something that we've validated that people want. I think it's very easy for entrepreneurs and people that are maybe early in their product career to kind of have lots of cool ideas about things they could build and whatever that are not really attached to the reality of the actual end user customer using the product, what they're trying to do with it, the challenges they're currently running into with it.
We like to work on things that users have specifically either like really asked for where it's a big pain point, or alternatively, it's something that we've validated that people want. I think it's very easy for entrepreneurs and people that are maybe early in their product career to kind of have lots of cool ideas about things they could build and whatever that are not really attached to the reality of the actual end user customer using the product, what they're trying to do with it, the challenges they're currently running into with it.
The Open Source Gamble That Became Their Secret Weapon
Why did you decide to open source Bolt?
Eric Simons: And one of the interesting things too actually about what we did is we actually open source the core version of Bolt when we launched, and like even today it's like I think it's like the most popular AI product by users and revenue that actually has an open source version. Like there's nothing else out there that really has that other than us.
But it was clear to us is like this is knowledge that someone's gonna open source this at some point, and we think it'll just be actually a lot better for us and the AI model providers, etc. if this is available for people to try out and Fork and improve and whatever have you, which ended up being a really key decision because a lot of people use Bolt because they can play around with the open source version and fork it and make it better and you know, whatever have you.
But it was clear to us is like this is knowledge that someone's gonna open source this at some point, and we think it'll just be actually a lot better for us and the AI model providers, etc. if this is available for people to try out and Fork and improve and whatever have you, which ended up being a really key decision because a lot of people use Bolt because they can play around with the open source version and fork it and make it better and you know, whatever have you.
How important is open source to your overall strategy?
Eric Simons: We've invested a ton in the open source world in large part because like our product really wouldn't work without amazing open source software that's been built for web development and and otherwise. For us, it's also really important that those people building different web development tool chains like Vite, whatever have you also care about us and they want to make sure that there are these open source projects work well in our technology and our environment, and that's been really key for us.
You know, we became the largest backer of Vite back in 2021. We have multiple people on our team that all they do is work on open source full time. Yeah, so I think developers love our products. I think in some part because we genuinely care about open source and ensuring that folks working on open source get compensated and have a way to actually continue working on it in a sustainable way.
You know, we became the largest backer of Vite back in 2021. We have multiple people on our team that all they do is work on open source full time. Yeah, so I think developers love our products. I think in some part because we genuinely care about open source and ensuring that folks working on open source get compensated and have a way to actually continue working on it in a sustainable way.
The Art of Knowing When to Pivot vs. When to Persist
How do you know when to pivot versus when to keep iterating?
Eric Simons: I think the only way I learned how to determine when it was time to pivot versus time to iterate was just trying a lot of startup ideas. Like that was, you know, over the course of like a decade. Through that, I kind of ended up building a good gut instinct of when we were kind of at the end of the line on a certain idea, and it was like, OK, we need to like pivot and try something else instead.
So my recommendation would be to, if you think you need to go deep on something and go along, do it, and typically you're gonna eventually going to find out one way or the other if you were right or wrong, and then you learn from that. And then if you were wrong, if you're like, hey, we went really deep and it didn't pan out, you have to just take that as a lesson as part of the journey.
So my recommendation would be to, if you think you need to go deep on something and go along, do it, and typically you're gonna eventually going to find out one way or the other if you were right or wrong, and then you learn from that. And then if you were wrong, if you're like, hey, we went really deep and it didn't pan out, you have to just take that as a lesson as part of the journey.
What's the key to intellectual honesty about when to give up?
Eric Simons: When I was younger and heard people give the advice that I'm giving right now, the takeaway that I would take then was, OK, so just don't give up for like, like, no matter what, just kind of like hold on to this idea and don't give up, which is like, like I think generally directionally good advice, but there's actually like kind of a line where you have to learn how to be intellectually honest with yourself, and it's like, am I not giving up because that's what people say you should do, or am I not giving up because I actually really like I have conviction in this and like I just want to see this. I really want to see this made possible.
And then seeing it all the way through, right? Because I think when you're starting and you're trying to find that passion and that's kind of one challenge. And then the other side of it is, you know, we saw, which is, OK, we built this amazing thing. Now how do you actually turn it into a business? The important part there is, you know, when you're driving through hell, don't stop. If you're gonna go and build a business, go and try all the way through and don't leave any stones unturned, because what you don't want then is to look back and go, oh man, we had this really cool thing, I think it could have been really, really important, but we didn't actually, we didn't do a full court press and really make sure that we exhausted all options before spinning down or whatever.
And then seeing it all the way through, right? Because I think when you're starting and you're trying to find that passion and that's kind of one challenge. And then the other side of it is, you know, we saw, which is, OK, we built this amazing thing. Now how do you actually turn it into a business? The important part there is, you know, when you're driving through hell, don't stop. If you're gonna go and build a business, go and try all the way through and don't leave any stones unturned, because what you don't want then is to look back and go, oh man, we had this really cool thing, I think it could have been really, really important, but we didn't actually, we didn't do a full court press and really make sure that we exhausted all options before spinning down or whatever.
The Future of AI-Powered Development: From Fortune 100 to 10-Year-Olds
How do you see AI's impact on software development?
Eric Simons: AI's impact on software development is huge. Like I think it's clear at this point that software development is gonna be probably the number one application of AI that as far as like a high leverage, high impact, high revenue sort of thing. All of the world's software, I think is gonna be meaningfully written by AI in years. I think probably, you know, single digit sort of years.
That doesn't mean that software developers are going away. There's a lot of things in software development that are just monotonous and not intellectually challenging, right? It's just common stuff that you're having to do to build an application. And AI just kind of obliterates all of that, can just take care of all that stuff for you, so you can actually work on like more complicated, high value, intellectually challenging sort of tasks.
That doesn't mean that software developers are going away. There's a lot of things in software development that are just monotonous and not intellectually challenging, right? It's just common stuff that you're having to do to build an application. And AI just kind of obliterates all of that, can just take care of all that stuff for you, so you can actually work on like more complicated, high value, intellectually challenging sort of tasks.
What's your vision for Bolt over the next 5 years?
Eric Simons: And so I think we're gonna continue to see more and more of that, right? We're gonna see more and more software built, and it's also, it's enabling people to that are not software developers to actually go and build software, right? Whether you have an idea for a website or an app, like you can go to Bolt today and do that.
The next 5 years of Bolt, I think it's gonna be something that from the Fortune 100 to 10 year olds, people are building the future of how you stream movies online, how you check your bank account using a mobile app to a game that a 10-year-old had the idea of, right? All of these things, and some of that stuff you can even do now with Bolt, right? But the quality and the scale of what you're gonna be able to do this stuff is gonna be giant, right, compared to what you can do now.
The next 5 years of Bolt, I think it's gonna be something that from the Fortune 100 to 10 year olds, people are building the future of how you stream movies online, how you check your bank account using a mobile app to a game that a 10-year-old had the idea of, right? All of these things, and some of that stuff you can even do now with Bolt, right? But the quality and the scale of what you're gonna be able to do this stuff is gonna be giant, right, compared to what you can do now.
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