We hit $45 million ARR in 18 months. Fastest-growing company in Y Combinator history at the time. Then ChatGPT launched and the whole category changed overnight.
We were a wrapper on GPT-3. I know how that sounds. But the wrapper was the product — templates, brand voice, workflows. ChatGPT gave away the raw model. We sold the workflow.
We raised $125 million at a $1.5 billion valuation in October 2022. ChatGPT launched in November 2022. One month. The timing was either perfect or catastrophic depending on which quarter you look at.
Marketing teams don't want a chatbot. They want a tool that knows their brand, writes in their voice, and plugs into their workflow. That's what separates enterprise AI from a toy.
When your underlying technology becomes free and commoditized, you have two choices: die, or move up the stack. We moved up the stack.