Podcast Guru LogoPodcast Guru LogosearchSearchDiscoverMy Podcasts
Apple App Store BadgeGoogle Play Badge
sign-inSign In
menu
close
sign-inSign In
Discover
My Podcasts
Apple App Store Badge
Google Play Badge
<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Eric Simons&lt;/strong&gt; is the founder and CEO of StackBlitz, the company behind Bolt—the #1 web-based AI coding agent and one of the fastest-growing products in history. After nearly shutting down, StackBlitz launched Bolt on Twitter and exploded from zero to $40 million ARR and 1 million monthly active users in about five months.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What you’ll learn:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1. How Bolt reached nearly $40M ARR and 3 million registered users in just five months with a team of only 15 to 20 people&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. How Bolt leverages WebContainer technology—a browser-based operating system developed over seven years—to create a dramatically faster, more reliable AI coding experience than competitors&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;3. Why Anthropic’s 3.5 Sonnet model was the critical breakthrough that made AI-generated code production-ready and unlocked the entire text-to-app market&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;4. Why PMs may be better positioned than engineers in the AI era&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;5. How AI will dramatically reshape company org charts&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;6. Eric’s wild founder story (including squatting at AOL’s HQ) and how scrappiness fueled his innovation&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Brought to you by:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.geteppo.com/"&gt;Eppo&lt;/a&gt;—Run reliable, impactful experiments&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.fundrise.com/lenny"&gt;Fundrise Flagship Fund&lt;/a&gt;—Invest in $1.1 billion of real estate&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://oneschema.co/lenny"&gt;OneSchema&lt;/a&gt;—Import CSV data 10x faster&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Find the transcript at: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons"&gt;https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where to find Eric Simons:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• X: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/ericsimons40"&gt;https://x.com/ericsimons40&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-simons-a464a664/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-simons-a464a664/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Email: &lt;a target="_blank" href="mailto:Eric@stackblitz.com"&gt;Eric@stackblitz.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where to find Lenny:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Newsletter: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com"&gt;https://www.lennysnewsletter.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• X: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/lennysan"&gt;https://twitter.com/lennysan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In this episode, we cover:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(00:00) Introduction to Eric Simons and StackBlitz&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(04:46) Unprecedented growth and user adoption&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(10:40) Demo: Building a Spotify clone with Bolt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(15:28) Expanding to native mobile apps with Expo&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(19:09) The journey and technology behind WebContainer&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(25:03) Lessons learned and future outlook&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(29:15) Post-launch analysis&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(34:15) Growing fast with a small team&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(41:00) Prioritization at Bolt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(45:51) Tooling and PRD's&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(48:42) Integration and use cases of Bolt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(52:24) Limitations of Bolt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(54:24) The role of PMs and developers in the AI era&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(59:56) Skills for the future&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(01:14:18) Upcoming features of Bolt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(01:20:17) How to get the most out of Bolt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(01:23:00) Eric’s journey and final thoughts&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Referenced:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Bolt: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://bolt.new/"&gt;https://bolt.new/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Cursor: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.cursor.com/"&gt;https://www.cursor.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Wix: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.wix.com/"&gt;https://www.wix.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Squarespace: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.squarespace.com/"&gt;https://www.squarespace.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Dylan Field on LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Evan Wallace’s website: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://madebyevan.com/"&gt;https://madebyevan.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• WebGL: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL"&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• WebAssembly: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://webassembly.org/"&gt;https://webassembly.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• CloudNine: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://cloudnine.com/"&gt;https://cloudnine.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Canva: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.canva.com/"&gt;https://www.canva.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• StackBlitz: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://stackblitz.com/"&gt;https://stackblitz.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more | Dalton Caldwell (Y Combinator, Managing Director): &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-1000-yc-startups"&gt;https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-1000-yc-startups&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Y Combinator: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.ycombinator.com/"&gt;https://www.ycombinator.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Anthropic: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/"&gt;https://www.anthropic.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Dario Amodei on LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dario-amodei-3934934/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/dario-amodei-3934934/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Linear: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://linear.app/"&gt;https://linear.app/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Notion: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.notion.com/"&gt;https://www.notion.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Salesforce: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.salesforce.com/"&gt;https://www.salesforce.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Atlassian: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.atlassian.com/"&gt;https://www.atlassian.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Photoshop: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/"&gt;https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Figma: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.figma.com/"&gt;https://www.figma.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Greenfield projects: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_project"&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_project&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Gartner: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.gartner.com/"&gt;https://www.gartner.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• OpenAI researcher on why soft skills are the future of work | Karina Nguyen (Research at OpenAI, ex-Anthropic): &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-soft-skills-are-the-future-of-work-karina-nguyen"&gt;https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-soft-skills-are-the-future-of-work-karina-nguyen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Albert Pai on LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertpai/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertpai/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Bolt’s post on X about “Bolt Builders”: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/boltdotnew/status/1887546089294995943"&gt;https://x.com/boltdotnew/status/1887546089294995943&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Sonnet: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/claude/sonnet"&gt;https://www.anthropic.com/claude/sonnet&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• ChatGPT: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://chatgpt.com/"&gt;https://chatgpt.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Breaking the Rules: The Young Entrepreneur Who Squatted at AOL: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.inc.com/john-mcdermott/eric-simons-interview-young-entrepreneur-squatted-at-aol.html"&gt;https://www.inc.com/john-mcdermott/eric-simons-interview-young-entrepreneur-squatted-at-aol.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Imagine K12: &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.imaginek12.com/"&gt;http://www.imaginek12.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Geoff Ralston on LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffralston/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffralston/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• AOL: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.aol.com/"&gt;https://www.aol.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Bolt on X: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/boltdotnew"&gt;https://x.com/boltdotnew&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Production and marketing by &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://penname.co/"&gt;https://penname.co/&lt;/a&gt;. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email &lt;a target="_blank" href="mailto:podcast@lennyrachitsky.com"&gt;podcast@lennyrachitsky.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at &lt;a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4"&gt;www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe&lt;/a&gt;</description>

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz)

MAR 13, 202588 MIN
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz)

MAR 13, 202588 MIN

Description

<p><strong>Eric Simons</strong> is the founder and CEO of StackBlitz, the company behind Bolt—the #1 web-based AI coding agent and one of the fastest-growing products in history. After nearly shutting down, StackBlitz launched Bolt on Twitter and exploded from zero to $40 million ARR and 1 million monthly active users in about five months.</p><p><strong>What you’ll learn:</strong></p><p>1. How Bolt reached nearly $40M ARR and 3 million registered users in just five months with a team of only 15 to 20 people</p><p>2. How Bolt leverages WebContainer technology—a browser-based operating system developed over seven years—to create a dramatically faster, more reliable AI coding experience than competitors</p><p>3. Why Anthropic’s 3.5 Sonnet model was the critical breakthrough that made AI-generated code production-ready and unlocked the entire text-to-app market</p><p>4. Why PMs may be better positioned than engineers in the AI era</p><p>5. How AI will dramatically reshape company org charts</p><p>6. Eric’s wild founder story (including squatting at AOL’s HQ) and how scrappiness fueled his innovation</p><p>—</p><p><strong>Brought to you by:</strong></p><p>• <a target="_blank" href="https://www.geteppo.com/">Eppo</a>—Run reliable, impactful experiments</p><p>• <a target="_blank" href="https://www.fundrise.com/lenny">Fundrise Flagship Fund</a>—Invest in $1.1 billion of real estate</p><p>• <a target="_blank" href="https://oneschema.co/lenny">OneSchema</a>—Import CSV data 10x faster</p><p>—</p><p><strong>Find the transcript at: </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons</a></p><p>—</p><p><strong>Where to find Eric Simons:</strong></p><p>• X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/ericsimons40">https://x.com/ericsimons40</a></p><p>• LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-simons-a464a664/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-simons-a464a664/</a></p><p>• Email: <a target="_blank" href="mailto:Eric@stackblitz.com">Eric@stackblitz.com</a></p><p>—</p><p><strong>Where to find Lenny:</strong></p><p>• Newsletter: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com</a></p><p>• X: <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/lennysan">https://twitter.com/lennysan</a></p><p>• LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/</a></p><p>—</p><p><strong>In this episode, we cover:</strong></p><p>(00:00) Introduction to Eric Simons and StackBlitz</p><p>(04:46) Unprecedented growth and user adoption</p><p>(10:40) Demo: Building a Spotify clone with Bolt</p><p>(15:28) Expanding to native mobile apps with Expo</p><p>(19:09) The journey and technology behind WebContainer</p><p>(25:03) Lessons learned and future outlook</p><p>(29:15) Post-launch analysis</p><p>(34:15) Growing fast with a small team</p><p>(41:00) Prioritization at Bolt</p><p>(45:51) Tooling and PRD's</p><p>(48:42) Integration and use cases of Bolt</p><p>(52:24) Limitations of Bolt</p><p>(54:24) The role of PMs and developers in the AI era</p><p>(59:56) Skills for the future</p><p>(01:14:18) Upcoming features of Bolt</p><p>(01:20:17) How to get the most out of Bolt</p><p>(01:23:00) Eric’s journey and final thoughts</p><p>—</p><p><strong>Referenced:</strong></p><p>• Bolt: <a target="_blank" href="https://bolt.new/">https://bolt.new/</a></p><p>• Cursor: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cursor.com/">https://www.cursor.com/</a></p><p>• Wix: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wix.com/">https://www.wix.com/</a></p><p>• Squarespace: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.squarespace.com/">https://www.squarespace.com/</a></p><p>• Dylan Field on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield/</a></p><p>• Evan Wallace’s website: <a target="_blank" href="https://madebyevan.com/">https://madebyevan.com/</a></p><p>• WebGL: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL</a></p><p>• WebAssembly: <a target="_blank" href="https://webassembly.org/">https://webassembly.org/</a></p><p>• CloudNine: <a target="_blank" href="https://cloudnine.com/">https://cloudnine.com/</a></p><p>• Canva: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.canva.com/">https://www.canva.com/</a></p><p>• StackBlitz: <a target="_blank" href="https://stackblitz.com/">https://stackblitz.com/</a></p><p>• Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more | Dalton Caldwell (Y Combinator, Managing Director): <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-1000-yc-startups">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-1000-yc-startups</a></p><p>• Y Combinator: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ycombinator.com/">https://www.ycombinator.com/</a></p><p>• Anthropic: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/">https://www.anthropic.com/</a></p><p>• Dario Amodei on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dario-amodei-3934934/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/dario-amodei-3934934/</a></p><p>• Linear: <a target="_blank" href="https://linear.app/">https://linear.app/</a></p><p>• Notion: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.notion.com/">https://www.notion.com/</a></p><p>• Salesforce: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.salesforce.com/">https://www.salesforce.com/</a></p><p>• Atlassian: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.atlassian.com/">https://www.atlassian.com/</a></p><p>• Photoshop: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/">https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/</a></p><p>• Figma: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.figma.com/">https://www.figma.com/</a></p><p>• Greenfield projects: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_project">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_project</a></p><p>• Gartner: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gartner.com/">https://www.gartner.com/</a></p><p>• OpenAI researcher on why soft skills are the future of work | Karina Nguyen (Research at OpenAI, ex-Anthropic): <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-soft-skills-are-the-future-of-work-karina-nguyen">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-soft-skills-are-the-future-of-work-karina-nguyen</a></p><p>• Albert Pai on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertpai/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertpai/</a></p><p>• Bolt’s post on X about “Bolt Builders”: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/boltdotnew/status/1887546089294995943">https://x.com/boltdotnew/status/1887546089294995943</a></p><p>• Sonnet: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/claude/sonnet">https://www.anthropic.com/claude/sonnet</a></p><p>• ChatGPT: <a target="_blank" href="https://chatgpt.com/">https://chatgpt.com/</a></p><p>• Breaking the Rules: The Young Entrepreneur Who Squatted at AOL: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.inc.com/john-mcdermott/eric-simons-interview-young-entrepreneur-squatted-at-aol.html">https://www.inc.com/john-mcdermott/eric-simons-interview-young-entrepreneur-squatted-at-aol.html</a></p><p>• Imagine K12: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.imaginek12.com/">http://www.imaginek12.com/</a></p><p>• Geoff Ralston on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffralston/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffralston/</a></p><p>• AOL: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.aol.com/">https://www.aol.com/</a></p><p>• Bolt on X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/boltdotnew">https://x.com/boltdotnew</a></p><p>—</p><p>Production and marketing by <a target="_blank" href="https://penname.co/">https://penname.co/</a>. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email <a target="_blank" href="mailto:podcast@lennyrachitsky.com">podcast@lennyrachitsky.com</a>.</p><p>—</p><p><em>Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.</em></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe</a>