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Masters of Search episode 20: $8M ARR bootstrapped | Sandra Đajic, Senior Marketing & Growth Lead @ Chatbase cover art
EP 20·Dec 3, 2025

$8M ARR bootstrapped | Sandra Đajic, Senior Marketing & Growth Lead @ Chatbase

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Show notes

Chatbase bootstrapped to $8M ARR* and turned AI search into their No. 2 user acquisition channel. So I invited Sandra to the Masters of Search podcast to reveal how they did it.

*it was still $7M when we recorded

Her answer? There's no glamorous secret. No magic trick. No growth hack. Just proper execution of fundamentals that most teams skip.

Here's what drove their AI search success:

1) Crystal clear positioning

"AI agents for customer support" - impossible for LLMs to confuse with generic AI tools. Sandra's team maintains this exact messaging everywhere. When AI searches for customer support solutions, it knows exactly what Chatbase does and who it's for.

2) Proper SEO foundation

Domain authority, backlinks, technical setup. The boring stuff most startups skip because they're chasing AI search hacks. Sandra's insight: AI search doesn't work without the SEO fundamentals already in place. Everything feeds everything.

3) Obsessive documentation and changelog updates

Their docs and changelog get updated religiously. Not just for users - for LLMs. Fresh, accurate documentation becomes the source material AI models cite when users ask highly specific questions about how to build customer support agents.

4) Content that lives everywhere

Distribution through "written content influencers" - bloggers, Reddit contributors, not just social media creators. When the same clear message appears across multiple trustworthy sources, LLMs recognize the pattern and are more likely to mention Chatbase.

5) Free plan as entry point

The free plan helps spread the word and get more eyeballs on the product. Right limitations let users experience value without burning AI costs. Obviously a much debated topic, but for Chatbase it worked out.

Watch the full episode for the complete playbook. Link in comments. 👇

▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Sandra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-dajic/ Chatbase on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chatbase-co/

Transcript

Full conversation

via podigee
  • 00:00:00Chatbase is a bootstrap platform for building and deploying AI support agents, strongly built in public, currently at seven million ARR.
  • 00:00:09And that's already pretty interesting, but what made it even more interesting is that ChatGPT is already their second biggest user acquisition channel.
  • 00:00:19So my goal today is to find out how they pulled this off.
  • 00:00:24That's why I'm excited to have Sandra Djajic on the show today.
  • 00:00:27Sandra is Senior Marketing and Growth Lead at Chatbase and her mission is to scale Chatbase beyond a million in MR, so ten million plus in AR.
  • 00:00:38She's very vocal on LinkedIn about the startup hustle, marketing, and of course, all things AI.
  • 00:00:45So welcome to the podcast, Sandra.
  • 00:00:47Thank you so much.
  • 00:00:48This was a very nice intro.
  • 00:00:50I would put it in like top five probably.
  • 00:00:54Nice.
  • 00:00:55Glad to hear.
  • 00:00:56Let's start a little bit personal with your journey.
  • 00:00:59How did you end up at Chatbase?
  • 00:01:03It's a funny story as always in life.
  • 00:01:06Yasser started Chatbase somewhere in the same time.
  • 00:01:10I started working for another startup.
  • 00:01:13We both in the same time were implementing AI into our products.
  • 00:01:18I was quite aware who Yasser was at that time and what Chatbase is.
  • 00:01:23time last year, maybe a year ago, something like that, I actually invited Yaster to my own podcast because I have my own podcast next to that.
  • 00:01:33And then he was more than willing to come and then we had a lovely conversation and he shared a bunch of stuff and how he's growing chat days and direction where chat days is going.
  • 00:01:42And I love the idea.
  • 00:01:44I love the team and somehow just We found ourselves having this conversation of me jumping in chat base and growing it with the team.
  • 00:01:54So yeah.
  • 00:01:55Awesome.
  • 00:01:55Let's do a little cross promo then.
  • 00:01:58What's the name of your podcast and what are you talking about there?
  • 00:02:02It's called Morning Maker Show.
  • 00:02:04We started around... two maybe two and a half year ago.
  • 00:02:08We are pretty much talking about founders, SaaS companies, AI, amazing people building in public, amazing companies that are being formed with actually this movement of building in public.
  • 00:02:22And now at the moment, we are also talking about no code tools, AI building, having people like me actually building products or not someone who is technically aware of a bunch of different things, but someone with the ideas and ability or at least wish to build something.
  • 00:02:41So yeah.
  • 00:02:42Let's go into the building in public thing real quick because I see both sides.
  • 00:02:50So I see people that are very cautious about it and like really fear their ideas and strategies get stolen.
  • 00:02:57And then I see people like you um or yes are also from chat base and you are sharing pretty much everything.
  • 00:03:04so a lot.
  • 00:03:07what is like your reasoning behind sharing so much like don't you fear someone stealing your secret sauce.
  • 00:03:16I think build in public movement started with people that had nine to five jobs and they were doing something on the side after work.
  • 00:03:26And that's when I actually joined that community.
  • 00:03:30In the past year or more, we see that switch where more and more people are actually deciding to build their products in public.
  • 00:03:38And these people could be VC funded startups or bootstraps companies or chat bases.
  • 00:03:46And I think It's much better like that because you have ability to share the product, but immediately get the feedback from the user you are actually targeting.
  • 00:03:56To answer your question, if I'm afraid of sharing a bunch of stuff, to be honest, I'm not.
  • 00:04:02It's very, very hard to replicate.
  • 00:04:05First of all, like humans who we are on socials and what we bring to the table and how we form the community and the way of our communication to the audience and our users.
  • 00:04:18That's extremely hard.
  • 00:04:21I can tell that that type of the strategy would be called building a community or marketing in the community and etc.
  • 00:04:30When I say that, you get nothing.
  • 00:04:34But it means actually you doing the job.
  • 00:04:38What I'm trying to say, I'm not scared of anyone replicating what we are doing or how we are approaching marketing.
  • 00:04:46I think Chagipiti probably can write you a better marketing strategy than I can.
  • 00:04:51It's just this part of doing the job is what it matters.
  • 00:04:56I highly recommend everyone that are building startups or building products to share and building public.
  • 00:05:02I think Jaster's story is very important and motivated pretty much because this is how he started.
  • 00:05:09on X. at that time when he was building chat based he had like sixteen followers and he said that most of them were just like friends and then he shared one tweet and it went viral and it and it's growing now in like this big big company.
  • 00:05:25so and next to this viral moment you get if you get it.
  • 00:05:32The most important part is that you are forming a community around yourself.
  • 00:05:36that is like tracking your journey and supporting you.
  • 00:05:40And in the same time, you are teaching them about your product, which means that even if they don't need the product, they might suggest your product to someone that needs it.
  • 00:05:50So it's a really nice moment and I highly, highly recommend like involving yourself.
  • 00:05:58into it if you are planning to build products.
  • 00:06:01And is there anything you would recommend founders not to share?
  • 00:06:05So like revenue numbers, profit numbers, any exception from what is suitable to sharing with the building and public movement?
  • 00:06:17I mean, if the numbers are real and honest and you've made a huge milestones, there's nothing stopping you to share that success.
  • 00:06:25And I think if you are surrounded with right community, it will be welcomed greatly.
  • 00:06:30So, you know, there are probably things you might consider not to share.
  • 00:06:38But if it's coming from like teaching moment to others or sharing your small victories or even big victories, I don't see the problem in that.
  • 00:06:47Next to that, I've spoken with a friend who is leading a marketing agency and she got a big client that are building things in stealth or how it's called.
  • 00:06:58So it's a totally different and opposite way.
  • 00:07:02And she as a marketer has a problem on how to approach now this product and how to bring it to the market because the founders are so secretive about it and scared.
  • 00:07:13But at some point, they will have to go to the market.
  • 00:07:16And you don't want to spend months and months on building the product.
  • 00:07:22and don't have an audience or customers to sell them.
  • 00:07:28That's my approach when I'm talking with founders.
  • 00:07:32The best part is that if you are building in public and you don't want to share your product or idea, there is a still way to build your own personality in there.
  • 00:07:45Once you are ready, you have some first step already done, if that makes sense.
  • 00:07:51Yeah, I also once had a request from a client that said, so we need your help in marketing, but we want to like, not show anything on the website or something.
  • 00:08:06And then I said, Hey guys, marketing, I think is not the right thing for you.
  • 00:08:10You will probably do like an outbound sales motion.
  • 00:08:13But I couldn't wrap my head around it.
  • 00:08:17You're not only vocal around the whole.
  • 00:08:19built in public thing on LinkedIn, you're sometimes even a little bit controversial and like challenging some people.
  • 00:08:29One post, for example, of you started with.
  • 00:08:31most marketers are frauds.
  • 00:08:35I don't know if you if you chose this hook to instill a positive discussion, but What I'm interested in is what are you seeing or what is like your reasoning behind these posts?
  • 00:08:49So what fuels these posts?
  • 00:08:55Why I wrote that post?
  • 00:08:58It's probably, you know, I kind of, I wanted to say that because it is true, especially now in this era where everyone is promising too much.
  • 00:09:09It's very hard to get to that.
  • 00:09:14exact thing you need.
  • 00:09:16What I'm trying to say is that we are building workflows and we are building automations and implementing AI in our own work.
  • 00:09:25And I'm doing that as well.
  • 00:09:27But if we are not showing exactly how we are doing all the end results, it might come across as fake.
  • 00:09:36And that goes also when we are talking about marketers, that goes also into the product.
  • 00:09:41So if you are over promising, you will probably get a bunch of people on your website, but the churn is going to happen at some point.
  • 00:09:53Being a marketer today, when we have a millions of product and millions of possibility to build a product, you really need to be real with your audience, with your customers, what you are doing and how you are building the product for them, but also how they can use the product.
  • 00:10:11That's maybe why I wrote.
  • 00:10:16Yeah, make sense.
  • 00:10:18Let's look at the the chat base journey a little bit more.
  • 00:10:22so You are obviously very transparent about the current state of the company.
  • 00:10:30so seven million AR at least from your LinkedIn profile When what was the number or what was like the the stage when you joined?
  • 00:10:42So I've joined In December, I'm not sure at what point, I think maybe it was five million or something.
  • 00:10:51I have to check that.
  • 00:10:54But we growth at the beginning of the year, I think it was like, twenty five percent growth very fast.
  • 00:11:01But multiple different things happen at that point.
  • 00:11:04So we went from being AI chatbot to full.
  • 00:11:09AI agent and then we switched our communication as well and then the landing page.
  • 00:11:16Then it goes through every single marketing channel we use at Chatbase.
  • 00:11:22Multiple different things happen in the same time.
  • 00:11:24The growth was very fast, I would say.
  • 00:11:29We are continuing with that because I think the reason for that is the team or Chatbase team, is very tech focused.
  • 00:11:41So there's only two people in marketing and we are very like feature-based, product-based, follow customers, what they are saying, building that.
  • 00:11:55And then there's marketing that is just trying to keep up with everything.
  • 00:11:59So
  • 00:12:01would you say that this product focus or product centricity brought you to the scale you're at today?
  • 00:12:11For sure.
  • 00:12:12I think why Chatbase or at least what I've heard from our enterprise companies is that Chatbase is easy to implement.
  • 00:12:27And that's like one of the things that I love to hear because we have competitors that have been on the market for the past ten years.
  • 00:12:35and the concept itself is not new, but the tech is.
  • 00:12:40That means that Chatbase is being able to implement this technology that we have currently today into this market or traditional market that has been around for ages, but it's over complicated and very hard.
  • 00:12:54When I hear that our customers are saying, oh, this was very fast to implement and we didn't have any trouble, that gives me a good hint that we are actually building a product for even traditional businesses that are not used to this today technology.
  • 00:13:10So yeah, being product focused, I think that's the most important thing in chat base.
  • 00:13:18And now you obviously have very ambitious goals and you want to like more or less double MR or AR, so both same.
  • 00:13:31What will get you there?
  • 00:13:32What will be the growth drivers for the next stage?
  • 00:13:38When it comes to marketing, we are doing very traditional stuff.
  • 00:13:41Everyone in SAS world is doing so.
  • 00:13:43That means paid ads done, SEO, very nice.
  • 00:13:49But what we are also implementing or we spoke at least when we were preparing for this interview is also like expanding or growing in the AI search.
  • 00:13:57And then there is, of course, employer branding, which I think is super, super important.
  • 00:14:01We already do that in chat base.
  • 00:14:03We need to scale that even more.
  • 00:14:05We see that employer branding going in younger AI SaaS companies like Lovable and Versal and etc.
  • 00:14:15So that's like, I think that's also one of the approaches.
  • 00:14:19And then of course you have like Things that we call like marketing strategies fast track you know putting build a putting billboards working with influencers.
  • 00:14:29Forming ambassadors so people that are actually digging into the product using product every day and then talking it talking about it very naturally and so yeah.
  • 00:14:39Yeah then let's tap into the search thing real quick because as I said in the intro it's already your second.
  • 00:14:47biggest user acquisition channel, which is quite astonishing.
  • 00:14:53From your perspective, what do you think has caused this?
  • 00:14:57Like, what did you get right?
  • 00:14:59So this has worked out as it as it's currently working out.
  • 00:15:04I think for Chad, so usually people expect some very glamorous answer and it's not.
  • 00:15:15It might be even a little bit boring.
  • 00:15:17It's just doing a proper SEO, backlinks, the main ratings, blah, blah, blah, all those stuff that SEO includes.
  • 00:15:26And then working, I mentioned influencers, but working with written content influencers as well.
  • 00:15:33Also the way, the same way you are approaching Google search.
  • 00:15:39you need to approach AI search as well.
  • 00:15:41So you are typing keywords, you're seeing what's coming out.
  • 00:15:44If you're not mentioned there, reaching out to those people to mention chat base and etc.
  • 00:15:49So whatever you're doing in SEO and how you're preparing SEO, the same kind of mentality goes into preparing AI search.
  • 00:15:57And then once you have those technicalities, right, caring about the content, I think is what's working the best, which means like our documentation, our docs needs to be updated, our changelog needs to be updated, our blog is not only SEO related, but it's also more like product based, what's changing and use cases.
  • 00:16:25So you have this whole concept around your product and then it works.
  • 00:16:30There's no, I would say like, there's no, I think there is no magic trick.
  • 00:16:36but it's actual work you put in your SEO that might work in AI search.
  • 00:16:43Unfortunately, no get rich quick scheme, but
  • 00:16:47just
  • 00:16:48hard work again.
  • 00:16:51I could imagine some people wondering because you said caring about your documentation, caring about the change lock, they might wonder, hey, but.
  • 00:17:00How is the change log and the documentation connected to SEO or to AI search?
  • 00:17:06This is something that is completely unrelated, isn't it?
  • 00:17:09So what would you say to those?
  • 00:17:11Whenever you have to understand how the content works, the content itself doesn't only stay on the website.
  • 00:17:19And when it doesn't only stay on the website, it has a certain authority that it brings.
  • 00:17:24So ChangeLog is shared on LinkedIn, it's shared on X, it's shared on our newsletter.
  • 00:17:30So there is this whole concept around the content that is spread.
  • 00:17:35When it comes to like, especially documentation, documentation is really, really important.
  • 00:17:41And then when it comes to the blogs, We are doing the same thing.
  • 00:17:45It's like, it's not staying on the website, but it's also shared on Reddit, wherever the discussion is made about chat-based, that these blogs can have certain influence as well.
  • 00:17:56So, and then the content, when we are talking about the content change blog, documentation, blah, blah, there is also written content that is happening on Reddit.
  • 00:18:04There is also written content that is happening on LinkedIn.
  • 00:18:07So, when we are talking about AI search, the AI Search concept, it's not only showing your website or the websites in general, but it's also pulling the data from the different sources.
  • 00:18:20You need to be present there, but what is really important is to know your story.
  • 00:18:28What your product is about, and to be able to repeat that in understandable ways.
  • 00:18:35Chad Bay is building AI agents for customer support is very clear.
  • 00:18:40And we cannot be mixed with any AI agent because building an AI agent can be for coding and websites and many different stuff.
  • 00:18:51So you need to be very clear in order to pop out somewhere.
  • 00:18:57The same way you are approaching your SEO, it's pretty much translating into AI search.
  • 00:19:05Can you explain... why it's so important to have this consistency in the naming.
  • 00:19:12So why does it matter that I always say the same thing like chat base helps companies build AI agents for customer support and why can't I say sometimes chat base is an AI platform that helps Shopify shops.
  • 00:19:33You can.
  • 00:19:34So the brilliant thing about AI is it can recognize, it's not the search by the keywords, but it also can recognize what you're trying to say.
  • 00:19:41So the concept around your product needs to be in the niche.
  • 00:19:46that maybe that would be a correct way.
  • 00:19:48So Shopify, customer support, helping companies and etc.
  • 00:19:53It is or building an AI agent.
  • 00:19:55It's the same story.
  • 00:19:56It's just written differently, but you have the niche and the direction.
  • 00:20:00that you are approaching your presence online.
  • 00:20:05Makes sense.
  • 00:20:07Let's take a closer look at the, I would say, intersection of product and marketing because we already talked a little bit about the product and the product's centricity at Chatbase and we talked a little bit about marketing.
  • 00:20:20So you guys have also a free plan at Chatbase.
  • 00:20:24that probably at this point we can already recommend people.
  • 00:20:27if you want to learn more about Chatbase.
  • 00:20:30Go to the description and check it out.
  • 00:20:34There's a lot of talk about free plan.
  • 00:20:37You shouldn't do a free plan.
  • 00:20:39You should only do free trial.
  • 00:20:41You shouldn't even do free trial because you're not attracting high value users.
  • 00:20:46What is the why you have behind having a free plan?
  • 00:20:54Yeah, there is a lot of discussion about like free plan and especially in building public community when you have a solo founder and In the age where you are using AI it doesn't make a lot of sense because you are spending credit You are spending money and etc.
  • 00:21:10for the company that for or at least for the companies like chat base That are SaaS companies.
  • 00:21:17You need to have an entering point like in chat base.
  • 00:21:20We have four different plans and our free plan and our hobby plan are the plans that are both entering point.
  • 00:21:29when I'm looking at the data.
  • 00:21:34My kind of like thinking why we have free plan is because with the right limitation a user can experience the product in a right way without us losing money.
  • 00:21:48So that means that If you take a look at the Chad Bay's pricing, you will see that we have free plan next to hobby plan.
  • 00:21:57But then we have standard plan or pro plan next to enterprise plan.
  • 00:22:01Pro plan is pretty much an entering point also for enterprise plan, even though it's paid plan.
  • 00:22:08But there are right limitations that enterprise companies can also experience and upgrade.
  • 00:22:14And the same kind of logic goes into free.
  • 00:22:18and a hobby plan and kind of like, if you take a look at this whole funnel of pricing and upgrading, would I suggest everyone to have free plan?
  • 00:22:30Well, I would probably be careful with saying that because if you are a solo founder or you have a really small team or you are not VC back, but you have a good traction, easy to understand product, no need to have multiple people.
  • 00:22:46coming together and working on the product, maybe it will make sense because you don't want to burn money, essentially, that you don't still have.
  • 00:22:55But for us at this stage, especially if you are scaling, having that free entering point that users can grow with, with the right limitation, makes sense for me.
  • 00:23:08At least for now, yeah, that's kind of like, there is a lot of like, usage limits and there are multiple different things.
  • 00:23:14we have to take a look at the when it's when when you're forming pricing which is very hard.
  • 00:23:19But yeah.
  • 00:23:21Obvious follow up question what are the right limitations?
  • 00:23:24so if I have like a tool maybe not even similar to chat base but and I have a free plan or I want to have a free plan how do I know where I draw the line between this is still free and for this you have to pay.
  • 00:23:41There are probably people much, much better to dig into pricing of SaaS products than me, but I do love digging into analytics and understanding why people are churning.
  • 00:23:55If you take a look at the funnel, it's much easier for me to determine.
  • 00:23:59What that means?
  • 00:24:02Let's say I'm looking at the churn users.
  • 00:24:08Let's say if we are looking at the free users, And they're kind of like usage.
  • 00:24:16You can clearly see if they're going to continue or probably leave child base and not upgrade.
  • 00:24:23That means you have to give them a little something that they can experience.
  • 00:24:27In our case, it's like an AI agent, an action that they can do with that AI agent, an integration that they can do.
  • 00:24:37Or even how many websites or... PDF files they can process in order to teach that AI agent.
  • 00:24:47So you can't give them too much, but you can't give people too little for them to not experience the product.
  • 00:24:53So I don't have the answer to your question.
  • 00:24:56It really, really depends on the product.
  • 00:24:59And forming a pricing, I think, is one of the hardest thing.
  • 00:25:03Just looking at the previous startups I've been, that step, it's always like changing and experimenting as well as you grow.
  • 00:25:13So yes, that's kind of like my logic behind it.
  • 00:25:18But my advice would be to have a right tools at least that you can measure and see the customers kind of like journey and where they are turning and how even if you are looking at the free plan.
  • 00:25:34So.
  • 00:25:36Makes sense.
  • 00:25:37But do you think the free plan has helped you, for example, to get to this point where you have so much user acquisition, for example, from the AI search?
  • 00:25:47I think so.
  • 00:25:48I think so.
  • 00:25:52And especially if you take a look at our market, we have a lot of competitors.
  • 00:25:56As I mentioned, there's a bunch of companies that have been on the market for ages.
  • 00:26:01And if you have a good enough product, that that is easy to use and see the wall like that wall moment or fast then Absolutely, and I think the the the free pricing was very big for chat base.
  • 00:26:17I mean, it's a software as a service.
  • 00:26:20So it's it's kind of like.
  • 00:26:21the logic goes there as well.
  • 00:26:27Chet base is getting or AI search is number one user acquisition channel for chat base.
  • 00:26:35There are also other companies that are already getting a lot of users from it, like Webflow or surfers or also well-known SaaS companies.
  • 00:26:47Where do you see this going?
  • 00:26:49Can you imagine that AI search will become your primary acquisition channel?
  • 00:26:54Do you see even more growth potential there or do you think it will stay at the current level?
  • 00:27:00Again, AI search is only where it is because of all the other stuff that we are doing.
  • 00:27:11That means organic reach, socials, and then paydads, and then SEO.
  • 00:27:19There is a whole army behind this AI search.
  • 00:27:24If these things that are behind AI search go down, the AI search will do the same pretty much.
  • 00:27:32It's very equal.
  • 00:27:34It might take the other channels.
  • 00:27:38I don't know, we'll see.
  • 00:27:40But I can say that at least we know which channels are working and influencing the AI search.
  • 00:27:48My focus is not on AI search, it's everything behind the AI search that are happening because of that.
  • 00:27:57All the other channels that are doing, I would say you need to Again, look at the data analytics you have, see what is working, and then that will influence the AI search.
  • 00:28:12It's hard to determine and say in which direction we'll go.
  • 00:28:14We only know the channels that are working and influencing this chapter.
  • 00:28:20Then let's move on maybe from AI as a channel to something that I know you're also really passionate about, which is AI as a tool for us marketers.
  • 00:28:32give us a quick view behind the scenes, what are your favorite AI use cases as a marketing lead?
  • 00:28:43Oh, my God, we have like.
  • 00:28:45marketing is such a wide space.
  • 00:28:47We have so many things happening all the time.
  • 00:28:50And I think we finally, you know, before you had to like, either talk with the tech team, and then be like, Oh, I need this and I need that.
  • 00:28:57Where today it's very easy to understand the pain points and understand your workflow and then be like, okay, I need to fix this part.
  • 00:29:06A few months ago, we were also, as I mentioned, running paid ads and I was like, okay, every week I do the same thing and it takes so much time.
  • 00:29:15Look at the competitors, look at their copies, look at their images and then you take a look at all of that and then you take a look from Facebook and LinkedIn and Google search and et cetera.
  • 00:29:25So I was like, okay, can I just pull this data information?
  • 00:29:28Do they have public libraries and which of these?
  • 00:29:31which of these channels have public libraries and I can just pull the data information in one space and then let AI do the magic and then just compare that to chat-based copy and that's it.
  • 00:29:42So I did that and I did that with lovable.
  • 00:29:46I love to use lovable.
  • 00:29:48Maybe even V zero from Verso is very good product to use.
  • 00:29:56And then you have SuperBase to connect all of these stuff, but it's very interesting.
  • 00:30:01It's very interesting these days.
  • 00:30:03So one use case is like scraping data and then...
  • 00:30:07scraping data, then of course like putting content together.
  • 00:30:15I mean just like I have all the content I'm sharing pretty much on LinkedIn and then based on that I'm putting more and more content.
  • 00:30:27Content is a big thing I think for me at least.
  • 00:30:33paid ads SEO as well.
  • 00:30:38We built a tool.
  • 00:30:40This was with vzero.
  • 00:30:41We built a tool that also pulls the blog articles based on keywords and summarize them as well.
  • 00:30:50that was interesting.
  • 00:30:51So there is a bunch of stuff that you can as a marketer do these days.
  • 00:30:56The only problem marketers have is that we still don't know how to push it to public.
  • 00:31:01So everything kind of stays behind the closed doors.
  • 00:31:05Okay, we are trying to at least contribute to bringing it more to public.
  • 00:31:10But I'm curious, have you been excited about AI just from the get go?
  • 00:31:16So when Churchivity launched because I heard even from some people that are very deep into AI and very passionate now that at first they were a little bit skeptical and also a little bit worried, will it take my job, etc.
  • 00:31:32And I try to understand the mindset better of people that are like now building and pushing things forward.
  • 00:31:40So have you been excited from the get go or were you also a little bit worried?
  • 00:31:45I think the moment chat EPT puts their pricing out, I've been paying for it.
  • 00:31:50So it's been like, I gave them a bunch of money.
  • 00:31:53It's been like what two and a half year now.
  • 00:31:57So no, the worries, I was never worried about losing job to AI or something like that.
  • 00:32:04I think AI is a great companion.
  • 00:32:08for every person.
  • 00:32:10For me, it has like a big role in my workflows.
  • 00:32:14But that creative level, human level, that type of the communication, this what we are doing right now, AI will never replace.
  • 00:32:23I mean, never, at least in the next five years, I hope we are safe.
  • 00:32:27But the human touch, it's still a human touch, especially in marketing, like some lines, only a customer that really feels the pain and a marketer that is scanning that can understand.
  • 00:32:41But I would probably be more scared for people that are not using AI and they don't have a use case for it or didn't find the use case for it.
  • 00:32:52So from the beginning, I was on top of it even like checking the grammar and you kind of grow from checking the grammar, but that were my first steps.
  • 00:33:03Yeah, now we've reached the point where not all the problems but smaller problems like annoying things in your workflow can be fixed with AI and that's a huge step.
  • 00:33:15and that only happened like what, seven or eight months ago, when we take a look at Lovable, it launched in November and then V-Zero.
  • 00:33:26I'm mentioning these products because they are widely kind of known for exactly what they are doing, building stuff for people that are not technical or giving ability to others to build.
  • 00:33:41So yeah, I don't think no one is, no one still will be replaced even from like AI space or marketers, but it's just interesting to adopt this technology.
  • 00:33:58And if you could wish for one thing that AI Cannot do yet, but that would be really helpful for you.
  • 00:34:08What would it be?
  • 00:34:10Oh my god, what a big question.
  • 00:34:12Let me think I think there is still.
  • 00:34:21We are we have like You know our slacks and then there's Gmail and then there's email and then there's Instagram and then there are like Weird apps you have on your phone.
  • 00:34:31not not not everything is connected that most of the things are still not connected.
  • 00:34:37So it would be nice to have this ability to implement the AI through all of that.
  • 00:34:42So you can see in which level I am.
  • 00:34:44I'm ready to give it all.
  • 00:34:45So maybe that's something that I'm missing at the moment.
  • 00:34:50But probably we are getting into that direction.
  • 00:34:54I can see with that with chat base, even like we have a bunch of different integrations, but We are a business that is serving other businesses.
  • 00:35:02So our integrations are based on that businesses.
  • 00:35:05So we are implementing AI into their own environments.
  • 00:35:09And that's something that would be interesting for me to have it personally on the devices, the time using at least.
  • 00:35:19So basically a more neat and more seamless version of the whole MCP.
  • 00:35:26integration behind the scenes idea where you can ask your phone.
  • 00:35:30hey, do i have time on the weekend to go to this party and if yes can you please.
  • 00:35:39Reply on whatsapp in this group.
  • 00:35:42yes
  • 00:35:42i
  • 00:35:43will agree.
  • 00:35:45ecosystem of like i doing multiple different things or understanding at least.
  • 00:35:50Yeah yeah it's.
  • 00:35:52it's.
  • 00:35:52it's surprising right because i feel like this.
  • 00:35:56would be what you would expect from Apple.
  • 00:35:59They would have it integrated in the iPhone, but then we are still at the stage where Siri is still Siri and not really like...
  • 00:36:08Yeah, Siri is still keeping up with my calendar, not calendar, sorry, alarm.
  • 00:36:13So Siri put alarm for this or that, that's about it.
  • 00:36:16And even when you say to Siri to search something, it only gives you results from Safari, so it doesn't even read or mention or do anything with it.
  • 00:36:24So yeah, you're absolutely right.
  • 00:36:26Maybe that's the job on them to actually build this ecosystem because they already have it.
  • 00:36:31I'm not sure like why.
  • 00:36:33And I didn't dig deeper into what's stopping them to actually improving their AI.
  • 00:36:38Yeah,
  • 00:36:39let's see if we will see a new smartphone company.
  • 00:36:44Yeah, popping up like with the iPhone, which is like, it's funny because it's the iPhone and there's the iPhone.
  • 00:36:50So yeah, we'll see.
  • 00:36:52But Coming back to chat base, what do you think like how big can chat base become?
  • 00:36:58So will this be something where you are just scratching the first surface now because a lot of businesses don't even know yet what's possible in the customer support space and this can be a hundred million AR company.
  • 00:37:13Can you share something about your vision for that?
  • 00:37:16I can tell you that Yasser is definitely, he really wants to build a legacy company.
  • 00:37:23So we are aiming really high and we are working really hard for that.
  • 00:37:30I think there is possibility of reaching those levels and you have to understand that he built a company that is quite big already.
  • 00:37:43being bootstrapped, which is not easy.
  • 00:37:46And I feel like he will be all capable to build a legacy company from Chad Base.
  • 00:37:54So I'm here for the journey.
  • 00:37:56I'm here to support.
  • 00:37:59I'm also here for the journey.
  • 00:38:01And very interesting to see where this goes.
  • 00:38:04I always like to make this podcast very actionable for people so that they ideally can take something with them and start implementing immediately.
  • 00:38:15And like with the whole built-in public idea, I'd like to do a quick thought experiment with you.
  • 00:38:23So imagine you were advising another B to B SaaS company, probably not in the AI agent customer support space, and they are doing let's say around five million ARR maybe also bootstrapped so similar setting a little bit smaller than chat base and they're still figuring out the marketing strategy and they still don't really know where to double down.
  • 00:38:49What would be your top three or top two or three actionable pieces of advice for them.
  • 00:38:58Three channels you need, those are like paid, if you are on that level, you can already have like paid ads, SEO working properly.
  • 00:39:06And the third channel is the experimental channel and it's very social media based.
  • 00:39:10So we are talking about LinkedIn and NX.
  • 00:39:12You need to find two or three people in your own company that are willing to grow there and become like niche and experts and bring the company with them.
  • 00:39:23So those are like three things that you can do right now pretty much.
  • 00:39:28Very simple as well.
  • 00:39:30If you don't have a knowledge about paid ads, you probably have enough money to work with an agency that will do the job for you.
  • 00:39:40The same goes with SEO.
  • 00:39:42If you don't have a right setup, you will probably lose more money if you try to do it yourself.
  • 00:39:47So investing money in that is great.
  • 00:39:49And then choosing the right people to kind of be like ambassadors, influencers and employees in your company and grow with the company.
  • 00:40:03And all of these things, as I mentioned, will influence this growth of AI search.
  • 00:40:07Like AI search, you cannot concentrate and be like, you know, it's the first thing going to do.
  • 00:40:12list.
  • 00:40:12Like I'm going to become the AI search will be the first channel for our company, it's not going to happen because there are so many layers to that that you need to work on in order to get there.
  • 00:40:25And based on the idea of ambassadors or partners, how do you feel about affiliate programs?
  • 00:40:31Like it's something that companies have done since forever.
  • 00:40:36But is it still something that is relevant as of today?
  • 00:40:40We haven't done like.
  • 00:40:41we don't have like I think active affiliate program.
  • 00:40:44I think they had it before, not right now.
  • 00:40:48We are more leaning to ambassadors, the people that are using and talking about the product and being like our own marketers in the space.
  • 00:40:58So I would rather lean to people or build a community of ambassadors than affiliate programs and etc.
  • 00:41:08makes a lot of sense.
  • 00:41:09I also know a German B to B SaaS company that is bootstrapped.
  • 00:41:14They are in the whole funnel building, landing page building space.
  • 00:41:19And they also recently launched a ambassador program basically with the same reasoning you have.
  • 00:41:25So I feel this makes a lot of sense.
  • 00:41:28to just get the word out and get it spread across a big variety of channels, which will obviously be beneficial for AI search.
  • 00:41:38Cool.
  • 00:41:39Already a lot of great insights.
  • 00:41:42Just
  • 00:41:42to add to that, sorry to interrupt you, but influencer marketing, like.
  • 00:41:46maybe people will mix ambassadors and influencers, but influencer marketing is also very much changing.
  • 00:41:54You know, you can work with influencers that are really big and they have like millions followers, but those millions followers were forming the spam of like five to, you know, more years.
  • 00:42:05And how relevant are they today?
  • 00:42:08for this technology is very hard to say.
  • 00:42:10So that That's why ambassadors are much better approach as well compared to the influencers.
  • 00:42:17If you are, this is just advice, now I'm just like spiraling down, but if you are working with influencers, I would rather like My advice would be to go with smaller new influencers that are like just popping out and they are also could become ambassadors at some point, but giving them ability to talk about your product and also grow.
  • 00:42:39It kind of builds better partnerships as well with them.
  • 00:42:41So that's just putting on the side.
  • 00:42:44Okay, then let's go one level deeper again, because I feel it's really interesting.
  • 00:42:50If people think, yes, ambassador influencer makes total sense.
  • 00:42:55How do you compensate them properly?
  • 00:42:57Do you pay them proposed?
  • 00:42:58Do you compensate them with a like merge like free free usage of the
  • 00:43:04do all paid ambassador.
  • 00:43:06like our ambassadors are all paid.
  • 00:43:08So we have like very clear pricing.
  • 00:43:10I think you can find it everywhere on chat base, but very clear pricing.
  • 00:43:15And when we published the arab ambassador program, it went very viral.
  • 00:43:18I think I end.
  • 00:43:20the reason was the pricing and many people actually said that they didn't expect.
  • 00:43:25Because they are so used to ambassadors being paid in discounts.
  • 00:43:29So here's the product, here's the discount, here's the merch, or because it's not an influencer program, it's an ambassador, so it's very mixed.
  • 00:43:36I think in today's age, everything needs to be paid fairly.
  • 00:43:41And you can build really good ambassador programs and still have a good value from what the ambassador brings in.
  • 00:43:48And the best part, you can choose these people.
  • 00:43:50So I think for our ambassador program, there was like four thousand people that applied.
  • 00:43:55It was a lot.
  • 00:43:57And you can choose the right people and kind of work with them and build partnerships with them.
  • 00:44:01It doesn't have to be one hundred of them.
  • 00:44:04It can be three or five that are really good.
  • 00:44:09Wow.
  • 00:44:09Crazy, four thousand applications, and then you boiled it down to three, four
  • 00:44:15people.
  • 00:44:15Yeah, it took like two weeks to figure out how to, yeah.
  • 00:44:22Crazy.
  • 00:44:23Sandra was already very, very insightful.
  • 00:44:26I always like to wrap up the interviews with a surprise question that I also don't spoiler.
  • 00:44:34Yeah, no worries, because the question has always brought up cool unexpected ideas.
  • 00:44:40So I also like to ask it to you, which is what haven't we talked about that we should have talked about?
  • 00:44:50So what did we miss?
  • 00:44:59No idea.
  • 00:45:07I think we talked about a lot.
  • 00:45:10About founders and but we didn't talk about people actually working for these founders.
  • 00:45:17And that, you know, so if you are working in a company bootstrap company, VC back company enterprise company.
  • 00:45:26Get yourself into this AI.
  • 00:45:29madness, educate yourself about it, find ways to implement it in your own workflows.
  • 00:45:35You will be a very valuable key player in your company, I can promise you that.
  • 00:45:41Don't be afraid of, you know, if someone from customer support or sales or marketing or tech is listening to this, you know, it doesn't matter anymore in which department you are, you will probably find a use case that you can bring to your team and kind of like improve their work as well as yours.
  • 00:46:06Awesome.
  • 00:46:06I know why I ask these questions.
  • 00:46:08There's always something interesting that's coming.
  • 00:46:12Thanks so much.
  • 00:46:13I really enjoyed the conversation.
  • 00:46:15If people watching or listening feel the same and they want to follow you and they want to follow the chat-based journey along, what's the best place to follow?
  • 00:46:30I'm super active on X. I tend to write and talk a bunch and share too much, probably.
  • 00:46:37Same goes to LinkedIn, but you can also go to Chad Base website.
  • 00:46:43If you are planning of implementing AI, especially in customer support, I highly, highly recommend checking Chad Base.
  • 00:46:51If you have any questions, you can always reach out to me.
  • 00:46:55We will obviously put all the links in the description.
  • 00:46:58and I mean since chatbase has a free plan at least when we record this things might change but
  • 00:47:04I don't think it will change.
  • 00:47:05we will keep that free plan.
  • 00:47:07it's a good plan
  • 00:47:08cool that's a good that's good to hear.
  • 00:47:10so there's also no risk people to just check it out and yeah to experience some some AI magic for customer support.
  • 00:47:22Sandra, thank you so much for taking the time.
  • 00:47:24I really appreciate the conversation.
  • 00:47:26I think there was a lot in it for people to take away.
  • 00:47:31I wish you all the best personally and also for chat base.
  • 00:47:35Thank you.
  • 00:47:36Catch up soon.
  • 00:47:37Thank you so much.
  • 00:47:38Thank you so much for having me.
  • 00:47:40It was a lovely, lovely conversation.
  • 00:47:42I hope you didn't miss something.
  • 00:47:45If you did, maybe we can kind of at least write a blog or article or something like that.
  • 00:47:50Yeah, you can always talk about more things.
  • 00:47:52So yeah, you have to keep it digestible.
  • 00:47:56Cool.
  • 00:47:57So then all the best to you and see you.
  • 00:47:59Thank you.